To ask what is really so bad about a teaching career compared to other jobs? Does anyone actually enjoy it?

[yardstickss]

I earn reasonably highly in a career in finance. I manage the pressure ok and it’s quite competitive, which I don’t enjoy, but just try to focus and get the work done and go home/log off. I often work until mid evening and will usually but not always work Sunday evening for 4 ish hours to make the start of the week less stressful.

I have always considered working in teaching and very nearly did a week PGCE. I feel finance is such an empty job in comparison to teaching. I feel I would make more of a difference in teaching. I know it would be a pay cut but I’d also have longer holidays. I hear so much about the downsides to teaching though. Does anyone enjoy it? I know lesson planning takes up a lot of time but I think perhaps similar to how I work late now anyway? Just interested in whether I’m actually missing something (likely!) as I don’t know anyone personally in teaching other than one who really likes it but he works in the private sector.

I love teaching, it’s all the other crap that goes with it. Behaviour management at the moment is tough, the amount of cover has a huge impact on behaviour. Recruitment is in crisis, everyone is having to do more with fewer resources. Lack of SEN provision, post covid trauma and impact on social skills. I’ve been doing this 20 years and everything has definitely got harder.

@Whattodo121 thanks for the perspective! I guess every job has the extras round the edges that aren’t so great. The behavioural side I may struggle to have patience with!

Teaching is wonderful and i really love it. It is however a pretty stressful almost 24h job. During the holidays we often have to go for further education courses the rest of the days are busy with planning and preparing lessons or grading papers.
On top of that its a lot of mental load. Like if you care about your students, you want to do the best for them. You will have 20 students all with different problems and you will forever try to find solutions to make them the best they can be. You will also have parents calling or emailing you at all hours.

I love doing it, but its not easy. There are teachers who put it a lot less work of course, but for me this is not an option. I want to do the best i can for everybody.

Go onto the Exit the classroom and thrive Facebook group and spend a little while reading some of the many posts-that will give an indication of what the job is like and why people are leaving.

My main issues are-:
workload
Dreadful behaviour or pupils, parents and some SLT!
micromanagement
high levels of scrutiny
high-stakes inspections
lack of flexible working
lack of money in education making everything a lot more difficult.

I. 54, looking to go at 55 and get something easier. I'm exhausted. I like my job but it takes over your life. The interaction with kids and the teaching can be enjoyable and rewarding. It's the other stuff my main issue is the indiscipline and denial by SLT. There sre new strategies all the time. Workload is horrendous. I'm annoyed I feel I can't continue. Got to tske a reduced pension and fund something else. Teachin is not family friendly OP. Fortunately I don't have children.

I love it. I love those light bulb moments in the class room. I love the kids (mostly!)

However, you yourself just said it would be a pay cut (I'm guessing a fairly substantial one!)
Those holidays you mention.... unpaid apart from what you get paid for now, oh and you will work at least a couple of weeks of them over the course of the year.

No money to buy things so you will need to buy things like cooking ingredients, seeds and compost and paint out if your own pocket or go without (these are things I have bought this half term.)

Things constantly changing and new initiatives coming in that we have to try when we know it's not what it's cracked up to be.

Little support for SEN children which is not just devastating and wrong for them but makes your job 10x harder.

OFSTED...

These are the tip of the iceberg. I'd say go and volunteer in a school for a few weeks before applying. It's the best job in the world, but it's a hard one.

And you said about logging off.
You never log off mentally as a teacher.

I still like teaching after 20+ years, but I'm sure that is largely down to the school I teach in - small independent primary with holistic, child-centred ethos. Even there I find that, over the years, so much has changed and the demands and expectations are greater than they ever were. There is a constant underlying feeling that something can go wrong and you'll get the blame. The sense of responsibility can be crushing. It's like 'mum guilt' on steroids! But being with the children hasn't changed, and I still love that, and the fact that every day is different. I rarely take work home and do get to enjoy the long holidays - which I need more and more as I get older as teaching is completely draining, even in my good situation. Pick your school with care!

I love teaching, but then I'm not in the UK. Have several British colleagues who moved abroad to get away from the toxic atmosphere. Honestly, from what they describe there's no way I'd teach in England (not sure about Scotland, NI etc).

Teaching is very rewarding imo. Any stress mostly comes from the pressure put on you by parents and/or management. If management defends you when there are difficult parents, then it's fine. Where I am the paperwork is also kept to a minimum so most of my time is spent doing what I actually want to do i.e. teaching, not filling in endless paperwork.

The actual teaching of students who try is amazing. I love the relationships I build with them. Students will always keep you challenged and on your toes.

Behaviour is extremely challenging compared to when I started 13 years ago. I'm secondary, being called a b, doors slammed, students wandering because they don't want to go to lessons, being shouted at, then the lovely students who need additional support as there is now a much higher number of SEND students now so catering for their individual needs can be a challenge, then being asked why a student with extreme lack of effort is not achieving despite phone calls, emails, meetings with parents, interventions during my lunch, alot of time has been spent on one student with no results, but it is now more than one that needs this level of input. I'm strong at behaviour management and even sometimes I think my opportunity to actually teach post covid is limited.

I wouldn't advise people to go into teaching now. By the time I reach the half term I am burnt out, and I went down to 4 days two years ago because of the burn out and work/life balance.

But the students are lovely, make me smile, and I can honestly say I don't know what I would do/or I'm too scared of the unknown when it comes to leaving teaching.

I used to work in education.

I loved teaching.

I still love teaching.

It's the paperwork outside the classroom that takes up the time.

For example:

Say your year 11's do a mock. In order to give them detailed feedback on what topics to revise, you need to type into an excel spreadsheet their marks for each student for each question, this takes about 2 hours.

Some schools have a policy on marking. So they will say that you need to do something called triple marking.

So that means that you mark the piece of work, you then need to (hand write) feedback for them of something they did well and something they could improve.

You then need to write how to improve and give them a feedback task to show in writing that they have improved.

For example:
That was a great sentence David. Good use of an adjective. To improve, please use capital letters at the start of each sentence.

A capital letter looks like this

The man bit the dog.

Now circle which sentence has a capital letter at the start of it:

all ravens are black
All ravens are black

I used to waste hours of my weekend writing this stuff out. The school had a policy it had to be handwritten. It took about 5 hours per class.
They did drop the requirement for it be handwritten but it still was supposed to be individual feedback so you got into trouble if too much of it was the same.

I didn't mind too much doing stuff like the data entry on the mock because it did genuinely help the kids know what they needed to revise. The triple marking shit was just a waste of time though and you do hit the point where you resent paperwork for the sake of paperwork.

I’m in my first year of teaching in a primary after previously having another career. It’s a lot of work but very rewarding. I think it’s about finding the right training and school. I’m lucky in that the school I work for is supportive and lets us get on with what we think is best. As others say it’s mentally draining though as you’re always thinking about your class and how you can adapt things to help them improve. I see now why teachers have 13 weeks holiday - you need it to recover from the physical and mental strain the job takes on you. Also I never go out midweek now as you cannot afford to tired when teaching. SEN in class are so high and it’s hard do well by everyone but I try to strike a balance in that I will try to only work Sundays for a few hours and not Friday night or Saturday. I stay at school most days until 5.30-6 but then don’t do any extra work at home.

I love my job , that moment when the students get it or tell you you are the reason they like your subject . Like others have said the downside is being made to feel like you cannot be trusted to do your job , feeling undervalued by government and often public who cannot see past the holiday you get .

My job sounds pretty much just like yours, and my oldest childhood friend is a teacher, now a head. I would say that she works harder than me, and has far more responsibility than me, for equal pay.

Yes, she does have longer holidays which was great when her children were younger, but she was never able to do the school run, have friends round for tea, go to assembly/sports day/nativity etc.

She loves educating children, but the huge lack resources, constant change, increased monitoring, expectations from increasingly entitled parents, worsening behaviour, etc. make it such a hard task.

I'm not a teacher OP but I retrained in my 40s to work in early years and now I'm a preschool teacher. I know its not your question but I absolutely love it and it's a million times more rewarding than the corporate bs. My friend just retrained as a primary school teacher, qualified at 47 and started her first role this year. She is buzzing about it, really loves it and has no regrets about her choice so far. We both worked in finance once upon a time.

I've decided I'm leaving next year. My school is probably the nicest school you can get. So it's not that. I'm just fed up of working every evening and Sundays. And that's not even extra stuff, that's doing the basics.
I already work part time, and although it's better, it's just unsustainable.
Oh and I'd love to be able to go to the toilet whenever I wanted to!

I was going to say this, where are you OP?

Years on MN have taught me that teaching in Ireland and teaching in England are two very different prospects in terms of pay, conditions and hours but I've never really been able to figure out why. Reading with interest!

I'm not a teacher OP but I retrained in my 40s to work in early years and now I'm a preschool teacher.

I don’t understand that. You are not a teacher, but you are a teacher?

Do you mean you work in early years but you don’t have to be a qualified teacher because it’s a preschool?

I used to the teach. The teaching is the fun bit but it’s exhausting, you’re constantly on and trying to predict and prevent behavioural issues of students with contrasting needs. If you feel a bit tired and need a 2 min break there isn’t a chance to grab a coffee or even nip to the toilet to collect your thoughts. From 8.15 to 4 I would be constantly teaching, on duty, having a meeting, after school club, detention or meeting. And then all the paper work started, a million emails, things to log, phone calls to make, planning and marking, sorting resources, date entry, more emails.

I’ve been teaching nearly 20 years as a primary teacher and now work in a SEND school with a secondary class. I love the kids. They make me smile and laugh every day.

In the past I have worked 60-70 hours in some weeks. Other jobs do similar, I know, but usually paid more or paid for them. I don’t work those hours anymore. More like 50 max if I can.

The thing I find stressful is that every single email you get, you have to read and action in your own time. Yes, we get PPA but it’s barely enough time to turn the PC on. If there’s an issue with a student then I might be the best person to deal with it (perhaps more likely in my current school) so that planning time is gone. My last school wasn’t like that, so it does depend. It’s just the stress of knowing that my to do list every single day (which easily equalled full-time admin jobs I’d had in the past), will have to be done in my own time.

That FB group mentioned above is eye-opening.

Having said that, I always think go for things you want in life. You may well love it.

With schools how they are right now with the retention crisis (especially in England) and budgets so appalling that now you don't need to have a teaching qualification to be put in front of a class, I would say avoid, avoid, avoid!
I've been qualified (primary) 20 years and planning to return to uni to retrain.

I love it but I teach performig arts and I work in a private prep school so probably nothing like as high pressure as many. There are lots of high stress times and situations, of course, but, on balance, I don't think there are many other jobs where I could have so much fun every day. And I doubt it can be as stressful as finance.

For me it's all or nothing. 60-90 hour weeks in term time and often on site till 9, 10, 11pm or even later (clubs, rehearsals and duties till 7.30 then building sets, sorting costumes plus we're a boarding school so I have night duties. I also prefee to do my computer based work in my classroom rather than at home).

But I'm never more than 7 weeks away from a holiday and I do not know any of these teachers who say that holidays aren't holidays and they spend the whole time planning, prepping, going on courses etc. That is so far from my experience and probably 50% of the adults I know are teachers - with a 50/50 state-private split. Yes, of course there's work to be done. If I added it up, I probably do about 1 day for a 1 week holiday, 3 days for a 2 week, 4 days for a 3 week and a week or so in the summer. Still so much holiday time left and I love it as much (or likely more! 😉) than the job itself.

I love the actual teaching and the pupils but it’s everything else that is the issue. if you were trusted to be a professional and teach it would be fine but you are constantly having to prove and justify what you do and that takes time in making sure you have the evidence.
Added to that is unreasonable expectations by (some) parents and SLT, behaviour and the feeling that it’s your fault if children misbehave- just look at the threads on here about unfair reactions- dealing with that constantly takes a huge amount of time- then you have to write it all up.
Time in the classroom is about a third of the time you need to do the job so the rest is evenings, weekends and holidays.
Plus the issues that lack of teachers, supply, post Covid, too full a curriculum, new fads, worsening mental health among teens, social media, inadequate support for SEND pupils etc bring.
I’ve taught for 30 years, state and independent, and I’m looking to maybe move abroad to finish my career as I‘ve had enough of teaching in the UK.

I love teaching . But I live in Ireland . I go in every day for 8:30
and leave at 2:30 .
Very little after hours work . I do about an hour a week planning .
September is busy but for the rest of the year I don’t do much after 2:30 .
Would not dream of working in mu
holidays!!
I’m a bit older , 52, have a minor promotion and will be on 90k euro after the next pay rises.
Thank my lucky stars every day - especially when I read about teaching in the UK !

Why are the government destroying the job ? It’s awful. And despite all the hours of notes you do , Ireland are doing just as well in academic terms .
Notes for notes sake, exhausted staff - dreadful!

I'm not a teacher.
I have friends who have been in teaching for years and love teaching. But they seem just to accept the long hours and excessive commitment required. The education system expects such a lot from it's staff.
I have other friends who have only been teachers for a few years and are leaving/planning to leave because it's hostile to family life and it's just so time consuming. One friend was pretty much expected to give up hobbies and interests to fit in all the extra hours she was expected to do. Requests for reduced hours working were declined. She's looking for another job - not in teaching.
I get the impression that many teachers love teaching and it can be hugely rewarding but it's a punishing schedule.