AIBU to want to leave teaching?

[Timetochangeisnow]

AIBU to want to leave teaching?

I'm a Primary School teacher. I love working with children, it's incredibly rewarding and no two days are the same. What I don't love however, is the mounting pressure and constant paperwork and pressure. There is barely time for anything outside of teaching and evenings and weekends are taken over with marking, planning, analysing pupil progress etc. the job in the classroom is increasingly difficult too and I think I need to leave before I have a breakdown.
I am finding I am enjoying the things I used to love less and less. I'm even having dreams about school so can't even escape at night.
I think it's particularly pronounced this year and I have some very difficult children that make every single day a battle.
I think I want out of the classroom now but would still like to remain either in a school or in education.

if the pay was better I'd be a TA no question

I'd consider retraining or studying again but I'm the main breadwinner and we have to renew our mortgage next summer!

Has anyone done similar? I don't know what's out there etc and haven't found anything online the last few months.

If anyone can point me I the right direction or has felt similar and stayed in teaching after feeling like this would be good to know!

I agree. My pm target this year is for 100% of my class to make 6 sub-levels progress in every core subject. That's 6 'new' sublevels-which have replaced the old and apparently confusing 3 sub levels. If they don't, I can't move up the pay scale, even if every observation I have is outstanding.

It is depressing and not achievable.

I do admire your Pollyanna-like positivity, but I really don't think it will help English teachers that much. This isn't just having a bit of a bad day.

RE... PSHE... Careers... counting toes... I wonder which Islandmama teaches?

it certainly is not a core subject, may nor be full time, is not a lead position and she won't be the one doing all paperwork, evidencing for progression, let alone Ofsted.

Anyone who can blithely mention ' the paperwork' as though it were simply a register and class marking has absolutely no experience of the evidencing required in a UK school these days.

I know plenty of teachers who retain a similar level of innocence and they are fucking hard work for the rest of the team and the lead who has to make up all the stuff they don't do, don't understand or do so simply they may as well have not bothered.

Thankfully I only have one in my dept and she is about to get a rude awakening...

Some people do shrug it off though. It's a personality thing.

The bottom line is if you don't like your job change jobs. There are good careers for good graduates out there and teachers often have very good skills to offer employers.

I have shrugged it off for over a decade.... for me it is a saturation point. The job has become ridiculously bound by measures and teaching has become subservient to these measures - the tail is most definitely wagging the dog!

So, as the job I signed up for no longer exists and the management job I am doing is becoming more and more of a data chase, I am removing myself before the job 'gets me'.

The bottom line is if you don't like your job change jobs. There are good careers for good graduates out there and teachers often have very good skills to offer employers

I am. It's just a bit sad that thousands of teachers are all doing so this year.

I have been tentatively talking about an near-future exit strategy to my colleagues. Turns out everyone has one, everyone, all 60 of us. Not one person getting any job satisfaction.

It's a real crisis.

I am a teacher in the South East. I love being with kids, love my subject but can't bear the data and performance related pay. I teach a creative subject in a secondary school, where the target grades are generated by an organisation who base them on English and Maths achievement and take into account nothing about musical experience or background. we are not allowed to change them, as this is apparently an excuse. This year, just as performance related.pay has arrived, they are adding one to these grades. Leaving my entire mixed ability gcse class with targets of A and A*. When i inevitably cannot.get.80percent of my class.these grades without cheating I will not get a pay rise. I am.considering leaving teaching.and I am only 28.

I'm not going anywhere. I did think I might, a year or so back, when my main motivating force was simply to still be in education longer than Michael Gove, the slimy little fucker. Achievement unlocked!

But I still love the actual teaching. Also, I think the tide's turning slowly...our SLG are just beginning to realise that with two not very suitable applicants for every three core subject posts (we've got supply in for the supply in two jobs atm...) - they'd better stop breaking the decent teachers they've got.

I might be old & expensive in teacher terms, but I turn up every day & deliver, & fill in some the gaps created when someone else reaches 'signed off indefinitely' status, again. There's a gradual realisation dawning that it'd be quite inconvenient if all the 'dinosaurs' suddenly decided we'd had enough.

A lot of it's still bloody miserable mind you!

Here's a genuine question I'd like to discuss.

I'm SLT at a school where a teacher is really struggling. She is finding the behaviour of several of the pupils in her class really tricky and says it regularly. The HT has done a couple of learning walks, we've had an external review (no choice about that one) and the teacher has had her PM observation for the term. The best lesson that anyone has ever seen just scraped requires improvement. The PRU and Ed Psych have been in too to observed the behaviour of a particularly tricky boy and they've both independently said that they feel her approach is a large part of the problem.

We are very aware that we are lucky to have a qualified teacher in that class, and that if she leaves we'll be unlikely to be able to replace her. Also, none of the SLT have any desire to push someone out of their job. As a result of all this, I've been asked to work with her to help her manage the pupils' behaviour. So I started by informally observing a lesson so I could get a feel for what is going on. What I saw was exactly what everyone else has seen - she talks at her class for far too long, expecting them (year 2) to sit and listen to her for around 40 minutes and then follows it up with an undifferentiated pupil activity which they have no more than 15 minutes for. I spent the lesson I watched trying to work out how the activity fitted with the objective and input as there seemed to be a complete lack of clarity about what she wanted them to achieve. When I chatted to her afterwards, she was unable to tell me what the children had learnt in the lesson, or whose learning she was pleased with. It was like observing a student teacher, not someone with decades of experience.

So I then planned a sequence of numeracy with her so we could talk about what she wanted the children to learn in each lesson and how to achieve this. I then watched her again, teaching part of one of the lessons we'd planned together. It really wasn't any better - far too long input that the children lost interest in, followed up by an undifferentiated pupil activity which they were only given 15 minutes for, despite us having put timings on the lesson plan and having discussed how to differentiate for the very wide attainment levels in the room.

So, wise mnetters, what do you suggest I do next? I've offered to teach a demonstration lesson or team teach a lesson with her so she can see how the pupils behave for me and how I manage their behaviour but she hasn't taken me up on it. I've taught this class in the past and the children never behaved as badly as they do for her. I know she's very, very stressed. But this used to be my class and they're lovely children - I feel terrible that they are having such a different experience this year.

All ideas very gratefully received as I have absolutely no desire to be part of a leadership team who has forced out an older teacher. But equally, the children deserve better. What can be done to help her?

toomuchicecream

Can I ask you a question about behaviour from an SLT perspective? If you were to take a lesson and the class behaved/you were able to handle them, how would it benefit the new teacher with strategies? A child in my class last year was great (much like your class) and has moved up to a class where he is struggling with the teacher's approach and his behaviour is totally different.
I have been asked how I handled him but there wasn't anything to 'handle' at the time.

As mentioned before, I have some tricky ones and wondered how you would handle a child who doesn't seen bothered by praise or authority or threats of loosening golden time etc

This thread is depressing
How bad do things have to get before they change

If her objectives and activities don't match-go through her planning with her before she teaches it.

toomuch

I would say in this situation you need to show her what to do rather than tell her, take the class for a series of different lessons (not just literacy and numeracy) and model how you would like her to teach, often by seeing a colleague in action teachers can get a better grasp of what will work well.

We put a full support package of additional INSET and mentoring. We put it forwards as supporting the teacher get consistently "good" or better observations. In our case we needed to focus on pupil interactions, questioning techniques and behaviour management. Obviously it needed sensitive handling to get the teacher engaged in the process.

The teacher was allocated a mentor who supported with weekly meetings, shared planning, mentor and mentee doing shared observations across the whole school focusing on specific things that the teacher needed to develop, weekly small targets to be met for focused observations by a member of the SLT or by self-review. It was a heavy time and finance burden for the school, but it really turned the teacher around, she is still with us and is an asset to the school. The mentored used a coaching model and used much of the structure from mentoring NQTs to identify and target specific areas.

How long has the teacher been in Year 2 - with End of Key Stage One assessments? If it is some time what are their results like? Maybe the new curriculum arriving in Year 2 soon, plus the new assessments coming up in 2016 it is a useful way in to supporting a teacher in a key year group in developing the new skills that the changes require?

To much icecream

What does the teacher say about her own practice?
Does she think she is doing well?
Has she watched other teachers in other years?
Has she lots of behaviour tricks - such as marbles in a jar and get three and the kids get a time out treat - quick sing song and all that.
Would she be willing to have herself filmed so she can watch back.
How about not doing an ordinary lesson or ordinary timetabled day and instead do a fill day of active learning - art, sport, music, story time, PSHE, RE, speaking and listening for maths.
Really go off piste.
Or break up the class so she works with half of them and you work with half etc
Good luck

Timetochangeisnow - sounds rather familiar...

My sort-of-plan (ie the best idea I have) is to teach a demonstration lesson where there's actually some pace and positive feedback as that is what appears to be missing, and is what I think is at the root of the behaviour problems - the children are bored. I will then have a starting point for a discussion about how they were different for me and why she thinks that is.

In your situation, what do you think is causing the boy to struggle this year? What do you think it is that is different between your approach and that of this year's teacher? In my case, I think it's largely because I set very, very clear boundaries and don't accept any low level disruption. I also work hard on being very consistent and very fair. From what I've seen/heard, the teacher who inherits my class doesn't do this - there are far too many grey areas in her classroom and the children can't cope with it. I'm not saying I didn't have to keep on top of some of the children who are now giving her trouble, but because my expectations were very clear, the children lived up to them. Unfortunately, there are 3 boys in my current class who will eat her alive next year...

In terms of the pupils who don't seem bothered by threats or praise or authority, that's tricky. But the only children I've ever come across who genuinely didn't care were the ones I taught when I worked in an SEBD school. For me, it's all about establishing a relationship with the children. Getting to know them and what makes them tick. Spending time chatting to them. Finding something they do enjoy and building on that. I once had a boy arrive in my class who was spending half his week at the PRU. Fortunately my TA noticed the football shirt he was wearing when he came to look round and it happened to be the same team my DH & DS have season tickets for. So after each home game I'd bring in the latest match programme for him to read as a reward. I was very lucky with that one!

I also make a point of praising to the hilt any children who have the potential to be tricky, the minute they do something good/acceptable. That way I've got some positivity in the bank for when I need it later on!

Does that help at all?

Thank you. Would you mind me PMing you? Don't want to post anything remotely identifiable on a public thread!

Thank you for all your replies. I agree, me teaching her class feels like the best way forward as I think she genuinely doesn't realise how much better things will be if she changes her approach. Trouble is, I only get 1 day a week out of class and it's difficult/impossible to get my class covered at other times. Very small school...

she doesn't have year 2, but I changed the year group in an attempt to preserve anonymity... She hasn't been at our school long enough for us to know if she's a good teacher who's been ground down by her class and so can't see the woods for the trees, or if she has struggled for years.

In terms of other questions:

What does the teacher say about her own practice? When I talked to her about the first lesson I watched, she didn't seem able to reflect on it effectively.

Does she think she is doing well? Don't know - I haven't asked her that directly as the HT is talking about competency and I haven't wanted to muddy the water. I've kept my comments to the lesson I saw and the behaviour of the pupils I saw as that was my brief for being in there.

Has she watched other teachers in other years? Not since she joined us. We're trying to arrange cover so she can come and see me teach.

Has she lots of behaviour tricks - such as marbles in a jar and get three and the kids get a time out treat - quick sing song and all that. No I don't think she has. The HT and I have made lots of different suggestions but she either ignores them or tries them once and gives up.

Would she be willing to have herself filmed so she can watch back. We don't have the technology for that one unless it's on someone's iphone!!

How about not doing an ordinary lesson or ordinary timetabled day and instead do a fill day of active learning - art, sport, music, story time, PSHE, RE, speaking and listening for maths.
Really go off piste. I agree - I think the main problem is that she expects the children to be too passive and doesn't do anything really engaging. When we've been asked to contribute items for the school newsletter or shared displays, she hardly has anything whereas the other classes have done all sorts of things worth writing about. I've strongly urged her to think of a 1 hour lesson as 2x30 minutes or even 3x20 minutes in an attempt to get her involving the children in their learning more and so more engaged - lots of short, sharp activities. But I've seen no evidence of her doing any of that.

Or break up the class so she works with half of them and you work with half etc. That could be interesting - we could do parallel activities and then compare the work they produce.

Thank you all. I've never had to support anyone like this before - normally I just get on with teaching my class and enjoying their company. Prior to this I assumed all teachers do the sorts of things that I do to engage the children etc. I actually didn't realise there are people whose lessons are so boring!

At our school pm targets can not be linked directly to pupil progress. Our unions are strong on this but it is blatantly not fair. Are many of you in Academies ? These are the schools that seem to be getting a huge anountnof extra work e.g handing in planning, writing evaluations of lessons etc. Do any of your schools still rely on goodwill of staff, for extra curricular, fayres, trips etc cos surely that all goes when slg push you so far. I hope to god our Head never goes or we get a RI as some of your stories are horrific.

It sounds like you and school and doing well to support her, it's time for her to reflect.

Also she can watch my lessons, I'm boring, in fact I bore myself!

Boring is good sometimes. It's important. Sometimes things just need to be practiced - it's the only way to learn. But making children sit and listen to one person talking for 40 minutes at a time? Giving them tasks where they can't work out what they are supposed to be doing? I know I have lessons that bomb sometimes, but then I work out why they went wrong and what I could do differently next time.

Justtoobad - glad you think we're doing an OK job. I really don't want it to get to the stage of competency, but if she doesn't respond to support, I don't see what other option we will have.

Totally agree boredom shouldn't be through too much teacher talk, if the kids are busy they don't have time to be bored.