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?

But that's precisely the point isnt it?
OP said 'why do teachers think x'? Answer: they dont. We arent a homogenous group. Her friends might think that but we cant tell her why they think that. Perhaps they are twats. Perhaps she should ask them. Not MN.

Its precisely that generalisation that is what is so ridiculous.

But you could equally say the same thing the other way round... teachers share their experience and are also told they are wrong.

We don't speak on behalf of every teacher. But we have more insight than someone who isn't one.

As I said at the start, I wouldn't care to comment on someone else's job , to their face, or on SM. I wouldn't assume I had the knowledge.

Any public sector job is done for love over money. When the love fades, there you have a problem.

Fwiw, my mum was a children's social worker in the most deprived area of the UK at the time (still is, pretty much). And it was horrific. It motivated me into teaching tbh. But we do have to remember that teachers also teach these children and are expected to educate them against huge odds. We are working towards the same goals, in differ ways, So, why the divide and conquer stuff?

Maybe teachers are just more vocal about how difficult and stressful their jobs are.

Yes I do think there is minimising of other people’s stress and responsibilities.
A teacher friend said to me when I couldn’t go to an event in the summer ‘I forget some people have to work in August!’

Any public sector job is done for love over money. When the love fades, there you have a problem.

Fwiw, my mum was a children's social worker in the most deprived area of the UK at the time (still is, pretty much). And it was horrific. It motivated me into teaching tbh. But we do have to remember that teachers also teach these children and are expected to educate them against huge odds. We are working towards the same goals, in differ ways, So, why the divide and conquer stuff?

HEAR HEAR, the most sensible comments I’ve read on this thread today.

'Why was this thread even started by he OP'.

Hm I wonder. Particularly as she has disappeared. She must have really wanted to understand what the job is like.

And their you go again never minimising the OP, she may not have wanted to get into this bun fight and just wanted some honest opinions instead of the comments she received, minimising her experience and telling her to “go teach” if she would find it easier”

As I have said, I am one of those mythical teachers who works a 40 -45 hour week (which I am inferring makes me some kind of shirker). This does not mean my job is not all consuming and stressful. It is not just about hours. My mum worked very short hours. As a social worker, she also had supervision (which CP teachers do not get). She still gave the role up because of the grinding, relentless misery and the expectation to have a magic wand (like teachers?) , and the stress that brought with it.

I do tend to agree that 60 hours is too many, and may, by some, be exaggerated. However, a recent government commissioned survey (which my school participated in ) said that most teachers under estimate and under report their worked hours. My own school eventually decided to work out whether we were within the 1265 directed hours and , to their embarrassment (after years of boasting ) discovered we were way over!

Perhaps some of you should try reading the OP again then because that’s EXACTLY why the thread was started!

When the OP said they were stressed due to work, their teacher friends weren’t understanding or sympathetic, they simply said ‘well try being a teacher then’ so actually some teachers clearly do think exactly what you’re trying to tell us no teacher thinks.

I’ve also explained how my DSis does exactly the same, despite not working long hours or in the holidays yet we’re still not allowed an opinion based on our own experiences.

And then you wonder why these teacher threads keep going....

HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend

How do you look at time management when you have no time to manage? He's a form tutor, teaches 2 subject (1 outside of his specialty) and is mentoring pgce students. All of his PPA time in school is spent on the admin tasks of contacting parents, returning phone calls, meeting with his mentee. When do you suggest he plans lessons or marks books? Write 6th corners references, mark exam papers? He's had 150 exam papers to mark over this past week and that was just year 7. 8,9,10 and 11 will be coming up.

As for stopping rubbishing supermarket workers - firstly, I'm not. Secondly, I am one so I think I might know whether it is stressful or not!

It’s clearly do-able as the school has been rated outstanding yet again, two teachers in the last year alone have won teacher of the year awards and its massively over subscribed.

Dorset Ofsted gradings are not worth the paper they are written on. We have local schools here that gave been outstanding for years. Look at their data now and you can see them being out performed by RI or good schools but they are subject to light touch inspections that don't seek to rock the boat unless something drastic is seen. I'm sorry but I'm not in awe of an outstanding school. It doesn't prove anything.

How do you look at time management when you have no time to manage?

You make the time and you prioritise your work load, you give yourself little manageable chunks, and depending on deadlines/ meetings etc...

Everyone is busy, if he’s as your saying he is, then he’s clearly struggling to manage his workload and one that he needs to take up with his senior management.

Your making your son out to be a martyr, and just because you work in a supermarket does not mean you speak for all teachers, hence this thread!!

Decomposing. So none of the other measures mean anything? The fact that the school is so well known for being excellent that it’s massively oversubscribed and parents are desperate to send their DC there?

I appreciate it doesn’t fit your narrative but it’s true.

Dorset
You know as well as we do that the thread developed and people were responding to nonsense from a range of posters.

It's a bit much to now start backtracking.

People who aren't in education have done a huge amount of telling stories, speculating about pay, conditions, hours, criteria for getting the sack, dismissing workplace bullying, deciding people mustn't be good at their jobs and a whole host of things as the thread developed (including dismissing experiences of actual teachers as anecdote not worth listening to, but somehow thinking their conversations with teachers make them qualified enough to make big generalisations).

Threads like this continue for exactly the reasons I predicted earlier:

1. An OP Turns up to "just ask a question" that largely translates to "teachers think their work is harder than everyone else's"
2. People with school chips and teacher chips turn up and think it's a perfect opportunity to congratulate each other on their oh so expert understanding of a job they don't actually do
3. Teachers turn up and challenge a whole range of goady and misinformed points. General consensus is yes it's tough, yesbso are many jobs
4. Goady wind up merchants continue to argue they are right and then take the challenges as proof teachers moan. They continue to bring up random tangents of different things, of varying relevance, to try and still argue their point
5. Teachers are still wondering why people not in education are quite so invested but still explain why there's a lot of nonsense being shared
6. Goady wind up merchants say "you all take it so personally, gosh people only asked a question .. no wonder people say teachers moan all the time".

It's textbook pigeon chess.

piggy
I think you and I have a similar approach.

I don't do some of the hours I know go on in other schools, but I also know first hand the reality of working in those schools.

On the whole I have a good work-life balance that is reasonable for the job. If I can't keep that then I'll go back to my old career (and be ready to be told by the glorious non specialist experts with zero first hand experience that it's because I don't understand the "real world" or couldn't have been that good or was simply lying about the problems).

Decomposing. It’s clearly do-able as the school has been rated outstanding yet again, two teachers in the last year alone have won teacher of the year awards and its massively over subscribed

The only school I can see where two teachers got Teacher of the Year awards is not outstanding, it's good.

It's also worth pointing out at this time that Daniel Kinge (of Sparklebox director fame - still) also won an Outstanding Teacher of the Year award - right before he was convicted twice for paedophilia.

They ain't all that.

www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/paedophile-daniel-kinge-set-up-3070593

You make the time and you prioritise your work load, you give yourself little manageable chunks, and depending on deadlines/ meetings etc...

Which you can do if you are in control of your own time.

If you have a full day of teaching, which he has 3 days a week, then when are these free hours within the working day to do book marking, exam marking, phone parents etc?

And he is by no means a martyr. He's one of thousands of teachers doing this all day every day.

I would just love you to explain where teachers find the time to do the aspects of their job that aren't teaching a class during the working day where they are, you know, teaching a class.

And my working in a supermarket doesn't mean I speak for teachers at all. You told me to stop belittling supermarkets because they're under pressure too. I told you that I wasn't belittling anyone and that I work in a supermarket so know exactly how little pressure we are under.

What you don't understand decomposing is that ultimately the people who don't do a job know by far more about the job than those doing it.

So for example, when I was working 60-70(plus) hours a week in one school Vs the 40-45 I typically do now the only difference between those situations is I have prioritised my workload now. It had nothing at all to do with any number of situations that I shan't share for obvious reasons, the workplace bullying I saw happen to people couldn't have happened (they must have been crap otherwise they'd have gone to tribunal for constructive dismissal) and so on. Simply changing my mindset and being organised is the biggest difference, because you know teachers moan about everything.

Decomposing. So none of the other measures mean anything? The fact that the school is so well known for being excellent that it’s massively oversubscribed and parents are desperate to send their DC there?

Being over subscribed doesn't mean anything about the quality of teaching and learning, no. Schools have reputations. We have a local school that was once a good school. About 10 years ago it had a fancy sports centre built. For about 8 years now the school has languished below the middle of the LA League table. Many other schools out perform this school. 4 years ago it was put into special measures for a safeguarding issue. Inexplicably the school is still over subscribed.

I would need to look at the data for a school, how individual groups of students perform, what the progress 8 scores are to get an idea of how the school is performing.

Even then it's not clear cut. Another local failing school was taken over by a multi academy chain. The 1st set of GCSE results were miraculous. Turns out they enrolled some underperforming students at other schools in the chain where, as a percentage, their lie results didn't do too much damage thus over inflating the original school's results.

Like I said, I am too sceptical to accept this stuff without digging much more deeply.

LolaSmiles
Having been the unfortunate witness to a truly shocking situation involving the LA,Ofsted and the school I was a governor of I take my hat off to teachers.

I honestly know what you all do and the conditions that you are working under.

Had I not seen it myself I would not have believed it could happen because it seemed just too far fetched. It's appalling how teachers are treated.

I'm just wondering if some posters here would be happy with a teacher not replying to them for a week or 2 when they need to talk about their child because they were managing their time? Something makes me think not.

So patronising to parents that you’re saying they have no idea what the school is like that they want to send their DC to. Because parents are stupid and have no idea? Because parents aren’t as clever as teachers? Because parents don’t bother researching schools? Now that’s arrogance. But then I wouldn’t expect anything less from this thread.

No one is allowed to criticise teachers, even when teachers themselves are saying ‘actually it’s not as bad as some are making out’ and ‘we don’t recognise the hours etc that you’re claiming’.

We’re all ‘idiots’, ‘arrogant’ etc etc which are just some of the things you have called posters. And yet, we’re not the ones supposedly working our backsides off for 60 hours a week for crap pay and no benefits (as you suggest). Go figure.

Maybe instead of being so defensive and just shouting anyone down who doesn’t immediately agree with you, you could listen and learn from those who aren’t working in the same way as you are because clearly not everyone is working that way.

Lola are you always this passive aggressive of those who have different experiences from yourself

You are also aware that Decomposing is also not a teacher and is in fact a retired nurse and yet her opinions as a non teacher and just going by her sons experience

Yet your sprouting all those non teachers haven’t got a clue

I don’t talk to teachers, I actively work alongside them every day for the past 4 years and prior to this was a social worker, I work daily with all sorts of teachers, (head teachers, heads of depts, etc) social workers, foster caters, or care givers, housing associations/councils, paediatricians, GP’s, consultants, probation officers, police officers etc...

But as you were, your PA comments minimising my career experiences and my own experiences are laughable really.

decomposing
I don't doubt it. After all, there's nothing else for us to be doing, certainly not teaching classes.

I'm sure that's why we get 3 messages by 1030 demanding to know why we haven't called someone back about an urgent (see not urgent) matter. I'm also willing to bet these same people think that all the phonecalls and emails and demands for meetings and so on all come from the time tree.

Why can’t people just agree that each job has it’s difficulties

I think every teacher on this post would agree!

Find me a teacher that says being a teacher is the most stressful job in the world.

I left teaching this summer, partly because of the workload issues and partly because of the terrible attitude of an increasing minority of parents. I haven't read the whole thread and don't intend to, because I can guess the content. Leave teachers alone to get on with their jobs. Stop thinking you know better because you went to school once and don't keep telling them how easy they have it compared to others. It's demoralising and exhausting for teachers to keep having to defend themselves as hard workers and no other profession has to do that.