To leave the teaching profession?

[OnSilverStars]

I have been a teacher for 10 years. I don't really like it anymore. I like the teaching and many other parts, but I hate working every evening and weekend and being in school until
5 or 6 most evenings as well as meetings until 8 or so once every few weeks. (Senior management member). I also hate the pressure (which many jobs have I know) and the constant observations and threat of ofsted. (Non teachers will be rolling their eyes, I know!)

I have small children. The eldest will be starting school soon

I have found an opportunity for work I feel I would enjoy, however the only thing holding me back is not having the school holidays, especially when having young children

Has anyone left teaching and the holidays? Did you regret it?

Thanks

Doesn't anyone think it's a bit alarming that common advice on having work-life balance in teaching is to go part time?! Doesn't that suggest there is a problem with workload?! I taught PT in Further edit, and marked / prepped on 'days off'. Full time staff in my department all worked one full day each weekend and we all did marking over holidays. I routinely took marking on holiday with me. I was not looking for distraction at college, I was dealing with students, photocopying, doing admin. I loved teaching and all my students rated my lessons, but it was bad for.y health and relationship's. I think there is a major problem with the profession, and Give, Ofsted et al are much to blame.

*Gove et al!

@SavingsQuestions I started a whole new career in the pharmaceuticals industry and I love it.

@Hankunamatata not always... I left teaching and my new job is 7-3. Not all jobs finish at 6

[quote SamsonTheBunny]@Pottedpalm yes they do, me for a start. And plenty of teachers neither work til 5 or 6 nor take work home with them. I taught for 12 years, I dislike the narrative that everyone is overworked and underpaid as it’s simply not true.[/quote]
Maybe it’s a while since you taught. I have been in teaching for over 30 years, my daughter is currently a HoD and the majority of my friends are secondary school teachers. There is not one of them who doesn’t work at home.
We realise working long hours is not exclusive to teaching.

A very good point you make there emmylousings

OP, it’s been a nightmare for SLT this pandemic and I appreciate everything that SLT up and down the country have done, to the best that they can with awful guidance from the DforE. No wonder you feel the way that you do currently.

A lot depends on what you want to do as an alternative. There are a thousand alternative careers with different stresses, working patterns and pay! A lot will depend on whether you are happy to start again at the bottom of the career ladder. If so IT jobs are flexible and progressive and have one of the highest demand vs supply ratios

Where I was a governor, we had job share deputy heads and job share senior teachers. Primary. This has the advantage of maintaining status for you and the school keeping brilliant teachers. When young family are around, it makes sense. 22 years ago, DD was taught by two job share teachers. One is now a very successful Head. You might not want the drop in money but asking about job share could be worthwhile. We even have job share heads in my LA.

As the name implies, I left secondary teaching and would not go back. It is an exhausting job that I don't think you can understand until you've done it: there is really no 'break', you're always teaching/planning/marking/on duty/meetings. I never felt as if I was doing a good job. There was always huge pressure (Ofsted, Smt, parents). Now I work in sixth form and (in general) love it. There is more time (not lots but more), there is pressure for results but the students are so much more reasonable and most try their best because they are invested. And I love teaching at a higher level, in other subjects too (film and history as well as English) which really interests me. I would recommend this route. Alternatively, how about tutoring online/in person?

After 20 years, I dropped all my management responsibilities and became a main scale teacher in an independent school. It saved me. Try another school if you can, before giving up. Good luck.

I tried Job share. 3 day week meant I worked 5 days, no late nights and free weekends. A 37 hr week instead of 60/70 hours, but only 60% pay check.
I took a summer out then did supply work for several years. This enabled me to enjoy teaching through all the key stages in a wide variety of settings.Over the years I have been offered permanent roles, but declined as I like to holiday in term time now. Now I work part time in an unrelated field but do online supply. I’ve never regretted it.

@MimiPigeon

I think most teachers are blinded to the real world and don’t realise that working until 5-6pm is completely normal
But I was working till 5-6pm then doing an additional 2-3 hours at home every evening, plus 6-8hrs on Sunday.

That’s before you even consider the mental load of being the only adult in the room, the stress of constantly having to deal with bad behaviour, not being able to go to the toilet or have a drink whenever you want, the constant threat of physical violence, lack of breaks because you get put on yard duty or summoned to a lunchtime meeting, and the isolation of having nobody to talk to because you’re the only adult!

This

My mum, my partner and two of my kids are teachers so I absolutely understand the workload and stresses of teaching. I couldn’t do it. I respect those who can.

However...

There are also stresses in other jobs. Most jobs on a similar or higher pay grade will have you still in the office at 5 or 6 and probably working at home as well. And nowhere else has so much time away from your place of work. I get 25 days holiday a year.

Of course there are stresses in other jobs. When has anyone said there isn't?

And while you clearly know many teachers you don't really understand their stresses unless you do it.

This is another thing I don't understand. People who know teachers and have been to school think they understand as much or more than teachers actually doing the job. I would never talk to an NHS doctor about their stresses because I know one and have been to hospital.

I think most teachers are blinded to the real world

Maybe some are. But I also think many non teachers are blinded to what teaching is like. The hardest and most stressful bit is what pupils and parents don't see. The unrelenting planning, assessment, preparation and paperwork. Planning a single lesson, covering all the different abilities and their particular learning objectives, finding the resources and writing it up, takes far, far longer than actually delivering the lesson. And in a primary school you only get to teach that lesson once. Oh and then you have to assess what happens in that lesson and record each child learning.

But it doesn't occur to me to tell my friends in business what their job is like and how much time they should be spending on it/how easy it is, non teachers will happily think they know what ours is like.

OP, should you think of going into the independent school sector, check out the pension arrangements for any school you're checking out. More are opting out of the Teachers' Pension scheme, presumably because the employer contributions are high.

@sherrystrull

Of course there are stresses in other jobs. When has anyone said there isn't?

And while you clearly know many teachers you don't really understand their stresses unless you do it.

This is another thing I don't understand. People who know teachers and have been to school think they understand as much or more than teachers actually doing the job. I would never talk to an NHS doctor about their stresses because I know one and have been to hospital.

Maybe you’re just not very good at understanding things. You don’t seem to understand simple English, for example.

Nowhere do I say that I understand as much as or more about teachers’ stresses than teachers themselves. Of course I don’t.

You would never talk to an NHS doctor about their stresses? Why not? You’re certainly not going to understand much about them then, are you?

I’ve been married to a teacher for nearly 30 years. And, guess what, we’ve talked about the immense stresses of the job across all that time, which is why I’ve said it is a job I couldn’t do. Believe me, I understand how stressful the job is, even though I don’t have to face those stresses myself.

I think that a lot of people outside of schools have no clear idea of what a day is like for a teacher. If there are 6 periods a day, and I have 1 'free', the chances are excellent that the 1 period will not actually be free, I will have to cover a class for an absent colleague, or take calls from SMT, or sort out behaviour issues in other classes in my department, or have pupils at the door wanting passwords changed/sent as they were misbehaving/ can't remember what class they should be in, etc etc. I have been teaching many, many years and cannot recall a single 'free' period that I've not been disrupted by something at least once.
Staff are expected to do break and lunch duty, expected to run lunchtime and after school sessions for revision, homework, exam prep etc etc - so the point about the 8-6 isn't that no one else does it, its that for teachers there is no actual time to do all the other stuff in those hours. The last few years there is the added expectation that staff offer exam prep in the October and Easter holidays. For sure they can't force us to do that, but if you ever hope to get promotion, or apply for a job elsewhere, or even come through one of the QA observations/learning walk reports without a scathing 'not a team player' type comment you're going to be doing those.
There's no 'quiet time' to do marking or planning or report writing or whatever, and unlike people in industry we don't even get paid til '5 or 6pm'.

Add in the governments revolving door of curriculum changes (just who do you think rewrites those courses, usually in a stupidly short timescale). I mean Scotland was a prime example - they launched CfE National 5 courses 5-6 months before they actually published the course specifications so we got to 'teach' a course that hadn't even been published from June to December and just hope we were covering the right things. The government kindly allowed the delay of the Higher courses the following year, though in reality in a great many schools the management insisted that we deliver the new (again not actually finished) version of the course. Some subjects were changed (hugely changed in some cases) every single year for the first 4 years. Keep in mind there is no 'down time' during the school day to rewrite these courses.
Lockdown has been a great example - we were expected to teach live, online lessons as per our usual timetable (fair enough), but our twice termly staff meetings went to twice a week (sometimes every day!), we had to do 4 (yes really) different types of tracking, weekly and for every single pupil had to add in a comment about what we'd tracked. Weekly.
All the while rewriting the courses so they worked online, writing new materials to make up for the lack of in class discussions and demonstrations, pre-recording lessons, contacting pupils who hadn't been engaging with lessons to offer extra help and trying to sort out the plethora of IT issues that came up 'I can't search for Chicken Breast Miss, it came up that I tried to access porn...!!!' And some tasks that can be done fairly quickly in a classroom (going over a task from a lesson) now takes an hour as you have to individually mark and give feedback for each pupil

No one is saying at all that other jobs are not stressful or have stupid workloads - they absolutely do.

What we are saying is that teaching also has a stupid workload and while the media like to make out we all work 9-3 and get paid loads to do nothing and have half the year off, the reality is very different.

I think what gets teachers backs up (certainly mine anyway) is this idea that we are all lazy work-shy idiots doing a crappy job because we're not capable of hacking it in 'industry'.
Other similarly overworked and underpaid professions are vaunted as 'angels' and 'heros'. It only seems to be teachers that are viewed as workshy and lazy.
If lockdown has shown anything from the cries of 'open the schools!' it should show how crucial the profession is, and yet there is still thread after thread of how little teachers do, how long their holidays are and how they have no clue what life is like 'in the real world'

I've been teaching 11 years and I understand what you mean. I stick with it because I hate the idea of an office job, and I value the holidays with my kids. Its also hard to match the salary elsewhere.
My DH is a non teacher and pulls some really really long hours and has stressful meetings and less holiday sp I figure the grass isnt always greener.
I stay away from too much responsiblity and just do the job, other jobs arent that great either!

I used to teach...do not regret leaving. Most people who think teachers have it easy would never retrain to do it themselves as deep down they know its not.

I have thought about leaving teaching having done it now for over 20 years. However, in every case, a change of school was the solution, rather than a change of career. I have also worked in a high pressure job in the NHS. The biggest difference between the two, was that I didn't have to take my work home with me in the evenings or at the weekends. That is the main downside of teaching for me. The salary in teaching is okay for me (especially where I live - it would be difficult to find a job with a better wage - that said, I moved here for our jobs)
I truly enjoy working with young people, I'm passionate about my subject and my colleagues are a fantastic, supportive bunch.
Yes, there are major stresses, all of which have been listed on the thread already, but there are stresses in every job and having worked in retail, offices, restaurants, hospitals and tourism, I've experienced my fair share of diverse working environments to know about them!
I think in teaching you have to make a choice; work yourself to death or work sensibly and stay sane - I've realised that the outcomes for the pupils are the same (possibly better as you're not frazzled!) and you get no thanks for doing the former!

Teaching is very much what you make of it. I have a middle management job and responsibility for managing other members of the department, including mentoring responsibilities.

I have found over the years that you very much have to stand up for yourself.

I refuse to answer parental and student emails outside of working hours unless it suits me and will leave 48 hours for responses at busy times. I've had complaints (and quite rude ones at that), but simply pointed out that 48h is a normal response time outside of school.

I insisted on having any extra responsibilities blocked off in my timetable, so any weekly meetings, line management or on call duties were noted and I was unavailable for cover during that time.

I have repeatedly argued with SLT over unreasonable expectations, including the Head, and have involved my union where necessary (e.g. when it was suggested we ensure students are escorted to and from detentions at break and lunch times, which would have cut out 5-10min of our time every break/ lunch).

I have suggested and driven change in our department where e.g. marking load was unreasonable. I 'live' mark during lessons, tests, at break and lunch, but rarely take marking home with me. Where needed I use part of a lesson for data entry while discussing results with students.

The difference between me and colleagues who are struggling with workload are each of the following:

• I have clear boundaries of what I will and will not do.
• I do not spend my breaks and lunches on chit chat; I will look after my needs (toilet, food) and work/ answer emails.
• I make time where I can to do things beside teaching in lessons - this works well with the top sets and sixth form, but I also train younger years to shut up and work independently for 10-15min where I can.
• I delegate admin and unnecessary workload to students, sometimes those in detentions. Have a bunch of pencils that need sharpening? Need books sorting/ carrying? Need to hand non-confidential paperwork in somewhere?
• I no longer aim for perfection, especially with things that have zero impact on students.

But I do ensure that I have an excellent reputation as a teacher in class, that my lessons are observable at all times and that I get decent results, which allows me the freedom to do all of the above.

If I were you, I’d get as much inside information about the hours and working culture of the types of jobs you’d like to move to. They vary HUGELY. Some posters talk about working until 6 pm then being able to switch off, or having emails banned at unsociable hours, or working part time and being able to leave things until their next working day in the office, or being able to take their annual leave when they want. None of these apply to my job for example. If the work needs doing, it needs doing whether that means turning around a document at 10 pm or logging on extra early. Also, to what extent will you work solo or as part of a big team on complex projects? My teacher friends seem to work much more independently than I do, so have greater control over how they direct their time. I work as part of a huge organisation and we’re expected to work seamlessly as a team. Part time working is not really what you’d think! I have to make sure that all my work is left in a position to progress with clients on my day off (so usually involves a late night before my day ‘off’) and a colleague has to be briefed to cover me in case something changes. If it’s very urgent and too complex to hand over I have to log in on my days off...

@Adreinnesarmy

Radical, but could you move abroad and teach (even perhaps where your family are). I loved teaching overseas and would 100% happily taught abroad forever. (As it was DH’s job bought us home and I got out at the first opportunity).

Snap!

I found teaching in this country soul destroying. It's all about the data rather than the children.

@Applesarenice

Also completely disagree about independent schools being more family friendly. Yes the class sizes are smaller so less marking, but you are expected to teach until 6pm in most (and then the marking begins!!), plus late duties, meetings, boarding duties and Saturday school. Responsibility pay is also not great depending on the school - many don’t have have pay scales so they can offer whatever they want, which is often peanuts.

However - I know lots of people that have made the move and despite longer hours say their work/life balance is much better - just find one without boarding/Saturday school!!

I disagree about being asked to teach til 6pm in most indies. Most are day schools and don't have Saturday school or evenings. I wouldn't work in a boarding school for that reason.