to think people enjoy being teachers?

[inneedofgoodideas]

Hi,
I am seriously considering taking a PGCE to train as a secondary history teacher. However, I have read so many horror stories from teachers who don't enjoy their jobs....
so if any readers are current/ex teachers, please can you give me an honest review of whether you enjoyed it or not?
I'm in my mid-20s, living in London and currently very dissatisfied in my job. I have a first class degree from a good university, and a Masters degree from another good university, both in history. I love history, and want a job which involves communicating with people and 'making a difference' (cringe) so thought teaching might be a good way to go.
any advice much appreciated :)
thanks all!!

I am a secondary history teacher and so is my DP and if we could go back in time, neither of us would have done it.

There is no work life balance, there’s always something to do/be done.

I know very few happy teachers. If you’re a perfectionist, then definitely don’t. Have you got any school experience yet?

I am 27. I have been teaching 5 years (primary). I'll be honest it isn't an easy job but I do love it.

I love it seeing children prosper.

Downsides are very little time to eat or drink. You have to have a strong bladder too.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I am leaving Primary teaching in July after 10 years and couldn't be happier to finally be getting out.
Have a look in The Staffroom and you'll find many, many threads where people have asked similar questions to yours OP. The responses are overwhelmingly don't do it.

I'm in primary and I love it. It is hard at times, I've got two young children and I'm exhausted by holiday time.

Yes you work hard, but you work hard in every professional job imo. I'm never bored, no two days are the same and it fits in well with childcare in a way things like police, nursing, social worker etc just wouldn't.

You have to enjoy the being with children bit though, it makes the paperwork/pointless meetings/wheel reinventing bits worth it. OP, do you like working with children? Can you volunteer in dune sort of youth group to find out?

I've taught in Tower Hamlets, Brent and Enfield. Always non selective comprehensives. I learn the latest fads, perform them when being observed /ofsted and so get Outstanding. Otherwise bend it my way. Tune out the nonsense from kids ("boring /pointless /picking on me") etc. Have a laugh with colleagues, go home to loved ones, ignore b-shit.

I live in NI and the teaching is definitely more relaxed here. Would you consider moving front england? Much more pressure there I think.
Although a close family member is a teacher for the last 20 years Inn london and loves it!

I really love my job but I haven’t always. It depends on the school.

@ heartshapedfairylights

I have been in year 3 for the last 5 years. It is a very bad school, however I'm firm with them and usually the bad kids have levelled out by the time they leave my class.

Teaching 3 years in Home Counties. Been promoted twice. I truly believe you will struggle on the salary in London. I still struggle on my salary and I have TLR
As previous posters have said, it’s a great job until it isn’t. It sucks every ounce of you, you lose your identity. You lose your social life. Relationships suffer. You have to be prepared to deal with that and priortise accordingly
The hilarious part is that a lot of trainees think it’s easy because if it they didn’t have to do the uni work it’d be a cake walk. It would be, as you’re on a reduced timetable. The people to speak to are those that have finished NQT and are RQT so they’re on a full timetable with no support.
I love teaching. I can never see myself doing anything else. Would I recommend it? No!

I love my job and can't imagine doing anything else! I teach English, which bears a lot of similarities to teaching History.

The first few years are hard going. Depending on your placement schools/NQT it can be a real baptism of fire. The skill set required is quite different to anything you've done before (but that's part of what makes it interesting).

I've worked at nice schools and not so nice schools. I had a great time working in a comp in a very deprived area (every break, lunch and at the end of the day the teachers would cross off two lessons on a massive chart counting down to the holidays ) but hated the time I spent working in a posh leafy suburban school where the senior leadership team were lazy and ineffectual and the students as a result were often unspeakably rude to teachers and nasty to one another.

It's a long day and you work hard but a) the holidays are AMAZING and b) I've never felt the pressure others talk about to work sixty hour weeks. If I ever worked that much it was because I chose to, because I had an interesting project or something to do. I've always been quite good at drawing a line and quietly ignoring bullshit admin tasks. It can be done.

Having said that, four years ago I moved into the international market and I now work at a British school abroad. It is fantastic. We have an amazing package (tax and rent free), wonderful, motivated students, plenty of money to save, year-round sunshine and some really weird but fascinating experiences. Our class sizes are much smaller than the UK and our timetables are lighter. I've barely had to work at home all year and yet I've done some of my best teaching since we arrived, because I have time to plan. I don't know if I can ever move back to the UK state sector now.

So to sum up: it's a great job in general, but you have to be very careful when choosing a school.

I love teaching. Every day is different. Since having my children I now work in Adult Ed. Equally as rewarding.

God yes, do not be one of those trainees who thinks they know better than their mentor. Do not utter the phrase 'I'll just go in hard' if someone kindly lets you observe them with a difficult class.

Some posters on here saying that they enjoy it have been doing it for years. They have matured into the job.
Most people qualifying now are thrown in at the deep end, they don't have the chance to get their feet under the table so a lot of NQT quit within five years.
A PGCE will cost you £9,000.
That means that the chances are that teaching will cost you £2,000pa (plus loads of student loan interest) for a job that will chew you up and spit you out. The system doesn't care, it will fill your gap with newer and cheaper replacements.

Got to depend massively on the school you end up in....crowd control or teaching history....maybe a bit of both. If you are incapable of any crowd control...don't be a teacher. Even in great schools where kids want to learn you've got to do some crowd control...and be good at it.

I've been a teacher for more than 10 years . Love it and wouldn't want to do many other things.

It's very family friendly imo (I'm a single mum of 3 and can't think of another career I could have done that would have allowed me to work around the children). Term time hours are long but so are the holidays. I have school on Saturdays but don't work on Sundays 75% of the time and only go into work for maybe a week of each long holiday and a couple of days for half terms. So there's still a lot more holiday left than mist people get. I have late duties 2 nights a week but am done by 7 on the other nights and don't work after that.

One piece of advice is give, if you aren't ideologically opposed, is to apply for jobs in private schools. The onsite hours are much longer and you are expected to give up a lot of Term time evenings and weekends (Saturday school is common plus many events). But the holidays are massively long, the admin and govt hoop jumping is hugely reduced and the class sizes tend to be much smaller. In some schools pay is higher too.

I love and hate the job in equal measure

I love English, but end up teaching a reductive and tedious curriculum: I can hardly remember the last time I had any choice of what I wanted to teach.

The kids make me laugh every day but some are incredibly frustrating and some are right little bastards

The staff are great except for the ones who aren't. Meetings make me want to eat my own head to escape. Marking is crushing and usually pointless.

I quit after 20 years. Had tried to go part time but decided my family were more important than other people’s. 😳 I was always conscientious and giving up my evenings and weekends for very little thanks or recognition when I wanted to just go out with my family. People have commented on how much better I look now and I definitely feel far less stressed. I do some admin work now and it is soooooo nice to just finish and walk away rather than taking it home. I don’t think it’s a career for life anymore but something that people do for a few years. Just don’t be fooled by the adverts! That one where there’s a cube made out of bubbles always makes me laugh - what are you doing with the class for the rest of the hour?! That very well behaved class!

I am also a five years and done. Finished in 2016. Core subject and a very minority A Level subject.

I loved the planning and the time in the classroom. Any trips, fairs and events were fine. Didn't even mind parents' evenings. I taught in a bog standard comp and a selective private school. Both nice in different ways but the private was far nicer and I did a lot more actual subject transfer and practical work with the students than in the state comp. Adored teaching A Level in both types of school. I have a Masters and a PhD in my subject.

OTOH, the marking expectations in the comp were absurd. The list of shite I was expected to do as a regular classroom teacher was ever increasing and demoralising. The low level disruption was a pain, and I had a rep as quite the disciplinarian. The private had some issues with parents but not that much else bothered me.

Anything unusual or not within the head's micromanagement that I did got me into trouble in the state school.

Can you tell which I preferred? I only left the private due to moving area and made the mistake of rejoining the state sector. I walked.

Think carefully, OP. All schools are different and some people will have a fine time. Lots of us had enough, not because of the teaching or related work, but because of the stupid management and constant government interventions which didn't help.

I'm not a teacher, but DH is - secondary history. He trained (after a career change) four years ago. The first two years he was a teacher (after PGCE) he hated it; I was really worried for his mental health, and in fact considered asking him to leave the profession for my/our relationship's sake. He then changed schools and he's like a different person: he loves this school, it suits him down to the ground. He still gets stressed sometimes, and he still works pretty hard, but his work-life balance is transformed, and the psychological boost of knowing that a) SLT genuinely seem to have their backs at this school, unlike his old one and b) he feels like he is good at what he does now (the old school was basically 90% behaviour management, 10% actually teaching his subject; in this one that's reversed and that suits him massively better) has made him a much happier person, both in and out of work, for this past 18 months. I hadn't realised before what a huge difference the school makes, but teaching in this school vs. his old one is like a totally different job.

For what it's worth, he (as a career changer) always says that he thinks teachers who taught straight out of university are generally much less happy than those for whom it's a second (or more!) career.

Yes, purits, I've been doing it for more than 30 years, believe me none of us had a gentle start! We had to do cover for absent colleagues and invigilation, something teachers don't have to do nowadays. Don't believe people that tell you it was easier back in the day.

It’s like any job, I work in admin and finance and for someone that might be their idea of hell for me I love my job role, always varied and interesting, but others would say it was a high stress chaotic environment and would find it hell where as I thrive in that environment

You could check out the community boards on tes.com - lots of posts about why so many teachers are leaving.

The Head Teacher and leadership team of a school make a massive difference that's for sure.

I am an exteacher didn't love it didn't hate it
Was pretty passionate first couple of years then changed to a special measured school and the pressures and constant criticism completely wrecked my confidence and it was never the same after that even when I changed schools
Really didn't like it when I had my own kids and felt resentful of being in a classroom with other people's kids and not being at home with my own - though this was when mine were babies .
Dh very successful in management in primary and slags it off but is brilliant at it
I do think you've either got 'it' or you haven't with teaching and it's very tough if you haven't got it

I teach in a small village primary. I've been teaching 22 years. I teach all subjects.

I work with great kids and staff. I still love it. I'm in work from 8.20 to 5pm. I go home, eat and then start again with marking, prep, assessments for 1-2 hours probably 2/3 nights a week. I also probably work 1/2 days during the holiday (more during the 6 weeks as I'll go into school to sort out my classroom)

I have 2 teenage kids but have always taught full time. The holidays are great if you have kids and if you do need to leave work at 4 you can.

The paperwork and expectations are ridiculous. We've recently had a new head who has changed lots of things which has upped the stress. I'm 49 now and shall be ready to retire at 60. How anyone can teach in their 60's is beyond me.

10 years as a TA at primary so well situated to observe the morale of teachers!

A lot depends on the school, naturally.

It all started out well, but during my 10 years our old head teacher retired to be replaced by a career climber, class sizes rose, the budget fell, and government red tape burgeoned.

Teachers gradually went from being mainly happy and occasionally stressed - to occasionally happy but mainly stressed and alarmingly often actually tearful.