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.

In primary supply you are covering for the teacher and what they would be doing that day. The work has to be marked by someone- hardly fair to leave it for the teacher. I only did regular work for a few schools and they asked me back because I did a good job. I wouldn't have been asked back had I not done marking. I can't think of much worse than coming back after being off ill and finding several days of unmarked work.

I do regular work for schools that repeatedly ask for me back.
I do not do ridiculous marking with coloured pens www&ebf,4*A&W etc. Even if I did get the pension/CPD/sick leave/assured income of a FT teacher I would think it ridiculous, so why would I do it as a supply teacher?
I get 5 days a week work (if I want to - sometimes I choose not to work as I am eg taking my own DC to a university open day/staying in for a delivery/decided to have a duvet day/having lunch with DH)
The teaching is the thing - not the marking!
If more teachers woke up to that, and resisted the tick-box demands from SLT we might deserve to be considered 'professionals'...

I resist tick-box demands, and got rated 4 on my last lesson obs because of it - basically I hadn't done things my observer deemed necessary (that aren't in any school policy nor do Ofsted want to see) so they totally failed me. In fact I knew I'd failed from the moment they walked into the room and asked for something I didn't have. Now I'm leaving teaching in the UK altogether, because I cannot be a part of this crazy system. I'm a good teacher!

You wouldn't have been asked back at the schools that I did supply at and they were schools that I liked working for. I quite often did some of the planning too- eased the burden a bit for them and easy for me when I wasn't full time. Also much easier for me to teach than someone else's planning.

I did at least pay into my pension with my supply work- just as well as I did it for years.

Lowdown Spot on post. I hate what this government has done to secondary education. DH is a Deputy Head and so am I (on maternity leave). I don't know if I can face going back - can't honestly see how we will cope. We both work 60 hrs a week.

I have two friends who were Heads in tough schools who have both lost their jobs because they could not raise standards fast enough and were academised both in their 40s. Another friend who lead a teaching school and the college lost teaching school status so their job has gone - late 30s.

Another in a school graded good and gone down to inadequate - almost whole SLT have left because the place is about to be turned into an academy and they think Head and deputy at least will lose their jobs.

Another already an academy and put in Special Measures- Head just waiting to be fired, no idea when they will be told to go. It will just be one morning and they will be told not to return.

In our LA they can not attract Headteachers- and it is a good LA- 3 secondary schools without Heads (all Good schools) at the moment and three more retiring. Adverts attract poor candidates- often Heads from failing schools or RI schools and govs won't take the risk.

Education is in a terrible state at the moment. Terrible. Parents do not have any idea how shakey the system is.

I'm not even in the UK system, and I can see how hard it it is to resist the demands of SLT. The fast-tracking to capablity procedures is a real threat to the incompetent/non-conforming/excellent but old/expensive teacher. This was the procedure brought in to answer the accusations that it was impossible to get rid of crap teachers, except that now it has the capacity to get rid anyone whose face doesn't fit.

The unions can't help because they can only take action on pay and conditions.

nor do Ofsted want to see
Precisely, Brian!
It is all a smokescreen - scare teachers with the bogeyman 'Ofsted' and they will jump thru the hoops.
If you read what Ofsted actually want to see, is not this.
If teachers who resign/retire/go off on 'long term sick' wrote to the governors the myth would unravel.
But they just moan instead...

Ultra you very openly say you have only ever done, and will only ever do, supply. I don't think that's a great position from which to hand out slightly sanctimonious advice to permanent staff about how we should be dealing with the situation.

You haven't felt loyalty to a school. You haven't experienced the desperation to ensure the school doesn't 'go down' because of the increased pressure it would mean for everybody- your friends. You haven't been close to a Head who is on her knees and worried for her mental health and ability to keep going and keep her family together. You haven't experienced the fear for your own career if you are not stepping up to the plate- however ridiculous the place the bloody plate has to be this year.

Ofsted may say they don't want to see xyz done in a specific way but they damn well want to see certain results- and if you haven't got them, WHATEVER the reason, then every detail will then be under scrutiny. They will be happy to say the reason in poor feedback- so god help you if you don't meet your targets and the books weren't analysed to the nth degree.

Lowdoorinthewall
Fine - do all that stuff, and feel noble about it, and collect your pension and moan to your friends.
But don't call yourself a professional.
Because if you were you, would be thinking abut what needs to change, instead of propping up a failing system.

Perhaps it's possible to think about what needs to change as well as be supportive of friends and long-standing colleagues. Perhaps being professional is also about doing your best under difficult circumstances.

Lowdoorinthewall has it spot on: "It's just a hideous cycle of shit in which nobody wins."

Can we do anything though? I post many an article on my Facebook wall,

eg. this one only stay for the children but to be honest, I'm preaching to the converted - a great number of my friends are teachers (or were) and none of this is news to us. Maybe the realisation that "it's not just me" and in fact, every teacher across the land is buckling under expectations they will/can not meet, despite the 60 hour weeks, but not the facts.

So how can we stand up, put our loyalties to our schools aside and make everyone aware that the system is imploding?
Like the junior doctors have done. Yes, health gets everyone on board, but so should our children's futures.

I did submit a written statement to the governors when I was dismissed on health grounds. I campaigned in the media and appeared in the local paper, on local TV and radio and on Radio 5 live.

That's why I was branded a troublemaker. I didn't leave quietly.

Yes indeed, if I was professional I would reject all the shit in a fit of pique and let myself be put on capability and 'let go' to make a point.

Or, I would make sure I do what I have to do (for now) so I can keep turning up for the pupils everyday.

Maybe, if I was professional, I would stay in the system and support it through this rough patch, effect change from within and be a tiny part of making sure state education doesn't fold.

I'm sorry, and I'm sure we can agree to disagree, but I don't really respect your position.

Exactly Lowdoor

People do what they have to do to survive.

I'm probably going to be flamed for this but right now the only way I can see staying in education is by moving into the dreaded SLT, it seems to be the only way to genuinely reduce workload in terms of marking and assessment. I'm FT and never see my children outside of the holidays, I want my life back.

I'm very glad my own children are just about through the system now. Grateful to all those fab teachers they were fortunate enough to be taught by, but recruitment in their former schools is becoming a challenge.

Suffolk, a number of my secondary colleagues are slogging away in demoralising low TLR head of department/year roles that they hate, with all of the associated accountability without any of the autonomy, just so that they can step up to SLT with its almost-worth-it salaries and tiny (if any) teaching workload.

I've just left my post. I'm still in teaching but in something much more family-friendly. Part of the reason was that in the nine-strong SLT (they cut a quarter of the teaching staff and half of the TA and auxiliary roles in July but retained all of SLT on same salaries despite several votes of no confidence and a very strong Union line - Chair of Govs said nine SLT was entirely fair and justified), I didn't see a single manager who I would aspire to follow. I didn't see dynamism, vision or leadership.
I just saw nine mid-50s reactionary figureheads who were barely seen outside of their offices except when Ofsted were in (which was frequent, we were in SM).

there are some amazing parents out there ... as they are working in tandem with the school, they don't feel the need to come on here and slag off teachers

I believe you've raised a crucial point there, Iguana. While no school gets things right all the time, parents who are involved in their child's education often seem to have a real understanding of the issues raised here

On the other hand - at least IME - parents who tend to pass absolutely everything off as "the school's job" sometimes lack the same insight

Yes, health gets everyone on board, but so should our children's futures

Also fully agree with this, leccy. It reminds me of the HT who said that everyone's been to school, so many are apparently experts who think they could do the job easily - whereas a doctor's skills are perhaps harder to understand. Food for thought, maybe?

My day goes like this:
6am, get up, eat warp speed breakfast and shower.
6.30, wake toddler, give milk and dress him
7am leave house
8am arrive at work, respond to emails and sort out photocopying for the day. Set individual work for kids who will not be in my lessons due to illness/ isolation/exclusion
8.35 attend morning briefing or do duty
8.45 begin teaching day
3.25 teaching day theoretically ends. Commence detention duty / extra "voluntary" exam lessons / extra curricular clubs/ staff meeting/ bus duty
5.15 pm leave school, collect toddler
6pm arrive home, play with toddler for 30 mins and give him supper
6.45pm one parent cooks dinner while other does bath stories and bedtime
8pm toddler asleep so eat own dinner
8.30pm start planning and marking, mainlining chocolate in order to stay awake
11.30pm stop marking and stagger to bed exhausted
Thankfully our childminder is amazing as toddler spends 50 hours a week with her and most days eats all 3 meals at her house too.

I usually mark on a Friday night too, plus I mark and plan for 2 hours at lunchtime on Saturday and Sunday while toddler naps, and always on sunday night after dinner. I have no life. All i do is work. I have a very heavy exam class load this year and keeping up with the marking they create is hard. On my birthday I got up at 4.30am and marked for 90 mins before breakfast so that I could go for pizza with Dh and son after work. This being half term I have not marked since Friday (luxury!) but as I have 60 gcse essays, 60 unit tests and 90 books to mark this will be my last day off of the week. So of 9 non working days, i will have had only 3 with no work.
I am also 26 weeks pregnant and totally exhausted. What i really want most days is to be in bed at 8pm but this is impossible.
Neither myself nor DH (also teacher) can see how this will be sustainable once baby no2 arrives and we would have 2 kids to get up and out in the morning, and to get sorted and in bed in the evening.
We are due ofsted any day and i am terrified at the thought. Last time they came I stayed at school until 8pm when caretaker locked up then continued working until 3am when my brain finally gave in and I had to get into bed. I wont be able to do that now I have a toddler but smt want us up to outstanding this time so the pressure is immense.

This thread is fascinating and spine-chilling in equal measures. Secondary teachers seem to have lost all their autonomy to a production line system whose purpose seems to have been lost to standardisation, tracking and measurement.

Oh and this is all before the season for report writing begins. Because I have multiple classes in some yeargroups there are times when I will also need to write 200 word reports for all 150 of those students in a ten day window that the form is open in Sims. In addition to all the normal marking and planning... so that is 3000 words per day if I spread them evenly over the 10 days.

And then some still insist that teachers actually only work from 9 to 3

Incredible ...

marsaday may I ask, genuinely and respectfully, why do you do it? You are right. That is no life for you or your family and you don't sound as if you enjoy it. There must be other things you can do, or is it a vocation for you?

bobochic i am terrified at what sort of system my own children are going to be educated in. I don't want them to be taught by exhausted stressed burned out teachers who have had all creativity and anything inspirational beaten out of them by senior management. But it seems likely that this is what will happen.