AIBU to consider giving up teaching?

[PenguinBear]

AIBU to think that maybe I don't want to be a teacher anymore?

I have been teaching for a number of years and for the first time this year I am really not enjoying it. I have a difficult class (one child in particular who is making things very hard work).
There is massive pressure to achieve a good OFSTED grade and it's a whirlwind of constant book scrutinises, planning analysis and book comparisons, pupil progress meetings etc.

I love working with children and enjoy helping them to learn but the pressures for everything else are getting too much and ruining the enjoyment of the job.

I think I'd like to be an HLTA or something (definitely went to remain in a school).

Dp thinks I am mad to even consider it due to the drop in money but if I went for a HLTA position/ supply teaching it might be okay.

I just want to work in the classroom without the responsibility and pressure. I watch my TA breeze out the door at 3.30 with a smile and I'm stuck there till 6.30 every night. There's always so much to do and I feel like I'm constantly on a treadmill with no exit!

Anyone done similar? AIBU? Dp doesn't want me to do it at all and is being off with me for even considering it.

I was a teacher for 16 years and resigned Dec 2013 for exactly all the reasons stated in the OP.

The pressure of OfStEd, book scrutinise, silly data recording, the shitty politics.

A week before I handed in my resignation, I couldn't drive to work, spent the day thinking about what to do, came to the conclusion that I was actually too cowardly to commit suicide (my depression was pretty severe too!!) and when DH came home from work I just cried for about 2 hours.

I was unemployed until the day after August bank holiday, and although I was applying for jobs outside of teaching, interviewers were rejecting me on the basis of my lack of experience as an administrator.

Since August BH, I've been temping and that's a decent way of getting your foot in the door and showing that you can very quickly learn new computer programmes and other systems specific to each office despite the fact that you've "no experience"

FGS!!! I'm not 16 y o and fresh out of school!!!!

The two agencies I work for are Brook Street and Ambitions Personnel. I'm not on nearly the same wage as before, but I can also spend time with my DH in the evenings and on weekends, do my hobbies. You know, normal stuff!!!

As one of those TA's who swan out of the class at 3-30, I can absolutely see your point. I could very easily train to be a teacher but the extra pay to extra hours/stress is just not worth it. The teachers I work with are worth so much more than their salaries reflect. Currently two of the TA's I work with are qualified teachers who are enjoying their new roles.

That IS partly because as you acknowledge you're not on nearly the same wage as before, though.

You say in your post that this is the first time you've not enjoyed it. So I think it's a bit early to think about quitting. This might just be a bad year. I've known people soldier on for decades hating the job. So don't do that. But give it a bit longer.

So true vivienne!inhad the most horrendous year a few years ago - ended up ill with shingles etc etc due to the stress. So, changed schools and oh, the relief!!! Different ht, different priorities, now I'm reinvigorated, enthusiastic and loving it again - and taking less work home!

Glad your enjoying your job now. makemine. A reasonable HT can make all the difference. Some seem to make people's life a total misery.

Thanks, it is amazing the difference it can make going from a paperwork heavy school to one that let's you do your job properly - and trusts you as a professional to do that! Maybe a change is what you need op?

My DH left teaching for the reasons you describe OP. He enjoyed the teaching bit, it was all the other crap that drove him out of the profession.

He now manages huge projects with enormous budgets and finds that less stressful.

OP I totally sympathise. I am a TA and every teacher I have worked with has been at breaking point at some stage. It seems it's when you are female and have your own children. I went into being a TA with an idea to retraining as a teacher but i soon realised it wasn't for me. There was no way i could be the mother i wanted to be. I would end up stressed and not feeling successful at either job. I love working in education, get paid a pittance but work the same hours as my children, get the same holidays and so much reward via the children without taking work home. Money isn't everything. Maybe take a break for a while, do some supply and see how you feel in a years time. Good luck.

YANBU. I have just given in my notice after twenty years of teaching. I will finish at Christmas and am SO relieved. I feel I will regain my life. At present I am in school from 8.00 untill 5.30. I then usually work in the evening from about 8.30 until 11.00. And all this work is just to keep my head above water. If I stayed I think that my health would surely fail. I just can't do it any more. Good luck!

YANBU.
Is there some secret government agenda underway, intent on running all teachers out of their jobs? therefore leaving a nation of millions of illiterate, uneducated adults don't know how to question their own govt, or vote and spend miserable lives in squalor and starvation? honestly, sometimes i think the govt wants to send us all back to the stone age, or perhaps a new holocaust or a north korean style state.

Worrying how so many people seem to equate 'the government doing something I don't like' with one of the worse genocides in history. Second time I've seen that on here tonight!

i mean a holocaust of starving, illiterate, feral children and adults. (similar to an area i heard about from someone who teaches in one of the poorest parts of dublin). not the WWII holocaust. sorry for not making that bit clearer.

this is sad what will do without good teachers. I just look at my Kids and think I am not the only adult who will shape and inform them.

My profession is also pretty relentless but all respect to teachers who have a much harder time of it. Government needs to allow teachers to teach and have some life as well

My friend was the same... Then went private and found the more businesslike approach more professional she has more autonomy and better hols!

I am a teacher teaching for a good few years now. I have just been promoted but my role is such an in between role, not quite SLT, but then I don't really fit in in my previous role as class teacher either.

I spend hours every evening preparing, marking, planning and never really feel like I have done enough. I spend every evening worrying I'm just not good enough. All my lesson observations are fantastic but it just never seems enough. I used to love being in the class, but now I feel so much pressure even that parts not enjoyable anymore. I know I'm a good teacher but is that enough anymore?

I feel like my husband and I are just ships passing every now and then. It's just when you have spent your whole life, your whole education preparing for one career, there doesn't really seem a way out?

Posted too soon
In interest of balance tho I have friends ego have gone into reaching as mature pgce etc and vs previous careers love the lack if pressure and I hate to say it but hols

I don't think a 630 finish us very late at all and only have a self contribute pension, my point is only that all professional jobs have pressure so chose those with perks which suit...

My dd is a secodary English teacher. She is in school every day from 8 am to 5 pm. She then has 2 and a half hours with her dc and dinner with her dh. By 8.30 she is working again on marking/ preparation and does at least 2 hours. At weekends they have one family day and one day which is half housework and half school work. They prepare and batch cook a week's meals. She is exhausted and would leave I think but she loves the actual teaching and the money is ok. She has just turned down a request to apply for HoD job.

I was a supply teacher for many years,always liked the idea of becoming a TA, but DH kept putting me off,mainly because of the drop in salary. With hindsight I should have done it,and I will always regret not taking the chance.

Yanbu. I am in a very similar position. Supply is great but financially unstable. However, if a school likes you enough, they will consider you when there are PPA covering positions etc. I have just had to step in to do a job share and although I love teaching, I hate the rest of it. I've fought tooth and nail to get my job as p/t interventions teacher back. I will top up with supply. I also tutor. Good money there too. But, by the time I get home, I am drained! Then listening to my own DCs reading and practising spelling etc. I hate the way that I have patience/time for everyone else's DCs, but mine get me at the end of long days when I'm tired and grumpy with a load of work to do in the evenings too.

If you find a totally different career, let us know so we can all copy!

What about PPA OP? I would like to do this at some point I think, but i think after maternity i will be goijg back to my job share. PPA is kind of like being on supply but a more regular gig in a familiar place, but less of the rubbish stuff?

I am so inarticulate tonight but I can't be arsed to edit what I have written!

YANBU I was a primary teacher for 8 years and left. I went back to Uni and now work with kids in a different setting. I love my job now but I'm still working in schools.

I do think your DP needs to realise how much stress is involved in teaching and support you.

I have 2 friends who both left permanent roles for supply. One was by choice and one was through staff cuts at her school. Both now are so much happier. It was tougher to start, getting established and used to the uncertainty of work but now they both have regular schools that contact them directly rather than through agencies and they are making as much money and more than they had hoped to earn. The only downside one friend has spoken about is the last minute call at 8.45am wondering if she can work that day-leaving a rather chaotic departure and sometimes the need to change plans. They both are really happy with their lot now!