...do teachers really work that hard?

[User298895613]

I know the general idea on AIBU is that teachers work load is ridiculous, that they work extra hard and that they never never stop to the point that they r all seemingly leaving the profession.

But, AIBU to wonder if they are any different to anyone else? and actually might have it a bit easier? I mean, I also work myself into the ground, am exhausted, never stop etc... But I don't have summer holidays off to look after my kids, and I often work well into the small hours at night.

I'm not saying teachers don't work hard, but sometimes on munsnet I just feel like some teachers kind of spend a lot of time complaining about the workload, when maybe it's just the same as everyone elses, but with a nice long summer holiday?

(Sorry, I appreciate this will really inflame some posters, but it just had been annoying me lately)

Hello :) ok, apologies if people thought I was implying teachers have it easy. I don't think that and never said it! I didn't mean to offend.

To those that think I should try teaching - no thanks, I don't want to join the profession (well, I wouldn't want to teach primary age anyway) as it's not my thing and I don't think I could do it.

Why do people choose the profession?

Yeah it’s so easy.

My teacher friend started work at 7.15 this morning and will finish around 8 tonight after parents evening

So if someone said we winge I would be like yeah some nurses do, most just crack on with a professional smile.

The difference is, it’s not ‘someone’ saying it, it’s countless people saying it all the time-people who have no idea of what the job is like, the media and politicians! It gets wearing as it’s simply not true.

Kindridspirirt
This happens all the time in loooooaaads of other jobs. Your not the only profession souronded by red tape. We also often buy our patients shampoo and conditioner etc and I pay for my own teaching supplies to make my lessons more fun and engaging. I enjoy those things I don’t see them as a negative, I see them as investing in my career , my patients and my colleagues.

Colly you just can’t compare how you would feel seeing a first-ever thread about whinging nurses with how it feels to be a teacher and see criticism after criticism of a job that has eaten you up and spat you out and that you still keep going back to (because, kids). It’s like a man saying “but I’d like it if someone whistled at me!”
I don’t think it should be here either, the OP was not in good faith.

Noblegiraffe

Yes it’s a mixture of nursing students, nurses, doctors. Sometimes even children if we have linked with a school. But that’s not the part of my job I was implying is stressful. I meant the part where we only have 50% of the required nurses on a shift and 13 patients are due chemotherapy. Now that I consider stressful. But I signed up for that job, I knew it would be like that. I knew the shifts would be long and crazy times and it would have very emotional aspects. But I still trained to do it so I suck it up and crack on.

If they need to do that they must be really inefficient and desperately need a time mamangement course!

Ok. I’m HoD and the DSLO in a massive urban school.

I teach:
19 lessons
1 intervention lesson
1 dept meeting
1 LM meeting p/w (dept rotated through)
1 HoD meeting or my LM p/w

2 sessions a week with vulnerable students
1 lesson observing my dept.
2 after school interventions
1 CPD meeting after school
Twice termly MAT meetings.

That leaves 4 lessons in the school week “free”.
Often, this gets swallowed up by safeguarding issues. That’s not avoidable, and it takes the time it takes.

Every lesson takes a minimum of 20 mins to plan - that’s if I’m recycling a lesson. If it’s new, or if it didn’t work the first time it can take an hour.
We have no reprographics dept (that went in the last round of cuts) so all photocopying of resources for my classes are done by me.

I have 2 sets of books for each class - Lit and Lang - which take on average 5 mins to mark each. Every set is 25+ kids. They need marking every two weeks.
We have 2 sets of mock exams per ks4 year group every year. An English paper takes at least 20 mins to mark per paper.

Can someone get me on the time management course that will help me not have to do shitloads after school and at the weekend?

@lou12124
Oh aren't you a saint. I can use whatever language I want, I'm not at work. Or who knows, since I'm at home, at my kitchen table, marking fucking books. But yeah, all this free time that teachers have...

I think people get overly defensive. Teaching is hard in term time but it has perks (like holidays). There is definitely no need to insult other professions. Nurses, Doctors, social workers, firefighters. All of these jobs are difficult and the people who do them are hard working and generally under appreciated given what they are doing day in day out. However they all have their pitfalls and perks. Nurses may not deal with 30 kids but they do deal with the sick, people who are dying, and difficult families. Which I certainly could never do, it’s stressful and difficult and they should be paid a hell of a lot more for all the amazing stuff they do. I think it is as simple as, if you love your job, whether a teacher, nurse, electrician...Then the crap stuff is worth putting up with. We can all have a moan sometimes but if you find yourself moaning constantly and you feel like there are absolutely no perks to the job/ enjoyment it’s possibly time you considered something else.

On the whole most of the teachers I have met love what they do, even when it’s hard it’s generally worth it. The moment it becomes not really worth it, I won’t moan about it constantly, I will probably go do something else! Because ultimately a teacher who doesn’t want to be there isn’t going to be a very good teacher at all.

Oh the OP is back. Do you normally start threads and not revisit them for almost two days or is it just when you feel like being a particular cunt? I know you aren’t worth the deletion but you bloody deserve it you goady fucker.

Nicol90 that’s the best message yet.

@Nicol90
Just stop with the holidays already! It's our overtime! It's our evenings and weekends that we give up! Those 6 weeks in the summer are the only time when I can properly see my kids! Half terms are spent on me catching up on work!

@Rainuntilseptember
My thoughts exactly...👌

My own experience isn’t as bad as many on here (probably as I’m in Scotland) but I could positively cry for my colleagues in England who are working till midnight and during holidays and who then have to come on here to relax and read this belittling shit over and over.

Teaching is hard, requires lots of dedication, lots of hours, and the school hols aren't allholiday...nonwhere near. And.. The pay isn't great.

Still, other jobs/professions are similar in demands/rewards. I think we hear about it so much due to the huge body of teachers we have. Other professions tend to not have as big of a voice. Which might make teachers appear more vocal than they are.

I’ve seen it from both sides, starting my career in banking, becoming a primary teacher when we had kids and now running an educational technology company.

Compared to working in the private sector I’d say that teaching has worse pay but that’s partly offset by the greatly reduced hours and crazy long holidays.

Both jobs are stressful in their own way but teaching comes with levels of job security that you’d never get in the private sector. Sure you can lose your job as a teacher but you really have to do something seriously wrong - in a bank all you need is to lose a client, have a bad month or even for the big swinging dicks in NY to just decide they don’t like you and you’re gone. It’s far more relaxing as a teacher, sure you’ll have bad days but there’s always tomorrow - you don’t worry that HR and a guy from security will turn up at your desk to tell you that you’re gone and escort you off the premises.

What this sadly means is that while schools are full of mostly inspirational teachers, there are some absolute shits that are simply untouchable because they’re teachers and would have been sacked many moons ago in the outside world.

So I think teachers definitely do work hard, it’s not as easy as people like to think but it’s certainly not as bad as many teachers make out.

But I still trained to do it so I suck it up and crack on

So do I.

So do most teachers tbh.

Except when a CF like the OP does this. It’s tiresomely regular - and of course people feel defensive, when they are working really bloody hard.

I have never once seen an actual teacher start a thread saying “Gosh I work harder than any nurse, doctor, whatever”. It’s msinly GFs saying it.

Yes lots of jobs are hard. Some are definitely harder. Instead of turning it into a competition or calling teachers lazy socialists look at the facts.

Recruitment and retention crisis!?! Why don't people want to do it if its not that hard

Seriously are you really asking that question...Teachers don’t spend the holidays at home, they are working for a lot of the time...they don’t finish when the children go home, they are completing paperwork and preparing for the next day. It’s very narrow minded to think they have an easy job..why do you think so many are leaving the profession and why they struggle to recruit??? The world of Early Years is just as tough.

I spent my Sunday marking and grading 66 essays...

My average day(bear in mind I'm just a TA).
Get in at 8 ,look at the plans,figure out what I'm doing ,get my stuff ready.
9 SPAG/Phonics with 15 kids.
Straight into english after, at least 6 books to mark in depth.
Go with class to assembly.
Take them out to play.
Maths ,again at least 6 books.
Read with a group of kids and make comments.
Lunch (sometimes i have to help supervise or run a lunchclub)
2 Afternoon lessons again at least 6 books each to mark.
Home time
Catch up on the day,fill in assessment sheets (for each group for each lesson).
That's without the extras..meetings, updates, forms, reporting or filling in records of concern, looking for a billion lost things, taking messages, sorting out misunderstandings, intervention groups, offering emotional or academic support to kids(some not even in my own class), breaking up fights, being spat at,punched ,kicked ,shouted and sworn at. The emotional side of it... either being told about neglect,abuse,MH issues or dealing with the aftermath from it.

And then I fuck off right on time because I have my own kid to pick up.

My class teacher is there at 7 and leaves at about 5(on a good day).Often she takes books home. We both buy/make /bring things in for the class. We care about our kids, spend hours trying to figure out how to help the ones that struggle,we fight for them and to get them support. Then there's a blooming learning walk and get told all the things we're doing wrong and a parent is in in the morning complaining that we're awful,lazy and uncaring for not looking for their kid's gloves, and we need to check everyone else's backpacks and trays.
She chases parents for P&T meetings and gets told off by SLT for not having enough replies and to arrange a meeting in her own time. The parents never show up.

Yes it can be a laugh,the kids are mostly great, the lightbulb moments are amazing,the cuddles are heartwarming but it's not easy,it's not 9-3 and it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

Why do people keep putting their daily schedules on here. I’m aware you all work hard. But listing your daily roles doesn’t warm me to you as teachers, it proves the point that some of you feel hard done by. And I can’t believe how many people are swearing on this thread.

Oh and we have 7 SEN kids in the class, 2 where care proceedings have started and about 17 in total on pupil premium.
Fun times...

I was once a secondary school teacher for 3 and a half years. This was a million years ago. I left to do something else because it was really stressful (to me).
Modern teachers work even harder. I would NEVER want to do that again.
But...………...the HOLIDAYS! They are so long! I just do not believe that teachers spend their giant holidays working. Of course they don't!
It is a reward for their long hard days during term time. Swings and Roundabouts.
How many teachers would really change their holidays for a "normal" job with normal short holidays?
A Poll perhaps?