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!

Oh it's impossible! It's my eleventh year as a teacher and I was still up to almost midnight last night. I'd planned my lessons over the holidays, but I still had seating plans, forms to fill in, class data, had to write an assessment already, catch up on emails etc it goes on and on. And no I didn't have time to do that in my 8-4pm day because I had back to back meetings and training. And even though planning and marking gets easier, you get more "extra" stuff to do as you progress.

I do a different teaching role now that works out pretty much minimum wage when you add the hours up. It is crazy how much you need to do outside your job to be able to do your job.

I didn't have a machine but printed my own labels. I had different messages for reaching the 'target' and a few with suggestions for improvement. It worked well and the children liked the stickers as they also had pictures on. The new Head put a stop to it. It all had to be handwritten in different coloured pens for different things e.g. the purple pen of progress. Never red as that might traumatise them. The children were 4 years old and couldn't read my my writing anyway.

I used to teach a Year 1 class. Every piece if written work had to be marked with 2 things they had done well, and 1 thing they could do better next time. Most of the children couldn't read my feedback, but I had to do that in all 30 books. The headteacher said it was so Ofsted could see we were giving feedback. Leaving teaching 10 years ago was one of the best decisions I ever made. OP, where did you do your training? You must have seen that they didn't just tick the work?

Give yourself a break op. You've literally just started.wjo ever feels fully comfortable or sorted this early?
You will find routines.youll find programs and lesson planning that fits together. You'll get used to the programs.eben knowing where things are kept will she e minutes off.
Try NOT to clock watch these first few weeks.infact avoid it.head down and do.bwcause right now you'll be doing stuff in orders you don't need to or won't once you find your feet.

Also do u work better with music or podcasts.anf make sure you have snacks and hydration.
Us there anything you can also do which makes coming home easier. Having meals prepped and ready for oven. Online delivery.slow cooker. Just little things u can think of to simplify things.even if just until u find your feet.

Find a school with a decent/reasonable marking policy. Was a game changer. Made a huge difference.

I only lasted the teaching year. It wasn't even the long hours that did me in, but the culture of expecting to suffer. There were jokes on day 1 about how horrible your life was going to be, as if that should be an ingrained part of the profession. There was also the feeling that because the more experienced teachers had had to endure horrible conditions, the trainees and NQTs should have to suffer as well.

No idea how to solve it but it was the most miserable sector I have ever worked in. Truly awful experience.

People who refer to the high pressure in other jobs - how many of the things you were expected to do were completely pointless like the marking schemes mentioned above? You can't just devise your own way of doing it any more you have to follow the school policy.

The OP was naiive to think it would be easy but it doesn't need to be as hard as Management make it.

People sneering at TES worksheets on this thread are part of the problem.

Ofsted is the worst thing about teaching. Fear of Ofsted and their ever-changing goalposts is what creates most of the stress and the extra workload.

I was a bit like you when I started teaching. I'd been a top student and I thought I'd be able to handle everything by being efficient and organised. It turns out all (or most) teachers are efficient and organised and the job is just horrendous. Putting time and thought into planning will make the job more satisfying though. If you're new you should really try and forget trimming your hours and focus on doing your job well.

I stuck with it for 10 years with a spell of reduced hours due to stress. I didn't go back after ds2 and I've finally got my life back. For those saying the workload improves as you get more experienced this wasn't the case at my school.

You have my sympathy, it's so tough. For what it's worth, I'm glad I stuck with it for as long as I did. It made me strong and I'm now moving on to a better job that I'm excited about. Good luck!

What subject are you?

I’ve been doing it for 27 years and the amount of extra stuff now is huge. You just have to prioritise- I wing it a lot but I can do that because I’m v experienced now and my school- although busy and very academic gives us quite a lot of freedom. I teach English so the marking load is huge.

I'm married to a teacher, he's only been back a week and already looks like a zombie. He's out 7.30am and home around 6ish (his commute is minutes thankfully). When he had a commute on top of that so leaving 6.45am and getting home 6ish but then working in the evening as he'd wasted over an hour commuting I contemplated leaving him. Thankfully we realised it was his job and the exhaustion and he changed jobs. Even without the commute the hours are mental, he didn't have any lunch yesterday as they have a rota where they have to do what dinner ladies did once upon a time. People focus on the 6 week holidays, but if you averaged out the hours and pay it works out at less than min wage (a friend of mine who WAS a teacher did this, she now earns double doing something in tech, she retrained and has never looked back. She logs off at 5pm and has a life.).

I don't think it is possible to get everything done in school hours unless you teach art or similar.

Ok, take a deep breath.

1. Accept you cannot do teaching in the length of an 8.30-3.30 day. You just can't. I have no idea why at no point on your PGCE this wasn't shown to you but they have failed you here. Adjust expectations.

2. Remember the first year is the hardest

3. Depending on your subject, TES worksheets may well be worse than useless. I've had a teacher on capability before for relying on them because they didn't actually cover what we needed the pupils to cover. Making your own lessons, worksheets, powerpoints (they dont need to be wizzy and glittery!) will help you understand where you are going with the lesson so much better, and you will teach better. Then next year you adapt them for what worked and what didn't, and in a few years you have lessons ready to go. (Until the syllabus changes, again). It really is worth the time.

4. Marking. AfL is a teacher standard? There is no secondary school that should accept 'just ticking'. Of course you should be writing proper feedback! And deep marking occasionally as well, but always proper written feedback otherwise there is no point. Accept this now.

It sounds like you have come in with unreasonable expectations tbh - these are just the basics of teaching. But it will get easier, and each year you have more resources from the year before to draw on. It sounds like your PGCE course has failed you badly to get you as far as day 1 as an ECT without sorting out your expectations which is crap of them.
Good luck!

Please don’t worry as everyone feels like this at first. Honestly the pgce year barely touches the surface of what teaching is really like.
The first year is the hardest but you will get through it. Over time you’ll find ways to fit things in but I’ve never met a teacher who is able to leave quickly. I’m a primary teacher who starts at half 7 (Kids in at 9) and leave at 5 (kids out at 3) this is with me also planning at night and giving up some time in the weekend.
I think you need to start prioritising your workload. Can your students stick things in their jotter? They are secondary and I usually expect my primary children to do it themselves.
Try do peer or self assessment at least one day a week to help with your marking load.
What works for me is doing my planning in my time out, marking in the morning or afternoon and then the excess reports/ forward plans in the evenings.
some months will feel more full on than others but it’s just a learning curve. You will find some lessons don’t need as much practical resources but others will need a flashy PowerPoint. Once you’re in the thick of it next few years you’ll already have a bank of resources. It’s tough at first setting these up. Tes and everything are great and can be a life saver but sometimes it’s actually easier to make what you need yourself because you can spend hours searching online for something to work. Also talk to your colleagues, ask them for support. They will share resources with you, will point you in the right direction and can share how they plan their day.

If they showed you the reality in many schools, there is no way anyone would even consider it. I taught HE for nearly 2 decades and the last 7 years of that in a post-92 were spent dealing with really basic behaviour management (constant talking in lectures, groups of girls doing their hair and make up in class, total refusal to do any activity set), trying to cope with students who would not read anything or do any work outside class, and generally being incredibly frustrated. That was (mostly young) adults who had chosen to go to university and study the subject.

I dread to think what it’s like when they haven’t actively chosen to be there.

I did actually consider moving in to teaching at several points: before doing my PhD, and in deciding to leave academia. But the pay is really dismal for a professional job, especially in primary/early years. An enormous pay cut and then no hope of getting back to even close to the salary I had as an academic (another sector where workloads and expectations are also bonkers), possibly ever and certainly not without significant promotions. Sure there are more holidays but also absolutely no flexibility outside of that. So I moved into a different sector completely. The pay issues will put a lot of potential career changers (with options and marketable expertise of the kind that would be an asset in teaching) off.

I am a teacher, I keep to roughly 9am to 5pm hours, do no other work at weekends or evenings. I've been like that since I qualified ten years ago.

How did you even complete your training and quality, with the impression that you wouldn't have to do anything outside the school day? Are you in the UK? Do you have QTS?

The training year is incredibly intense and has most people working every hour that God sends.

Lesson time is for teaching for goodness sake. Not sitting marking books while the kids do...what? And your idea of teaching is to hand out TES worksheets?

I honestly don't understand how you ever came to the point of thinking that you would only have to work while the kids are present. It's bizarre.

One school I used to teach at tried to put me through Occupational Health and capability as I often stayed until 6pm making sure I kept on top of planning, marking, reports etc as it was easier to work at school than it was to go home and do it. My then DH was still at work anyway so I was only going back to an empty house. How they expected everything to get done between 8am and 4pm I have no idea. They fully accepted that lots of teachers worked many hours in the evenings and often weekends too, but seemed to have an issue with me staying at school to do it. Bloody ridiculous.

As an NQT last year my DP worked out that, with all the hours he worked on an NQT salary, we was earning less than minimum wage. He is no longer a teacher.

other factors such as the pathetic lack of support from management influenced his decision. But that thought alone was depressing enough.

*he was

I’m guessing this is secondary as you don’t mention TAs. In primary TAs tend to do a lot of the marking

This is the mindset that changed it!

’whilst children do what?’ 😂
Work independently, learn to manage their time and foster some resilience! We used to be able to teach, and set them off on tasks. Behaviour was good and they’d, after good instruction they actually listened to, have a sense of achievement. The teacher was available to be approached- but only after some reasonable problem solving skills were deployed ( have you checked the board/ re-read the example etc-which solved most the issues). SEN Children who required additional support had it available and pre-planned, an extra adult but independent work too.

I don’t blame the children at all for the current state, they are at first scared to be ‘wrong’, get told off for minor infractions and aren’t allowed to leave their seats. The independence is taken away and they await to be told what to do on a micro scale. Then they get bigger, and no longer so afraid, but they still have very very poor independent learning skills. It’s so important to be able to read information and complete a task, or listen to someone then work alone or focus on extended writing without any interruption. It’s such a life and work skill.

We really need to get back to a position in classrooms were their is an expectation of behaviour and work whilst the teacher steps back for short periods. Read the other thread about behaviour in year 11, big boys who don’t work unless a scary teacher is managing them intensely. No concept of the intrinsic value of working to a goal.

The workload is often daunting, and I teach a subject with no books (Music). In January I returned to work after a year of maternity leave and with a toddler at home now, it’s a lot harder to do work in the evenings like I used to. As such, I have taken a bit of a step back and no longer go “above and beyond” or I would have absolutely no family life! I get in for 7:45 and leave at about 4-4:30 each day.

Things that really help:

• Lesson plans and resources that are re-used year after year and available on a shared space. Even better if different members of department have been assigned a specific topic to produce. You just all share resources!

• Getting in early and getting a solid hour of work done - even if it’s just doing some of those annoying admin tasks that seem to loom.

• Planning when and setting myself reasonable time frames for larger tasks such as marking a class load of work.

• Writing a to-do list every morning as I make my cuppa. I put things in order of priority and whenever I get a free moment I work through it.

• Focus - I’ve really improved my focus and productivity this year. Working with headphones on or working in my own space (instead of shared office) both helped.

• Do what you can and don’t worry if some things slip through the net. Be kind to yourself and, even if you’ve had a difficult day, try and find something positive in it. The smile on that kids face when they finally understand something they were struggling with!

• Make sure you are part of a union and that your school has a union rep. Unfortunately sometimes school leaders are just unrealistic with workload and no matter how much you try to prioritise and plan, you could never fit everything in. Unions are important!