To think that YES, you can have reasonable hours and a good work/life balance as a teacher

[WistfulForTravel]

I'm 22, a 3rd year Primary Education BEd student, I love my degree and every assignment and placement cements the fact that teaching is my vocation and is what I want to do as a career.

However, I've been getting a lot of negative comments from my aunties and neighbors about how I'll never have a life again, how most of my waking hours will be consumed with thoughts of work, how I'll never even have one day to truly relax during the 13 weeks off, how it'll be a 7am - 9 pm job, etc.

I know teaching is more full on than some jobs, but is it really this intense? I am friends with a few teachers and they seem to have a healthy work/life balance (time for guys/sports/hobbies, at least one full weekend day off, out 1-3 nights a week) They have no kids though. I imagine it would be very different when you have kids.

Is it possible to practice effective time management + work very hard during the week so you can have the weekend off?

As much as I've enjoyed my course and look forward to my first class in September (eek!) my philosophy is more a 'Work to Live' not 'Live to Work'

Still no return of OP?

Buttercup I haven't said that being a student is the same as being a teacher, obviously it's much easier.

Thanks, LeP. I love our curriculum and the fact that it's constantly evolving.

We don't do individual detailed lesson plans at our school, unless it is for an observation.

We have:

• A central SoW, which is updated / redone each year
• Teachers create corresponding resources and share with others who then adapt them for their groups
• Each teacher has their groups' profiles in their planner
• Lesson objectives are always displayed

We do have regular learning walks, marking scrutinies and department Mocksted reviews, though.

Of course people do things differently, LePamplemousse, I have no issue with that. I'd be quite annoyed if a PGCE student decided to spout off about how their way of doing things was so much better than the way experienced staff did it. I'm well aware that some of them think it, but mostly they have the wherewithal to keep such thoughts to themselves.

Can you not see that it is annoying for a PGCE student to be telling experienced teachers that their SLT obviously don't trust them because they require paperwork?

I love schools which have a good system of centralised resource sharing -- my first placement school was like that and let me pinch loads of amazing stuff before I left for which I'll be eternally grateful!
I think marking checks make a lot more sense than regular planning checks as the planning just shows what you said you'd do -- not what you've actually done.

Yeah Andreas, obviously you would have to be a pretty stupid individual looking for a very unpleasant working life to start telling experienced teachers how to do their jobs.

I know plenty of experienced teachers who would absolutely agree that it is patronising and undermining of SLT to expect planning evidence for every lesson - the marking and production of quality work and assessments should be evidence enough. That's ny opinion and I don't think it is invalid just because I am seven weeks away from qualifying.

It isn't invalid, it just suggests that you don't really know how it works in many schools.

And it's pretty weird in fact that you have a problem with me expressing my opinion on an anonymous forum.

'Raven, I'm sorry but I do think it suggests a huge lack of faith in your team if SLT forces everyone to submit lesson plans for every lesson rather than just SOWs or medium term plans. It just seems so ridiculously excessive and becomes a box ticking exercise, surely?'

They don't; we have a work/planning scrutiny every half term. In the designated week, you get an email specifying a class & giving you notice to drop their books & your planning off at the office the following day. You then get feedback via HOD the following week.

I do individual planners/data packs (electronically for my own use, but I print them off & put everything in shiny binders for the Luddites in the SLG) for my KS4 classes, but use the Dept. SOLs, which I annotate as I go, for KS3.

Other colleagues have old fashioned 'day to a page' ring binder planners, or have everything on an enormous spreadsheet with different tabs for different groups, or giant wall planners all over his office in the case of the Deputy Head...there's a list of things you're supposed to include, but no requirement for individual lesson plans or an approved format.

I entirely agree with you that that would be excessive - although probably appropriate for an NQT on a reduced timetable, who's still learning how to plan effectively.

I have heard horror stories of schools like yours from friends on PGCE and count myself extremely lucky not to have seen experienced teachers subjected to that level of bureaucracy in my own placement schools.

I don't have an issue with you expressing your opinion on an anonymous forum. I said I would have an issue with you expressing it in my department.

I still don't think it is appropriate to expect a set format for planning for each lesson for an NQT- I hope to start as I mean to go on, i.e. planning effectively but not necessarily using a specific 7 page (or whatever) pro forma.

The problem being that you might not think it appropriate, but if your school does then so be it.

Absolutely. If I have to toe the line WRT plans I obviously will.

"as long as you're getting the results" - that makes me sad. really it does. you can teach students the formula to getting exam marks and 'get the results' without actually providing them with a worthwhile education.

also not only do you benefit from the classroom teacher (generally an experienced and competent one of long standing in the school to be given a student to supervise) being present or having an implied presence (re: it's still her class) you are also benefiting from the fact that she got that class in september, got them settled, got classroom management established and routine, set seating plans, worked through the teething problems, set up their attitude to the subject and their participation, got that classroom into a workable state physically and collated all the data on the class.

i don't think you appreciate just how huge all of that is and what a teeny bit is left for the student. your pgce is the one time when you can actually really just focus on planning, teaching and learning and self development. there is so, so much more going on in the job otherwise more of us would stay in it for longer as most of us are good teachers and good at creating resources and coming up with strategies and that's why we went into the job.

also the planning checks don't actually just show what you said you'd do - they show you know your class and students in it. they show you have actually processed, collated, applied and meaningfully used the reams of raw data handed to you in uncollated piles on the inset day in september. it shows you are meaningfully differentiating and tracking and driving progress.

honestly you will see after your nqt year just how much more is going on.

I'm an NQT. An older NQT who got a job in an outstanding school within 3 days of being on placement there. I didn't struggle with the PGCE - it wasn't a walk in the park, granted, but it wasn't the hardest year of my life that so many people say it is.

But OMG did I fall back down to earth with an enormous bump the first week of term with no experienced teacher to fall back on in my class for behaviour mangement, no support other than the scheme of work for planning (not big on sharing in my department!) and the responsibility of an almost full timetable. On top of that, all the 'stuff' that goes with pastoral care (outstanding school in a crappy area - we have child protection issues coming out of our ears) and a form group, doing assemblies on rota, a planning and marking policy that means any member of SLT can demand to see your books and your marking literally at any given moment. SLT turning up, on spec, in 'difficult' classes for ALL teachers (a policy aimed at supporting staff with these classes rather than scruitinising staff but which means you are forever on your toes until they've been in)...I could go on. I'd been in the school for months as a student but I had no idea at all what I was letting myself in for. I have no issue with subject knowledge - all excellent, at the finger tips. But sometimes I have to teach stuff I have never studied (no choice, I teach what the school demands I should teach at KS3 and what the exam boards say at KS4 and higher) and for 'A' level, I have had to do considerable research to make sure I'm all on track.

There is no balance. My poor children are neglected. It's a wonder they haven't called Social Services themeselves. It is all consuming and I only 'manage' because I've worked in schools previously and I know that I'll gain ground the longer I've been there, that the planning will get easier (and faster) and that I'll logically be able to 'wing it' in a way I couldn't contemplate at the moment. It's a young person's game, I believe. I enjoy it and will be sticking at it for as long as I am able - but I don't anticipate I will spend the rest of my working life in teaching. I am not failing and will pass my induction year but it has not been because I have found it easy and I am certainly not considered any where near 'good'. Just good enough. Your attitude, OP, leaves a lot to be desired and you will struggle, I believe, if you don't find some humility quickly.

PS If planning only takes you 20 minutes, aren't you making resources? Doesn't it take you longer than that to cut things out and have them all ready at your fingergips for the lesson?

It's lovely that you have such a postive outlook but I suspect you may be in for a shock tbh.

I work in a support role in an early years setting, and neither myself nor my colleagues ever work 'just' our contracted hours. Our teaching staff are usually in from before 8am until gone 5pm which given that there are only 2x3 hour teaching sessions in that time is a lot of extra work and they take stuff home too.

My DD is still in primary & wanted to be a teacher from the moment she set foot in Reception. Tbh I was quite relieved when she changed her mind and decided she wanted to work for MI5...it's probably an easier option!

Honeybadger - that's not what I meant to imply. I hope my lessons are engaging, fun, interesting, and all the rest of it - results are, obviously, also important.
I've said so many times now that I know NQT is going to be a huge leap in terms of stress and workload. Why are people still having a go at me over this point? It's very irritating.

fedupbutfine Your post is illuminating and interesting, thank you. Actually I quickly learned early in the year never to make a card sort or anything that involved cutting or sticking, resources-wise! My resources might just be a PowerPoint, a couple of texts, or some images or magazines for instance. Also we do have departmental resources so I'm lucky in that respect. Planning will sometimes take longer than 20 mins but I try to stick to 20 mins per lesson.

I think you may be confusing some of my posts with those of the OP - I don't want her to be blamed for what apparently rubs people up the wrong way about my planning!

I actually agree with LeP about the planning scrutiny. It is unnecessary and can be a bullying tactic. Anyone in the NAS shouldn't be writing any (for anyone else) - part of the work to rule is not to hand in planning as lessons should show evidence of planning, but you are not required to hand a plan to anyone. If teachers won't stick together about these things, we will never get a work life balance.

You are indeed lucky to be able to use depth resources and that you were able to take some with you from previous placements. I've never understood teachers who are precious about resources - my first school was full of them. Sharing good practise is important.

However, I am a dept of one, and even though I re-use SOW for a few years, I re-plan and re-make resources each year, depending on a range of things including how well that SOW went previously, student voice feedback, the cohort and also whether I fancy a change. Every year I end up making resources for different groups - at present I teach the whole of yrs 8 & 9 and cannot use the same resources for each class in each year group because of the differentiation required.

JennyCalendar - I beg to differ and don't think that children at GCSE level ought to be spending much time at all on non-English literature. Comparative literature ought to be a small and ringfenced part of the curriculum and clearly delineated.

Bonsoir - it hasn't been like that for a long time. I taught GCSE English at my first and second schools (though not since 2000-2001) and poems from other cultures and traditions was on the syllabus then.

The fact that it has been like that for a long time doesn't mean it's right. The issue addressed on this thread is the über-onerous workload of teachers. Personally I am very dubious of the value of teaching and testing texts that the teachers have only recently discovered for themselves. This is not a criticism of teachers in any shape or form.

That's ridiculous and would mean that the curriculum never moved on.