Okay, about teachers...

[KitKat1985]

Okay I'm being brave here. I know a few people who happen to be teachers. Whenever they talk about their jobs, there's a real 'no other profession has to work as hard as us' vibe to their speech. I am fully aware and in agreement that it's a stressful job with long hours and ridiculous amount of pressure if you don't count the long holidays but it's hardly the only profession that has these issues. I myself am a nurse, and 14 hour shifts on an under-staffed ward with no breaks and several severely ill / abusive patient to look after are hardly a picnic either. But whenever I discuss work with teacher friends there's a definite 'if you want to talk about stress you should try being a teacher' element to the conversation, and it's starting to really get on my nerves. Lots of jobs are stressful, teaching isn't the only one! And it's only teachers I know that seem to have this general attitude about their profession. AIBU? Is it really more stressful than any other profession out there?

Why do you deserve a pay rise and not social workers or nurses or any other hard working public profession?

The armed forces, police, consultants and dentists all got one too. Nurses didn't get one at that point because their pay had already been dealt with separately.

This is just getting really silly.

Silly sometimes I can reuse a resource. But I assume your children speak the same language? So whilst you have seen the same resource (conclusion - you can reuse all resources ) you hwvent seen it in the 5 - yes 5 - different languages I had to translate the entire lesson into.

I just cannot believe there is level of scrutiny and disbelief.

And I think it's ok for teachers to say its stressful. It is. That's who we say they. If you think otherwise you really must be completely unaware of the news. But the point of this complete waste of a thread was whether it is the most stressful.job and not a single teacher has said that is the case. But apparently we arent even allowed to say its stressful now.

It's an absolute joke.

Sorry trying multi task- good luck if you understood that!

I e not read the rest of the thread but seeing the snarky comment in the op about teachers holidays, I thought I’d respond.
My husband is a teacher he works daily from 7.10 till 6 at a minimum , then about 3 hours again in the evening. Plus weekend work that is about a 75 hour week. He does this for 30 weeks of the year., and it totals 2 250 hours.
A job that runs 9-6 5 days a week for 48 weeks of the year totals totals 2160.
So stop it with the holidays thing.

@TryingAndFailing39, @Atropa, @DecomposingComposers, @bakesalesally, @fedup21, @TryingandFailing39

You are all right and I'm sorry for my earlier comment. I take it back. It was written at midnight so it was tired and ill-thought.

I am jealous of my friend. For context shes been teaching for 5 years and earns 38k a year. I've been a social worker for 5 years and I earn 32k a year. I'm at the top of my pay grade so I wont ever earn more unless I reapply for a senior job which I dont want to do or if the government gives us a pay rise. My friend is not a senior teacher. She teaches year 1 to 4.

I guess I struggle because she does enjoy painting her life as amazing and better than others. Hence her informing me of her salary (she doesn't know mine). She boasts of the holidays. She has a lovely home, disposable income so she goes jetting off to Australia during the holidays. I haven't been abroad in years. And the comparisons are easy to draw in that we both take work home with us. She has 30 kids in her class. I have a caseload of 21. But you're right in that I dont know beyond what she tells me and it's in her interest to paint it as picture perfect for maximum boast so I am not getting the truth about how hard teachers work.

@MyOtherProfile - the reason I compared secondary to primary was because my other friend is a secondary teacher. She doesn't boast and teaches physics and so I got the picture her job was harder compared to my primary school friend but I guess I was wrong.

I'm sorry again to all who I upset with my comments. They are based on anecdotal stuff not reality.

Quite a few teachers go straight in to teaching from university and don't experience other careers so other than part time student jobs don't fully understand that everyone works hard.

I'm sorry but not everyone works hard. In my old job a lot of us didn't. My best friend at work was an ex-teacher and her stories were harrowing - stabbings, students getting fingered in class, fights. She retrained and earned more working 3 days a week in our job, which had lots of downtime and opportunities for coffee breaks and long lunches.

I can fully appreciate how hard teachers work because 2 of my in-laws are teachers and constantly seem to be on the verge of breakdown. My MIL gets up at 5am and is hope at 8pm, and this is in a private school. She frequently jokes about dropping dead before paying off the mortgage. The hardest I've worked in my job is having to stay till 7pm for a few weeks to get a project delivered - that's it. I've been on the verge of breakdown from boredom in my job - having no work for 3 months, not working hard.

I think you have to be extremely selfless to do a public service job. I think the satisfaction/fulfilment would be amazing but ultimately I'm too selfish to have a job where you have to stay later than 5pm.

My friend is not a senior teacher. She teaches year 1 to 4.

Why does her year group suggest she isn't a senior teacher?
You don't get paid different amounts the higher up the class years you go.

A year 1 teacher can be a senior teacher and be part of the SLT team just as much as a year 6, 9 or 11 teacher could be.

@Nevergotapuppy

But if you teach in a school where many languages are spoken that’s part and parcel of the job surely?

Like if you work as a nurse in a very socially deprived area you’ll have different challenges to working in affluent areas.

Unless you are expected to teach in 5 different languages?

Which I doubt

@Aragog She is not a senior teacher. I know she isnt. She has told me as such. I didnt say it had anything to do with her teaching year, I was just giving her teaching year for context as to why I assumed teaching 5 year olds would be easier than teaching teenagers.

Putting aside a teacher’s level of seniority, of course it is tougher to teach teenagers, not just because of the frequency of behavioural issues but because teachers at that level are presenting students for state exams.

Yes. It's part and parcel of the job.

THAT IS WHY IT IS DIFFICULT. THAT IS WHY - IN RESPONSE TO YOUR QUESTION - YOU CANNOT 'JUST REUSE RESOURCES'.

your username is utterly apt. You wont accept any answer. I'm struggling to believe anyone actually thinks this way.

@silly248, surely you can see that needing to translate every single lesson you teach into five different languages, and prepare the resources in five different languages, will take up a LOT more planning time than just preparing it for one language?

Yes, it is “part and parcel of the job” when teaching EAL students. However, you are awarded no extra planning and preparation time for doing so. Just more time to prepare that you must take out of other areas of your personal life.

know people in the police force (now a detective), a paramedic and a social worker who never really complain, i am genuinely curious why teachers feel the need to be so defensive about their job.

I would imagine it’s because there are very few posts moaning about how lazy police or paramedics are so they don’t feel the need to be defensive!

It’s not that difficult to understand

Never has the phrase 'genuinely curious' been so difficult to believe.

@Ohyesiam that is NOT a normal teaching workload. Even the teaching unions agree that most teachers work around 45 hrs a week (which is very normal in graduate professions). If he's doing that much he needs to look at what he's doing and which bits he's struggling with, then seek help from a mentor or other teachers.

45 hours a week? It was very rare that I managed that when I was a teacher. That would very barely cover the number of hours spent in the building, nor so does it reflect the work hours of my previous colleagues. My goodness, if you only did 8am-5pm four days a week, left early on a Friday, and only did a couple of hours at the weekend, you’d never get the marking done for a start.

60 hours a week is more the average that I would recognise amongst my colleagues and I.

But if this is such a time consuming and awful part of the job why CHOOSE to work in a school like this if you don’t like this ?

Many have said there is a massive teacher shortage so just go to a school that better suits you ?

I never said it was awful- literally what is the matter with you? U are reading what u want to read.

You also understand that someone has to do it, right? Some teachers have to do this - whetheroits me or somebody else.

And - and I have no idea why I'm even bothering with this - I did. I moved. I felt bad about it but I'm now elsewhere. Still work as hard though.

vehivle
I’ve been teaching 5 years and earn £32k (well I would if I did it full time)
If your friend is in her 5th year and earns £38 she has either jumped to the top of the pay scaler she has taken on extra management responsibilities. It is not the norm.
I’m also a secondary physics teacher so I would happily take the £60k that a pp suggested.

I have been teaching 20 years and earn about £38k.

Well, I would do if I could find a job that wanted a full time teacher on a UPS3 salary grade when they could virtually get two NQTs instead, but that’s another story!

Exactly, I’d also been teaching 5 years up until July, but I earned £32k as well. If the friend of a previous poster says she on £38k after 5 years, then she’s either got additional responsibilities for which she is paid, she’s gone through the threshold very early to Upper Pay Scale 2, or she’s lying to the previous poster.

Or she gets London weighting.

London weighting still wouldn’t account for £38k, unless she was UPS.

If people hate teachers so much because they have long holidays, they should retrain and become one. The country is crying out for them so go for it.

I teach FE, it’s not easy and my ‘amazing long holidays’ actually involve lots of work. I just read a pissed off post from someone whose top pay grade at 32k and they’re jealous of a teacher friend earning 38k. Become a teacher then if it bothers you so much.

Yes it would. This is the inner London pay scale for this year.