...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)

My mum worked as a teacher in primary schools (ages 6 to 11/12) in inner city London schools but this was in 70s and 80s and early to mid 90s. At one point she job shared with another teacher (2.5 days a week) doing drama and art but partly due to my brother being very ill (severe asthma) and she also retrained in special needs to be a SENCO as well as being a class teacher. She generally started at 8.30-9 and finished 3-4 especially when we were young kids so she could pick us up from school. As we got older we didn’t need the same attention. I don’t recall her doing work in evenings, weekends or school holidays.

As she came near to retirement age ( was medically retired in early 50s) SATs were introduced and she had more work but she was a SENCO then too.

My teacher friends now, some work really hard lots of work in evenings or weekends and others try to balance with work life balance.

Certainly not the same as when my mum taught though and i think lots of teachers work really hard. My DB’s MiL for example teaches law and English at 4th to I think 6th form level and she’s exhausted but tries to not do much work in evenings and weekends as she’s a carer for her DH who’s a paraplegic. In holidays she does some work but tries not to do much. At 70 I can see it’s taking its toll on her now. The pupils where she works are demanding and have difficult backgrounds too.

Callme I don't know many state schools where lunch is an hour. Ours is 35 minutes. One day I have a meeting, one day a duty and the third I run a club (I am part time). I never leave my classroom at break as I am sorting out from the last two lessons, preparing for the next, running detentions and talking to pupils who need my help.

I used to pick DS up at 445 unless I had a meeting. When he was asleep I would do 4/5 hours more work. I was full time then and couldn't sustain it and be there for him too hence being part time.

On a Sunday and one day off I work. It means I have evenings free.

I find it very hard to believe that teachers are spending every break and lunch working. In my area the staff room is well used and well stocked with tea, coffee and biscuits!

In your area? Not sure what that means.

Amazingly, I can drink coffee and eat a biscuit while marking/ sitting in a meeting / supervising children playing (Last one is a bit harder though).

I’m amazing, me! Believe what you like.

Really not original enough, OP.

Must try harder x 100

On my desk first thing tomorrow morning.
Do I make myself clear?

35 minute lunch for me too.
One day is spent eating sandwich outside on duty
One doing lunch detention
One day a week I SIT DOWN only next I make a bloody point of it because it's unpaid!

I work three days a week.

Op I work in the nhs which is also a job where there’s high level of stress and people leaving to retrain or work overseas.
In answer to your post teachers are like all people very varied, some incredibly inspiring and hardworking some okay and in my opinion a small minority who either got into teaching because failed at their first choice of career and don’t particularly like kids.
Overall though what makes their job pressurised is the constant assessments of even the youngest pupils plus ridged syllabus.
Dispite having to lesson plan mark homework etc many still run after school clubs.
So many of the bright talented teachers in my DC’s primary ended up leaving to work in the Far East where teachers are better paid and respected.

Teachers are terribly underpaid for the hours they put in. So in that respect yes it is a hard job.

So if the working conditions are so bad, why do you all choose to stay and teach?

No one here is saying teachers shouldn't have tea breaks and lunches and holidays, over course they should.

Every one should but no matter what job you're in doesn't guarantee a full lunch break or early finish or no evening work.

On balance though I think teaching offers a relatively good work life balance, or at least it should. I have close friends who are Nurses and Police and they'd probably find this discussion rather tedious.

think very few people think teachers work 9-3:30, but then very few professionals work 9-5, or even 8-7, before they too work in the evening. I don’t think teachers are unique in receiving put-downs about their work etc, though I think possibly they are more emotional about it (this is a totally personal observation based on the teachers I know). I expect it gets tedious.

But are all those people who also work 8-6 being told they are part timers who don’t know they’re born. That’s what gets so irritating.

I have a feeling that i'm just another voice adding to a long line of WTF YOU GOADY WANKER. And this is based on my experience a child of a teacher.

when maybe it's just the same as everyone elses, but with a nice long summer holiday?

Long summer holiday? Whats one of them like? I would go and spend summer with my foster parents ajd my brother would go to my maternal grandparents because my mum would still be working the majority of the summer. Summer schools, planning the next school year etc. The days i was actually on school holiday with my mum would more often than not be going in to her school and either trying to entertain myself with art and books, luckly art and english were her subjects or running around doing jobs for her, or sitting in her class room while she was at a what used to be called Baker days. Yep i sooooo remember all that quality time we got together in those nice long summer holidays you mention. Ohhhhhh yeah no i don't, i remember missing my mum like hell and gettimg back to school and hearing about all this time other kids had spent with their parents and these really nice holidays they went on. In fact i usee to be jealous of parents with normal jobs because they actually seemed to have holidays where they actually left home to go to butlins/centre parcs i remember being really jealous of a friend who was going to centre parcs or even left the country every one else in my class would go to france or spain their whole family for 2 weeks. For me holidays were two weeks in cornwell with my dad who worked for the council and my normal job step mother. And i often remember my visits to theres being resheduled because they'd gone on holiday abroard something my mum and step dad couldnt afford. I remember even saying once i was going to get a office job because it wasn't as stressful and you were allowed to take holidays. These nice long summer holidays you speak of don't ring true for me.

And i started school 35 years ago and left 20 years ago and my mum often says she couldnt have carried on teaching and certianly couldnt do it to day, more paper wprk more pressure more standards. So it must be worse.

So maybe everyone elses job is like teachers with less stress and nice two week holidays to spend with tjeir children.

Do you leave the house at 6.30am, get home at 7.30pm (on a good day, not including parents evenings/meetings), have half an hour to yourself and then do 3 more hours of work? Every night?
Just to add to this. Do you get to book annual leave so you can go to your childs school play/concert? Do you watch your childs sporting activities? Do you go to your children's parents evenings?
Is your child the only one in the class tjaf has to go homs with a teacher or school friend bexause you can't pick them up from an after school activity because your still in your own school working?

I used dread school plays every one elses mum would be there but mine, especially in primary school, for the afternoon perfomace.

I'd often be the only one coming back with slips saying sorry i cant attend parents evening because its my schools parents evening on the school day. Or i won't be home until 6 and the parents evening runs between 4 and 6.

*d, 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)

d, 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)

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

So you knew you were being a goady fucker do you know what really really annoys me. Not just lately but in general. GOADY FUCKERS who start teacher bashing threads

Come on the callme join us. See what you think when you actually know what you are talking about.
Teachers on here are not arguing that others have a difficult job. It seems to be you and OP that are saying we have it easy.

Also ref PPA at home : also does not happen... if you are lucky you might be able to sneak out but I knwo many people who have been told off for this. It ceratinly is not the same as 'working from home' and would not be allowed to be combined with one's own childcare. You'd probably be made to go part time if you did that.

I've two family members who are teachers they both work four days a week and both only in school 3 and a half days as they do ppa at home. Different schools.
One of my older children's teachers was pg the same time as me and we did the same baby baby class together, I asked her if she'd miss it as her mat leave was ending and she said she would still be attending as she was doing ppa from home on that morning each week.

Daipaned over 20 years of teaching and have known this happen once for a teacher who had booked her honeymoon while working in a different region (so, different holidays) than the one she then moved to. It really is unthinkable. Unless you’re signed off with stress, I suppose...

Again two teachers in the family, wedding was booked abroad by another close family member for the week before Easter holidays, both teachers could attend for the full week.
Friend who's a teacher had four days off for family holiday for a big birthday, teacher in DC's school had two weeks off to climb a mountain, a friend of a friend went to America for three weeks.
I'm not saying teachers can book a term time holiday willy nilly, all the above examples were big one off events.

What I can say is that teachers seem to feel the need the tell people how hard they are working in a way other professions/jobs don’t.

Teachers have consistently reported hardship since I was in secondary school in the 1980s. The problem is few people listen anymore to actually understand if it is true hardship because they heard it throughout their own education and now their childrens.

My SIL considered teaching, but researched it (easily done as negatives are so widely and regularly publicised) and found it could have longer unflexible hours, the admin, the pay, the accountability, ongoing change management enforced by government "improvements" etc and decided it wasn't for her.

I cant understand anyone who decides on a career, especially in the last 10 years, which basic research will tell them has these inherent negative elements and then constantly complain about them. Its akin to joining the army and complaining you need to wear khaki and go abroad for months at a time. There is absolutely no doubt teaching is not an easy job and requires a certain quality of person but why enter the profession if you don't want to do all it entails?

If you do join and decide its not for you, you have a degree and transferrable skills, go and do a different career, no one asks anyone to stay in any job and make themselves a martyr while hoping for change that no one promises is coming. Lots of teachers are leaving the profession, but obviously not enough to make it a trigger for change, the numbers staying are stopping improving conditions/pay.

Its unfortunate but true, and I'm sorry but I do turn the page when I see yet another teacher pay/conditions newspaper story. I think they are victims of too much publicity, so much that lots of people are immune to it now and I don't know how the teachers of today fix that.

if the working conditions are so bad, why do you all choose to stay and teach?

If the working conditions are so great, why do you think there is a critical shortage of teachers?

So if the working conditions are so bad, why do you all choose to stay and teach?

Many many many don't, teachimg is losung more than it can train.

And if they all left who wouod teach children .

Yeah yeah hay teachers all go and get normal 9-5's even with overtime it would be less stress but oh yes no one could teach the kids. And watch all the parents complain bexause theres no schools for their children to go to

Dai I have never known this happen in 20
Years other than the odd day off unpaid for graduation of children. Never birthdays or holidays. You must have some very lucky or imaginary friends

OP hasn’t replied to one post, very telling!

Oh and callme I stay because I love teaching children and despite it being a very different experience it is the children I do it for

Teachers on here are not arguing that others have a difficult job. It seems to be you and OP that are saying we have it easy.

That should be made a sticky!!

So if the working conditions are so bad, why do you all choose to stay and teach

Many don't. Me? Because there are so many children out there now who need extra food, kindness, support and care that if I can make a difference, I will.

On balance though I think teaching offers a relatively good work life balance

If you think that, then you must have comprehension problems. I had a good work/life balance when I did other jobs. Now, I'm lucky if I get to see my DC for half an hour in the evenings and maybe sometimes we can get to do something on a Saturday, but only occasionally. DH does all the household chores, cooking, shopping, cleaning, laundry, DC hobbies because all I do is work. He also works full time.

Good work/life balance indeed 😂

I think teaching offers a relatively good work life balance

Do you want to read my post about being a teachers kid i cant remeber a good work life balance. In fact my mum often repeats how hard me and my siblings work, and how she couldn't, then i remind her SHE DID. All i and my siblings can remember is her leaving at 6.30, not beimg home until 7. Often not evening having an ecening meal before pulling the books out to mark or her planming folder for the next day. So yep we work bloody hard. But because she did its entirely normal. I felt guilty the other day for not going to work in the snow, even though the buses werent rumning so i couldnt have got to work anyway. But because even in the snow she'd go to work and be the only teacher there. Yeah yeah nice work l8fe balance yeeeeeeesss

@Pieceofpurplesky I have certainly never stated I think all teachers have it easy. I said on balance I think there is a good work life balance to be had in teaching or certainly there should be.

I'm not here to argue that teaching is easy, clearly it's not and the fact many are leaving in droves is concerning but is also following a similar pattern within the Police Service and Nursing.

It's also worth bearing in mind that childminders earn £4/£5 per hour per child (in my area) and work 7am-6pm then spend their evenings attending training and completing paperwork and submitting returns and self assessments.

There's downsides to every job you can choose to do and certainly in most jobs the lunch hour is unpaid.

Would anyone like to place a bet on whether the op is coming back or not?