To think it's not normal for over 35% of teachers to have cried at work this term?

[Postapocalypticcowgirl]

Whenever we talk about teacher working conditions, teacher strikes etc on here people always point out that lots of others have really stressful jobs. But this can't be normal in any job, surely? It's not even people who've cried about work- just people who've cried at work.

I think this is really indicative of the stress a lot of teachers are under, and the real reason a strike is on the cards. But it's hard to strike about workload/stress/behaviour/parental and SLT expectations- whereas striking over pay is legally straightforward.

That’s terrible. I used to work in law and we had at least one person in our team sob at their desk each week so I empathise.

So sad to read these posts. My dad worked in education 20 years ago (as a council tech support type role), and always told me, don't go into teaching. He saw it then. Goodness knows how much worse it is now. This thread supports that. I'm in the private sector and get stressed. I cry. (Have major imposter syndrome). But I get paid. I simply hate it that public sector workers, generally, have to cope with so much, yet get paid less (generally, than the private sector). I and my children thank you teachers.

One of the most stressful jobs I've had was in customer services, in a call centre and part of that was taking calls from teachers , nhs staff and others about their pensions. Without a doubt the teachers were the most difficult and stressful to try to help, because the behaviour, the yelling they'd do on the phone was awful. The other callers very rarely behaved like that.

I recognise this too. In litigation. Bad enough before but immediately after the Mitchell ruling was the worst.

To be clear, for avoidance of doubt, I am a teacher, I work full time in a school. I've moved schools recently, partly for the sake of my mental health. At my previous school it was very normal to see staff crying at work. At my current school, no-one has cried since I've been there that I've seen. That's not to say it's without its issues, but it shows things don't have to be that way.

It's not my intention to imply that teachers have it worse than anyone- but I do genuinely think parents have no idea what it's like in education right now.

I do think it's true that teaching recruitment and retention is especially bad, compared to other, similar professions. And I think parents only become aware of this when it impacts their child. But that could be your child next year, or the year after.

It surprises me that people are happy for very stressed out, unhappy people to be looking after their children for six hours a day (or more) most weeks.

It also surprises me that so many people are saying this level of being upset at work is normal- I think that shows that something urgently needs to change.

you cry at the life the children have almost daily

I'm surprised the number is so low. We have a crying cupboard at my school where we go to cry haha 😅 I had a different career before teaching and never once cried at my other places of work. Reasons me and my colleagues have cried over the last few weeks include being attacked by students and not being supported or feeling protected by SLT , verbal abuse from parents and exhaustion from working a 70hr week at 7 months pregnant. I'm well aware loads of other careers will have high numbers of people crying at work so I don't think teachers are unique in this.

@Nosleepforthismum I get the feeling law is another profession where people on the outside have no idea how bad it is. I didn't know until the recent strikes (I know that wasn't all lawyers).

Engineering consultancy. Massive shortage of staff (in the country generally not just my company), too much work due to covid backlog, underpaid for the level of responsibility and long, long hours to make an attempt to get through everything. I’m often the one out of my friends circle (which includes teachers) working during holidays, weekends and bank holidays and I’ve been known to take my laptop to gatherings before sneak in extra work!

"Pumperthepumper
I actually typed out ‘what is your job’ and then deleted it SO:

What is your job?

Engineering consultancy. Massive shortage of staff (in the country generally not just my company), too much work due to covid backlog, underpaid for the level of responsibility and long, long hours to make an attempt to get through everything. I’m often the one out of my friends circle (which includes teachers) working during holidays, weekends and bank holidays and I’ve been known to take my laptop to gatherings before sneak in extra work! "

^^ I'm in the same sector! And experience the same thing. But I don't see children neglected, uncared for, bullying. I don't see patients waiting for beds in corridors. During my working day I get to sip coffees rather than deal with 30 kids or stay on my feet for 12 hours attending patients. And I get paid more than those public sector salaries. Just isn't right.

Considering they are dealing with young and often vulnerable young people I’m surprised how low the figure is. Maybe the profession attracts people with a particular low threshold for compassion.

Yes it's ridiculous. People are so quick to say teacher's aren't special line and love to mention how others have it worse. It doesn't matter what the OP is about, if it mentions teacher / teaching then you can almost guarantee someone will comment that teachers should stop moaning

I think this is the first term I can really remember when I haven’t cried about work.

"It’s just that it’s always about teachers. We didn’t even need to know that the job in question was teaching. I just wrote a post above about my work and didn’t feel the need to say what my job is."

I guess @Overthebow because this is a site primarily setup for parents and most children in this country attend school, so maybe teachers feel other mumsnetters may be interested? If people aren't interested then scroll past. If the OP had claimed that teachers have it the worst, I can see the point. But that's not what is being said.

I can't imagine nurses/carers posting about a third of their staff crying at work in the last 6 weeks and being argued with over it. I can imagine they would get support instead.

And the award for the biggest fucking reach of the night goes to…

As a parent I would be interested in a breakdown of the reasons - other staff, pupil behaviour, lack of money from government meaning a crappier experience than the kids deserve, parents...

If you did the same with people in hospitality or retail then I would also expect a high proportion to sadly say they had cried too.

I do genuinely think parents have no idea what it's like in education right now
okay so here is the actual agenda for the post.
Lots of people cry at work for lots of reasons.
Teachers are not a special case ( I am a teacher)

In one day last term (at different moments of the day) 6 members of teaching staff out of 14 cried. Combination of reasons. Experienced teachers. I'm an ECT so I kind of expect to find things hard, but these are teachers who have seen it all before. We have high levels of need, we are sharing TAs. We are on our knees so the survey is not surprising at all.

I have cried at work frequently in a different job. It was a shit job. I have never cried in my current job and could not imagine doing so.
If so many people are crying at work there is something wrong.

Perhaps teachers need to be taught more resilience.i assume this is a self rated situation, and I have to say that in our school there is a culture of complaining. Everyone thinks they’re in the worst, hardest job ever. But all the teaching staff went straight from school to teaching and didn’t have any other job. They’ve never had a manual job, or had to do a 12.5 hour shift, or been paid minimum wage, or had four weeks a year off. So they don’t realise how good they have it. If you spend all day around people telling you you’re in the most stressful job in the world, you will cry at work.

If a parent in any circumstances started on at me I always walked away, such people did not deserve my attention. It created quite a few very unhappy parents, which was a bonus. If you need to speak to a teacher then make an appointment as you do at the doctor, dentist etc..

Maybe parents need to to abuse their children
Maybe children need not to get cancer
Maybe children need not to die
Maybe men need not to rape children
Maybe teenager need not to knife each other to death

(all things I have known teachers cry about so far this term)

It is perfectly normal to cry at horrific and unacceptable things and I would be very worried if a teacher didnt

I think it depends on the scenario and this is too bland a figure to mean anything. I've worked as a lawyer and civil service and would say in the early years all my female colleagues cried pretty regularly from stress, worry, exhaustion particularly in the early days of their career. I imagine teaching attracts people with greater empathy so might be more particularly at the start of the school year which I guess might be more stressful (never taught so no idea just from discussions with several friends who teach)

I'd say it's head teachers and some SLT.

Our old HT was awful at managing people, it was inevitable in the environment she created people would cry. I have a reputation of being hard as nails and I very nearly resigned a couple of months Into the job as I found SLT so vile. Then the HT resigned and I held out to see what would happen and the school is now a totally different place.

I think some really good teachers become leaders who are crap at leading. It's a shame, because then children aren't being taught by those great teachers.

It’s awful if that statistic is true (not saying it isn’t true but I’m just a bit mistrusting of data sometimes!). I fear there are a lot of other professions with similar issues. When I was an HR Manager I cried quite often though stress, frustration, and burnout. I wasn’t the only one of my HR friends in that position. I left that type of role for a stress free HR related job last year and couldn’t be happier. I have a friend who quit teaching and another who is considering it, I don’t blame them.