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've had quite a few jobs in my time, from the extremely well paid to the very little appreciation kind, and they ALL without exception have challenges.

However, few jobs are as hard as teaching these days.

I started teaching in the seventies, when the whole country was failed and ill educated, as OFSTED would tell us. Somehow, miraculously, people who went through state schools in the seventies managed to become barristers, surgeons - even OFSTED inspectors. However it happened, it happened without beating teachers into lives of misery.

I took break from teaching for many years, and then went back. For a while I couldn't quite take in what a horror of a job it had become.

In another job I had, not teaching, one man became so pressured and distressed because of the ridiculously excessive demands on him that he did eventually kill himself. Please - as my 90 year old mother once shouted at me when I was getting myself in a state in the same workplace hell-hole - NO JOB IS WORTH MAKING YOURSELF ILL! If you are really wretched - just don't go to work until you feel better. Really - stay at home. Go and see your doctor instead. And use the time to look for something else, or part time. No-one has any duty to make themselves ill for a job, or expect anyone else to, and frankly, it is crackers to think otherwise. Believe me, the moment the school had no further need of you and they legally could get rid of you, you would be out, no matter how committed you are to the children and that teaching is a vocation blah, etc. - and quite right as a use of public funds, too. So keep that in mind. When the chips are down, it is actually just a job - hours of work and skill you have contracted to sell. If you are ill you don't go to work - that's in the contract.

Sometimes you can't do a job, etc, - you actually can't go on, no matter how worried you are about what will happen if you don't. Amazingly things usually turn out OK for people - yes, you get frightened and you feel that the worst has happened, but then you find something else, you adjust, something turns up and you realise that actually you have just been banging your head against a wall for a very long time and it is nice when you stop. Easy to say, I know, - but largely true nonetheless.

Having retired now, I do not wish I had spent more time marking or preparing lessons. I do not miss my very high flying jobs at all. In fact I very rarely think about work at all and I have not the slightest doubt that the people and students I worked with very rarely think about me, no matter how much we liked each other. We are not irreplaceable and one day we all get dispensed with anyway. I have less money and I manage on it and am more than happy. I hope you can be too.

I am part time at the moment. I look at my full times colleagues and wonder how they do it. I can't ever see myself being able to manage to go full time again. Frankly the paper work and everything else is overwhelming - wishihadacat explains it so well.

Could you go part time? - I have found my dreams have stopped now at least! I find I have also gained perspective and I am quite selective about how much time and effort I put into certain jobs, that don't directly benefit the children.

Either that or take a year out to retrain and in the meantime do year of supply around your studies to cover the bills.

I'm interested by those suggesting the OP tries the private sector. In my experience it was just as demanding. Longer days, often Saturdays in school and some Sunday mornings too. The classes were 1/3 smaller, sure, but the children were, to use a mn phrase, "entitled" and the parents were phenomenally demanding. There were no real schemes of work to follow, just an end of term assessment to give me a clue what the school wanted me to teach (and this was in Y3. Those little children had a whole week of assessments at the end of every term.)

Not all private schools are like that but you need to be bloody careful before assuming it to be easier. Having said that, I'm now pt in the state sector and I still spend every day feeling crap at my job!!

www.teachers.org.uk/files/teachers-and-workload-survey-report-september-2014.pdf

I find this depressing reading :-(

Where I work, everyone is fed up and wanting to leave too. A few have quit already this year and we're still in the first term. It is a nightmare!

I always feel sorry for people when the main wage earner is a teacher. The job is not sustainable long term. It's just too intense and stressful

Most of my colleagues want to leave too

Would your family be up for an adventure? What about looking into jobs abroad? British teachers are highly valued in Middle East and Asia. Better pay, less paperwork, longer holidays. Might be the change you need?

?ould you be a specialist teacher? I know my area are desperate for visual impairment teachers for example. I will pm you my exit strategy which is keeping me sane for now...

OP you are absolutely NBU. I left 3 years ago, was Primary too and in an SLT position, the pressure drove me crazy and I began to dread each day. I now work in a university project/policy/administration role that is education focused. The pay is slightly lower (£1.5k less) than my teaching salary. If you want to get out you can but if you can hang on until the mortgage renewal perhaps and plot yr escape in the meantime maybe that would be worthwhile. Can your partner look for a better paid job to give you some slack? (sorry don't know circumstances)

Have you considered librarianship? I am a University Librarian and as part of my job have to run training sessions and do quite a lot of standing up in front of people and talking. I help lots of people in the day (but don't issue books) plus get to work on projects etc. Sometimes it's really creative and fun. I am professionally qualified, but having been a teacher would really help you as we do lots of training and teaching. If you are academic, would you consider further study to work in teacher training or some kind of academic job such as researcher or lecturer?

Try teaching in a private school? Smaller classes, better behaved kids...

This is not necessarily true! I work with school on a voluntary basis and the only badly behaved class we had was from a private school.

I suggest supply teaching-it is what I did.
Teachers are leaving in droves-it isn't the job it was.

sorry-schools not school.

I'm interested by those suggesting the OP tries the private sector. In my experience it was just as demanding.

I talked to one in a private school recently. It is swings and roundabouts-she had more freedom but found the parents very demanding-they are paying, so they want results (whether the child is capable or not!)

I'm not reading the thread as I can imagine how it's gone - but no YANBU. I don't no anyone that would stay in this so called career anymore if they had the choice. My local area are on another bloody cost cutting exercise. Voluntary redundancy has been mentioned and to be honest I think I'll jump at it depending on the figures. I'm early 40's with over 2 decades in the job - not exactly in the bracket they want shot of.

No job is worth crying every day and you are certainly not alone. I know loads of teachers who are desperate to leave and plenty who have left; taken early retirement, lots into supply, two into property development, one running their own business, one to run a pub, even. Nobody I know who has done it said it was a mistake or that they are finding it just as hard doing something else. And when I catch up with them or bump into them they look incredible - 10 years younger.

Get out while you can, OP, and good luck.

Typed a long reply and then mums net crashed - you are not beig unreasonable at all.
I left this year after 15 years and my husband says it is like getting me back after some tough times.
I work full time and so some extra freelance work to bump up my income and I still work fewer hours than when I was 0.6.
I don't need the holidays like I did when I was teaching as I am not on my knees with tiredness/ stress and when I'm on holiday, I don't have to worry about work AT ALL!
I realised when I was looking for an alternative job that I have a multitude of skills that apply outside of teaching - planning, reporting, interaction, ability to multitask to name a few.
Good luck with your decision x

I'm early 40's with over 2 decades in the job - not exactly in the bracket they want shot of.

You're probably exactly who smt want shot of-you're expensive!

And I apologise for all the typos - I am literate honest lol

No, they are trying to push people like me into management posts or learning support, as they can't get anyone with the relevant experience to apply for these posts.

They want to keep experienced teachers who still have a couple if decades left in them but shed the inexperienced and those who in the good old days would have left at 55 anyway.

I have made the decision recently to stay in teaching as I can't come up with an alternative that doesn't have its own pitfalls and stresses. However I dread the thought of dealing with appalling behaviour, verbal abuse and relentless disrespect that I experience daily in the rural secondary I currently work in when I'm in my 60s.

Not at my school! The head excepted, all the management are about 30. 80% of the staff are in their 20s. There are a handful of 55+ -two on capability. 7 left in July.

My head wants cheap malleable NQTs.

I feel for you OP- that was me 3 years ago. I left teaching and honestly haven't looked back. My evenings and weekends are my own again and my husband is pleased to have his wife back. My health is also a lot better! There are lots of options out there although it may take a pay cut initially to make the jump.

My head wants cheap malleable NQTs - this is sadly the case in many schools and IMO certain other "powers that be"s opinion. Whilst I have every respect for the fresh ideas NQTs bring, there needs balance between experienced and younger teachers. I, cynically, feel its a case of "get them cheap, squash them to how we want them, grind them down, then get rid of them when they burn out" then start all over again!

OP I am leaving at Christmas for all of the reasons above. I love teaching and my class are delightful but I am burnt out. I work so hard and don't even feel like I'm treading water. I also never see my kids, always hassle them to hurry up as I've got to get to work/start marking etc. After Christmas though am working supply so hopefully can go in, teach, mark and leave. Not justify my existence constantly. Good luck with what you decide.

I agree that teaching is completely different to what it was forty years ago. In those days, I was more or less given carte blanche to teach what I liked when I liked. I could let my pupils run with a topic all day, or all week if it was producing good learning and good results. I had hardly any forms to fill in and merely the register to take twice a day. It was fun, it was the best job in the world. One used one's instinct and one's creativity to the full. I loved it passionately and (this is honestly true) couldn't wait for the Autumn term to start, to get my new class and get stuck in with all those lovely children. We were trusted to teach without interference from anyone. Nowadays, if you sneeze it has to be documented in triplicate.

I'm wondering OP if you'd consider Teaching English as a Foreign Language (It used to be called TEFL but that may have changed now) You'd have adult classes of not too many students and if you're at all linguistically minded you may find it interesting and rewarding. There are so many people now who need English tuition that there might be several opportunities out there for you.