To wonder why so many teachers want to quit

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Inspired by other threads but I didn't want to derail.

What is going on in education that is making teaching so stressful?

I work in the City and you don't see too many people quitting with stress even though the work can be stressful. Certainly, not the numbers you see in teaching.

So, Nicky, if you're reading this (some hope), why did you bin the Workload Survey?

Pay rise is supposedly dependent on performance management reviews. I have had no pay progression for three years despite achieving all targets and being told I am an outstanding teacher. Reason given is there is no money without the children losing out. Today I spent over £30 of my own money to buy resources so I can deliver the lessons I want to just for the first week back next half term. Over the course of a year I can spent £200-300 easily just on resources. No-one claims mileage when going to courses - apart from one member of staff who came from abroad and thought we were mad.
If we have a child with a 'statement' the school now has to fund the first £10,000. We don't have that sort of money so a class will lose a TA.

We have a Chinese assistant (teacher in China) one day a week as part of a cultural exchange and she has repeatedly said she can't believe how hard teachers work in England. She refuses to work during her break and lunch and goes at 3.30.

Too many schools are run as the personal fifedoms of the head, the DofE is run as the personal fifedom of Michael Gove (still) far too much policy is implemented without any research.

Working conditions are stressful and yet pay per hour is not great when you work out that the number of hours isnt actually the 33 a week ( for 39 weeks of the year) that you are paid.

Oh and whoever said about the perfectionism, yes thats right, too many people do exactly as they are told, and do all the work.

I'm oustanding according to OFSTED, but I find ways round things, Just in Time management is one, peer and self assessment is another (green pens).

One of the things about this statistic is that there are lots leaving in the first five years. Well thats sad because after 5 years it gets easier, you can pull lessons and resources out that you've used before, you can run lessons off the top of your head without writing them down, you become quicker at the marking.

Being a new teacher is flipping hard work, but it gets better generally.

On the personal fifedom thing, a school I worked at the head made threats to the staff about Union membership as well as all sorts of things about pay and conditions.

In the middle of this meeting I asked her if She had been able to find a way to circumvent the European Human Rights act and equal pay act, I was a trouble maker for pointing out that was she was proposing was illegal!

If so many teachers are leaving in droves then surely at some point Nicky Morgan or someone in the government is going to ask the same question as the OP. How much worse does it need to get?

I know this is the internet, but "fifedom" made me laugh. I think you mean fiefdom.

There is currently a thread on malapropisms www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2492795-misuse-of-words-light-hearted?dod=1

Brokenhearted55a you compare teaching to law and doctors in terms of the levels of hard work and stress involved. Which having friends who work in both areas I would agree with. However the renumeration side can be vastly different, I have friends with the same years experience in there jobs whose part time salary far out weighs what my full time one used to be. This isn't a moan about how poorly paid teachers are, I left the private sector to retrain, but it does get annoying to be compared to high level stress jobs who are rewarded for that stress in their pay.

'Why do you find it useful to meet every parent?'

I'm good at reading people. Meeting a parent gives me additional information about the child and their life outside the school, even if the parent/s say very little. Sometimes the meeting is helpful and informative to the parent as well.

You would think so wouldn't you shebird? But that's where this current lot of Tories are so terrifying. They appear to possess almost no ability to reflect on how their policies affect Real People. They just don't seem to understand that lives are affected by their decisions. With the hugely priviliged Nicky Morgan in charge there isn't a hope of any change. She's not capable of understanding how policies affect schools, teachers, kids...... she simply doesn't have the life experience.

' you can pull lessons and resources out that you've used before, you can run lessons off the top of your head without writing them down, you become quicker at the marking. '

Except in my primary, I was expected to plan at the same level of detail as an NQT, despite my experience, and our files were checked weekly.
Let's not even think about marking with two different colours and a next step and whatnot for every piece of work done. And having to read it to a child who wasn't able to read the comment yet.
The skills you mention get a full work-out on supply, there are very few classes I walk into where I haven't taught that specific aspect of the subject at least three times and I access the appropriate box in my brain and off we go.

"Over the course of a year I can spent £200-300 easily just on resources. No-one claims mileage when going to courses - apart from one member of staff who came from abroad and thought we were mad."

She's right of course - well, you're not mad (you're doing a generous thing for a good reason) but what you are doing is ultimately very counterproductive. You're effectively masking the extent of the problem, and the real impacts of government policy (I know this sort of thing has been going on for years and it's not just Tory policy we are talking about, but things have clearly got exponentially worse in the last 5 years).

It's also wrong from the purely personal and moral point of view that you should spend chunks of what is not an especially glorious salary in the first place.

I have friends in the police and they also say morale is at an all time low. Like teachers they are expected to do more with less and face constant scrutiny and public apathy. Lots of good experienced police have left or thinking of leaving.

It is worrying that this government is hell bent on destroying the most important things in this country and the general public are oblivious

At the risk of a huge flaming, and as a post which is intended to address the balance rather than contribute to or start a confrontation on here, my job has been made easier rather than harder by Gove and the current government.

What do you do Unlikely?

In what way Unlikely?

I like parent's evenings both as a teacher and a parent- it is a partnership and you can't have a good one if you don't even know the other person.

ultimately very counterproductive
Precisely
Also, as I said lower down the thread, teachers who leave to become supply teachers but still late to do al the unnecessary marking because they feel sorry for the regular teacher' mean that things will never change.
Also new NQTs who are trying to impress and can work all hours because they have no DCs - making the job now incompatible with having a family.

I agree with parents evenings too. It's 2 way communication and you can quickly find out important information to help children learn. Maybe it's more useful in primary than secondary.

Reports on the other hand.....

I mark like a supply teacher, not a class teacher. Ticks and spellings and misconceptions on the lesson I taught. I don't do learning points, I mark in one colour and I note 'marked by supply teacher'.
Half the time of real marking, sometimes less.

I was thinking primary rather than secondary with parent's evenings. 5 mins in a hall with lots of different teachers isn't very useful.
Reports in primary are a waste of time, they tell you nothing these days and the only interesting part is the final, general comment.
When I started teaching they were good- we just wrote about the child.

As a supply teacher I marked properly- it is part of the job.

What do you do unlikely?

Mehitabel - I will happily disclose I can only really speak confidently about the impacts to English and English teaching.

I was Head of English and had been for three years in 2013 when I heard that Gove was changing the system we had worked with for years. The two changes made were firstly, that repeated entries for GCSE English would not count in terms of a school's results: many schools were entering Year 10 students, then re-entering those who did not get a C or above in November and then finally for those who still hadn't managed a C in the summer of Year 11.

This meant many sneaked through but the huge disadvantage was that it had an enormously detrimental effect on those who achieved Cs but should have been getting A*s, As and Bs.

The other change made was removing the speaking and listening (which had previously been 20% of a student's grade) from the specification, or more accurately, it no longer counted towards a student's results. As such, the layout of the AQA English Language and English papers stopped being 40% coursework, 20% S & L and 40% examination and became 60% examination, 40% coursework.

Now, the things I am in favour of are as follows: I am pleased coursework has been removed. The ridiculous situation, every year, in March, April and even May of English teachers running around looking harassed and careworn whilst smirking students wandered around quite happily, was crazy! There was always the risk of it getting lost (I am sure others will now inform me I must have worked in exceptionally disorganised schools but I have yet to have a year go by when someone's folder hasn't mysteriously vanished - always to turn up in the most unlikely place of course, but the stress this causes is horrific!) and then there's the task of getting it out of them in the first place: fine if you have reasonably well-motivated students but not if you don't. Plus, many schools had a tendency to spend a disproportionate amount of time on coursework and endless redrafts and revisits - technically not allowed but did happen - dull for students, unpleasant and stressful for the teacher, who also has to mark it if we are speaking of workload!

I am also in favour of the emphasis being on progress rather than on the 'C' or numerical equivalent. Too many bright students were not achieving their potential; too many students with lower attainment were being ignored because a c was not in their grasp. I feel this system is fairer and ultimately less stressful.

Of course, it isn't perfect and I have some criticism of it but it is far better, I feel, to our previous system and actually reduces workload for teachers overall (though at the moment we are of course all grappling with new texts and new systems.)

Agree about progress rather than raw results - the gaming on in our local dire comp was horrific.
If repeated re-sits actually help the kids, there might be ab argument for it - but the fact that as soon as it not longer improved school results it was dropped speaks volumes.

'As a supply teacher I marked properly- it is part of the job.'

What happens when you haven't completed the marking by chucking out time...6pmish?
One of the things I also enjoy is the fact I can't take work home with me, because I could be 40 miles away tomorrow.