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.

Just to add a more positive view - I love teaching secondary humanities and it fits really well with my family life in that I can get home at a reasonable time (5ish) and do any remaining marking/planning after bedtime (but that is only once or twice a week). I definitely don't work as hard as some people of this thread seem to, but after 10 years teaching I have found a little niche which suits me very well, only sixth-form, and I do still spend a few hours on Sunday afternoon marking essays. I have all Alevel classes and mostly or over 20, all doing an essay a week so there's no getting round that.

But I think the trick is that I have only Alevel so am not spread thinly - planning lots of different lessons, going to multiple parents' evenings, being expected to do all manner of interventions. Also, I am only a classroom teacher and have no responsibilities other than my classes and my tutor group. I absolutely love it! In the past I have taught all ages and had various responsibilities and I would have found those jobs utterly overwhelming now I have small children.

Of course, I'm very lucky to have been allowed to do an only Alevel role and that was only really because I had worked there for a while.

The downside of my lovely streamlined job is that I don't earn as much as I used to and spend it all on childcare at the moment!

Oh, and my life is made hugely easier by living 10 minutes walk from work... I don't think I'd love it so much if I had an hour's commute at either end of the day.

Music teachers at my school are as busy with extra curricular as the PE department! Choirs, orchestra, wind bands, summer concert, Christmas concert, band competitions and so on.

I have no local support network so for me it is a great job. I work part time, pick my DD up 4 days of the 5 in term time and am off for 13 weeks in the year. I earn about £37k pro rata so actually get about £22k for the hours worked. There is a lot of work to be done at the start and I would say on top of my working and paid hours, I probably work on average another 10 a week in the evenings and weekends, sometimes more. It is worth it though.

I'm part time. I get paid for 3 days a week equivalent but am timetabled to teach every day. I get bits and bobs of time off here and there, but this is different each week due to a two week timetable. I work about 40 hours a week term time and am on about 21k. If I didn't have an extremely cheap, flexible and understanding childminder, I wouldn't be able to do it.

teaching isn't a family friendly job at all, the hours are so long.

And you need to go in during the holidays too, it isn't just the case that work during the holidays can be done at home.

For as long as I can remember, lessons have continued throughout the Easter holidays, voluntary for students, but not for teachers.

The holidays are not paid, contrary to what is often said, you salary is just split evenly over 12 months. Some schools pay a bit extra for some holiday lessons in some circumstances, but you can never guarantee it, and if you are paying childcare, it all adds up.

The situation has steadily worsened. I am not teaching now, because I NEVER saw my kids. I am a TA. But the school I am currently in expects teachers to be taking these extra lessons most Saturdays between February and May, as well as throughout half terms, and even on bank holidays.

and of course, the summer holidays you have to empty and clean your rooms, change all the displays, update all the files, etc, easily two weeks full time in school, in addition to everything you take home.

Totallybewildered I don't recognise what you describe at all! If anyone told us to clean our rooms they'd have trouble showing where that is listed in the terms and conditions. There's certainly a hope that you take classes for study, but have never been made to do Saturday or Easter. The staff in the school you worked in really needed some union meetings.
In many ways the worst part of the workload most teachers have is that is isnt forced on you by employers, it's something you do from your own professionalism.

I know what you mean Iggi. As a teacher there is no way I would have held lessons on the bank holidays, no way, but in the school I am currently in as a TA, all the staff do it. I would have point blank refused.

One school I taught in made some Saturdays compulsory for teachers though, which was very very hard, as a single parent with no weekend child care.

The holidays are not paid, contrary to what is often said, you salary is just split evenly over 12 months

I'm supply so don't have a permanent contract but I've seen this a few times. It is illegal to not pay 5.6 weeks holiday a year.

That means that not all leave will be paid but employers have to pay some.