to think there is something seriously wrong with our education system..

[TwinkleToes101]

when teachers are leaving in droves?

Just recently reading about record numbers of newly trained teachers giving up within 5 years (that was me 14 years ago), then on MN today partners having depression/breakdowns and all the posters who teach knew the person in question was a teacher...what the F is going so badly wrong with teaching??

I thought my reasons for leaving were personal: too little me time, too much low-level classroom disruption. Other postgrads I know left as I did because of work load. But don't other professions have high workloads/stresses?

I left the UK two decades ago. Very sorry to hear that teachers are still being treated this way.

I think low social status of teachers in the UK is a big problem.

This makes sense to me. I now live in NZ where teachers are more highly regarded, however, the last decade has seen a reduction in this because...

They’re seen as lazy and entitled (no idea why!)

...the state is the main employer of teachers and has (for the last decade) been treating them like children who can't be trusted to exercise their own judgment. Hardly surprising that the public should pick up on this.

I remember precisely the same thing happening in the UK in the 90s. I assume nothing has changed.

Compare lawyers, who are self-regulating and aren't told how to do their job by the government, because they're simply expected to know. In other words, treated like professionals.

my son is in state school but looking to possibly move him to private if he can get a scholarship/bursary

we were lucky in Primary - only 100 pupils in the school - doubled up years in most classromms, but the small friendly environment was beneficial - although we noticed a distinct change from a previously nurturing head (ofsted - good) when my daughter, 6 years his senior) was there, to an Ofsted Outstanding new head - definately more driven, more results based, less caring.

Secondary is a whole different ball game. My son is bright. He is in the yop stream for all lessons and he enjoys learning, and the teachers on the whole are nice but fighting a battle each day around achieving anything because of the general behaviour of the kids.

Im not looking to move my son because of the teachers - I think they are doing the best in a fucking awful environment. They try, they try to be funny, to engage, to be nice. But the kids!! The kids are just horrible. They are just mean. They spend their times trying to outdo each other in smart arsed cockiness, picking on people, trying to be cool, trying to prove themselves one way or another, usually at the expense of others. And that seems to be what they are interested in - their social standing.

My son did 3 days at the private school. Its a school where the head takes a particular care to offer places to kids who he feels will fit their 'family' - kids who are kind, who are fair and who are keen to learn. They are not swotty kids, nor are they typical 'we are the best' type kids. Just nice kids. They dont need to prove anything. The classes were fun, and because the teachers were not coralling the hoards, nor so restricted by the curriculum, they could explore subjects in more depth and go off at tangents to discuss and learn when a kid's attention was sparked by something new. And they value the arts which are as important a part of the curriculum. And nobody laughed at each other, made them feel small, made them humiliated.

The biggest difference was that my son fell over in both schools. At the private school the kids came running over to check he was OK, to help him up and pick up his things. At the state school they stood, pointed at laughed at him, and some took the opportunity to tip his bag contents into a puddle.

I do know though that not all state schools, not all private schools. But its the kids Im trying to move him away from. The teachers, on the whole, have all been pretty great.

A society that doesn’t invest in the education and development of all its children is heading for a fall.

Been teaching 21 years but would love to quit. School is obsessed with data and targets. All we do is teach to an assessment- so the curriculum is rigid. The fun and creativity has disappeared. Kids aren't engaged and often don't care. Constantly under scrutiny. I have a departmental review in January again. Book looks, learning walks etc etc. I worry for the children. Regularly take sleeping tablets. It's just too much.

@mummabear2212 I started up my own wrap-around childcare business. I’m still working with kids (but primary, where I was a secondary teacher). So I run a breakfast and after school club, plus holiday club. My own kids come to work with me. I get all the benefits of working with children with none of the data driven rubbish. I have to go through ofsted inspections, but as the kids attend school, I’m not inspected on outcomes. If I don’t like the way something is done, I can change it. The only people I answer to are the parents, really.

I definitely don’t earn as much as I was when teaching, but my outgoings have gone down significantly. I don’t pay for childcare anymore. I work about half a mile from my house, so I barely pay for petrol. I don’t need a work wardrobe. I don’t have to buy class sets of glue sticks out of my own money (I can use the business’ money, So not out of my own wages).

Don’t underestimate the skills you’ve gained as a teacher. You’re very capable, flexible, adaptable. There are skills a teacher develops that are very valuable in the private sector. Just because teaching makes you feel inadequate, doesn’t mean you are.

Overqualified primary TA here. I wouldn't go into teaching in the current climate unless it was the nuclear option (ie I needed the salary more than my sanity).

There are lots of different problems in education but in the end, it's money. Primary TAs have been decimated - I'm not even half-time now and poorly deployed at that. We have very low turnover of staff, we're a very stable school, but when two TAs quit last year for better paid work, they weren't replaced and hours were reduced after OFSTED finally visited. More children are arriving with SEN, which we could handle if we had enough staff to be running interventions. There are more children in each class - we're on 35 in most classes and being pushed to accept more even though you literally cannot put another desk in some of our classrooms. More children in my school are just in the wrong side of Pupil Premium every year thanks to increasing poverty, so they're in need, but not quite needy enough and we've no means of supporting them.

There will always be disruptive children for whatever reason - undiscovered or borderline SEN, the effects of poor parenting and/or poverty. Two in a class of 25 is handleable. Eight in a class of 35 when you can't circulate round the desks and your SLT does nothing but screech at them for the sixth time that week...it's not sustainable (and after last week I think certain SLT are either going to have a breakdown or a coronary). And that's my view from the bottom of the totem pole, with none of the planning, scrutiny and data capture on top. I frequently volunteer to do the data entry for my teacher because I'm a lot faster at it and it means she doesn't have to take it home - but it still takes me a wasted afternoon to plug in the data.

I had a long discussion this week with some colleagues who've been TAs far longer than me, and one of their big frustrations is the disconnect between primary and secondary. We put all this work into our most vulnerable children, but when they walk out of our doors on the last day of Y6 we have no idea what they're going to, whether they'll get support or be lost in the crowds. I presume SENCOs pass on paperwork, but there's no handover from staff who've been working with children from Reception onwards. We need a more "continuity of care" approach on this, not bits of paper and box ticking.

Don't get me started on SATs, or entitled attitudes, or just how badly affected children living between multiple homes can be. I honestly think our school would collapse if we didn't have an amazing pastoral lead.

don't other professions have high workloads/stresses?

My DH has a heavy workload and lots of stress.

BUT:

• He earns treble what I earned as a teacher
• He feels respected, valued and important
• He has the resources and budget he needs to do his job effectively
• He can take a coffee break and have a wee whenever he wants
• He works with adult colleagues (not like a teacher who is isolated as the only adult in a room of kids with nobody to talk to)
• He works with people who are interested and enthusiastic, if someone doesn’t engage they get the boot
• If anyone assaults or verbally abuses him they will be disciplined and possibly fired
• If anyone refuses to do what he tells them they will be disciplined and possibly fired
• He tells people what to do but isn’t expected to hover over them supervising and forcing them to work against their will
• If someone else fails to perform they will be held personally accountable, DH will not be blamed for their lack of work
• He is trusted to do his job properly and isn’t inspected or asked to provide evidence that he’s doing what he’s supposed to

For those looking to leave teaching and were asking what to do - I know many who have left now (ironically most since I left myself in August...) A lot moved onto the civil service, a couple into sideways appointments as educational consultants for museum/houses, one into tutoring. I took a job with a company which found me via a recruitment site. I know someone else who works with people with brain injuries (eg an 18 year old with Year 3 capabilities) which she is really enjoying, another who retrained as an accountant and a chef.
The best advice I can give is to think outside the box, don't just look at eteach or the TES, look at the Guardian website, put your hometown and 'employment' I'm the search engine, don't limit yourself.
I would also say have confidence in your abilities, it's hard to big yourself up when you feel burned out and exhausted from the sheer relentlesness of school but you need to believe in and be able to project that confidence.

I was a Deputy Head in a secondary school until I had DS and then DD when I beacme SAHM. DH is now a Head in a secondary school in a deprived area. I do bits of work for LAs, MATs and advise schools.
I can't speak about primary education but what has happened to secondary education in the last 9 years is awful.
The curriculum is now inappropriate for quite large groups of children but schools are pressured by the performance tables to persist with it for all children.
Behaviour has become significantly worse - partly because of the inappropriate curriculum and partly because of austerity and public service cuts but mainly because of poor parenting. Behaviour, exclusions and how schools manage behaviour will be an increasing national issue and you can bet the blame will be placed firmly on schools- parents and children and government are never to be blamed.
I would hate to think DS or DD was in some secondary schools at the moment.
Teachers are under continual pressure. I spoke to an MFL teacher recently in a secondary school in the Teeside area whilst I was doing some work in the school. She was teaching 22 hrs out of 25. She is the only MFL teacher in a small secondary school in a very deprived area. She teaches every class in Y7, 8 and 9 and very small GCSE groups in Y10 and Y11. She has to prepare the whole MFL curriculum for every age and ability, mark all the books and exam papers, write all the reports and then formally assess every child in an exam type assessment every 6 weeks for data progress collections. She is effectively Head of Dept in a dept of 1 and has no TLR or additional time for leading a dept. She has to attend CPD twice a week after school, does two duty days a week, is expected to offer revision and catch-up classes and follow-up behaviour incidents with students, detentions, parent phone calls. She is working 60 + hours a week approximately and is a single parent. The results are awful. The children do not want to do MFL and find it very difficult.
Pupil Premium rates in the school are between 65 and 75% in each year group and only 6% of families have any experience of university. Parents do not attend parents evenings - approx 15-20% attendance- and many are not supportive of the school and are verbally abusive to staff.
The MFL teacher is now subject to a strict monitoring programme because the results are so awful (as are most departments). Her lessons are observed by people who are not MFL specialists and she is continually criticised but can not engage the students in Y9, 10 and 11 who just think MFL is 'a waste of time' and say so openly.
OFSTED have just been and said behaviour was dreadful in the school and teaching was poor - because results were so poor and children are not engaged in lessons - across the school.
She is at the point of leaving because of stress. 4 other staff are off on long-term stress since September, including the Deputy Head who has worked there for 20 years and she was highly respected by staff and students. They have a temporary Head of Maths and a Teach First person in their second year who is acting as Head of English.
It is shocking. There is now no pretence that things are getting better in the school and the MAT will bring in a new Head - who will be the third in about 5 years. The school is totally demoralised and I have no doubt will lose a number of staff this summer and be unable to appoint to those posts with decent teachers.
The School has many children with SEN- it has a specialist provision for children with MLD who have EHCPs. They are grossly underfunded for those children, many of whom have other difficulties and require provision from CAMHS- the waiting list for initial appointments is currently 8 months. Their local council has cut back family suppirt workers dramatically because of budget pressures and being required to make £50+million of savings in the last 4 years and that is continuing with £18million more required to be saved in the next two years.
It is madness what has happened in education and will have an impact for many decades going ahead.

Classroom teachers should be:
Paid more - new entrants and in the first 4 years. Older teachers and those with responsibility points are quite well-paid I think.
Be allowed to offer appropriate curriculums to meet student needs- and not have those dictated by government.
Have more non-contact time - 1 day a week for a full-time teacher for prep and marking.
Do less data collection - it is not necessary and rarely used by schools to do anything other than beat teachers with.
OfSTED needs a complete overhaul. It is outdated and quite sad in how it operates as a 'one size fits all' system.
Government Performance tables are unfair and should be scrapped. They mean nothing as a comparison tool to 99% of parents.
Free schools and academies must be made to conform to the same requirements as other schools re:admission. They do not and find ways to put off or move difficult or needy children.

Education needs huge investment, huge, in all areas including provision for parenting and child welfare.

The whole system at secondary level is now chaotic and unmanageable. There is nothing holding it together and no moral integrity amongst some of the leaders who run Free Schools and MATS, no sense of working together in the interests of all children.

There is a crisis in school leadership. I see many very weak school leaders- who would never have been leaders 10 years ago but times are desperate. I know personally of several who have been sacked/allowed to leave because of misconduct in a state school and employed by a MAT or a Free School almost immediately because they have been desperate.

It is hard to attract good people into teaching and even harder to keep them. Inmost jobs- nursing and police aside- no one experiences the level of stress and abuse teachers experience.

I think part of it is that teachers are expected to be all things - not just educators but counsellors, surrogate parents, politicians and customer service agents - some parents speak to them like they’re complaining to Waitrose about finding mould in their salad.

One of my closest friends is a primary school teacher and she loves it, but its very hard work. Also she has to deal with things like kids who have barely been potty trained and have accidents daily, or kids who haven’t been given breakfast and are irritable and distracted in class because they’re hungry. She’s even started bringing in fruit (at her expense) for kids who haven’t had anything (and not an issue of money, the school is in an affluent area) It’s a lot for people to deal with on top of meeting Ofsted standards and everything else.

I am so worried about my own DC starting school. Being taught by exhausted unhappy teachers who hate their jobs and survive by taking antidepressants. Being in a class full of disruptive badly behaved kids and not learning much because it’s all the teacher can do to maintain order. Being taught boring, ill prepared and outdated materials because that’s all the teacher had time to cobble together due to their heavy workload. Being pushed into tests and tick box exercises instead of doing real learning. I really don’t know what to do - I wouldn’t want to go into that environment myself and I’m concerned about sending my DC.

I had a mental breakdown in my second year of teaching. It was awful and mostly work related. Thankfully with CBT and drugs I have mostly recovered! I still take antidepressants so unsure if I'm only coping because of them. As much stress as the job causes, I love the teaching side of the job and all the children. I can't see myself doing anything else.

Milkycuppa: me too! I’m a teacher. I want to leave but I really love teaching just not all of the other parts of the job. It’s too much and my colleagues are all at breaking point too. My eldest DC will start school soon and I am very, very worried. I might bring them to my school so I can keep a bit of an eye on them.

It’s the disruptive behaviour that is the worst. I am in primary and this week I have been bitten, kicked, punched, scratched and slapped by a child in my class. The council do everything they can to stop exclusions so I and the other children must put up with this child in our small classroom. There is no help to be had. The cahms waiting list is over 6 months long. The statutory timescales for EHCPs is pushed to the max and usually they are rejected anyway because there is no money available. It will take around a year to get funding for 1:1 or a special school move. In the meantime I am likely to end up off sick with stress and my poor class are learning very little while I spend the days being attacked to prevent the other children from being attacked. It’s farsical. The education of 29 children being ruined by the behaviour of 1 child. And this is not the first time I have had this situation in one of my classes. It’s all too common.

I would like more pay, would love more non-contact time... but really I just would love to be able to teach my class without being violently attacked.

@Yumyumbananas This is the sort of thing I’m worried about. I wouldn’t want my child to be in that class.

I was a school social worker for a couple of years and loved it but even if hell freezed over I would not entertain being a teacher. My days were pretty leisurely. Would see students when I choose to, did social skills groups a few times a week, subbed in for the speech therapist when she was away. It was a good life. Lunchtime we had a safe space for children with SEN and disabilities to come in to the music room which had a cupboard full of toys and a small fenced off play area. Supervision for it was done on a roster system. I volunteered to do it every single day because I could take a three hour lunchbreak if I chose but that was it for the teachers. Combine that with yard duty teachers only got a full 45 minute lunchbreak 3 times a week. They got their before I did and left after me. They had to work an extra week on either side of the school breaks while I skipped off to enjoy my full summer. And I got paid significantly more than they did.

Luck of the admissions draw. All of the other classes at my school are fine. This child arrived in my class in October from another school and it’s awful. I shield the other children and take the brunt of the physical attacks but I am not being the best teacher I could be. I spent hours completing paperwork to justify why I have had to restrain this child and speaking to behavioural teams on the phone. Planning and marking are not a priority. This one child is the priority. It’s madness.

Primary teaching made me suicidal. Not because of the kids, because of the work load. I had no weekends, evenings or holidays and yet I was earning £23,000. I realised I had spent 4 years and £18,000 to get myself into a profession that gave me no time for a life. My mental health has never recovered from the stress.

Completely echo Kolo's post. That's why, after many years of teaching in the State system, I left. Now work in a lovely independent school and it's a world away. It really is one of the only viable ways to remain in and enjoy teaching these days - no stress, lovely children and the freedom to teach without being constantly observed or in meetings.

As a parent of children who are the square pegs being stuffed into the round holes I could see exactly what was going to happen.

It is ok if your child is reasonably bright and likes the limited academic subjects on offer but if your dc has SEN or is more into the arts or sport or wanting a more practical career then you might as well leave school after primary because the next 5-7 years don’t apply to you.

This I think is where a lot of the bad behaviour stems from.

Pupils are bored stiff.

There is nothing to interest them.

Years ago whilst you might have done English Maths and a few academic lessons there was also Art or Sports or even metal work, woodwork or diy type lessons to excel in and this for a lot kept them interested in school.

It was something that they were interested in and could plan a career around.

What you have now is a group of students who are not interested or can’t do the subjects being taught and there is nothing keeping them in school.
Nor is there any reason for them to behave.

10 years ago it was drummed into me that dd needed to read by the start of year 2. Otherwise she would get left behind.

Dd learned to read just before going into year 2 so we didn’t have a worry.

Ds didn’t read when he started in year 2.
Whist he couldn’t read or write he was expected to do comprehension pieces as homework. Failure to do the homework which was completely beyond him meant he was not allowed out at play time or to play at lunch time.

He sat infront of a blank piece of paper everyday.

Only response I got when I asked if they realised he couldn’t read or write was they were teaching the curriculum and he had to adhere to the curriculum.

I think it starts long before school. The most important time of a child's life are the 9 months in the womb and the next 5 years.
All the services that would optimise that time have been decimated or destroyed.
Schools have no chance of fixing things, especially with the way funding has been cut.
This fallacy that all children with extra needs can be shoved into mainstream schools is cruel and it is a cynical con trick. I despair of the state of the UK now and the wanton destruction of the NHS and education and public services.

My mum was a teacher in the 1970s, she was promoted to head of her primary school but then was diagnosed with cancer so never took up the position. She had many friends who were teachers, male and female. I remember even back then that if teachers thought they could find another well paid option they would leave teaching. They talked a lot about the stress and bureaucracy even then and how excellent teachers were leaving the profession. Some of them said if they had their time again they would not’ve become teachers. I also remember my mum’s sister constantly telling her that teachers had it easy, with lots of holidays and short days .

They all taught in state schools in London. My mum chose to teach at an inner city school that was in the middle of a deprived council estate. She loved it and she was very proud of the results the teachers managed to inspire from the children. The estate was kind of a sink estate, families and people were put there, noone chose it. New immigrants and refugees were also given housing there so a high proportion of students were speaking another language at home.

Yes, there is a lot wrong with the system.
In home education circles, ex-teachers turned homeschool parents are overrepresented.

I think, personally, that the route to study a masters post an undergrad degree should be removed, as this does sometimes result in letting in teachers who have a very limited experience of the profession (1 year is just not enough).

Teachers should only be allowed in post completion of the full teaching course and that course should be entirely practice based. We should also bring in more teachers from overseas.

I think part of the reasons teachers leave is greener pastures elsewhere. I work in an Australian school which recruits in the UK. Most of the teachers who've come from overseas into the school say that working conditions are better, and there is more disposable income.

InionEile-which state are you in? I am finding teaching in the US more sustainable. I work 7.30 till 4 ish take 30 mins break and 30 mins lunch and just do a bot of prep in the holidays. I sometimes get homesick for the UK but I just cannot face going back to the 50 week and teaching to the test. I have so much more freedom over here as to what I do with my students. Still a tiring job but better paid and better hours. I actually prefer the US system-far less teaching to the test here.