To train to be a secondary English school teacher?

[Whoatemyunicorn]

Been off work looking after DC for 7 years and feel that returning to work in admin is not the best for family financially.

Oh suggested teaching as lots of others have told me over years. I'd love to and have done work experience in an inner city London school.

Everyone who is a teacher who I know hates their job.

It makes me nervous as does the year long training.

AIBU thinking this is a good career option if I want a work life balance?

I'd be teaching secondary English

I live my job too - 11 years in and no plans at all to leave.

I do recommend working part time, though - much more manageable. I do have two separate responsibilities though, one dept-based and one whole-school, so I do work quite hard!

In my opinion, it v much depends on the school.

I taught English in secondary schools for 23 years. It was fine at first. The workload and appalling people management at my last school made me ill and the job is even more challenging now. I'd not consider it again for 3x the salary.
I deliver Education Training and Employment services to offenders and substance misusers now and I love every day.

My earlier post suggests I don't like teaching - I actually really like it. Love the kids, love my subject. I would just say that a work-life balance won't be achievable particularly in the first few years when every lesson you teach is new to you and you have to get to grips with marking.

I love teaching.

I don't like what it has become. There is so little room to foster a love for literature - everything is exam driven. The marking is horrific and morale is desperately low.

I love English but I wish I'd chosen a different subject to teach.

Teaching was my 2nd career and totally agree with everything Schwabischeweihnachtskanne says.

It's 2 years, pgce/other training year followed by the nqt year. If you can hack it the job is very rewarding. I could not and gave up as the stress/hours/attitudes were killing me.

I know two English secondary teachers.

Or, I did. Both utterly loved it when they qualified, loved the kids, loved the job... within four years, they were ground down into quitting. They didn't want to leave the role or the kids, but the bureaucracy and total overload got them in the end. One had a nice school, the other had the additional challenges of children threatening them - threats to beat the teachers, threats to kill them, with management and the police rather powerless to prevent or manage the issue.

English is a tough subject due to its importance in targets, and marking load. I'm glad I teach a different subject.

The core parts of teaching is fine, but I'm increasingly finding my time to to the supporting tasks of planning and marking eroded by time on beurocracy and meetings. A lot depends on the senior management of the particular school. It's increasinly hard to find schools run by humans with social skills.

The academy chain malarky doesn't help because senior management is then infiltrated in an impersonal way by people who treat the school population as data, rather than being integrated into the school.

The work load seriously cuts into family life. My young children are early into childcare, last to be picked up. I then get a couple of hours with them and then get working when they're in bed. When I'm not working, I'm knackered. Of course many jobs are like that, they just don't have a perception of being family friendly.