Warning: teachers and striking. AIBU to think that some of you may want to watch this?

[Iffy2014]

Apologies, as teaching and striking are continually done to death on here, and this may have already been posted. I've just been sent this video of slam poetry and thought some folks here may appreciate it.

I reckon this is a pretty clear explanation of how a lot of secondary teachers are feeling at the moment, and why there is copious moaning and striking.

IfNotNow I've had a good few teachers like that in my private counselling practice

I'm leaving teaching. I was in the real world ( other profession) for 12 years before teaching, plus did evening bar work.

I was never expected to do the hours I am with teaching, never had so much pressure for up achievable targets mostly out if my control, never had so much mucking around with what I was expected to do etc.

You get the picture.

I was working 10 hour days as a teacher 6 days a week for initially £20,000 then latterly £30,000. 60 hour high stress weeks for that! I love teaching but to be honest I would rather do cleaning than have it ruin my mental and physical health.

Plus I like seeing my daughters occasionally.

Oh and my school doesn't like part timers. Can only guarantee one day I off a week regardless of how part time you are. And the day off will not be the same due to a two week timetable. So 2 lots of childcare for 5 full days a week for 50% pay? Hmm

I admire teachers I really do... but when some of them moan about not being paid for holidays and the hours they do they immediately lose my support.

I try not to moan about my hours, I want to say that I don't moan but am sure that someone will search my archive and find an example. There is no point and it only serves to fuel the whining teacher stereotype. I try to only ever say positive things about my job.

Add message | Report | Message poster AndreasVesalius Sun 06-Apr-14 21:21:43
We have to set ourselves a Work/Life Balance target in appraisal now. Which is rather ironic when you think that the time spent thinking one up could be used to actually have a life. Mine was to do no work on a Saturday (I'd broken it by the second week of term). One of my team set hers to stop work by 11 pm on weeknights. The disturbing thing is that achieving these targets would stop us doing our jobs fully.

I have a work life balance target which is to not work between the hours of midnight and 6am. I think it is ridiculous that I even have that as a target, even more ridiculous that I break it once a week.

I just can't wait to hear from the two Universities I've applied at. I appreciate all the posts here, but I am undeterred, it's one thing that I am 100 % sure I will make a success of.
I've volunteered at different schools for ages and I can see how hard the teachers are working. It doesnt deter me, I really admire them.

And I'm 40 this year so I'd be a (very) mature student! Cross your collective mn fingers....

Good luck with it rockpink.

Teaching's fab. Despite all the current appalling nonsense that goes with being a teacher, the actual teaching is hugely rewarding & great fun - I've no regrets .

Rockpink teaching was my second career and despite the long hours in term time I would always recommend it to anyone. I laugh out loud in a proper belly laugh way every day. I love working with teenagers. I also have really special times with my family during the holidays which for me is worth the hours during term time.

Teaching children is flippin' great - they are 99% a total joy and never fail to cheer me up. Just a pity the little buggers get in the way of my real job - paperwork and cruddy initiatives.
Last week I was going to pop to Tesco to buy lots of bits and bobs for a really fun science investigation. Again, it never happened because I had to spend hours filling out action plans about what we should be doing.
This is my second career too and it saddens me that our hands are tied doing crap tasks when we could be teaching children.
I am not bothered about all those who slag us off - always have and always will.

Teaching courses aren't all highly competitive and oversubscribed.

Remember Gove saying that he wouldn't allow people to train to teach if they only had a third? He had to u-turn and you can now not only train to teach maths or physics with a third, but the government will pay you £9000 to do so. £20,000 if you have a 2:1 or first.

There are also financial incentives to train to teach chemistry, languages, primary maths specialists and other shortage primary and secondary subjects.

www.education.gov.uk/get-into-teaching/funding/postgraduate-funding

Are you sure it's a good idea to tell teachers who don't like their job to simply quit? Perhaps not pissing them off so you have to pay a fortune training up their replacements who will also most likely quit might be a better strategy?

It's a brilliant job Rockpink and I wish you luck with it. I had a day on Friday where I just thought "My god, I get to do this all day with these lovely kids for a living.....this is fantastic!" BUT you must look after yourself, the pressure and constant demands can be incredibly draining and the actual teaching can be exhausting in itself.

I do feel sad though that teachers are apparently not allowed to complain about their jobs because other people also work hard. If they don't complain and say that things are unmanageable and just let this situation continue how does that help anyone?

Teaching can be absolutely wonderful. There is always something fab in every day.
What isn't so great is the emotional drain, fear, paranoia. Parents emailing at all hours complaining- sometimes about really trivial matters, (in the scheme of things) kids having a bad day and it spilling over onto you, hearing of people being put on capability, Ofsted, the cult of outstanding, trying to jolly everyone along when they are sick and tired of it all.There's just a kind of general culture of fear.
The way that initiatives come and go- national strategies, SEAL, APP, CAs, And you have to work hard for them then a year later they vanish!!
Changes to GCSE. The CA based GCSE is stupid. Other schools cheat so the playing field is not level. The whole course makes the kids miserable. Retaking the bloody things for students who were absent or messed up takes up every lunch break, after school, holiday time.
I think getting rid of CAs is the only good move Gove has made.
I also can't think of any other profession that gets such a continual bollocking in the media, bar social work. When you see nursing care slated, the finger is pointed at the hospital trust and it's managers. When teachers are slated if all seems so personal 'bad teachers', 'incompetent teachers' and so on. You feel as if they mean YOU and it causes despair- even if your lessons have always been, graded 'good'.
I feel better for that! Apparently I do like a moan!

My phone put an apostrophe in its that shouldn't have been there! Before someone claims that teachers are illiterate!

Oops and the extra comma and missing colon. Teachers can spell and punctuate- just not on phones!

Well I was offered a place and I'm so excited! Just unsure how to afford it...I still want to do this despite the bad press that the profession has received, I'm determined that I'll be a teacher one day.