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.

I have gone to reply to this thread many times; but PP have put the issues far more eloquently than I ever could. I have been teaching for 12 years and the changes that have taken place in that time is mind blowing; if these changes were for the good of the students then you wouldn't find any teacher complaining, however the vast majority of these changes are not beneficial to teaching, learning, supporting students

I know a school that has kids in this week for revision. The teachers are, of course, unpaid.

Oh, and every Y11 teacher in my department is required to put on unpaid revision classes weekly, either at lunchtime or after school. If not, then your commitment is questioned. Given that your performance management and potential pay rise is linked to the results of those classes, it's a hard thing to refuse to do.

Nicky Morgan has also suggested that teachers can go down the pay scale for poor performance. That means any teacher who is timetabled bottom set Y11 is potentially up for demotion. Those kids are never going to meet their targets, that's why they are in bottom set. How is that fair?

Perhaps Nicky Morgan could be demoted for making stupid proposals.

BossWitch - I don't want to be too specific as I'd rather not be identified by anyone in RL who may know me. However my career change involved turning a long term occasional hobby into a job with a local organisation. It was an interest I've had since my late teens, and something I've utilised from time to time in school life, for extra curricular clubs and enrichment days. It was because I used this skill for the schools I've taught in that I maintained links in this field - not knowing that one day, these links would provide a lifeline!
I'm currently earning less than 2/3 of what I was on before I resigned BUT I have less costs (hardly need petrol, no childcare needed as I'm only working during school hours, etc). My DH & I spend much more carefully too.
Eventually, I'm hoping to improve my earnings by setting up my own business in a similar field. This will probably take 12 - 18 months. It may enable me to work in education, but in a more remote way.
I do enjoy my new job and am so grateful I found an alternative to teaching, but I have to be honest and say that, for me, it's not as satisfying. Who knows, I may feel differently in the future?
Sorry to be so vague! I don't know if that's any help.

Clearly the NPQH is unfit for purpose if 'leaders' are unable to delegate & discharge their responsibilities such that the above-listed tasks are so very onerous.

Or, perhaps, the calibre of nepotistically-selected 'AHTs' is frequently insufficient to assist effectively enough to produce healthy organisations in which there is mutual trust & respect by staff for the 'SLT' on which their sanity & livelihoods, let alone the students' welfare depend.

The current teacher exodus would suggest that any trust/respect/faith in integrity of school leadership is rapidly evaporating to nothing.

Of course socio-economic, political & legal developments create extra pressure, but there has never been a time, nor is there anywhere in the world, where that is not the case. However, other systems create better outcomes for students & other stakeholders, thus optimising the use of taxpayers' money.

The system of school leadership in England is not fit for purpose, and a dispassionate, consistent audit of school leaders' capability for these roles is badly needed instead of the current whitewash in which 'leadership & management' gratings by Ofsted/HMI rarely reflect reality.

With budget cuts there is nobody to delegate to.

Please, share with us the other systems you talk of, which lead to better outcomes for all.

Ratings, sadly not gratings !

Any other country you care to mention Iguana

This year our good local secondary school had more GCSE holiday revision classes, Saturday catch-up sessions and lunch/ afterschool work clubs (teacher available) than ever before. Also no 'study leave', so staff taught till the very last lesson before each exam. Results were quite a bit down. Not sure why, but can kids take all this extra pressure and input?

Amanda - tell us.

We also had revision sessions in each holiday (I refused to offer them), were expected to offer after school revision sessions despite the fact the students did not get study leave, so were essentially revising non-stop until their very last exam in every lesson. I have also recently been told that I am expected to start running some intervention sessions at lunchtimes, and we are meant to ring home to ensure the students attend!!

The pressure on students is enormous; I had a very interesting chat with a guy who works at our school in a pastoral / student support role part time and said the number of cases of anxiety, eating disorders and self harm in Year 10 and Year 11 seemed to have gone up since I started teaching seven years ago. He agreed with me, and we both thought constant levelling, assessment and increased pressure probably played a role in this. I realise this is just anecdotal, and there are other pressures (the internet glamourising some of the above for example) that may have also led to this increase, but I do think what we are fundamentally doing is putting pressure on the students.

Last year I had a fairly pleasant group of Year 11 students who were set 2 and quite an able bunch, all relatively academically-minded and all A-C targets. When I was asking what their future plans were for next year, around a quarter wanted to do A-levels, the rest all wanted to do other things (which I am not criticising at all). Some of the girls were going to college to do art, hair and beauty, one girl (who got loads of A's in the end) wanted to do an apprenticeship in an office, one boy (who had really high targets and did fairly well) has now taken a job as a caretaker in a school and is really enjoying it, one boy (who was phenomenally bright) got a job in a garden centre, one boy was dead set on joining the army, one was going to do an apprenticeship in plumbing. Of this quite bright and capable group about a quarter of them wanted to go on to do A-levels, the rest were all choosing alternative paths to do something else. I am not slating their choosing alternative paths in the slightest, I've heard most of them are getting on really well and am absolutely delighted for them, but I do worry that we're ultimately switching many of them off academic education at post-16 because of the hoops they have to jump through at school. The girl who wanted to do the apprenticeship in an office openly told me she'd had enough of school, and quite frankly I didn't blame her one bit!!

While people put up with the stays quo nothing will change as there is sufficient cannon-fodder still available.
I was in a school recently (people disparage supply teaching but we do see beyond the 'school-bubble' referred to by an earlier poster by going into lots of schools, and working with different departments) where lovely Lithuanian science teacher was recruited last Easter. She has a masters and three years teaching in Lithuania, perfect English. She cam eot the UK thinking she might get a bit of supply and was snaoped up (thru' an agency and has a one year contract.) The school would have had to pay agency fees but they are probably getting her cheap ( did not aske her exact salary . Her long term dream is to work in Canada or Australia - but she intends to stay in the UK for a few years to build up experience and perfect ( her already perfect) English. The agency have obviously sensed a potential gold mine here and pestering her for referrals form other of her compatriots.
And aorta form Lithuania there are many other European countries where a job in London even at low-ish salary provides a better quality of life, and a stepping stone to more opportunities.
So... the recruitment 'crisis' is mitigated by there being plenty of willing young energetic currently child-free Europeans (and Antipodeans)

Very interesting, Valancy. I feel so sad that school may be as much of an ordeal for students as for staff.

I think that an increase in the proportion of women in a workforce often, sadly, leads to a reduction in the public respect for the profession and an attempt to reduce the wages in comparison to others

Sadly I have to agree, especially in the case of the so-called "caring" professions. There's still this insidious idea that caring is "natural" to women and "just something they're better at" - so it follows that since it's inherent and not quantifiable via formal study, certificates and so on, there's no real need to pay for it

My take on the after school/holiday "catch-up" and revision sessions is that they can actually be counter-productive. Students attend after school sessions once per week and then think that they don't need to do any work at home. Similarly, they attend a holiday revision session, where it's done for them and they don't need to think about what they should focus on. It's a lot of work for staff and it doesn't necessarily get the results.

I have never run an after school / holiday catch up session and my results are consistently better than many other departments in my school. I genuinely think that one of the reasons for this is that the kids know that they need to work their butts off in the 5 hours per fortnight they get with me and there is no chance to do less work now and catch up in the after school sessions in Yr 11. I think that having after school sessions teaches kids that it's ok to take their foot off the pedal in lessons.

I do run activities after school, but I choose to. In my entire career, no member of SLT has ever pressured me to do so. Perhaps I'm just lucky. I actually enjoy the extra-curricular stuff more than the lessons sometimes

In short, I can't help but think that the current educational offer in the UK is completely at odds with what all of its stakeholders want.
Unhappy and unsatisfied SLTs, teachers, parents and pupils.

My own DD is in Year 1 and struggling. Her self esteem has taken a knock because 'it's all writing' and she is slower at it than the rest of her class so loses any time to play or rest. She said she doesn't like school anymore - 'it's too hard'. She's 5. I worry for her future experience of education.

I agree Puzzled. I am going to give you an example which some might find ridiculous- I don't want to piss people off and apologies to those brave people who have not much option but to carry on teaching. I am out of teaching atm and have become a farmer. This morning I sold a ram lamb off the farm for £x. The guy that bought it started saying, 'Sheep prices are bad at the moment.' Hinting that I might lower the price. Tales of his dead mother. No doubt he thought he would appeal to my feminine side. No way. I am in control of everything apart from market forces. It's a world away from teaching where you are in control of nothing. I realise my circumstances a trifle unusual. When in full time teaching, I was a nervous wreck. Bowing and scraping to people who were much less qualified than me. My self esteem has rocketed and I feel like me again.

leccy are you saying that your daughter misses out on break and playtime because she has to stay in to finish off writing work? That's heartbreaking. I am scared for my dd, I was stupidly thinking that primary school was still ok, at least for the little ones.

Iguana I think AmandaJane is very bitter about what has happened to her in her school which is why she is not answering you. She is tarring every SLT member with her own experience.

Our whole system is unstable at the moment andas someone who has a 10 month old DS, it worries me about what his experience of school will be like.

I am in control of everything apart from market forces
Same here. As a supply teacher I will not take shit from agencies.
They pay me a good rate, relatively speaking, because I ask for it, and won't accept anything less, or any location that is inconvenient.
In return they get great feedback from schools, repeat and advance bookings.
The direct state schools I work with pay me slightly less than they would pay an agency, and I am in total control of where and when I work.
Get to school at 8.30 (8am @ the indies) and leave at 3.15 (4 @ the indies).
(The indies pay 25% more per day than the state schools, and there is a free lunch - and an hour-long lunch break)
Evil Twins made the point that you do not need to turn somersaults to do extra curricular unless you choose to, and enjoy it.

MrsUltra you are SO smug about being on supply.

How very clever of you for thinking of such a neat solution and playing the system to suit you, but do you honestly think that the answer is for all of us to drop out and do day to day supply?

EvilTwins doesn't teach a compulsory core subject so I imagine it's very different to teaching maths or English in terms of SLT pressure.

Noble that's true to an extent of course, but it means my KS4 classes are VERY mixed ability which has its own challenges, and of course "5 A-C EM" leaves three other spots for those magical grades. Progress 8 puts the pressure on all of us.

I have just handed my notice in along with my job share. I have become more and more disillusioned with the unreasonable expectations on teachers that have to be passed onto children. I work in a Primary school and am being told after book scrutinies that children that I know to be high achieving children, are now average. I'm being expected to ramp up the level of the work, taking little or no account of children's prior learning and expected suddenly to get them a level higher by the end of the year than similar children last year. This of course is only in Maths and English because nothing else matters. What are we doing to these children? I am so fed up, and have no job to go to.