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'

Gennz what does "sick leave" have to do with the post you referred to?

OP, I do think it's a good thing that you're aware of the need to work towards a healthy work/life balance, and you have already said you're not suggesting you've got it sussed already - however the majority of replies you've received are heavily weighted towards the real difficulty of doing this in reality, and I do think you need to listen to what experienced teachers are saying. It's very, very different when you're starting out, full of enthusiasm, and haven't been ground down by years of stress, curriculum changes etc. - and don't have children.
I don't want to put you off at all, because I really believe we need to do more to encourage the best people into teaching. I absolutely love the classroom based part of it, and genuinely feel the job is a privilege. But you need to go into it with your eyes wide open!

That boundless enthusiasm and energy and confidence is wonderful. It is, however, why NQTs get extra non-contact time, a mentor and no curriculum responsibilities.
So they have time and support to get to grips with the realities of the job.
I've mentored a few NQTs. The second year is often the hardest for them.

PGCE isn't really an indication of future workload either. 90% of my workload comes from the 3 or 4 exam classes I have every year, always key groups. Slt expect revision classes after school, extra marking etc - especially in a core subject, where the pressure is astronomical. Whatever you tell yourself now, when you know the kids you teach and that grade they gets determines their future, you do everything you can to make sure they succeed. I'm assuming you wouldn't have any key exam classes as a trainee or an NQT.

Completely agree with Goblin

I was an NQT last year and now I'm 25 and in my second year. My NQT year was tough and was a huge adjustment from being on placement! I thought my to do list was long as a student but my list tripled when I actually had to do it on my own. Even after a 4yr primary ed degree there were hundreds of things that I had no idea I had to do (the class teacher had already done them on placement). In my opinion, the jump from student to NQT is massive and there isn't much you can do to prepare for it until you're in the thick of it.

Now I'm in my 2nd year I am finding it much harder. I've got my head round the planning and behaviour management but I have lost my NQT time and been given a subject to coordinate.

I'm going into my third year in Sept and I naively thought that now I've got my head round planning, teaching, behaviour, assessement, coordinating a subject etc my work/life balance would improve. It seems I'm wrong and another curriculum responsibility is being thrown my way...it really is never ending!

it's not just post kids to think about now but the very long term. for those working as classroom teachers and saying it's ok because they only work a couple of hours at night and one day of their weekend on top of their usual hours - can you imagine doing that till you're 67? can you imagine maintaining the motivation, energy and dedication needed to be a good teacher till that age? can you imagine staying in touch with children and contemporary life and all the changes and govt initiatives till that age?

i suspect what they want is to get rid of teachers for life and the expense that comes with that. they surely know there are very few people in their mid 60's able to still stand up and manage 6 classes a day of teenagers and not be either totally burned out or out of touch beyond belief etc.

you need to consider if you are ambitious and want to climb the SMT ladder because probably that's the only way to keep going till that age - re: gradually becoming more of a manager and administrator than a classroom teacher.

honestly i cannot imagine who could be a classroom teacher from 21-67 with conditions as they are. ime even with the previous retirement age it was not doable for the vast majority. it is well known the kind of pressures on health and health outcomes there are within the profession and the levels of burn out and drop out rates. it almost seems to be deliberately being pushed to the point where virtually no one will teach long term and become 'expensive' and entitled to a pension. i think teaching will become one of those jobs that people do for 5 years before moving on.

if i ruled the world i'd make teaching like the fire service was whereby you only had to work 20 years before your pension. you could attract in lots of people at say age 30 with great life experience and private sector or other background with the perk being they'll have a reasonable pension at 50 that along with part time work or tutoring or whatever would see them through to state retirement age.

for young people you could have 20 years of teaching (in a block or in aggregated over your working life) and another career.

I have no intention of still being a full time teacher at 67 (or 70 if the predicted retirement age in Australia changes on budget night as expected), but there's plenty of careers where people have to consider changes to their roles as they age. I'm starting along the administration ladder, and I've been contributing to my superannuation to be able to retire at an age that suits me.

It can also change at any minute. I work in a fairly relaxed department in terms of scrutiny. However, this year's Y11 have been a particularly difficult year group and I don't think results are going to be as good. We are also getting a new HOD in September. Along with the changes to the maths curriculum which means we have to cram far more syllabus into the time available (Gove suggested that extra teaching time be allocated to maths to account for this but god knows where that is meant to come from), I suspect the next few years are going to be far more stressful. Given that I already barely see my kids in term time and I'm a part time teacher, so only on 20k I'm not sure what my next move will be.

That's my plan.
I've been in this particular game full time for 30 years now and I've made the decision to go on supply 5 days a week in order to get my W/L balance back.
Get my pension in 5 years time, and I'll probably drop to supplying my quality services a couple of days a week to a very select list of schools. If I still feel like it.
It's now a job for the young and unburdened, or job sharing. Or for those that want to do something very intense for a decade or so, whilst scrabbling up the ladder.

Of course it is, I suspect there is some exaggeration going on in some quarters. I have several friends who are teachers (mix of primary and secondary)- they all, without exception, manage to have decent work/life balance with time for hobbies/going out/weekends off. Most of them have children too- and 2 are married to other teachers.

I know that sometimes they do work longer hours than usual (e.g. run up to exams/school production etc) and certainly worked longer hours when newly qualified while they honed their skills. I'm not sure how my friends seem to work less hours than I hear claimed in the media.

I'm a secondary teacher with TLR and 6 years experience.

First, I absolutely love my job and find it incredibly rewarding, but it is hard to find and maintain a work/life balance.

Probably the hardest part is in your NQT/RQT years when you realise:

• you can't do everything
• your marking will never be as detailed as you like
• you will be redoing / personalising / tweaking / scrapping the majority of your resources every year (I remember my naïveté of my NQT year when I thought "OK, this lesson has taken an hour to prepare, but I can use it again next year.'
• curriculum changes (major and minor) happen every year. E.g Set texts change every 3 years, or a new initiative such as PLTS comes in and all SoW and resources need rewriting to incorporate it.

I've seen many teachers leave the profession within their first 3 years. All cite the 'workload' and constant changes. Some feel it is just our school or department so will move to another place, realise it is just the same there and then quit.

I have a toddler and a DH who is (thankfully) a SAHD.
My average week looks like this:

Mon-Fri
6am - Get up with DS
7am - leave house to catch train. Mark on the train.
8am - arrive at school and do photocopying / check & respond to emails / set up first lesson
8.30 - Tutor group arrive, followed by lessons.
Break - grabbing a cuppa and setting up lessons / marking / duty
Lunch - more of the same and also detentions / one-to-one tutoring.
Lessons finish at 4pm most days.
Meetings most evenings: Data / mentoring / coaching / training / department / parents
Leave at 5pm / home at 6pm after more marking on the train if I can get a seat, or planning via my phone if I can't.
6pm-7.30pm - quality time with DS until his bedtime.
8pm-11pm or 9pm-midnight - marking, planning and prep.

I generally don't work Friday evenings or Saturdays.

I'll do about 4-5hrs work on Sundays.
1 day per half term, Christmas and Summer holidays
4 days Easter holidays (revision school / coursework moderation etc. )

This routine allows me to feel that I'm just keeping on top of everything (though my perfectionist head is never satisfied).

I've been consistently 'outstanding' for the past 4 years.

You need to find what works for you. Before DS, I was at work for 7am and worked from 7pm-10pm in the evenings.

i am so annoyed it's a bit much to accuse others if exaggeration.
You are not a teacher?!
And unless you actually live with your friends in their houses, all the time you have no idea how much time they spend working.
You also have no real idea of how well they are doing their job.
Work life balance is of course possible but far too many people find it illusive.

My friend posts on Facebook like she has a good work/life balance. Trips out with the kids, time spent doing hobbies etc. I know how hard she works, I know that she gets up at 4am to do work before the kids get up, that she works till midnight or later a lot, that she does nothing around the house and spends a lot of money on things to save time. I know this, because I'm a teacher too and so we talk about it.

I don't think non-teachers have any idea really.

I don't see how you can possibly know that I am, unless you are with your friends 24/7.

I suspect to my friends, I look as though I've got it made. I work part time, so I'm able to finish somewhere between 2 and 4pm most days. I'm often at the school gates, taking my children to their hobbies. I probably look like I've got a great work life balance, but what my friends don't see is that when my daughter finishes her hobby, and I get home somewhere between 8 and 9pm, DH then takes over and I sit down straight away to do 3/4 hours marking and planning etc. often I'm lucky if I get an hour to myself all day. But of course, my friends don't see that - all they see is that I'm there for my daughters, manage to take them to their hobbies, to comps and so on...

Seriously, who would want a friend that complains all the time?
So I juggled all my responsibilities and stresses for years and was known for my happy smile and time to listen to others at work.
I do a good 'Gameface'

YANBU (except for PGCE year which is hell!)

I find it is very possible to have a work life balance but that it is very different from those in most professions because it is so polarised.

In term time I work anything from 50-90 hour weeks depending on the time of year and what events are going on.

But then come the massive holidays. I work approx a week either side in the summer (not necessarily in school though), a few days either side at Christmas and Easter and a day either side for half terms but, other than that, I do nothing work related at all.

I also don't tend to work on Sundays unless it's a busy time or I'm on the duty rota (boarding school).

I am happy to be in school until the early hours when it is actually necessary for the benefit of the pupils but I wouldn't work in a school that was tied to the national curriculum, had time consuming, set planning formats and was at the mercy of Gove. I like to be able to make my own decisions and teach in my own way.

Phlebasconsidered-I'm so glad you posted that about the difference in workload between primary and secondary in response to the secondary teacher who was suggesting that primary would be far easier!

I wouldn't presume to know anything about secondary teaching as I'm not a secondary teacher and the poster (Honeybadger?) who made those sweeping generalisations was no better than a non teacher saying 'teachers just play in the sand 9-3, try doing a real job'.

ilovesooty was a genuine question as here you can use sick leave if dependants are sick as well as if you are. Sounds like it's not the case in the UK.

I have a good work life balance now, I am a part time subject specialist in a prep school. No marking (no written work) complete freedom of what I teach in lessons and supportive senior management. I worked for 5 years in a boarding school where on average I would work 65-70 hour weeks. I work three days a week now and those days are packed full with not a minute to spare, and I have all meetings, duties, and rehearsals crammed into those three days. I do some work at home, eg reports and updating whole school documents like governors reports etc. I think teaching a marking-heavy secondary subject like English or history or general primary teaching have the most ridiculous workloads. I would never manage it.

Teachers don't get a set amount of sick leave to use as they need between themselves and their dependants. If I am sick, yes I'm on sick leave. If my children are ill I get half a day paid leave to organise their care for the rest of their illness, up to three times a year, then the rest is either agreed as unpaid or not agreed at all. A good head, if you have built up a "I'm not taking the piss" relationship, will allow compassionate leave for children's hospital appointments.

Gennz, if I need any time off for my children at all, it is unpaid. Even then, it can very difficult as cover needs to be arranged etc.

When my children need time off, I get my husband to take it - he is entitled to take a day's holiday, and his work (non teaching, professional office type role) are much more flexible.

In my school we do still get paid if our children are sick but we are expected to have them in school if at all possible, even if we leave them in bed in sick bay with the nurse. If they're too ill for that though, we don't get penalised.

Yes rollonthesummer - I have friends who teach primary and secondary and my primary friends seem to spend more time working than my secondary friends. I wonder it's whether because when it comes to dealing with parents, friendship issues, bullying etc, the buck stops with you a lot of the time as a primary school teacher? Obviously form tutors do deal with that sort of thing at secondary, and of course secondary teachers do contact parents, but it does seem like having a number of Heads of Year, Heads of House etc limits the amount of time your average secondary teacher has to spend on pastoral matters.
And of course as a primary teacher your subject knowledge has to be a lot broader.