...to consider teacher training once DCs are at school?

[GandTforme]

Is teaching (primary) really so stressful and unpleasant?

My DTs are 18mo now and I work part time in local government (social work assistant within an adult team). My job is ok but the only way to progress would be to go full time in a few years when dc start school and train in social work - I'm not sure that I enjoy my job enough to do that.

I have always just had 'jobs' rather than a 'career' but I would like to remedy this in the future. The only thing that has ever really appealed to me is teaching. My local city has a training federation offering the pgce and I was toying with the idea of applying for this when the dc are 4/5 and I will once again be able to work/study full time. But after looking into it there are so many horror stories about how dreadful the job is these days, how many people burn out, how much overtime is required. Now I'm used to stress, working in a social work team. But what I read about teaching makes it sound like it's on another level of awfulness compared to other local government professions.

What's the truth? Would I be mad to consider working towards it?

I find getting up at 5 is getting more tiring as the years roll on. Don’t you often have staff meetings and parent meetings after school Turnocks? What about after school clubs, which members of staff run those? And which childcare takes your children from 6.30? It’s just the luck of your setup that’s making it easy for you and it’s not realistic for most. I think you’ve carved out an easy space for yourself which could change quickly if any of the above conditions change.

I love teaching but it's so hard with two little children. It's long hours, worrying about all sorts, stress when my kids are ill and I can't take time off. Yes the holidays are great but I'm often burnt out! All the teachers at my school with young children find it so hard. You need a supportive partner and family. Don't put your school children first above your own.....Good luck with your decision.

I think the people who are saying 'you'll never see your own children' are talking...if not nonsense, at least serious exaggeration.
My parents were both teachers, mum was a primary teacher and dad was a secondary teacher. My dad was home by 4pm and mum was home by 5pm. And of course there was the holidays at the same time. The only time I wasn't at school that I didn't see my parents was in service days.
I think it just depends on your attitude. My parents didn't allow the work to take over. Dad left when the school bell rang and mum left at about 5pm (and worked in the village school a few minutes away from home). I always felt I was really lucky. The only times that teaching took over was when mum was writing reports cause she was really grumpy then! And of course all casual chatter is about school related stuff, and idiot parents, etc. But as a child of two teachers, I'd say I was really lucky and I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything because I saw so much of them.

barbie
Tunocks isn't suggesting her way would work for everyone. She's sharing what works for her.

It's a demanding job. We all have our own life pressures. We find ways that work for us.
In my case it was change school, evaluate how much crap i was being told was 'essential' and then adjust life accordingly to create a manageable set up as much as possible. What i'm currently doing wouldn't have worked in a former school, but it does now. My way of getting a balance works for me, but probably wouldn't work for others.

wrenika roughly what year are you talking about?
Because I think a huge amount has changed with teaching in the last 25 years.

There is just no way a teacher can leave school when the bell goes. Equally, if I left school before 5pm I would be frowned at by my headteacher and other teachers (each school is different of course)

Im a teacher and dh was a special needs carer so decided to retrain as a sen teacher. He was so good at the teaching side was headhunted upped a payscale and never got lower than a g1 obs. (Agreed teaching obs and main indicator) like others have said the teaching is such a small part of the job and he quit after 4 miserable years.

Iv been a teacher for 12years and have a fab team and head. One of the RARE lucky ones.

I think for nqts its almost impossible. I think the only way is after leaving uni still living at home no family.

Maybe try teaching assistant for a few years. This will give yoy an idea if your pro active with teacher. Less money but better life.

Sorry teaching obs NOT main indicator meant to say.

There is just no way a teacher can leave school when the bell goes. Equally, if I left school before 5pm I would be frowned at by my headteacher and other teachers (each school is different of course)
At my school many people leave on the bell.
Some come in early and leave early (and their DH does the morning stuff with the kids so teacher does the after school time).
Some come in at 830 and leave at 6.

Our school don't mind what we do as long as we are ensuring our job is done and we are happy and healthy.

Saying that at a former school I went in during the holidyas to.do my planning as i'd moved house and had no internet. Some staff had signed in 3 days running from 8am. My friend would get in at 7am and wouldn't be the first in. I would leave at 730pm and wouldn't be last out.
The culture was awful.

I actually think what has changed in teaching over the last 25 years is that more and more teachers have become 'how high would you like us to jump?' types ( or the ones how aren't have left or just grumbled along , unprompted so not influencing any challenge or change.)

I have two meetings next week, which is annoying me, DH has a parents' evening. But otherwise, I will be out of work by 4. This is not true of all of my colleagues by any stretch but they always seem more snowed under than me, ironically!

My head is the same head as 20 years ago : when I started he was relaxed in his attitudes to workload and he himself has changed : maybe grumpy old age, possibly the influence of those around him, maybe league tables, OFSTED etc but he told me off about three years ago for saying I never take marking home. I was gobsmacked as I thought I was a good role model for sensible work life balance to be honest!! Interestingly, I have never heard anyone say HE works really hard!! He is definitely not first in and last out.

Hey ho!

Anyway, I get to work about 7.50 and leave on meeting free days by 4. The majority of my school related work (emails aside) happens in my PPAs. It can be done : I just prioritise quite strictly and mark quickly and rarely overplan,, in fact sometimes I don't plan!

I think SLTs blame OFSTED far too quickly. They really need to have a long hard look at themselves to be honest, especially in primary , where it feels (from an outsider's viewpoint) to be very Big Brother,. From a philosophical point of view, I could not stand that , and I would be out of there.

Wrenika teaching has changed beyond belief since then . Even in the 15 years I've been in teaching. Primary has so many more ridiculous demands on them marking and recording so many interactions, remarking, ridiculous levelsnofnplanning, showingb evidence. Sats. Pushing children through them.

I'm secondary and would have loved to be a junior school teacher in the system as was but there's no way I'm moving to it now. It's even worse for the kids.

I think the people who are saying 'you'll never see your own children' are talking...if not nonsense, at least serious exaggeration.
My parents were both teachers

My in laws were both teachers and it is quite clear from everything they say, that the job is unrecognisable from the classroom today. They both retired late 1990s because things were getting shit and are totally horrified by what my day to day job is like. Comparisons between then and now are made with dropped jaws so I don’t think you can liken them much.

Teaching in the 1970s and 1980s seems to have been quite a nice job, talking to colleagues over the years.

Every school I have worked at has had competitive presentism though so even if I completed my work on the bell I always felt compelled to stay longer. I have worked in inner London schools with generally young staff and lots of nqts and teach firsters so may be worse in these sorts of environments. I always felt annoyed as I was good at managing my work, got in very early and preferred to work at home but felt i was judged for leaving before others.

My oldest DC is 20, I worked full time after I had him, in school for 8.30, out between 4-5, the only work I did at home was reports. Most of my colleagues worked the same hours. Before I left last summer I would get in for 7.30, most of the teaching staff were already in, and I would be one of the first to leave at 5.
20 years ago I was one of several teachers who worked FT with children. When I left there was only 1 female teacher with a child, she would have loved to work shorter hours but her DH lost his job so it wasn't possible. Over the years the teachers who became pregnant had their requests for PT refused so left, it was fine for the head at the time as we had eager NQTs desperate to join our School, now they are struggling to recruit (not just cheap NQTs, head has even asked an expensive old timer like me to come back).
I do think there is a long hours working trend in most industries that has crept in over the past 20 years, not just teaching. For some workers, this is now seen as the normal, for others it is the tipping point.

competitive presentism. Great phrase. Hit the nail on the head there.

We have cpd meeting once every two weeks, with a whole school monthly cpd every term. These always end by 5pm latest. Parents evening is later, probably 7pm. But I navigate this by balancing OH holiday time.

This may not work for everyone, it works well for me as I work in a school which is very focused on ensuring a good work life balance.

It's not always easy and I know not everyone manages it, and but I'm simply sharing With the OP that actually there is sometimes ways to make it work without being crippled by the workload.

Are those the only meetings you have out of interest? As I said, I manage my personal workload but we an overload of pretty pointless meetings, none of which are CPD!

Yeah only meetings we have after school, although we do have lose a free period every week where we have another departmental meeting. Our head is really big on having a work life balance, I know it's not like this in their schools so I'm really fortunate.

Turnocks34
We have 1 whole staff, 1 department and 1 year team meeting a half term.
We have CPD once a half term but some of that is in teams working on gcse/a level planning, moderation, sharing good pracrice. The other half we opt into as long as we do a mininum amount of hours.

Compare with school b where there was a before school whole staff meeting every day (& still i had thousands of emails because people couldn't do announcements in the meeting it would seem)

In terms of meetings at my secondary school there is a scheduled meeting every Monday the ones you have to attend depend on your role so a teacher with no responsabilites will only have to attend dept and year group meetings, unfortunately also teach 6th form then that's another additional meeting, if you teach a vocational subject that's another meeting, if you are a HoD that's another one, to the point of there is only one Monday a term I don't have a meeting to attend.

Then there are the parents evenings (again the number depend on how many year groups you teach; I teach every year group from 7-13), options evenings, year 6 open evening, presentation evenings.

I prefer personally to get in early (7am) rather than stay late on the days I dont have any of the above scheduled but even though I get 90 mins a morning available to work I will still have to work at home in the evening

But back to the ops original question I trained when DS2 was very small and I couldn't have done it without the full support of DH, but I would get some experience first in a range of schools before committing

Wrenika, I’m probably old enough to be your mum and I started teaching in 1984 and then full time until 2012. Then supply.
Trust me, whatever your happy childish memories of endless evenings and holidays with two creative parents full of energy and joy, that’s not happening now.
Teaching in state schools in England has changed a lot over the last 3 decades. Rather like parenting.
Judgements based on out of date memories are neither accurate or useful in the current situation.

I teach in Scotland, so a different system and I teach in an additional support unit attached to a mainstream primary.
We are contracted for 35h but the reality is between 60-70h being the norm.
In my role we do tweak the wheel for every child to an extent. Each child in my class has an individual education plan and that's only scratching the surface.
I work 3 days a week and have 2 late nights until 5pm. I work all my breaks normally dealing with my pupils because staffing rates are so low. My dh said if I were to return full time we would be

I’m thinking of applying for the PGDE for 2019 entry. By then I’d be 41 (feck!).

Would need to go back to college 2018/19 to try to get Nat 5 maths as I only have a SG 3 from years ago. 😥

My ultimate aim is to emigrate somewhere hot and sunny so the teaching conditions in the UK don’t give me too much pause, even though they may not be drastically different abroad.

I am SLT in a secondary RI school. I still have a timetable of 36 hours a fortnight (same as a HoD would expect). I work FT with 2 DDs; 3 and 7. Have been teaching for 12 years.

I am in school for 7:15. We meet as SLT at 7:15am once a week so I just stick to that time.
Work until 8:30 at which point I am expected to be out on gate duty every morning until school starts at 8:55.
Typically teach at least 3 if not 4 lessons a day (every day)
Break duty every day (as SLT)
Lunch duty every day - I am expected to eat my lunch outside walking around every day - i never get to sit down and eat in the warm EVER
Gate duty at the end of every day

Leave at 5.
Sort out own DCs until 8.
Start work - I try and plan for a week at a time but this is incredibly time consuming as we have just changed the way we must deliver our lessons so everything I already have needs either tweaking or fully re-planning. (Hopefully I'll gain from this next year!). This means I am sometimes planning at night, but mostly marking or planning CPD sessions or writing up reports.
Go to bed around 11.
This is AT LEAST 4 nights per week.

All day Sunday is for working (on and off-when I can grab the time)

And I don't even earn 50K!!

There are 'professional martyrs' as they have been called on here. But there are also the crazy expectations on teachers to do all of the above and more.

The old cliche really is true: it's not a job-it's a lifestyle.

Just a question - not meant to be accusatory! As SLT Mrs do you have no voice or power to change these working pattern expectations? Or are you just expected to toe the line?