To ask: how many good teachers are we losing this year?

[SachaStark]

I am one of you.

Asking partly out of a place of seeking solidarity as I plan to leave a profession I love very much, but which has exhausted me both mentally and physically in just six years.

And partly because I think many parents still need to be made aware of how many teachers their children will lose over their school careers these days. I think, really, we need to rely on their voices to speak up in vast numbers before any changes will be made in state education.

We are a month now from the end of the school year in England, so notice hand-in period has ended, and I wondered how many, like me, who are passionate teachers, who in another life would have spent another few decades in the profession, are going?

I left and run a baby music group and feel much happier. I spend way too much time on the internet now though :D

As a SEN HLTA I earn far less than half of what I would do as a teacher with 16 years + experience. We just about get by financially as a family.

Would I go back to classroom teaching? No. I am first and foremost a partner, mother, sister, daughter and friend and my job prevented me from being as present in those roles as I am now. No amount of money can buy that. I also feel I can give far more to the children I work with than I ever did before.

What kind of hours are teachers expected to put/putting in now?

How long is a piece of string?

I'm not being sarky but it's extremely hard to do the bare minimum and the bare minimum is a lot given marking and planning and resource making. Not to mention extra curricular clubs and managing a curriculum area at basic teacher level.

Then there's quality marks to fulfil left right and centre, schools invent their own assessment trackers and then re invent it. Curriculum medium plans to come up with. Sen statements to review and Ieps. Then all the ict stuff and also class assembles to write etc etc. Risk easements for school trips fill me with dread now they're so long to write. And this is all outside of teaching hours.

When I was also doing a specialist Sen course I added up I was working usually 60 hours a week, 70 on my worst ever week. In more normal years I'd usually work from 7-10 or later a few nights a week and a full day at the weekend, trying to go to yoga or swimming or something on the other two week day nights.

The problem is that the more work you put in outside the classroom, aside basic marking which is unbelievable these days, the easier it is and better results you get inside the classroom (not just attainment, pupil motivation, behaviour management also teaching things you yourself enjoy).

I always told myself it would get easier as I could repeat lessons in the future but in reality due to changing year groups and setting and then new curriculum and approaches forever coming in I've rarely been able to do this a lot. Some has been used again and you get good at adapting things quickly.

I left classroom teaching last term after a decade and have just started a new job as a teacher of the deaf. It's partly an advisory role to mainstream teachers with hearing impaired pupils in their class, partly a teacher role (but this can be 1:1, small group or class teaching depending on how best to support the pupils I have on my caseload).

I don't have marking policies or classroom displays to worry about. I don't have to shove a sandwich down my throat at lunchtime while photocopying resources for the afternoon. I can have a lunch break where I have time to read. I am trusted to do my job without "learning walks" or book scrutinies or SLT coming in and making negative comments about the children "still" being on the carpet without having seen the beginning of the lesson or knowing how long the children have actually been on the carpet or what they did before coming to the carpet and without actually asking me like an adult and professional, but instead just making negative comments (can you tell that one still annoys me? ).

I'm paid the same, I'm still UPS3 and I get SEN points. I can highly recommend looking at the SEN teaching side of the things as a sideways move for anyone who's thinking of leaving the classroom.

I’m starting my second academic year out of the classroom and I love it. I can actually sleep at night and enjoy my free time! I’m now a civil servant for a relevant government department and I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to leave the classroom.

I left a while back-was a head teacher am now a director of a training provider. I earn more money now for hard but proportionate work. We employ three ex-teachers who have taken a pay cut (all are on £32-36k) to have a Monday to Friday job with, on most days, realistic expectations. I was heartbroken to leave school but now? I would never, ever look back.

@ThisIsMeOrIsIt Your comment re carpet time made me chuckle as it's something I can identify with so well!

I think anyone who comes in to do a primary lesson observation is privy to a specific time (let's call it "Magic Carpet" so Miss gets points for creativity in the 'What went well' box) and any deviation from this is unacceptable.

It probably includes milliseconds to add further scrutiny and changes just before, or even during, the observation

What always gets me is the HUGE amount of children that this affects : and the government gives not a tiny fuck. Not one. They couldn't give a shit.

I'm in Australia, where in thirteen years no-one has ever asked for a lesson plan, and I've only been observed once.

After 40+ years I'm going to .8 next year. At nearly 65 I owe it to me. Am I a good teacher? Quite a bit of the time, excellent sometimes, rarely meh.

I don't think I'd have been teaching at 65 in the UK.

It is really good to read this thread. I have now done twelve years, I have wanted to leave for at least six. I am quietly building towards my exit and I will leave next July if I can finally get my things in order.

There is an easy answer to this question. If one good teacher is lost, that's too many.

I take my hat off to teachers, it's a job I couldn't do.

17 years in and with very black thoughts about life in general. I'm on anti depressants for the first time in my life. Can't leave because I earn too much!

Nearly 9 years in secondary and I'm leaving to be a ta at a special needs school.
I'm gutted to be going but the new principal has forced me out.

Thank you for this thread.

I left two years ago - didn’t return after mat leave. Doing something else entirely now and have been missing teaching (all that back to school enthusiasm and a clean planner).
I was told that it was normal to spend a full day at the weekend marking books. Every weekend. I questioned when I should do my planning. Blank face.

I pointed out that my timetable and the marking policy equalled nine hours of marking per week (secondary non core subject). I had 5 hours of ppa. Teaching 20 hours. Again, when was I supposed to plan, deal with data, plan trips and deal with behaviour issues?
I was sick of being line managed by a workaholic from a faculty so different to my own that she felt it was a reasonable ask, halfway through December, for me to mark 60 pieces of controlled assessment by 5th January. I laughed manically and in what can only be called an out of body experience, I saw myself laughing and crying and shouting ‘she can fucking fuck off. She needs to fuck off’.

Unrealistic expectations, praying to the god of data and an insufficient budget meant it was an impossible environment.

I’m a better person now. I do miss my friends and really miss working with teenagers. Perhaps one day I’ll find a good compromise.

I'm coming late to this thread

I'm an experienced ESL teacher with PGCE modern languages and I have been overseas for 14 years

I returned to the Uk for the academic year 18-19 and couldn't get anything, as I didn't have recent experience in Uk schools. I asked for retraining, felt I needed it. Told I didn't need it and to do supply. I worked supply last year and applied for English and MFL posts for this year. Got one interview which I didn't get.

I am not even doing supply this year as I am teaching ESL online through a French agency. (Fingers crosses Brexit doesn't affect me too badly) and I teach French to pre-schools and after school clubs.
I'd rather be back in the classroom but it appears no one wants me.

I just find this thread worrrying as so many well qualified and intelligent teachers are looking , or gone, elsewhere and the children that want to work hard and do well in life are losing out on talented teachers to help them because the work load is impossible and how demoralised they feel. I cant say i blame anyone for wanting a better work / life balance and getting out of the profession, but its so sad that this is the way it appears to be going.
Its all very well the government throwing money at the problem, but it seems they need to also read this thread and realise its other things and work conditions that are contributing to the teachers leaving in droves.
Bookwitch, i hope you can find something soon.

fattt

"17 years in and with very black thoughts about life in general. I'm on anti depressants for the first time in my life. Can't leave because I earn too much!"

What price can you put on your happiness if teaching is making you feel that life generally is shit?

I appreciate that bills and the mortgage need to be paid but is there any room for manoeuvre. Could you go part time? Downsize your property? Wouldn't you rather be happy in a different job than depressed in a well paid one?

My hubby went three days in teaching after being off with stress/depression from full time and life is transformed. He is only 42 and has been 3 days for 5 years and will never go full time again if I am able to have any influence on it.

Put In an application to go part time citing your health/needing anti depressants, how part time will help you to "stay well". That's what we did.

I can't sunni but thanks. I'm middle management and I just earn too much!

@fattt

I can't sunni but thanks. I'm middle management and I just earn too much

I posted a bit further down but I was a head teacher and am now Director of Curriculum for a National training provider. Money is comparable (slightly less salary but bonus system means I earn more) and the work is hard but, in the main, achievable for me and for the team. Ofsted pressures are still a 'thing' (although we've had a recent successful inspection from them and the ESFA so pressure if off currently) but it's so much more attainable. I also feel like we make much more of a difference, because we are allowed to just 'do.' It's not a perfect job for everyone and there are some shit TP's but we employ ex teachers and they, without exception, prefer the sector.

Just something worth thinking about. Your mental health is precious and so are your teaching skills.

This year will be my last. Thirty years of teaching and three years short of being able to draw a reduced pension. I have no new job lined up but will live on my savings if I have to.

I loved my job until about five years ago, and I was bloody good at it. I still am if I am left alone to get on with actually teaching. Sadly, I now take antidepressants just to get through the day. The problems have been listed by previous posters - constant changes, new exam specs that were clearly written by people with no experience of actually teaching 16 year olds, unsupportive management, constant scruitiny of books and lessons, pointless new and incredibly time consuming marking systems, and in the last few years terrible, terrible behaviour from a growing number of students with no support for us from their parents.

This used to be a career I loved. It's now a job that puts money in the bank.

I really feel for the still-currently-teachers on this thread who are struggling. I, too, was put on anti-depressants by my GP after she diagnosed me with severe work-related depression. On another thread I started around the same time looking for support, a frightening number of other teachers mentioned the same thought that I’d been having: “What if I slowly crashed the car on the way to work? Like, not so much as to cause death or harm to anyone else, but would hurt me enough to get me some time off work without having to send in cover...”

That was fucking scary to read.

As I explained in the OP, I’m out now, just waiting for supply to start, and working on starting my own business in the meantime. It felt very odd not to be back for inset and the first days back last week. All I’ve done is dream about work every night! That I’ve got to carry on with this class or that, or I’ve taught the wrong stuff, or the kids all missed the exams, or SLT come in and I’ve not marked any of the books. Urgh, I don’t even work as a full-time teacher anymore, what is my brain doing?!

OP, I still have the odd ‘taking 50 kids on a field trip and forgot to book the hotel’ dream now.
Let us know how the supply route goes for you.

I keep telling myself this is the last.... but it's going to be a verrrrrrry long year. Cuts in funding mean huge class sizes. The behaviour is as bad as ever, the support from management just as minimal. I am just counting down day by day.

The only thing keeping me going is that in my lessons everything is good, in fact sometimes better than good. I still enjoy TEACHING (most of the time). The corridors are hell on earth.

I really do fear for the future. What will schools be like for my grandchildren. Financial cuts are decimating our schools, Behaviour is getting worse, class sizes are getting bigger, money is being spent on behaviour 'experts' who are peddling rubbish that is enthusiastically taken up as a cheap solution, but their ideas are causing real harm to the majority of students who have to sit there and see lessons being taken over by the disruptive minority.

July 2020 can't come soon enough.

I was a good/outstanding teacher by performance management & OFSTED standards. Not to blow my own horn, but I was exceptional at forming positive relationships with students, providing a nurturing environment and managing behaviour.

It was my lifelong dream to be a teacher. When I was training, I’d hear from teachers who quit and never imagined I’d be one of them. I lasted five years.

The constant pressure, the blame when children who didn’t even speak English didn’t reach the average levels, the time wasted on pointless exercises, the incessant moving of goalpost and the constant pressure to do more- more marking, more planning, more target tracking- got on top of me.

It was slowly killing me. Even when I was signed off for weeks on end, even when I was up to my eyeballs in medication, even when my GP was practically begging me to leave, I didn’t. I used to fantasise about the train derailing so I would be too injured- or even better, too dead- to go to work. But because I cared about those children so much, I refused to quit. I didn’t want to fail them. My own well-being wasn’t as important as theirs.

Eventually I realised that I wasn’t helping anybody by staying in that system. I resigned and in some ways it’s the best thing I ever did, but I’m still heartbroken 3 years on. I long to be back in the classroom, but I can’t risk my health like that again.

It makes me so angry that we have so many good, passionate, dedicated teachers who are being forced out. But rather than work on ways to retain teachers and encourage those who have left to return, the government instead focuses on recruiting new teachers- many of whom will also have breakdowns and quit within 5 years.

Sorry for the long post but, as I hope is evident, I feel very strongly about this. As a nation, we are failing our children, but it’s not the fault of the teachers.