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 what you aren't grasping is that it isn't unusual to work these hours.

Decomposing - if you have read what I said a few pages ago, you will see clearly that I haven’t failed to grasp or have I been naive in anything, I clearly stated it wasn’t unusual that people worked 60 plus hours or more in social services due to their case loads etc... I am very well aware that some work long hours, however even at that it’s still unmanageable and if your son doesn’t take action he will likely become another statistic.

Can you show where I’ve said that his working hours are an isolated culture in one school.... as frankly you will I haven’t at all said any of those things however have said his working hours are unmanageable and in my experience working alongside teachers everyday, is that they do an additional 10-15 hours more during busier periods, and some of teachers are also heads of departments/heads.

Haud. I think it’s an example of where a teacher comes up with an issue about their job, a poster suggests a possible solution or an idea of how to mitigate or reduce it and the teacher responds with a reason why it won’t work for them, regardless of whether it works in any other sector or industry.

I’m not sure you can help people who don’t want to help themselves.

Decomposing. No, you used the previous staring salary for an NQT not the 19/20. I’d have thought as a teacher arguing about salaries you’d have used the right one.

Why would I use the 19/20 figures when I was talking about my son as an nqt? He isn't an nqt in 19/20. I used the figure that applies to him.

I have also said, on multiple occasions, that I am not a teacher. I could not have made it any clearer. So I"d have thought, as someone who has spent a very long time picking posters apart, that at the very least you would be reading posts properly.

Decomposing. You were arguing about starting salaries for NQTs so it’s disingenuous to use an out of date salary. Otherwise I could make an argument that I’m incredibly poorly paid by using my salary from 1985.

Yes, apologies, I forgot you eventually told us the basis for your amazing insight into teaching wasn’t as a teacher.

Haud I was responding that even if he changes jobs he is likely to still end up doing the same number of hours because in many schools the workload is the same.

Frankly, I can't see how the teachers that you work with only work 10 hours a week extra. That's only 2 hours per day during the week. I just cannot see how they do that unless they teach a subject where only minimal marking is required and the same for lesson planning.

When do they complete data reports, enter SIMS notes, respond to parents, supervise detentions, attend staff meetings?

2 hours per day, 5 days a week just doesn't seem possible.

Dorsetdays

I was talking about my son, not about this year's NQTs.

And my very first post on here I said that I was a former nurse and school governor and my son is a teacher - no eventually said anything.

You are not posting in good faith but are simply misrepresenting what people are saying.

I’m not sure you can help people who don’t want to help themselves.

Never truer word spoken - you can't ungoady the GFs.

It will be same posters, same place, next thread and another 'oh, but I only wondered' silly dog whistle thread title.

Your saying you frankly don’t understand this... yet many teachers on here are saying exactly this that they do nowhere near 60 plus hours per week.

I haven’t asked or even advised he change his school so unsure why you’ve raised that with me, as I haven’t even remotely suggested this or even entertained this way of thinking.

I can’t comment on how others are managing their workload and not without not working unmanageable hours, the teachers I work alongside are excellent and are highly driven and passionate about their careers and the children they teach.

I’m actually going out with a few next month, if the talk of shop comes up, il possibly ask, however the majority of us would rather be enjoying leisure time.

I’m not sure you can help people who don’t want to help themselves.

See, that attitude is the problem.

The amount of work that teachers are expected to do is simply too much to be completed in the hours that they are paid to work.

Sure, you can tell individuals to leave but that won't change the amount of work required so, either someone else has to do it or the work doesn't get done. So who suffers then? The students.

What part of the work would you suggest teachers don't do in order to cut their working hours? Don't mark homework? Don't mark exams? Don't plan lessons? Don't respond to parents? Don't complete safeguarding paperwork?

Feenie. So basically anyone who disagrees with you is goady. Maybe they just, you know, have their own experiences and their own opinions.

I could say it’s pretty goady to bully and undermine someone’s spelling and grammar when they have dyslexia but you seem to think that’s perfectly ok and, in fact, continued to be smug and self congratulatory on how clever you were to do that, even after their disability had been explained 😳

Perhaps if you’d presented a better case instead of just resorting to being personal and nasty, some people might have seen your point and changed their minds.

I can’t comment on how others are managing their workload, without not working unmanageable hours, the teachers I work alongside are excellent and are highly driven and passionate about their careers and the children they teach

Told you, Dorsetdays, can't be arsed. You're not going to GF me into yet another of your silly GF threads.

I could say 'nice try' , but it wasn't even that - it was absolutely woeful.

HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend
You did say that he should look for another job.

As for the teachers you know they must have very low contact hours or be teaching lessons with little requirements to marking or planning.

2 hours extra a day means getting to school an hour early and staying only an hour after school (which many teachers do) but then doing no more work at home. I just know no teachers like that.

It isn’t really a competition. Both can be stressful. I have huge respect for teachers and nurses! I wish both were paid shedloads more and given proper support. Both professions are incredibly valuable and sadly taken for granted.

Lola. I really don’t think this thread has gone the way you think. I can’t see that you’ve managed to convince many people who disagreed with you in the first place to change their minds. So I question what you’ve achieved other than reinforce the idea that teachers moan a lot and often think their job is harder than others
The thread has gone exactly that way I've said.

Of course people who are determined to argue teachers think their job is more difficult than anyone else's (to the point of some of the ridiculous jumps around different issues, false assertions, dismissing actual front line experiences, suggesting people should manage their work better and prioritise and that would solve it etc) aren't going to change their mind. 🙄 There's no desire to even consider they might not actually have enough front line experience or knowledge of the sector to make the claims they make.

Again, the whole thing from that point of view is pigeon chess: people with an overinvestment in arguing teachers do nothing but moan make endless claims (ranging from inaccurate to false) and when teachers challenge it they claim "see! I told you all teachers do is moan.Look at this thread with all the teachers moaning".

I also think the public should take more responsibility for themselves and their families to help reduce the burden of what is now expected from teachers and nurses. Parents should be more supportive of schools and of their children’s development and education, and we could all do more health-wise to reduce the burden on the nhs.

Dorset :No but then out of the several NQT that I know/have known not one of them has worked anywhere near a 60 hour week.

Neither does my Dsis who’s been a teacher for over 10 years, or one of my closest friends who’s been a teacher for c6 years, or the deputy head of our local primary who is also a good friend and next door neighbour (and according to them, none of the staff do either) so you can see how our view can be based depending on our experiences.

This made me laugh. I know it shouldn't have.
Have you got a spreadsheet Dorset?
You have no idea how many hours each of these people work. Or, more importantly, how intense their working day is.
I'm sure my siblings (who only see me during the holiday) think I don't work. Not one of them has a clue what I do during term time.

Tbh, dorset, haud has magnanimously moved past and beyond the comments on her grammar and spelling. I don't think she needs you to fight her battles.

Again, I am not disputing your assertion that there aren't a particularly large number of ETs in teaching as your job role suggest you could know this. My own research says most ETs come from smaller (presumably not very well run) companies but I would still like you to provide evidence that ETs are not on the rise in teaching since my own union magazine says that bullying in increasingly being reported to them. Just because these things don't reach ETs , doesn't mean they don't happen. It is, on average, taking 8 months for cases to get that far, so many won't bother. ETs are also disproportionately raised by men. The teaching profession is dominated by women.

Maybe it's your HR background that makes you focus on ETs as being the ONLY evidence of stress. I would argue retention of staff is a far bigger indicator.

I’ve not rtft but with nursing there is often no ongoing work or backlog. You go and do you work and before you leave your paperwork is done.

With teaching and other jobs there is always more that can be done and an expectation that you work at home.

But I do agree with you to an extent. A lot of teachers do like to moan

Sorry decomposing but that does describe me! And I think I do a lot of hours getting in at 7.30. The British, on the whole as a nation, work too hard and judge each other far too much.

However, I do have more non contact time than many and have been previously told off for encouraging others not to stay late and/or take work home. I was told I was a bad role model. The old owl jacket thing.

Perhaps if you’d presented a better case instead of just resorting to being personal and nasty, some people might have seen your point and changed their minds.

I laughed at this! You always come on these threads to do exactly the same thing every time and Feenie knows this. Extremely disingenuous to pretend any of your posts are about genuine debating and you’re open to changing your mind.

We clearly have a massive recruitment and retention problem in teaching in this country, hence having to offer large bursaries in order to attract graduates into teacher training.

If the attitudes reflected on here continue then we will end up with even less teachers. There were even plans to offer teacher training as an apprenticeship, taking students straight from school at 18. Is that what you would want for your children? If you want a good education for your own children I can't understand how you can support a system that actively seeks to force good and experienced teachers to leave the profession.

The amount of work that teachers are expected to do is simply too much to be completed in the hours that they are paid to work.

I feel as if we going around in circles with this, as has been pointed out, and discussed at length upthread, teachers aren’t alone in this, this happens in many roles, no one has said teaching is a 8-4 job, no one has said teacher skips a critical part of their job.

I take work home every night, I cannot not, as my working hours and lengthy meetings don’t allow that luxury. If I choose not to work from home, and I don’t gather and present the evidence I need in a CORE meeting a child could potentially be at immediate harms risk.

There is lots of careers that are equally stressful and have additional work to do outside of core hours, and it’s not a new thing, for as long as I can remember it’s the expected norm, many careers do this, they also don’t switch off...

Posters are not saying teachers have it easy etc... like the OP they are saying in their experience, some individuals lack empathy as they believe being a teacher is the most stressful job of all, and no other people can say otherwise, hence the OP frustration that she’s been shit down when trying to discuss her situation with her social circle, as has been demonstrated in this thread by some posters also.

Im an ex teacher...i left to retrain as a radiographer...just finished my first placement in a busy, understaffed hopspotal...not as stressful as teaching sorry. This is despite being gicen a rough riide as a student.
I also work pt as a care assistant...not as stressful either. I challenge anyone to stand in front of a class of unduly teens all day every day and work all night. Oh and get blamed for everything.