To be mildly irritated by most tiring job ever?

[brasty]

A friend who is a teacher has been saying how exhausted she is, and that only other teachers would understand. She is not joking. AIBU to be mildly irritated by this? Yes teachers do a hard job, but there are other jobs that are also exhausting.

Are state schools actually able to employ teachers on different contracts, with different duties? I imagine that private schools (and possibly academies) could offer more flexible packages...

Are you in a state school or a private school, Mrs Guy?

Academies can pay what they want. LA school teachers have 1265 hours directed time so potentially you could do after school club instead of registration to make up your hours. I can't see even the most desperate head employing people on full time salaries who don't do full time hours because they don't want to do x, y or z as x, y and z need to be done by someone and if you're already paying for it where's the money to pay someone else to do it?

One thing I've learned by teaching for over a decade is just how valuable experience is. Teaching experience, especially in the same school. It's a shame that many don't recognise this.

Couldn't agree more Giraffe.

What I don't get is, the teacher (and TAs) is the person who your child is going to be cared for by for the majority of the time after parents in most cases.

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would want that person to enjoy their job, be motivated, not be under stupid amounts of pressure - and I suspect they would do that job a lot better in that instance. It's worrying that so many teachers are so unhappy they are leaving the profession and some of the statistics quoted upthread are scary.

I'm still at work. Been here since 7.30am. Marking and moderating Year 11 exams so they can have accurate tracking reports by Friday. I love the thought that I get lots of holidays - I take 4 weeks and the rest I work. Last summer I rewrote every lesson plan for 7 years as exams have changed, as well as helping devise a new recording system. And for those of you who say leave if you don't like it, that's exactly what 14 of my colleagues are currently doing. And they are not easily replaced. I have been asked to teach history as we don't have enough teachers - I'm a scientist ! Right, just got 14 more papers to grade and then home to bed. I'll be back at 7.30 to start again, trying to convince150 teenagers to work. Piece of cake.

Mrsguy. I love teaching. 20 years I have been doing the job. I am responsible for mentoring our trainees. No cynicism off me at all. And I had a previous life in the so called (on this thread) real world. And I have kids. And I am a single mum.
Sorry to disappoint you.

Ooh I've got kids and had a 'real world' job before becoming a teacher too. Is there a prize?

Yes noble - one day you may get to negotiate your contract like Mrsguy

noble piece

Where has OP gone and why won't she clarify her own job?

And to add to the problems we now have this report from NAO which confirms what all the unions (who apparently are the devil) have been saying for years

Just wanted to add to the Pastoral care thing.
In our primary school (Local authority) Pastoral care is the job of all of us in the first instance. We have two very well trained teaching assistants who take children for various sessions, and also deal with day-to-day 'meltdowns' that can't be contained or dealt with in class.
We also have a resident social worker who deals with families as a whole. This is a new addition to our staff, which has made such a difference.

Teaching in England sounds like a horrendous job. I am elsewhere in the UK and it definitely isn't anywhere near as bad here. I live beside our school and see all teachers leave and the place get locked up between 4pm and 4.30pm daily. Most teachers arrive at 8pm. Many do extra things like PTA events and of course there's parents evenings and reports which take up a lot of time and that time of year. I think the school day is shorter here too, ks1 finish at 1.45 and ks2 at 2.45 which is late enough imo.

There's after school clubs most days but only some are run by teachers, others are by outside companies and have to be paid for by the parent. The KS1 teachers take a turn at taking the KS2 pupils in the last hour so that all teachers are done teaching by 1.45pm at least one day a week which is a good system. No ofsted here dictating the ridiculous amount of paperwork you have in England.

However what I don't know is how educational attainment differs between here and England. Would be very interested to know whether ofsted actually improve anything..........

I am a midwife not a teacher. Yes I am knackered all the time. I worked nightshift Thurs-Sun nights there then back onto day shift yesterday and today. I can hardly see straight this morning. However everyone I know is knackered whatever their job. I think it is just the pace of modern life.

*arrive at 8am not pm

^night shift brain

I dropped out of this thread a couple of days ago and have come back for a reason.

For the past 2 days I have been doing casual work in a school as a first aider. I knew this work was coming up, but I didn't want to mention it until I had done it and post about my own views before and after. Anyway, this was my experience in a school...

I worked 08:30 - 16:00 in student services, picking up admin jobs in between injured/sick children. The only time I saw teachers/TAs was when they were walking between rooms, quickly. They left at 16:00, but with boxes of marking, and I mean BOXES. Everyone had a smile on their face throughout the day.

My temporary manager was amazed with the amount of administration I did in the 2 days. To be honest I didn't think what I was doing was particularly hard and thought stuffing 4 school reports into envelopes a minute was a slow pace, but she had someone doing the same job as me at the same time who has been an administrator for over 10 years and I completed double the amount of work she did, and did all the first aid on top.

I actually don't think the problems in schools are with teachers being slack. Teachers do not do administration as part of their job, schools hire administrators to do that. There seemed to be a lot of mucking around in admin, people having long chats, no sense of urgency, etc. If the administrators at this particular school worked a bit more efficiently, that would prevent TAs from picking up the slack and give them more time to assist teachers.

The school I worked at didn't seem on its knees, the predicted grades for next year were slightly on the low side but were for the new curriculum, most were predicted 4s and 5s which I understand is a C grade? Which is not bad considering the new curriculum is a bit alien. However when I did manage to grab a history teacher to chat to him whilst he gulped down a coffee, he said he often works 60 hours a week to keep on top of everything. Working that many hours is simply not healthy nor a good culture to have.

Anyway I would love feedback on my comments from people that work in schools!

FruitCider In the school I was in each teacher had to put their own reports into envelopes (guess this would be more difficult to do in a secondary).

Many other admin tasks were also allocated to teachers. One teacher had to write organise after school clubs, not running a club but the actual admin; finding out what clubs would be offered, writing letters to parents collating responses etc, etc. No additional time or money given to do this, just fitted in around full time teaching.

I think there is a huge variance between schools in what is expected from teachers. With budgets being cut more and more admin work is being given to teachers so that fewer admin staff need to be employed.

Interesting fruit. I guess there are probably good and bad admin teams. I know our admin team work really hard.

However, you are completely right that without efficienct support everything slows down. Which means teachers have to fit it in somewhere.

A "c" in new money is likely to be a 5. Not that anyone really knows. but that's a whole other thread!

Our admin team are mostly fab. But they don't do anything for teachers directly but for the school as a whole - attendance, finance, reception, exams, reports.
We just get piles of paper and envelopes. They don't have time to do anything else. Those jobs have been long gone. 20 years ago we used to have a photocopying person!

Piece and noble - you sound very similar to the lovely colleagues I currently work with.
MrsGuy, as others have said, I'm afraid what you've said makes little sense in most schools. I suggest you speak to more experienced teachers instead of comments with very little basis- most teachers nowadays have an online markbook and register, this isn't a new revelation. Similarly, assessments don't free up time- they can create hours of marking and are sometimes not feasible when huge syllabuses have to be completed. I wonder if you are under the same pressure to complete a GCSE syllabus in a set amount of time.
I do feel that the OP occasionally visits this thread in order to make another comment that doesn't really contribute anything.
As a previous poster said, it would be nice if generally, people were more supportive and others regardless of the profession they are in.

I actually don't think the problems in schools are with teachers being slack.

Did you think this before? Not clear whether your opinions have actually changed about anything.

Did you think this before? Not clear whether your opinions have actually changed about anything.

I must admit I did have a small thought in the back of my mind about inefficiency, which stemmed from knowing teachers and knowing how chaotic and disorganised they are in their personal life. But that has been completely proven wrong this week.

Ha, I'm utterly chaotic and disorganised in my daily out of school life. I'm bang on it at school though.