To have underestimated how demanding teaching is

[Makingplansfornigel2]

I was naive to think I could do the planning and marking in my frees and go home on time, I absolutely can't.
And this is with me using already planned lessons from TES. Either that or I print a worksheet and then create activities based on that, but this takes no more than 5 mins. I learned from the PGCE days that it's really not worth spending hours making fancy glittery PowerPoints.
We can't mark work in class as it's a school where they don't want you to tick things, they want written feedback in every book, and haven't got time to do that in lessons.
In between this there's tidying classrooms, adding on merits/behaviour points, contacting parents etc. And just having a break.
Would love to hear from anyone who gets it all done in school hours or stays the bare minimum after school!

Are Ofsted not concerned that the extreme measures and thankless workload will discourage anyone from teaching in the future.

It’s harsh but anyone who goes into teaching now and is surprised at this is beyond naive.
It’s been a thankless job for years, like many public sector jobs

How long have you been teaching? Workload is at its worst in the first 5 years when frankly speaking most teachers are still learning and haven't identified the most efficient ways to work.

Teaching isnt 9-3. You should be expecting to work a normal working day, arriving at 8 and not leaving before about 4.30/5.

Get students to self mark & glue things into books. If written feedback is meaningful, do it, but that doesnt mean its necessary or appropriate on every single thing.

I don't mean this about you OP but I think we suffer in the UK with the government not paying teaching well enough to attract more academic people. The students from my school who went on to teach (primary especially) comprised mainly people with mediocre GCSEs many of whom were resitting maths to get a C. Is it any wonder lots of these people find teaching mentally difficult?

We need to be paying enough to attract our A grade students into teaching. Then in any school there should be a reduced workload due to no one having to carry a weaker teacher, everyone contributing high quality planning etc. Plus better quality management, everyone being capable of working at a faster pace thus getting through the work more quickly but to decent standard.

Emerald shamrock Ofsted actually discourage pointless excess workload and can be disparaging of senior management having over prescriptive marking requirements.

What do you mean by going home on time? Do you mean at the end of the school day at 3.30pm, or at 5/5.30pm? i wouldn’t think going home at 5.30pm is excessive so I really hope you were y expecting to go home at 3.30.

It’s very well known that teachers have a high work load and often have to work some evenings and weekends. There’s long school holidays to make up for this. Presumably people go into the profession knowing this.

You have the 6 week holiday nerves.

Don't worry a few years in, you'll get used to it.

So, from teacher to teacher. YABU and you need to get a grip. Most roles require you to cope under pressure...isnt just teaching

It isn't possible to do everything during the school day. Not even close. Surely you already knew this?

Where did she say it was worth than other jobs? Ugh I hate this rhetoric that when a teacher says they're struggling, people pile on and accuse them of saying their job is the worst job ever, when they aren't saying that at all.

*worse

I teach secondary in a subject where they have only a couple of lessons a week so I teach 3xY8 or whatever. That's one lot of planning for 3 lessons and if it's the same SoW it's already planned from previous years. I've been teaching a looong time and can tweak stuff on the hoof. I'm a single parent so can't go in early or stay late and do little work at home. I mark in frees, in lunch hours etc. Report writing does ramp it up a bit but that's only once a term. Exceptional organisation is key, as is being able to twist a lesson easily to fit the audience. I 100% agree about the diminishing returns on whizzy PowerPoints..I do get them from TES and tweak them but if you're an interesting and engaging teacher with imaginative and varied ideas for activities you shouldn't need loads of the resources for every lesson. A lot of what I've said is subject dependent and the result of many years experience though.

YANBU

Those adverts for teachers showing a class of settled, engaged and respectful kids having a 'lightbulb' moment as they understand some key concept used to have my now ex teacher wife throwing stuff at the TV.

I completely agree. The bar should be set higher for teachers entering the profession, and pay adjusted accordingly.

If pay was higher I would consider it. I actually enjoy working under pressure in short bursts so would like the 6 week terms and holidays. But the pay is just not comparable to what I earn now. It’s not so much the starting pay or the standard teachers salaries, that’s not too bad really. Its the lack of pay rises for experienced teachers and limited opportunities to go up and earn the higher salaries. Team lead/hod salaries aren’t worth it for the extra stress either.

I’m also going to be frank here.
You just can’t consistently plan lessons in 5 minutes around a TES sheet. That’s not on. I’m just saying it now because in your ECT year there’s no way you have the knowledge and expertise to make that work (and neither do I). You need to speak to someone about this because you’re essentially struggling without doing any planning, which makes me think the marking policy must be really crazy and you need support managing it.

Again, though, if you just weren’t expecting to have to work beyond like 4pm (or really even 6 in your first year) then YABU.

This is your first job? How many days have you actually done?

I can hardly believe you did a PGCE and didn’t realise the job was so demanding.

Are there no schemes of work for your classes? Plan around that. Then you don’t need a tes worksheet.

I'm 25 ish years in and cried yesterday , the kids have been in for 2 days.
I also love my job but it's totally overwhelming. I agree people say we have had 6 weeks off and should get a grip but i did work in the holidays. There is a misunderstanding of what the job is i think. There's more and more to do, which continually gets interrupted by having to teach the lessons. You are continually 'on' The only time I get time to myself with no one looking at me, needing me or talking to me is in the toilet. I couldn't have a wee until 2.30pm yesterday and I got to school at 7.30

So, from teacher to teacher. YABU and you need to get a grip. Most roles require you to cope under pressure...isnt just teaching

So the 50% of new teachers who leave the profession within a few years of qualifying should have 'got a grip' as well. You can cope, well done you, plenty of other well needed teachers can't but instead of recognising that there is a whole raft of well documented problems that is causing people to flee the profession your response is essentially tough. Yeah, other jobs can be high pressure, usually they are paid a lot more in recognition of this fact and they still get their weekends off.

I had a spell of teaching. I realised that it has to be a vocation because there are much easier ways of making a modest living.
Very happy to swap the "holidays" for 30 days a year and a 35 hour week.

A friend got this special machine where you can type or dictate your feedback, then it prints a neat label with the comments. She says it has changed her marking and it takes a fraction of the time. Maybe try that?

I think it's worth remembering that career teachers who love it feel overwhelmed at times (like me)
It's not all just weak people who need to get a grip

Thank you for the timely reminder to be kind and polite to my kids' teachers, no matter how stressed I'm feeling!

I honestly don't know how you all do it. Homeschooling nearly broke me and that was just two (fairly compliant, well-behaved) kids!

No advice, just sympathy and gratitude for what you all do.

My first year was a doddle (workload wise) compared to my last year 18 years on. I solved it by leaving.

15+ years ago I did it.
We quickly marked books from earlier in the day whilst the children did independent work. I doubt most classrooms even have the old fashioned desks to sit at whilst children work.
We didn’t write full plans, it wasn’t expected. I’d have a topic overview and probably some key questions on post-its I didn’t want to miss. Maybe a list of names.
Staff meetings were mainly quick get togethers to discuss admin like sports day, insets were mainly left to classroom prep, not training.
Basically if your class made expected progress and had no behaviour problems then you weren’t bothered much from September to July. We also had teaching assistants who’d be doing prep like cutting out, sticking in and display boards.
It was a different world with a lot of trust, your classroom was your domain and people didn’t use the word ‘initiative.

Thats a pretty honest rough answer to why you saw older teachers manage it all and raise young children. The micro managing and the protracted processes for doing the same things is unmanageable. I don’t even think so much of it benefits children. For example I’d flick through books, in class, not writing unread feedback, but calling children over to clarify learning or re-do tasks or extend them as I went. It actually had a direct impact and took very little time. Children were also less managed and I found behaviour/ classroom management easier. They’d be trusted to just fetch paper/ sharpen pencils which cut down on the hands up constantly giving permission to do things or deal with someone who’d say frozen with a blunt pencil.

Yes. I was supposed to write all this stuff on Reception children's work - obviously they couldn't read it but it was in the school policy so I had to do it. I left shortly after the new Head introduced this as I lucky enough to be nearly 60.

Yep this is it. The job has changed so much