To ask teachers/school workers...

[twosmallones]

...whether the benefits of working term time only are worth it?
I work in a sales job 4 days a week as I have 2 pre-school age children. I commute 90 minutes each way 2 days per week and do 2 days per week at home, so the kids are in nursery 4 full days.
I have been considering various routes into teaching but I am feeling that leaving them in nursery 5 days a week, with no flexibility, is a lot. I obviously have to balance this with the fact I will get more time off during the year to spend with them however.
Has anyone else retrained as a teacher/TA etc post children and felt that it was a good option for them and their family?
Thanks in advance.

rollonthesummer See my post above, also, in relation to Manic's post, my children can't be in school as early as I arrive or as late as I stay. They cannot remain in school if they are sick. Unfortunately timetabling means that I always miss at least part of their music, drama, etc. shows, sports' days, and often all of them. My children's holidays are longer than mine (however my holidays are still long and this is a great perk - just saying that I have to get childcare for part of the holidays). I do have lots of admin. and paperwork to do although I admit it is probably less than a state school teacher. Also as I do not teach a practical subject I have LOTS of marking (and our class sizes are enormous). No subsidised housing - I could be a boarding house parent but not with the kids living there.

Sorry, my post above isn't meant to sound negative. I love my job, my kids love the school and I know I have it easier than many others who work in schools. But it isn't perfect. It depends us on each parent's situation.

Manic , please let us know when your school is recruiting! :D

I'm a TA and it is pretty family friendly. I only do the hours I am paid for, never come in early and leave on the dot. I never take work home - if I don't have sufficient time given to me for planning and assessment in school then it won't get done. I'm home by 4pm and the holidays are great.

Downsides are never getting to see my own children's assemblies, plays, sports days and the money. I work 32.5 hours and earn about £15k and that is top of the pay scale.

More family friendly than any other full time job but still not family friendly

Out of interest how big are your class sizes, Happy? I thought small classes were supposed to be one of the selling points.

I would look at actual job opportunities in your area.

A lot of school are having to lose staff due to reduced funding from the government.

I'm a governor at my dc's school and we have just had interviews for one TA job, we had over a hundred applicants.

I'm asking as I think you need to look at the whole picture, is there any point in retraining if at the end of it you are unable to get a job.

I am an assistant head and teach a 50% timetable in an independent school. I reckon I typically have 3 proper weeks off a year. I typically am in school from 8am to 4pm in the holidays and 6.45am to 5.45pm in term time. The first full weekend I had away from school since Easter was last weekend. Doesn't help my job is much more than being a bog-standard teacher! I would have a better work life balance doing a 'normal' job!

I am guessing that we are fairly atypical from the comments on here, but dh has never worked excessively at weekends or in holidays and neither have I, although I am very part time at the moment. It was more splitting my headspace between home and work that did my head in for the short time i had dd as a baby and worked full time. I am quite adept at working out which paperwork is actually necessary though and dh is now deputy head at a large secondary school. It is possible to have work life balance and dh is very mindful of the fact that both his parents were teachers and of the aspects of that he disliked.

noblegiraffe 29 or 30 in KS3 and KS4 (bottom sets in KS4 more like 22, 24) and then anything up to 22 in KS5 - mine is a popular subject so we are always at least 20 in a class, but for other subjects it's only 12 or 15 in a KS5 class.

Pile 'em high!

Clutter, before I returned to teaching, I did 18mths as a TA. I got the 4th job I went for even though I'm a well qualified teacher with very good refs. Almost all the other applicants were also qualified teachers with young children. Feedback was that others got the jobs because they were KS1 trained and that was often were the TA was needed. I mainly teach upper KS2. I walked right into a teaching post I wanted first interview but TA jobs are ridiculously competitive.

This is a very interesting thread, gives people a proper insight into teachers daily lives vs a blanket cry of 'too much work!' which can be applied to many professions and be excused as not knowing what other careers entail etc.

I already appreciate my sons Reception class teacher (& his early years educator) soooo much, and this just adds to it :)

She came on in the second term as an NVQ (?) and had to follow a much loved teacher with masses of experience, in a school where the culture is super hard for a newbie as there is an assumption of the traditions and conventions which are not articulated or written. So the newbie teacher had to lead the newbie parents, poor thing!

Anyway I just wanted to say, her dedication, skill and talent saw her through and I really hope she knows what a difference she has made in the life of my DS, but also me too.

Fabulous woman - if there was any way Ds could stay with her I'd do it!!! Bribery... Blackmail... Kidnap...

I'm mourning her already :( if any of the teachers on here are even half as good as her, you need saluting, and I hope you realise that there will be parents in your classes saying the same as me, all across the country.

Ps I bought her nice stationery, I hope you lot are right about the general trend for the teacher-stationery love affair!

There are several teachers in my DS class (primary). They all seem to get time off for their DC special assemblies so maybe some schools are more flexible on that. Also many schools do evening plays now too so you should at least get to see one a year? I know one teacher who works job share days and she swaps her days with other teacher to get to watch school events.

Some schools are more flexible. But many schools still have day time performances only esp in EY & KS1.

I have job shared but wouldn't have been able to swap as I couldn't just swap the days my children were at nursery. Childcare isn't that flexible in that respect. My job share was in the same position. Lots of p/t teacher are p/t because they have quite young children so would be in the same position.

I've just returned to teaching secondary English pt having had 5 yrs off as a sahm. It isn't easy work, I drop dcs with childminder at 7.30am and generally dive out of work to pick them up by 4.30 - if I don't have a meeting!

I'm a single mum so get home from work asap and spend the eve doing mum stuff, then when dcs are in bed I can get marking etc done. Luckily as they are little, they are in bed by 7.30 still!

Also, as they go to the dad eow, I have a whole weekend to myself which is generally used for marking and planning.

It is chaotic with the lack of flexibility, esp if they are ill and I struggle to find childcare. Had to take 1 day unpaid off this year for that. My parents help out when I have to do late night parents eves - they get dcs from school , do tea , put them to bed as I won't be home till about 8pm - approx 7 nights across the year.

My school have been great with allowing a morning off for an assembly, an afternoon for nativity and an afternoon for sports day. Exh has had to do other events - and so he should share these anyway.

It isn't easy , but then if I worked in any other job my dcs would still not see me for the same hrs, and I always know I'm only ever 7 weeks from at least a week of fun with them :0)

Happy interesting. Our top sets are bigger (33 next year!) but our bottom sets smaller (10ish at KS4). We max out our top sets to get our bottom sets that small. 24 in a bottom set sounds horrendous, but I suppose your bottom sets aren't as interesting as ours.

22 at KS5 is awful. I had that last year and the marking took forever. I barely knew them by the end of the year.

Noble, how does your school justify 'maxing out' the top set to allow such a small bottom set. It is because it's seen as better to get as many Cs as possible rather push for A? So is a couple if As, a spread of Bs and most others a C better than more if those Bs getting As and As if it means less getting a C? Hope that makes sense!

I'm interested because I've only returned to f/t this year and when it came to sats booster classes I was told not to bother with the class to boost L4s to L5s but rather to spend both sessions with the 3/4 borderline children. A few years ago it seemed both were important now there seems more emphasis on making sure the borderline pass children get the 'required' rather than making sure they all reach their potential.

We've got 9 sets! The top two sets will get A*s and As, so it's not at their expense. We require an A to study maths at A-level, so we certainly wouldn't want A grade students to drop to a B as we need our numbers for sixth form.

Our C/D borderline kids are in sets 6 and 7, those classes have about 25. Our borderline kids also get intervention and tutoring.

Our bottom set has no chance of getting a C. Keeping them going for two years is pretty tough.

Progress measures mean that we need every kid to make as much progress as possible, so we can't just focus on borderline kids. But the headline measure that most parents look at is the A*-C figure inc Maths and English (I'm maths), and there's also the government floor target, so the borderline groups get a lot of extra attention. Kids who don't get a C also have to resit in Y12, so the C is a more important grade than a B.

Thanks. I guess it's the middling kids I worry about. Even at primary, there's lots of support for the less able and good teachers always push their most able bug I think in a lot of classes esp where TA support is lacking then the large group in the middle are the ones less likely to meet their potential.

Marking isn't the only contributor to workload though, is it? I mark way more than a PE teacher, but they do loads of extra curricular stuff, including shuttling kids across the country on a weekend for matches.
When I have top set, I have a load of marking. When I have bottom set, I have hardly any marking, but a load of planning. I don't think you can judge a teacher's workload by how much marking they take home.

Yes that's a rubbish way to judge workload! Whole units of work differentiated for the multiple needs of students can be produced on an iPad, reports can be done on your home computer, one document might be easily tucked in a bag but take the whole evening to digest.

Yes a friend is a PE teacher. He runs lots of sports activities after school and supports kids who have real sports potential to achieve at county level. He loves sports, and being a PE teacher seems to be a lifestyle for him.

Lovely post from MiscellaneousAssortment Please move to Spain before your son hits Year 7 and send him to my school (secondary) :D

soverylucky I see where you're coming from and as an English teacher I feel particularly sorry for myself where marking is concerned. However, on the other hand, I have reading lessons with Years 7 and 8 which my colleagues in other subjects don't have.

My friend at school is a Music teacher and her lessons are absolutely full-on, scrambling around plugging in keyboard cables, adjusting drum sets, demonstrating Gregorian plainchant, etc. and she has to run lunchtime and afterschool clubs but she literally never seems to work outside of the school day unless it's report writing time. This makes me a little envious, to be honest. Not so much envious of her free time but envious of her efficiency as I know her lessons are very well planned; she must work at the speed of light!