If you left the corporate world to go into teaching what was the biggest shock?

[coodawoodashooda]

Just wondering. Usually we have threads from fed up teachers. Im a teacher, not looking for a fight. Just interested.

@Ceejly, as a career changer and relatively ancient, I do not think my post on my reasons mentioned anywhere that I thought it would be easier or shorter hours than my previous work. I did, perhaps naively, believe that I could bring a different perspective and experiences from another environment that could be of value.

Rather stupidly, I assumed based on the children I have known that the students would want to learn. Wrong! Most CBA. And a significant minority were actively disruptive.

I thought my mentors and colleagues would be fraternal and encouraging, and most were, with the exception of the HoD who was a PE teacher by training and insecure around anyone who could, and would, challenge ideas -- which my previous collaborative creative occuption had taken for granted.

The POINT is, that people like to take swipes at teachers for their "long holidays" and indeed, they are nice to have. But it's not a fair comparison with other sectors as, whilst they are paid for 5 weeks (I think) of them, the rest are, effectively unpaid or, if you prefer, it reduces the value of the rest of the salary, iyswim (e.g. if you divide the total salary by 52 weeks instead of 39).

@Fairislefandango

I consider my holidays paid, and I consider teacher's holidays paid.

But if our pay is calculated based on the number of contracted working hours we do per year, in what sense are we being paid for our holidays?

My pay is also calculated based on the number of contracted hours I work though?

I don't think anyone in the corporate world would ever refer to their holidays as unpaid. It's literally what it's called: 'paid time off'.

It doesn’t make much difference surely to think of teachers pay being for the full year (so paid in the holidays) or the pay they receive being for 3/4 of the year (so unpaid holidays but a very good salary considering it’s only for 39 weeks of the year)

@XingMing Unless I've made a mistake when posting, I wasn't replying directly to you, more to the thread so sorry if there's been any confusion of offence!
I can only speak to the experiences I've had from our student teachers which have been pretty negative tbh. I care massively about supporting people into the profession because I personally had very diverse experiences and I think it's an important part of the job to support and train up new staff. I've found our students really overstep the mark. One got narky with me because I pointed out that she hadn't planned anything for herself, just used my lessons or stuff from TES, four weeks into the placement and that that was impacting her performance negatively.

I have a friend who's a teacher, she's been teaching the same secondary subject for over twenty years, she moans relentlessly about planning... surely after twenty years you just get out last years lesson plans make a few tweaks and get on with it?

I'll never understand why teaching isn't standardised, every teacher should be issued with a lesson plan, work for basic/intermediate and advanced ability. Expecting teachers to be excellent lesson planners when they could be provided with the gold standard?? crazy. Do you think every Tesco chooses promotions..no they just do what is instructed from Head office.
A standardised learning plan, could be supported online.

I also struggle to understand all the stress about marking, my old corporate job ended at 5.30, school days end at 3.30, two hours to mark, job done.

It's over complicated in my opinion.

she moans relentlessly about planning... surely after twenty years you just get out last years lesson plans make a few tweaks and get on with it?

If only it were that easy. And imagine it had never been discussed here!

The curriculum changes. Exams and the curriculum have a cycle, they change regularly.

Ofsted, government, DoE, all sorts of agencies have input and make changes to teaching practices, the ways progress is measured, the collation of data, the presentation of that data. It's the out of the classroom stuff your friend us moaning about. It can take hours and then, just as you find the rhythm of it, someone changes the terms again.

The wording of most normal contracts is x hours a week with x amount of annual leave which is paid.

Teachers have a different contact which is based on directed hours which have to take place on 195 days with an clear clause of an unspecified number of undirected hours to plan prep, monitor and evaluate enough to discharge their duties in directed hours. These can take place whenever as long as they enable to teacher to do their directed hours. Its quite unlike most contracts in that way. Its not overtime which people are comparing it too. Its an integral part of the job.

I'll never understand why teaching isn't standardised, every teacher should be issued with a lesson plan, work for basic/intermediate and advanced ability. Expecting teachers to be excellent lesson planners when they could be provided with the gold standard??

Erm! That one comment probably encapsulates the misunderstanding non teachers make.

I don't even know where to start. But 'rote learning' is shite for most subjects and individual learners... 30 kids in a class means 30 different learning abilities to see deal with. Not a cosy average, better, best!

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist
How much does it change in reality? i've children in different years, the subject are the same, topics the same very year.

It would be that easy if you had a standardised lesson plan. It would be given to you to teach. Approved by the DoE.

@Porkbuttsandtaters

It doesn’t make much difference surely to think of teachers pay being for the full year (so paid in the holidays) or the pay they receive being for 3/4 of the year (so unpaid holidays but a very good salary considering it’s only for 39 weeks of the year)

Yeah, I'm not convinced that declaring teachers are not paid for their holidays really helps their case.

As a pp said, by that logic everyone takes unpaid holiday. But someone on £35k in the private sector get 5 weeks unpaid, and a teacher on £35k gets 13 weeks unpaid.

I also recognise that teachers do work very hard, that many of them do work during their holidays, and I certainly don't intend to come across as teacher bashing.

It wouldn't be rote learning, it would be the gold standard of lesson plans, surely no one thinks they are the absolute best at everything. Bollocks you differentiate for 30 children!

@yellowsuninthesky

I'd never had a work assessment/appraisal from someone who not only had no clue about my specialism but cheerfully admitted it to me before giving feedback. Feedback that would dictate whether I moved payscales or not

When I was a school governor i used to do the headteacher's performance review. Ridiculous, when I think about it now. I was professionally qualified as a lawyer but what qualifications did I have to tell a head whether she was doing a good job?

You are right - none! This is one of the reasons why Governors used to irritate me so much. Incidentally what was your reason for becoming a Governor?

It was like when they appointed business managers to schools who would stop you from getting any more photocopies when your allowance had gone that month - no thought or idea for the classroom effects. The was the 1990s when we had just been ravaged by having 10 attainment levels and KS levels and Citizenship, IT etc across subjects just thrown at us to devise our own curriculum .It was a wearying time.

@Fairislefandango

By that logic, I'm not paid for holidays either in my corporate job.

Well no, I'd assume you weren't. So why is it that people assume that teachers are?

Because in the corporate world (and any other world that isn't teaching apparently) you get 'paid time off'. Surely if you are paid the same in a month where you have 2 weeks off as you are in a month where you have no time off, then you get paid time off?

[quote crocus776]@SamphirethePogoingStickerist
How much does it change in reality? i've children in different years, the subject are the same, topics the same very year.

It would be that easy if you had a standardised lesson plan. It would be given to you to teach. Approved by the DoE.[/quote]
That's the point I was trying to make upthread. With the insistence on each learner achieving higher than average results every teacher who teaches to an exam, to has to analyse the exam cycle and ensure they focus on the likely exam content, what topics have not yet been examined in the current 'round'. Have to because every other teacher is and the way the end results are calculated.

So teachers don't teach the subject as much any more. Those who teach to the exam are forced to teach to results. No enjoyment or deeper understanding, there isn't always time. It is all about results.

It's hard to explain without having the paperwork to point at. But it is something that students, parents, non teachers, often have no idea about. Which is why the idea of standard lesson plans is, frankly, ridiculous.

Though it is done elsewhere, Spain for example, has something similar.

It is hard to explain, and is one thing that shocks many NQTs. But a lot if the planning, tweaking if lesson plans, content etc, is aimed specifically at enhancing exam results. So every exam sitting adds information, allowing, no, demanding, that the next teaching session is tweaked to match the new parameters.

That carries on until the exam series is finished, 2 - 5 years depending on subject and level.

After I decided I didn't want to work more than 0.6 in the classroom and that my forte was lesson-planning and resources, I had an idea for an electronic subscription model text and work book (for Citizenship) to build a bank resource of lessons that could be pulled off a computer, with a range of topics written for KS3 and KS4 NC suppported by reading material, video clips, music and differentiated exercises. I pitched the idea but back then, none of the educational publishers were interested.

[quote crocus776]@SamphirethePogoingStickerist
How much does it change in reality? i've children in different years, the subject are the same, topics the same very year.

It would be that easy if you had a standardised lesson plan. It would be given to you to teach. Approved by the DoE.[/quote]
What do you mean by the subject are the same, topics the same very year?

Do you mean that GCSE Year 10 Geography starts every year with Earthquakes and Disaster Zones? If so what is wrong with that?

@crocus776

It wouldn't be rote learning, it would be the gold standard of lesson plans, surely no one thinks they are the absolute best at everything. Bollocks you differentiate for 30 children!

Bollocks? Tell Ofsted that! Please.

@monkeysox

You're always"on". In corporate you have deadlines but not five per day to differing audiences with different needs. For school Work before work so have work to do at work that creates more work for you to mark. Relentless

You don't think others have 5 deadlines a day?

Frankly the concept that every learner should achieve better than average results... just shifts the average!

Because in the corporate world (and any other world that isn't teaching apparently) you get 'paid time off'. Surely if you are paid the same in a month where you have 2 weeks off as you are in a month where you have no time off, then you get paid time off?

This is where I'm getting confused! Unless we take it that we all have unpaid time off and work hours that we received annualised payment for - so I work 47 paid weeks of 37 hours and then get five unpaid weeks but am paid in 12 equal amounts? In which case, teachers get a pretty good rate for hours worked, surely?

I'm so baffled.

How amazing some teachers are, working so hard for little reward and how shit other teachers can be and are not dealt with as they would be in the corporate world, yet get the same pay etc as the amazing teachers.

@HeliosPurple

I love being a teacher but I really wish people knew this - teaching is the only job where you have to work in your own time outside of work in order to be able to do the actual work (the teaching) that you are paid to do. Additional work generated by the ‘actual work’ (assessments, action planning for subject leadership, reports etc) also has to be done in your own time. It’s a great job but in the twenty years since I qualified, I do think it’s lost it’s way.

How many hours a week are you actually timetabled to teach?

Full time would be something like 26 i think.

@Rosehugger

The way you set out the post, particularly with the concluding paragraph, seemed to imply that the first examples were good and hard working and the second examples were useless and lazy. I'm glad to hear you didn't mean it that way.

I didn't read it that way. I knew what she meant