AIBU to want to leave teaching?

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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!

Although I do feel back to my normal self in the main since leaving my permanent job, I also worry that teaching has given me permanent problems with anxiety - I've a constant feeling that I'm not good enough and any slight stress makes me feel ill. I went into teaching a confident and relaxed 27 year old and had none of these issues.
I also wanted to say to all you primary teachers at the end of your tether - the parents of your pupils DO appreciate you. I can't speak highly enough of my son's teacher - she is marvellous and I so appreciate all the work she does.

I am leaving at Christmas. Never thought I would hand my notice in mid year but I can't continue. Not sleeping, feel sick, crying at weird times seemingly out of nowhere (not a crier until fairly recently) and I have that horrible racing feeling in my chest.

I'm a damn good teacher who has been doing the job for years (with breaks for family/maternity.). I'm a strong person who generally copes with 'stuff' but I've had it. I can't do it anymore and I'm so sad about it.

I am fortunate as we can, for a short time, manage on our savings and DH's salary whilst I gather myself and decide what to do next.

It's rubbish and I really feel for you OP. I hope you are able to start planning an exit strategy soon.

Lostinmusic, I have a dear friend who left too due to the stress (different school but same LA) Even now she's a nervous wreck, can't handle problems, can't deal with authority etc. She shakes like a leaf when visiting her doctor or even shopping. She's had therapy, but teaching absolutely derailed her mental health.

I also wanted to say to all you primary teachers at the end of your tether - the parents of your pupils DO appreciate you. I can't speak highly enough of my son's teacher - she is marvellous and I so appreciate all the work she does.

I wish that were true everywhere. I have had an email complaint about me this week saying I'd let the class out late on Tuesday (about 3 minutes late as one child wanted up give out birthday sweets and only told me he had them at the nth hour.) I also had a mother hysterical at me last week because I'd lost her son's brand new (unnamed) jumper.

I cannot wait to go.

Exactly, rollon. When I read threads on here from posters whingeing about minor things perceived to be happening in their DC's classes, and everybody else piles in saying it's "outrageous" and advising to "go straight to the Head" and so forth, and I think "You have no f*ing idea the stress we are under."

I have a new TA this year, very bright, efficient, capable and pretty good at multi-tasking, yet she commented recently that she was staggered at how much we teachers have to deal with on a daily basis. She said that looking in as "just" a parent previously, she had had no idea. I've always likened it to spinning plates, with us chasing around from one end to the other, trying to stop any from falling. Whereas 20 years ago, we might have had 30 to spin, nowadays it's more like 50, with a baying crowd of people around us ready to pounce if just one starts to wobble.

YANBU.
I worked as a T.A at a biggish primary school until very recently (left to be a SAHM), I worked with a teacher who was getting to the same point and had enough of the whole environment; the observations, the paperwork, the fear of god put into her about the displays not being to standard. She loved being a teacher but felt the actual "teaching" part was being marginalized by all the above things and she was definitely not alone in her opinion. It was a horrible place to be, didn't help the head teacher and "senior management" team were a bunch of well, I won't use the word I want to so will substitute it with idiots, with stupid expectations of their staff and were not adverse to actually telling the staff off like naughty children, not adults. More than once teachers would end up in tears in the staff room due to comments head or senior management said, even some of the hardened vets.

To add to that my Aunt was a high school math's teacher and she took early retirement because she'd had enough of the whole system and couldn't hack it anymore.

So I know where you're coming from OP, I also agree if TA's were paid more it is a fantastic job, I did enjoy most of it (but even we had a mountain of paperwork where I worked and had no time to complete it other than taking it home to finish) I hope you manage to sort something out OP and can get to doing something you enjoy as I sympathise with you (and any other teachers on this thread) greatly

rollon, you hadn't lost the flaming jumper! It didn't have a label and her son ought to have been looking after it. WTF is wrong with people?

What I do not understand - and I am neither a troll nor goady - is why so many people still want to become teachers.

There are countless threads on here and articles in newspapers, blogs etc about how intolerable the profession has become. But people are still applying to become teachers. The PGCE and Access to Teaching courses at my local FE college are full. Several women I know have started retraining to be primary school teachers now their own children have started school.

How come the new trainees don't know what they are letting themselves in for?

Why did your heart sink humble pie? Not with horror at my audacity I hope!

Souhjnds like we should be recruiting teaches based on staying power, good mental health, stoicism and strength more than academics.

The post above is right - more people want to become teachers than there are places for them at present.

The person with a challenging class could try moving schools. I know my children's father moved from state to private sector and said he'd never go back. We got school fees for one child of only 15% at the school too and for a short period school accommodation, outdoor swimming pool in isolated beautiful grounds which hardly anyone else used at weekends etc etc.

rubyflipper that would be me. And I still want to try.

In my experience of mentoring probationer teachers of all ages and from all previous backgrounds, because nobody believes how bad it really is until you're in there, trained and doing the job.

And there's the "that won't be me" brigade along with the "I want to make a difference" troup.

Safely we all started there but being there at the chalkface there's only so much crap you can put up with and so many times you can bounce back.

Souhjnds like we should be recruiting teaches based on staying power, good mental health, stoicism and strength more than academics

There was nothing wrong with my mental health for the first 12 years of my teaching career. There's been nothing wrong with it since I left for alternative employment either.

Actually, there's a whacking great recruitment crisis nationally, rubyflipper.

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/23/teacher-training-shortfall-recruitment-coalition

& retention's even worse - 40% bail less than 5 years in. You'd think that even the most hawkish teacher basher would recognise that this is massively inefficient - nearly half of the workforce are leaving, having been trained & mentored at vast cost, just as they're becoming sufficiently experienced to be really effective.

& in fact it's worse than that, because a largish proportion of the 'survivors' are taking up promoted posts which take them out of the classroom a good deal.

So your frontline classroom teachers are increasingly the cannon fodder in their early 20s.

Ultimately, I worry about dropping dead on the job (or just running amock one day & beating the HT to death with his own Goble!) but I can always quit & find another job.

I'm even more seriously concerned about the quality of education my own dc - just starting to transfer to secondary so right in the thick of it - will experience.

My mental health hasn't suffered and I dare say I could get on with it continuing to advance my career. I might have a change of heart and take a permanent position if the right school came up.

However, I'm not a martyr. I won't sacrifice the time I have with my family. I'll never get that time back and I don't want to regret it.

As a side note, I have also been virtually stalked by a parent recently when I did a long term supply contract. Making up all sorts of lies about me, claiming she knew me before I started working there - I've never met her before, I've recently moved to the town I live in - quizzing children/parents about me, writing emails - I could go on but there is so much.

I've realised I have no protection from it. Luckily the parents of the class rallied round and defended me but it was a continuous attack which still goes on. It's bizarre. I could talk to my union, but what could they do realistically.

It's utterly bemusing as to why she has taken against my face so much although I think I know why she has, but really the potential for damage is huge. I still supply regularly for the school which must incense her.

Why did your heart sink humble pie? Not with horror at my audacity I hope
at having prepared a plan, and had it totally ignored by the supply teacher. sorry. one part of my inner self must still be in the classroom

Sounds like we should be recruiting teachers based on staying power, good mental health, stoicism and strength
I stayed 20 years. I served my time.

a dear friend who left ...due to the stress...Even now she's a nervous wreck, can't handle problems, can't deal with authority etc. She shakes like a leaf when visiting her doctor or even shopping. She's had therapy, but teaching absolutely derailed her mental health
Ah, you know me. What, you don't? Then I'm not alone.

Teaching isn't the problem. Children aren't the problem. Pushy parents aren't the problem. Weak management who have been appointed way beyond their level of competence are a huge contributory factor to the problem. The other aspect is government bureaucracy which exists for ... no good reason I can imagine.

If HTs suddenly said enough was enough, that they were going to trust their teachers; throw away the majority of paperwork; ignore league tables, stop playing the game of results manipulation and allow everyone to come to school to get the most from it that they can I promise you this problem would not exist.

As it stands I see schools being run by psychopathic narcs who talk about empowering children but have no understanding of how to manage or lead their staff. (A free stale croissant in the staff room once a term is not team building or inspirational).

A teacher who has been bullied, over worked and made to feel worthless is not going to be the best person teaching anyone's child yet in classrooms up and down the country that's what's is going to happen tomorrow.

A sad situation isn't it?

Humble, I see what you mean! No what I meant was when I am left the file containing the weekly plans in detail which only those who were involved in writing it would be able to interprete! With no guide as to where the children had actually got as far as. Also the master plan often includes ICT/ White board stuff....hard to do if the teacher has taken her laptop with the relevant stuff on or no one knows her password.
Any personal notes or things to cover left specifically by the teacher I do try to cover, honest!

Although I do also use my common sense... Eg no way am I going to waste my time going around with a clipboard asking EY children what they could do to get better at.....playing in the sand.
It was this sort of nonsense that made me realise I had to leave full time teaching.

Humble, 20 years is something new young teachers with"staying power" won't be able to do. I am seeing teachers leave after their NQT year. A teacher with 15 years of experience at one of my schools is leaving at Christmas as "there are only so many times you can cope with being told you are not good enough anymore and you are not making quick enough progress to be good"
Another superb teacher I know well was a finalist in the teaching awards in her NQT year ten years or so ago. She is one of the best infant teachers I have ever worked with. She is now off with stress and doesn't want to carry on teaching anymore. An enormous loss to the profession.

I could tell you how good I used to be but people who know me read MN and might not agree......I'm going back some years...

These stories are just awful.

Will Gove 2-sorry, Nicky Morgan- actually read any of those teacher workload surveys we filled in...

This is serious stuff though-what is happening to us?! :(

Sigh. I dont think I can return - but yet even with 2 v.good degrees I dont know where to jump next. Self esteem has taken a battering and I'm no longer a fresh faced graduate.

I too fear for my childrens education.