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.

@Libertaire

I’m not a teacher, but I would imagine that getting 13 weeks off a year (or 16 in fee-paying schools) instead of 5 in the private sector would be a pretty major difference.

The fact that there were really very few weeks that were truly holiday. The majority was spent either mopping up stuff from previous term, or preparing for next one. Or just bring ill as soon as I started to wind down.

@Knittingchamp

I can't see the point staying up all night to write a report for some meaningless corporate presentation that won't ultimately achieve anything but make more cash for company X. But I can see a huge meaningful reason to do the same for students when you're a teacher. It sucks to have to work outside hours like that in either case, but at least the teaching example isn't soul destroyingly pointless.

This is really condescending

There's often a lot of bravado around the talk of teaching, where weirdly people hate to admit how hard teaching actually is, then extend that thought to passively aggressively or openly insulting teachers. I for one have endless respect for teachers - it's not a job that many of us could do.

There were many for me. One which I find soul-destroying was the relentless bureaucracy which just didn't do anything abd frankly got in the way.

For instance, having to submit a load of grades, remarks and plans to improve the marks - in different formats. That information was already available to SLT on the systems, but no, they now wanted in a different format. Please submit it in this new Word template by yesterday...

So inefficient, did nothing to help the students and got in the way of stuff which might help.

For me the hardest bit was the sheer level of focus and concentration needed when "putting on a show" for 5 hours a day. Teaching, monitoring what ever child is doing, asking questions etc etc all whilst maintaining the teacher thing is mentally draining.

As a corporate kid, I had to focus. But I was always just me. And I was only focusing on what I needed to do/achieve and my working day was under my control.

Teaching is really not like that. It's mentally really taxing in that respect. You are "on" all day. No I'll just do these admin tasks with a cuppa cos I have a headache/am tired. I'll just pop to the loo and have 5 minutes.....nope, 8Y3 are coming at you & you've gotta bring your A game. No time to pee, hold on!!

Watching this with interest as I'm in the corporate world. Would love to go into teaching but can't afford it right now.

The world I work in is also totally relentless and with multiple people asking me for multiple things all the time, but I do at least get paid properly for it.

I was a Partner in a City law firm for over a decade and I made the move to teaching at university postgraduate level. It's a very different environment to school. The students are all very conscientious and serious about the course, no behaviour or crown control issues.

The only shock is the pay cut, otherwise I am loving it. So much less stress, short working days and long holidays. If I were paid the same as before it would be the perfect job.

I am on less pay in corporate - on paper. If I had the time to work out my hourly rate for teaching it would be far less than I am on now. Many people who do not teach simply do not understand how much out of hours stuff you have to do. It's not just the marking. The exams specs, for example, changed not long ago, but there were no text books or resources to go with it. In effect I write two text books worth of A Level material from scratch. The GCSE was also changed the year prior to this - again virtually no resources. I spent three years working flat out just to stay a couple of weeks ahead of my classes.

On top of this there are the multiple meetings after school - two per week and in addition the Parents Evenings, Open Evenings, Awards Ceremonies etc. On this days I would usually be in school 7am - 8pm. And then back in again at 7am the next day to do a full day's teaching. And there is no 'down time'. In my new job I can ease the slack if I am feeling a bit off colour or tired. You can't do that with 34 kids in front of you.

In addition teaching is so unpredictable. You could be having a lovely lesson, all calm and kids engaged and then the door bursts open with two kids sent to you because their behaviour is off the wall, or there is a fight at breaktime you have to break up, or a parent storms into reception yelling the odds. My days are no longer like this. It feels like an oasis of calm.

Preparing lesson plans seems a big issue. And one done in your own time. However, surely once set, you are pretty much following a formula, unless there is a big change in the curriculum?

My DD's had a history teacher in primary, been there for years. Still there. Several year age gap between my two kids. She did/ does the same lessons, in the same order, with the same material, year, after year, after year. This is a Indie, so all sorts of caveats, but I know other teachers in state school primaries once fixed, do pretty much the same year on year. In the state sector, as others have mentioned, they struggle most with the range of abilities in some groups, and the expectation that they all can be taught effectively in the same group.

[quote NiceTwin]@LethargeMarg I know what they are meant for, yes.
Does that mean every teacher uses them for their intended purpose? Absolutely not.
I am sure there are many that do but there are many who hit the staffroom or nip out if they have back to back free periods.

I am not being critical, I am just pointing out that I know of no other job that gets scheduled hourly free time every week.
I am happy to be enlightened that there are.[/quote]
The fact you are talking about back to back frees shows you don’t work in teaching.

Most teachers have 3 PPA slots out of a possible 25 teaching slots.
I used to work in corporate, teaching a lesson is like planning to deliver a presentation (not 100% the same but most similar).
You have have three hours to plan those 22 lessons. On top of that I have a form that I’m with for a total of 50 minutes everyday.

The marking, email reading, admin and safeguarding has to be slotted in before and after school.

As a side I do wish teachers wouldn’t say teaching is the only job where people are required to work outside set hours. It really isn’t, loads of jobs have long hours and are very stressful.
My current teaching salary is around £28k, I’ll bet the other high pressure professionals are paid significantly more than me.

@DoobryWhatsit

Actual teaching is a fantastic job. I now teach in a fairly small independent school, and I think my job is probably quite close to what people imagine. I do spend a lot of time preparing good lessons, but that's because I know that the kids will then be engaged and make good progress. I spend a huge amount of time marking, but I know the kids will read the comments, and respect my input. And the lessons themselves are usually quite good fun. Sometimes we go off on a bit of tangent, and we have a bit of a laugh, but we can back on track quickly, and every hour feels genuinely productive.

This is miles away from my last job in a (well respected, over subscribed) comprehensive. Controlling crowds of rude, aggressive kids whilst feeling desperately guilty for the quiet ones who did want to learn but never got the chance. Feeling sick going to bed, because I knew I'd have to do it all again tomorrow. Actually hoping I might crash my car on the way to work so I wouldn't have to deal with year 11 period 1. "Free" periods taken up with cover for colleagues who hadn't been able to face coming in.

It's not really the kids that are the problem. 30-32 (or even 34) is completely normalised as an acceptable class size, but it's too big. 24 is a completely different thing. There are physically not enough hours in the day to do a good job of full time teaching timetable. Teachers are running on caffeine and adrenaline, they spend all their time logging behavioural incidents, and then marking books for constant "work scrutiny", so they have no time to prepare good lessons. Unsurprisingly this means that they're always on the back foot, behaviour gets worse, and the teacher has no head space, or patience, or energy to deal with it.

OFSTED has such lofty expectations of schools, which are so far removed from the reality of the conditions in which teachers are working. Good lessons and good classroom management should always come first, and it should be understood that at some points most teachers will have to let everything else slide just to focus of those two key things.

(sorry for that rant- I think I'm still processing the trauma of just 3 years in what really was not a particularly challenging school!)

Why are you marking after the fact? More efficient and productive to mark within the lesson?

What do you do know itry?

Now. Not know . 🤦🏼‍♀️

That's a weird question. Because the teacher has to teach! Then the students do home work / coursework to check they've learnt what was communicated in the lesson. Which then has to be marked.

working with adults they're usually a bit more reasonable and accepting of strengths and weaknesses

not in the legal sector but I agree that they would probably keep their criticism for your work, not your physical imperfections! I've not taught myself except for a short-term TEFL job when I was a student, that was hard enough for me, and was probably a breeze compared with many teaching jobs.

I suspect as with everything it depends what you teach, who you teach and who your colleagues are. But would ever be easy.

@Knittingchamp

That's a weird question. Because the teacher has to teach! Then the students do home work / coursework to check they've learnt what was communicated in the lesson. Which then has to be marked.

Effective teaching comes from constant review and checking of learning. Spending hours marking learning done that day is pointless. Better to stop, class mark and then check understanding before moving on.

@Antarcticant

Don’t get me wrong I get a lot of time off, but having worked in other jobs I find that the time off is always spent thinking about, doing something for work or recovering

This is by no means unique to teaching.

You are right it isn’t unique to teaching. My DH works in the corporate world and puts in many extra hours. What is unique is that our ‘holidays’ are seen as stick to beat us with by the general public. I completely agree that many teachers do themselves no favours by saying things like it’s the ‘hardest’ job in the world. It isn’t and there are many lovely parts of teaching that you don’t get in other jobs. Lack of experience in the working world from lots of teachers is evident but also not their fault. It’s not worth working in money-wise unless you start in your 20s. It’s the public vitriol that astounds me - people love to hate teachers.

Preparing lesson plans seems a big issue. And one done in your own time. However, surely once set, you are pretty much following a formula, unless there is a big change in the curriculum

I think back in the day that probably was the case. But nowadays the government changes the curriculum every five minutes so all the lesson plans you had have to go in the bin, although I suppose on occasion can be adapted. Still takes time though.

I also think in years gone by teachers just worked through a textbook so they didn't have to plan to the nth degree like they do now.

@Libertaire

I’m not a teacher, but I would imagine that getting 13 weeks off a year (or 16 in fee-paying schools) instead of 5 in the private sector would be a pretty major difference.

Way prefer having 5 weeks off that I can take whenever I want or need. I absolutely hated being tied to holidays and half term I just worked without the kids present. No break. I would’ve given up my summer in a heartbeat and I did!

I did 10 years in corporate before becoming a teacher. Initial shocks:

• experience is not valued, at any point. In my previous role, yes, sometimes you would have a small budget for an assistant and would be looking to hire someone straight out of college. But for most roles you are after experience. Not so in teaching. You need a warm body in front of a class with QTS. The cheaper, the better. Some hires I have seen have been shocking.
• how commonplace drug taking is in schools of all stripes
• how interesting and interested teenagers can be.
• the huge range in education standards within the state system

The biggest shock for me was that I had to start buying all my own equipment - pens, paper, calculator, books etc etc.. In industry, I would just wander into the stationery cupboard and collect things I needed to do my job. Even more shocking was that pupils would sometimes deliberately steal my equipment meaning that I would have to go out and buy it all again!

@Sandinmyknickers
I've never been a teacher but am very baffled that people are seemingly confident in talking about the 'corporate'world as if its one huge monolith. Corporate or 'office' jobs vary massively depending on the role and organisation

Exactly. Classroom Teaching is undoubtedly more stressful than many private sector/office jobs, but less stressful than others. And the experience of teaching can also vary hugely school to school depending on the leadership team and kids.

I went into FE from working both in business and lecturing in HE of an evening. The pay was better but the workload was unmanageable. Being given subjects to teach that I had no experience of was a challenge. The pastoral side was relentless and there was no support for this for either myself or the students. Stress levels were unsustainable. I’ve left now.

@coodawoodashooda

Lawyers are non cimparible to any profession.

@coodawoodashooda what do you mean?

@MasterGland
But for most roles you are after experience. Not so in teaching. You need a warm body in front of a class with QTS. The cheaper, the better. Some hires I have seen have been shocking

But even in corporate you’re surely looking for “experience PLUS the right price”. School have extremely tight budgets and can presumably hire an experienced “A*” teacher in £35k over a “B” teacher in £25k now and then . But they can’t do that 10 times a year.
The teaching pay scale is essentially just a carrot/bribe to keep young teachers in the profession for a few years at a lower rate of pay.