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'

SueD - totally agree with all of that. sorry i misinterpreted your last post.

67 is unthinkable to anyone who actually works in a secondary school. it's the equivalent of someone who started teaching in 1970 (teaching kids born between 1953 and 1959) still being stood there in a classroom tomorrow teaching teenagers. can you imagine? in order to get their pension they'd be somehow having to cope with today's technology, culture and behaviour etc and having the energy to cope with hundreds of teens a day and be able to reach them despite having come to the profession in so radically different a time, culture and world.

i was at my peak in the classroom at about 26 and burnt out by 30ish.

i mean can you even see a 67 year old lady pushing her way up through a crowded stairwell during a lesson change being jostled and knocked by kids and trying to carry 30 books because you she has some randomly timetabled year 9 group on the other side of the school to get to?

In France they have special places for burnt out teachers.

Half way down the article

My mum is in her 60s. I can't imagine her doing any of that. Teaching is a physically demanding job. I switched to a profession where I sit at a desk, work on a computer and go to a few meetings. I can see my mum being able to cope with that.

As the teaching population ages, it will be interesting to see how that issue is dealt with and how children respond to older teachers. When I say "interesting", that is from the outside. If I was still on the inside, I'd be terrified.

That's a scary article BoffinMum.

I think there are many reasons why some teachers cope better than others, some situational, some dispositional.

A couple of the best teachers I work with are 60ish. They were in leadership positions, and have stepped down to finish their careers just teaching. Burning out in middle age is not a given.

68 does make me blink a bit though. Blimey.

I have actually lost count of the number of burnt out teachers I have encountered personally. I think people need to be very careful to:

Choose schools that pay their staff properly.
if a school tries to give you a contract you don't like, don't work there even if the commute is convenient.
Choose heads that show their staff respect.
Choose governing bodies that show their heads respect.
Choose schools where the pupils understand what the staff is trying to do for them.
Choose schools with a friendly, active PTA.
Take regular breaks and holidays, whether people like it or not.
Have an interest outside school, even if it is one yoga class a week on a Saturday.
Eat lunch.
Book a decent holiday well ahead of time, somewhere you will really look forward to going. Make it three weeks if humanely possible, as you will have a cold for the first week.
Join a union, even if you are moderate and don't like striking. In fact, the more moderate people join unions, the less militant and the more relevant they become as professional associations.

In theory that is a good list BoffinMum, but the school based items are hard to tell unless you are in-post, then with a change in head, governing body, academisation it can rapidly change. I will query;
Choose schools with a friendly, active PTA. - what has this to do with work/life balance? We have a very friendly active PTA and it adds to the workload of the teachers.

I agree that burnout in middle age isn't a given, but I think it is rather too common for me to take a punt on with the rest of my working life.

I taught alongside a 67 year old. You wouldn't have guessed his age. But there were some concessions made for him to allow him to teach to his strengths - such as sixth form only teaching. He was unusual, but having, for example, 15% of the workforce in their 60s really restricts the concessions you can give.

We've had to adjust timetables to avoid older teachers having to teach PE to their primary class.

TheGruffalo - that sounds sensible and presumably can be used to cover some PPA time. I think that more creative use of staff time will begin to evolve.

I have a business background, I am not your archetypal teacher and suspect I am known for being the laziest teacher on MN. For example I don't work in the holidays and will walk out of school almost on the bell at least once a week.

I am on ML at the moment but thought I had quite a good work life balance, but that did involve working at least 12 hours a day during term time and sometimes 15 or even more.

There is no way on earth that I will be teaching at 60, I just do not want to work that hard. I suspect I will last until about 55 maximum. I am glad that I do not have to rely on my teachers pension and can exit when I have had enough.

I have chosen my schools carefully and in my current school one of my roles has been to reduce workloads. I would simply refuse to comply in many of the schools that MNers work in.

Wow reading all of this makes me realise how lucky I am in my school. Our head is very easy going and luckily does not jump onto every ticky box/coloured pen bandwagon going. Our staff are committed and work hard but most are out of school by 5. Everyone is in a union and the head is aware of union guidelines and generally doesn't challenge e.g. He doesn't ask to see planning etc.
I have been teaching for 20 years and am experienced enough to know what I'm doing and tweak existing plans and use/organise resources I've had for a while. However the great thing about the job is that there is always more to do, you can always challenge yourself and it is never,ever boring!
I agree that working till 67 is scary - hopefully I won't be in the classroom by then - non teaching deputy would be my dream job- fingers crossed.

I wonder how many schools have a role like Philoslothy's to reduce workload. Will this be an increasing trend?

I get the impression that a lot of the high workload and stress is driven by OFSTED. Either in fear of an inspection or as a result. It would be reassuring to know that schools like Dustypeas' can get through inspections and retain their character.

My sole role was not to reduce workload but my role was about welfare of students and staff. When I arrived the welfare of staff was paid lip service to be honest. Even if you don't particularly care about the welfare of teachers , stressed over worked teachers cannot provide a good level of education and pastoral care to teenagers who are often demanding.

My mother taught until she was 70 (primary school) when she was forced to retire (state law). She would have happily carried on until 80 and was heartbroken that she was "forced out".

That article about increasing suicides in teachers is shocking, it's clearly not just a case of some teachers being more moany than others, when you look at those statistics.

A lot of people I know over 60 have had serious health issues of one sort or the other that would have required a lot of time off work or early retirement. I know that we are living longer so they want us to work longer, but I'm not sure that means we are healthy enough to work longer.

the statistics have always been awful. ridiculously high rate of suicide compared to other professions and i seem to remember even back in the day when i trained at the turn of the century it was attributed to known to be lethal combination of very high levels of responsibility with low levels of control. so everything is down to you but you don't get to make the choices and changes that could make that do-able and in fact someone else is always changing things to make it even more impossible.

when i went back last year i remember standing there in front of one year 11 group from hell and thinking what the actual fuck am i doing here? i actually don't give a shit enough about money to stand here taking this abuse. why would anyone do this? back in my 20's it would have felt like a challenge to conquer and some integral part of my self esteem to prove i could do it and overcome ya da ya da. in my late 30's with a young child to provide a happy home to i'm just like - no! no, no, no. permanent contract? no thanks. ah but it's part time and term time only and probably the best pay you're going to get for that kind of arrangement - so? no way.

i let it destroy me at one point staying way too long in an awful school and i have no desire to let that happen again and i can't afford to because i'm a mother so it's not only my own mental health and life i'd be draining and gambling on.

i have a lot of respect for the people i trained with who are still teaching (only a few of them are - the rest got out) and have taught all this time but i also feel really sorry for them. i can't tell if they are fortunate they've been able to stick it and keep adding more and more work as things have gone on or if i'm fortunate that i had an emergency stop button that went off and stopped me.

i don't even know if i'd want to do supply - i suppose i could choose a limited pool of schools i was willing to go to and do it irregularly. i doubt i will though.

sorry long post.

HoneyBadger, I wish I'd had someone like you to talk to before starting this job. Wtf am I doing here is my feeling most of the time now.
I can deal with the abuse, but why should I have to?
I don't even like myself when I have to discipline so harshly.
And I feel constantly angry. Not healthy.

From Boffin's list I tick only one box: I eat lunch.

Especially the second point on the list is important. Hindsight ...

Gruffalo, if you have an active PTA this is an indicator of middle class kids, and where you get middle class kids, the habit of schooling tends to be more ingrained, so you have fewer battles. Sad, but true.

I think there needs to be a lot more engagement with professional associations, and a lot less compliance with bureaucratic bollocks for the teaching profession really to be able to do its job.

Actually I'd still disagree with you on that point BoffinMum. From my experiences and discussion with teacher friends I've found MC parents are the ones that ask for more, as they have more understanding of the system and the confidence to question and challenge more. Less engaged parents just let us get on with the job in hand. More engaged parents expect so much more (see my thread moaning about clubs!) and take more of my time with parent meetings, extra chats about how X is doing, what they can do at home, why this reading book has been sent home. Plus as PTA there is a T component that takes up time, as they expect teacher attendance at meetings and all the social and fundraising events.

Totally agree with there needing to be more streamlining of systems to engage with other professionals and the bureaucratic bollocks!

Gruffalo - that probably is the case at primary level but at secondary, the less engaged parents can be the cause of problems. Yesterday my yr 11 GCSE group had their practical exam. One girl (v engaged parent) came in and did her best despite being in absolute agony with an ongoing health issue. Parent had encouraged her to attend and was waiting afterwards to take her to hospital. Two others (not engaged parents) didn't 't show up. The exams officer called home and got non-committal type responses from parents. I had a call then from one mother and I assumed she was going to tell me a very good reason why her DC was not in. No. Her opening line was "can you tell me what your problem is with my DC?" this because I'd had the audacity to call and chase up the non-attendance. She then told me I was pissing her off and threatened to come to school and beat me up. She later reiterated the threat on Facebook (another parent, whose child was disadvantaged by the non-attendance) came to school and showed the HT. I'd rather have "middle class" interest than threats of violence!

Poor you EvilTwins - that is another example of how different primary and secondary can be (re PTA).

We do have threats of violence in primary, but somehow they don't feel as bad a some I've heard from secondary teachers.