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.

@XingMing

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

I remember sending Mr Gove a snail mail letter explaining that, in some detail 😕

That's exactly what I mean, nothing wrong wit it. Why do you need to do a new lesson plan? You don't, you may need to add a few bits, but it's the same old stuff isn't it..

What? OK. I am no longer a teacher and it is posts like that that remind me why!

Many teachers try to explain the complexities of the job and others say "You don't wanna do that...."

Fuck it. Believe what you want. Just do me one favour... don't hassle, disbelieve, downplay teachers you know in real life like that. You could end up being their last straw!

@crocus776

That's exactly what I mean, nothing wrong wit it. Why do you need to do a new lesson plan? You don't, you may need to add a few bits, but it's the same old stuff isn't it..

but it's the same old stuff isn't it..

I can't see this going down well in eg a hospital setting - saying this to an HCP or doctor.

The tea chers contract is for 190 days or 1265 hours plus 4 weeks statutory holiday plus bank holiday . It is all rolled into one rate. It’s all in The Burgundy book

@AngelicaElizaAndPeggy

Not being paid for my holidays. Yep- for all those people who moan about 13 weeks off a year or whatever, we don't get paid for that time!

Also, on a lighter note, I still laugh at staff meetings when the head teacher says 'tonight's meeting is about bla bla bla' - it's not even 4pm, love!!
(Tbf, when you arrive in the building at half 7 in the morning, 4pm can feel a bit like bedtime!)

Yes you do get paid for it. 🙄🙄

And 7.30am - 4pm is NOT a long working day FFS

@YingMei

I've gone the other way - 11 years a teacher and 4 months so far in the corporate world. So this is a kind of inverse answer but my biggest shocks in joining the corporate world are:

• Being trusted to do my job without being constantly monitored
• Receiving thanks and appreciation now and again
• Being able to go the toilet when I want and have a long or short lunchbreak - whatever I need. I will be trusted to make up the time.
• Only doing one job instead of several (as a teacher I was also a social worker, family liaison officer)
• Stakeholders are rarely rude and aggressive (unlike certain secondary pupils, their parents and SLT).

Wild horses wouldn't drag me back .

Qualified social worker were you? Or are you being disrespectful to another profession?

but it's the same old stuff isn't it..

I wouldn’t dream of going onto a post about a career I didn’t do and tell those professionals that their job wasn’t anything like as hard as they say, and they just needed to do xyz and it would be fine!

@SamphiretheStickerist, Mr Gove killed my subject's place on the NC. I can well believe he doesnn't understand the concept of average!

@PlainJaneEyre

But it is the same stuff... History, French, science. Nothing changes really.

And 7.30am-4pm is NOT a long working day FFS

That poster was saying that training was just beginning at 4pm after 8 hours of working. Our twilights are often 4-7.30.

@PlainJaneEyre you're so right that it gets easier as time goes by and you create a bank of what works for you. But I think you're maybe underestimating the degree to which lesson plans need to work for the individual teacher. I'm really good at the stuff I do, but other people's lessons won't work for me because our personalities and styles are really different. Most people quit in the first 5 years while you're still building your style and what resources work for you new teachers need to be able to identify what works for them and build on that.

@Shinyandnew1

I didn't say is wasn't hard, I said it didn't need to be so hard.

A big difference. One that would be rectified in a corporate world.

And 7.30am - 4pm is NOT a long working day FFS

I think that poster was pointing out that training sessions, meetings that start at the end of teaching periods make a day that starts with a photocopier, or other daily task,somewhere around 8 am and ends at 4pm with little or no time away from questions, work, a desk, is always daunting. Usually 2+ hours long and requiring active engagement, sensible contributions.

Especially when all you can really concentrate on is your usual end of day tasks and lesson notes and planning for the following day.

[quote crocus776]@PlainJaneEyre

But it is the same stuff... History, French, science. Nothing changes really.[/quote]
You are still not clear.

@justalittlebitfurther

Dh works in pharma and works massively long hours, is not ever really off duty due to email and a global team and gets 6 weeks holiday plus a few days extra for long service.

The fact that you claim you need it to recharge is laughable

No other professional needs a week of to recharge before they say they can relax. Your holiday is your holiday and that's that.

Ask nurses fire crews doctors nhs medical staff if they get weeks off before the other weeks off to recharge 🙄

[quote Ceejly]@PlainJaneEyre you're so right that it gets easier as time goes by and you create a bank of what works for you. But I think you're maybe underestimating the degree to which lesson plans need to work for the individual teacher. I'm really good at the stuff I do, but other people's lessons won't work for me because our personalities and styles are really different. Most people quit in the first 5 years while you're still building your style and what resources work for you new teachers need to be able to identify what works for them and build on that.[/quote]
I think you have mixed me up with someone else. I am a retired teacher and I know the pain of teaching and differentiated lesson plans.

@Shinyandnew1

And 7.30am-4pm is NOT a long working day FFS

That poster was saying that training was just beginning at 4pm after 8 hours of working. Our twilights are often 4-7.30.

Your twilights that come up 3 or 4 times a year and actually replace some of your working days? So working say, 4 twilights means you only have to do 193 days across the year.

You do realise many jobs do 12 hour days as the norm. 5 days a week all year round save for statutory holidays?!

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??

Ok I've seen a lot of stupid,
comments about teaching, but that one takes the biscuit. There is no 'gold standard'. And even if it were theoretically possible, nobody would agree on what the criteria for a 'gold standard' lesson would be. All kids are different, all classes are different, all teachers are different.

That comment doesn't just read as though it was written by someone who doesn't understand anything about teaching, it reads like someone who has never been taught by an actual human. You might as well have robots teaching tbh.

Great change to teaching if you'd rather :)

You do realise many jobs do 12 hour days as the norm

Yes-like teaching really.

I wonder how many of the people in those other jobs are routinely called workshy, lazy part timers?

For everyone arguing about teachers holiday pay.

They're fairly unique as a contract so not necessarily comparable. They're closer to an 'annualised' contract than anything else.
Teachers are contracted to work 1,265 hours across 195 days as DIRECTED time ..... i.e. their school can direct which days/times make up those 1,265 hours (and this includes training days, PPA and any other off-timetable time).
They are also expected to manage their own time outside of those 1,265 to manage their own workloads.

If you wanted to try and compare ... think of teaching as a full time job. Most other full times jobs are, say, 37.5 hours per week, and with statutory leave entitlement of 5.6 weeks. A teacher's 1,265 annual hours divided by the 39 weeks of term time equates to just under 32.5 hours per week, so they have 5 hours per week 'free' to use for their 'out of hours' work during term time. Plus, after their 5.6 weeks of statutory leave, there is still 7.4 weeks left which they are not directed to work so can manage their own time. Compare this to a 'normal' job, thats equivalent of 277.5 hours they have free to manage themselves. Plus add their 5 hours they benefit from each week during term time, so that's another 195 hours.

So basically, unless a full time teacher is working outside of core hours for more than 472.5 hours per year, they are better off than a standard 37.5 hr a week job for their hours over the full year.

I was a teacher for 12 years before I made a change...I worked in 2 countries in several schools. I never felt challenged enough, hence the move away from it! I can tell you through all my experience in teaching there are two things that teachers are great at, playing the victim and moaning! Oh good god the MOANING!!

But it is the same stuff... History, French, science. Nothing changes really.

The French language hasn't changed a great deal. What bits of it we are supposed to teach, which skills we are supposed to train students to use in order to pass their exams, and which methods we are supposed to use to achieve that though... Not to mention the gazillions of general tweaks to 'what a good lesson looks like', based on the latest educationalfad theory. Those change all the time. And we are judged on our ability to reflect those (fairly frequent) changes in our lessons.

Why you'd think you would have a clue about that unless you've been a teacher for a decade or so, I can't really imagine.

I never felt challenged enough

You were probably doing it badly then.