To just make a point about how hard teachers work.

[Poppadumpony]

Just inspired by comments on another thread.

I know I am not being unreasonable but I just want to say it!

Teachers keep 30 children with diverse needs safe, happy, occupied and learning from 9-3pm.

Teachers typically plan and prepare for 5 lessons a day. This involves finding, adapting or creating the resources for each lesson. (Average KS2 lesson might need: introductory powerpoint, items for practical demonstration, 3x sets of worksheets and a game). This prep all happens after 3pm.

Teachers need to mark and provide feedback on all the work that said 30 diverse children produce during the 6 hours they are in school (30x5= 150) every day. This also happens after 3pm.

Teachers attend staff meetings, discuss children with parents and create educational displays in the classroom. This happens after 3pm.

At any one time, a teacher is also likely to be doing one of the following: planning a class trip, preparing an assembly, preparing a school concert, running a club, writing a scheme of work. This all happens after 3pm.

Teachers work incredibly long, hard hours. Yes, they get the holidays. Yes other professions do overtime.

I am just pointing out that really only a third of a teacher’s work happens between 9-3 (high-energy work) and there is a huge amount of additional work to be done every single day, in preperation for the next. The pace is phenomenal, and there is zero flexibility in terms of hours.

Teaching is a very hard job. It’s why I left after 6 years, I just couldn’t hack it. I’ve done a PhD so I am not afraid of hard work.

Teaching is not for the faint hearted.
Those who manage to do it well and achieve a family life at the same time should be running this country, and I’m not even joking.

@FlySheMust I was a teacher until last year.

I'm sick of hearing how teachers are bloody saints.
There are so many more jobs that are more exhausting and thankless.

If teaching is so horrendous why do people choose it as a career?

but then I also didn’t mention setting and marking homework, maintaining reading records or preparing individualised work for children with highly specific needs.

That isn't marking 150 pieces every night which is what you exaggerated, it is planning etc. I agree teachers work hard, I am saying be careful not to exaggerate to try to make a point as it doesnt help.

@KurriKawari

I don't understand why teachers are the only profession who constantly want people to stop and lift them on their shoulders so we can all listen to how hard they have it. You never hear any other profession expecting the same - when was the last time you saw a firefighter, a retail manager, an engineer, an accountant, a prison guard or anyone starting a thread like this?

OP is not a teacher.

Multiple threads a week about how crap DCs teachers are (they may be, not the point)

I think this is part of the problem - it IS the point. It seems people often believe all teachers are 100% perfect or 100% awful. There’s rarely a middle ground. For example if there is criticism of support received from school during lockdown it is met with an argumentative defence “schools were not shut, I called all the kids in my class, marked work, prepared lessons etc”. I rarely saw “that’s really poor, I’m sorry your child has not been better supported”. People take it so personally and there needs to be more acceptance from the teaching profession that there are bad teachers that don’t care and don’t know their stuff.

On the other hand if someone criticises their experience of a nurse, or poor healthcare during lockdown I think it is more typical to get a response like “I’m a nurse, I am sorry you experienced that, that is not the standard our profession aims for, what I suggest you could do is...”.

I use words like often, rarely etc because I am not saying this never happens, but it is a difference that often strikes me.

I believe what teachers do.
But I’m certain I work equally as hard as a teacher, and I’m sure a lot of people on this thread feel they do too. You may feel overwhelmed at that amount of paperwork op, but for lots of us endless (tricky) paperwork is just how we keep a roof over our head. It hardly sounds mindblowing. Mind numbing, maybe.
Then again, I don’t view studying for a PhD as the pinnacle of "hard work" either, so I guess the term means different things to different people.

@Poppadumpony
They don't often choose it as a career. That's why there's a massive shortage of teachers and a retension problem. What's your solution?

@VacMan

I'm sick of hearing how teachers are bloody saints. There are so many more jobs that are more exhausting and thankless.

If teaching is so horrendous why do people choose it as a career?

Without doing all the jobs it’s hard to say which are the most exhausting or thankless

However, there’s a significant recruitment and retention crisis in teaching, so it seems people aren’t choosing it as a career, or if they do they are thinking better of it fairly quickly. Might be worth bearing that in mind...

@HandfulofDust

Yes, they do, but so do many other professions. If teachers are unhappy they could always look at making the leap to the corporate world,

@Pelleas You haven't thought this through have you? Lots of teachers do make that leap (or a leap to a different country or non corporate proffesion). So now there aren't enough teachers with relevant qualifications, especially in STEM subjects and languages. The problem you somehow missed is that some of us actually want our kids taught. This leaves us with a bit of an issue doesn't it?

That's not the point the OP is making, though. It may be that there are grounds for making the teaching profession more attractive in terms of reward, but again, the same could be said for many, many jobs - it doesn't mean teachers work harder (or less hard) than average for a full-time role.

And if people choose to bring children into the world knowing there's a shortage of teachers (amongst all the other things that have been going wrong with the world for the past 50 years), that's their look out, to be honest. There's nothing to stop parents entering the teaching profession themselves if they 'want their kids taught'.

For example if there is criticism of support received from school during lockdown it is met with an argumentative defence “schools were not shut, I called all the kids in my class, marked work, prepared lessons etc”. I rarely saw “that’s really poor, I’m sorry your child has not been better supported”
@How2Help that’s really odd. I saw it on pretty much every thread like that, with significant numbers of teachers offering to help, too. Maybe you are suffering from confirmation bias?

@VacMan

I'm sick of hearing how teachers are bloody saints. There are so many more jobs that are more exhausting and thankless.

If teaching is so horrendous why do people choose it as a career?

Yes, because that’s exactly what the OP said and definitely not a narrative you created in your own head.

We’re not saints, the point of the OP was that lots of people seem to think (or pretend to think..) that we work from 9-3.

It’s not horrendous. It’s one of many great but exhausting jobs.

Happy?

@Lucindainthesky

I am so bored of reading how hard teachers work. I don't doubt that you do. But so do many other people in different jobs. Why is it only ever teachers that feel the need to come and tell everybody?

It used to be nurses when I was new to MN about 9 years ago.

I remember threads used to fill up really quickly with

"Thank you for all you do"

"You're truly all angels

"Thank you so much"

It was always a little strange to see.

for lots of us endless (tricky) paperwork is just how we keep a roof over our head
I wonder, does this paperwork which is an integral part of your job happen in your work hours as part of your work, or is it extra, to be done whenever you can fit it in?

@How2Help

I meant that it wasn’t the point that I was trying to male, as I didn’t want to look like I was supporting crap teachers. I agree with what you have said - I very rarely comment on threads as I’m a bit of a lurker - but I did comment on some of the lockdown threads. Rather than saying “Well MY school is providing x, y, and z! I work really hard you know!” I commented with suggestions of routes parents could go down in order to get work provided for DCs. Personally, I think it’s the frequency of the threads that gets people’s backs up. It’s like you say, the language is either ALL teachers are crap or ALL teachers are perfect and work 269 hours a week. There needs to be acceptance on both sides that, as with any other profession, some are great and some not so much.

In response to the crises facing recruitment and retension we could always just get a load of people who have no experience of teaching and have no idea what they're talking about to explain to potential and current teachers that actually their job is easy and anyway they're probably rubbish.

I do agree though that there was a slightly ridiculous mumsnet trend where no one could make any critical comment about any school or particular teacher even in a respectful way without getting completely shut down. There were even threads where people were making quite nasty remarks to nurses working in COVID wards at the height of the first wave basically saying 'well you expect to get sick as a nurse' tough luck. Really nasty and unnecessary.

Yes there will be individual teachers who aren't great but we do in general need to make the job more appealing with better working conditions, more respect and better pay or we simply won't have any teachers left.

@Poppadumpony

Well, I know that LOTS of people don’t need another thread on this. But SOME clearly do, based on what I’ve read on here today.

I’m not saying that teachers work harder than everyone else. I just think they don’t get the recognition they deserve.

They seem to moan a lot more about that hard work than other professions though.

@cardibach
I’m self employed.
It’s there 24 hours a day!

It may be that there are grounds for making the teaching profession more attractive in terms of reward
@Pelleas many surveys of teachers have said they would rather the workload decrease than the pay increase but work stay the same. The problem is that the work that parents see/understand (delivering lessons/marking) is the tip of the iceberg.

Teachers seems to moan a lot about their working conditions but seem to do very little to try and change them, and therefore play the whole martyr card.

If classes are too big, and there is so much marking, planning etc. to be done - why is someone not lobbying for more teachers and smaller class sizes, so that everything is more manageable?

Was supposed to mention that I didn’t actually see other teachers being defensive on those threads, most commented similarly to me with advice of how to access work for DCs.

[quote Therollockingrogue]@cardibach
I’m self employed.
It’s there 24 hours a day![/quote]
And you think reading/thinking about planning/worrying about children/thinking about interventions isn’t?
A huge amount of a teacher’s work happens at home. Only a tiny fraction happens in lesson time.

@sillybean

Teachers seems to moan a lot about their working conditions but seem to do very little to try and change them, and therefore play the whole martyr card.

If classes are too big, and there is so much marking, planning etc. to be done - why is someone not lobbying for more teachers and smaller class sizes, so that everything is more manageable?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Unions do this all the time. We are told we are workshy as a result. Government decrees new things to be taught/recorded/tested without much consultation. School leaders have to implement it. If you don’t you are very quickly found lacking and shipped out. People have this view of teachers as having very powerful unions. It’s rubbish.

I think OP is trying to get across that yes , there are plenty of professionals who work hard , including teachers, but teachers seemed to get bashed the most because a lot of the work goes on behind the scenes. Some people have this view that we literally work 9-3 finger painting and then bugger off on our jollies for 6 weeks plus a year.

It's a shame that people don't understand , but we also don't need to keep defending ourselves. Who cares ? I know what I do behind the scenes and I'm happy with my job. There's a lot of others who understand what we do too.

I also believe nurses etc deserve ten times more recognition than us teachers who DEFINITELY do not get the recognition they deserve.

@sillybean the only real way to implement change in teaching is through strikes. Most teachers don’t like to strike because:
-We don’t want students to miss out on days in school, particularly exam classes.
-We are absolutely lambasted by the press and parents for daring to ‘take MORE time off’

Can I make a point on how hard it is to be a Doctors receptionist? You know, the job where the boss will give you hell if you don't ask what kind of complaint the patient has and the patient gets angry because you ask? I used to do that job and I was thanked maybe once a year. I was tgreatened more often than that for liw pay. I think that teachers get more recognition for their job than that.