Teachers - do you enjoy it?

[Wineandcheese2]

NC'd. Looking for some advice. Posting here for traffic.

Can the teachers out there tell me what it's like day to day. I read a lot of negative posts. I'm 12 months out of uni and considering doing a teaching course.

My background is in the emergency services but my degree is in law - I'm a bit older than your regular graduate.

Any advice would be welcome.

It’s up and down. Moments of utter hilarity but also can break your heart.
Lots of rubbish paperwork and admin stuff.
Parents can be awful, really abusive and unreasonable. Most aren’t but it’s getting more common.
Kids are great but I hate the pressure we put them under.
A mixed bag! It’s a good job if you are ok never feeling like you’ve finished or that you’re good enough. Sometimes you do get to make a real difference though.

I wouldn't do it again if I weren't already trained. It takes over your life, you work 6 days a week and the scrutiny you're under is incredibly stressful. Underpaid, overworked and disrespected by pretty much everyone. Love the kids and the teaching, but that's not what you spend most of the time doing, sadly.

Agree with all of the above. Somehow, it is still worth it.

I love teaching, really love it. I teach primary and I could talk for days about how much I love it! I love working with children, I love being able to be creative and I'm fascinated by child psychology. That said, I find it really hard that people look down on teachers, it upsets me way more than it should. I get upset for children that have difficult home lives, even though I know I'm very lucky to be in a position to help them.

What I'm saying is it's a wonderful job, it's rewarding in so many ways, but it's really hard work too. If you know have any links with schools, you might be able to spend some time shadowing a teacher to get an idea of what day to day work is like? Every school is different, but from my experience the school day can often go from 7:30 am to 6:00 pm, plus whatever you need to take home - when you factor in travel times as well, you might find you have less time for a social life that you would like! Obviously you do get the holidays, and while these are wonderful, they're not weeks of lying on a beach doing sweet FA, whatever some people might think. I often find I spend at least 3 days, if not more, of each holiday prepping for the next term. In the summer that will be more as you will need to sort your classroom out. Also the pay is not so good 🤷🏼‍♀️

I wouldn't quit though. I love it, I'm exhausted all the time, and I'll definitely whinge about some of it to my DH and all my teacher friends, but I get a warm fuzzy feeling at least five times a day when I'm teaching. I love it 🥰

I do, but only because I’ve gone part time and found a nice school. Before that my work life balance wasn’t right and I wasn’t happy. I love the teaching part, and can just about tolerate the paperwork. I’m not sure I’d choose it again, but there are a lot of upsides along with the stress.

Love the kids, love the teaching aspect. Hate the bureaucracy, stupid box ticking, badly thought out diktats from above and the fact it leaves you with no life. Plus, according to increasing numbers of parents you're always in the wrong and kids never are in a way that almost never happened when I started (over 20 years ago).

I used to believe in what we were doing for the children. Now I see us putting them under terrible pressure at increasingly young ages. I have no choice in this.

I absolutely loved teaching until my own kids started school. Before I had kids my work was my life, the only thing I was was a teacher. I quit when my youngest started school because I couldn’t reconcile my two roles. I never felt I had enough to give to my kids at school and my own kids.

It’s such a rewarding profession, but despite giving everything, I always felt there was more I should be doing. It’s a lot harder to do when resources are tight (and I taught in schools under 3 different governments, with bigger and smaller budgets). Teachers are expected to fill the void that budget cut some leave behind. I left 3 years ago, and by that point the teacher shortage was already being felt.

Best job in the world some days, pretty bad other days! Kids can be fab, many always are, but some are very difficult and you can’t wait to see the back of them at the end of the day! Long hours in term time but good holidays!

I'm not a teacher but I have 5 friends/relatives who are. Every single one of them hates it and wants to do something else.
One is out on maternity leave and has no plans to go back. Another is out with stress and doesn't know how she's going to be able to go back. A third is re-training as a fitness instructor. 2 others are stuck there but hating it.
Paperwork, pressure from headteachers and abuse from both pupils and parents seem to be the common denominators.

Primary or secondary? I'm primary and love it but I do commit A LOT of time. I did at the start of my career. Nine years in, I still do. Can't see it changing. Great holidays though.

You are basically going to get the same advice from everyone - the teaching, the kids and the 'lightbulb moments' are the most amazing moments ever! Getting a card at the end of the year where the children reference something that touched them, or helped them that you don't even recognise as anything out of the ordinary is fantastic.

The paperwork, the pressure on the kids and the constantly being observed, and the govt/schools changing things and adding more tests sucks. Schools vary massively though - my last school was dreadful for changing things constantly, expecting you to work through your lunch and break and PPA doing interventions, and constant observations. My new school is much more relaxed and the children are offered a much more rounded education and the children seem to achieve just as much.

You really should try shadowing teacher or two in the classroom and ask what the rest of their day and week is like before you make up your mind.
If it’s for you it’s the best job in the way, but it can be really tough. Tougher than anyone can ever describe. Not just the constant battle with children who answer back, tell you you are useless (and worse) every day, don’t want to learn and want to stop others learning (and it’s always seen as the teachers’s fault).
There’s the management who are always on your back driving you with targets for the class and yourself. You are constantly observed, marked and graded on your teaching and the children’s learning.
There’s endless paperwork that has to be done after the school day,

There are parents who naturally want the best for their children. Some expect you to work miracles, some don’t accept that their child might have to do some work, some expect you to parent as well as teach. Some are so very supportive.
There’s the hours you have to spend outside of school. Most teachers are in school in their classrooms working before 8.00am and leave at after 5.30pm. They will usually work through most of their lunch time and break times (even when they are not on the breaktime supervision rota). Then 2 or 3 (occasionally 4) hours in the evening and about 6 hours one day of the weekend. Maybe half of the holidays are also spent catching up or preparing for the next half term/ school year.
The moments when you see a child learn something you have taught, develop an idea in a new way, put together information and know you have been the catalyst... nothing can ever compare and you know that the exhaustion the stress and the pressure is well worth it.
Nothing can ever compare.

I'm a teacher (primary), on mat leave right now, but not planning on going back to it. My OH is also a teacher (high school science) and I don't think it would be fair for DS to have two parents teaching as it becomes all consuming. OH plans and marks every night and on weekends, I did the same when I was working. I might consider teaching adults or doing something online, but if you get a difficult group of kids it is emotionally draining.

I wouldn’t be a teacher if I had my time again. I love the job but it’s not worth the sacrifices I have to make in my personal life (never mind my health).

I loved the pupils and the teaching. But I couldn’t cope with the ridiculous workload and long hours. I need to have a life outside of work. I need to see my DH and my own DC. I need to have time for family, friends and hobbies. Working a 14 hour day destroys your health and your sanity. No job is worth that. Plus I need to earn a decent salary and have long term prospects so myself, DH and DC can have a good life. Not earn peanuts and be replaced by a newer/cheaper teacher when I progress too far up the pay scale. So I quit teaching.

Not a teacher but just reading and feel compelled to comment with a thank you, you teachers really are amazing. Thank you from a very grateful parent.

I'm not a teacher but my husband career changed to be a high school science teacher last year. He loves the teaching bit but the hours are slowly killing him and if I'm brutally honest it's ruining our marriage. He leaves the house before 7 isn't back until after 6 (on a good day!) and then spends 2-3hours working in the evenings, Sunday he works all day. He's tired and moody when I see him so I get the worst version of him. We had our second child at the start of his pgce year last year so he didn't make it easy for himself. We have 2 under 3 so it's hard juggling everything anyway but his all consuming job just makes work life balance impossible.

I'm not sure if he regrets his career change but from my point of view it was a bad decision for us as a family.

Sorry I'm not more positive, maybe if he'd picked an easy subject it wouldn't be so hard! My art teacher never looked remotely stressed, just saying 🙊...

I made a career change out of teaching 3 years ago after teaching for 20 years.
I enjoyed the first 15 - 17 years on the whole although there were many challenges, especially when I taught in socially and economically deprived areas.

I taught a subject which got severely sidelined due to the then new gov policy, and felt like I was wasting my time.

I now do a far more rewarding job working for myself which hugely benefits my family. Less hours, more flexibility, greater job satisfaction, more of me available to my family.

The teaching itself was rewarding, fun, and it was great seeing the impact my teaching and support had on my pupils, but I didn't enjoy playing politics whilst teaching, knowing the kids would usually lose out in the long run.

TimeForDinner what did you move onto?

Im 40s now and really wish I had qualified in something else.

I'm about to leave teaching after just over 20 years. I just can't see myself lasting until retirement so it's now or never. It can be very rewarding but the workload is massive, the impact on family life (my kids are young) is something that we've not been able to justify. DH fully supportive of the decision. I'm taking a £20k paycut for my new job but we can manage it.

It really depends on the school you're in. If you get into a school with a supportive leadership team, with a good bank of resources and schemes of work, with a good behaviour policy and generally supportive parents it makes all the difference. I was very lucky to find such as a school and I loved working there (most of the time, there were bad days of course).

After my daughter was born I went back to work and it wasn't the same. Part time wasn't really part time and I felt I was letting the kids down and also letting my daughter down. I did do 6 months but then resigned. I am currently a SAHM and I private tutor in the evenings , which is much less stressful. I would like to return in future but I don't know when that will be.

I’m like a lot of the pp. I love the actual “teaching” part of my job, but the paperwork and monitoring is awful. The worst part for me is the drive for inclusion to the detriment of the other children. I currently teach a child whose behaviour is beyond dreadful and it has a massive impact on the other children in the class. I spend so much time dealing with the dreadful behaviour (biting, hitting, kicking, spitting, swearing and throwing things) that I don’t get to teach, so the other children miss out. They also have to witness this behaviour and are sometimes targets themselves. In years gone by we would have had that child moved to a place that could support their needs, now they are “included” in mainstream and every other child’s education is impacted (but hey, that one child is more important as they are now in mainstream). We have lost sight of the bigger picture.

Goosey what have you moved into? I get really worried about my career prospects elsewhere.

Marmalady that sounds likes my daughters school. A fee kids in each class in her year whose needs arent being met are meaning her classes are noisy and disrupted :(

I moved from state to private and have found it so much more enjoyable. The smaller classes provide more opportunities to really get to know the kids and work on relationships. It’s very busy with extra duties and Sat morning. However the pay is much better, more possibilities for promotion and developing in different areas. I also wish the profession was more respected - 4 years BA Hons, PGCE 1 year plus NQT 1 year. It’s effectivley 6 years training.