I qualified and worked as a primary teacher in Ireland about 15 years ago, then moved to England and worked here for a bit before having my son, so I'm familiar with both systems. It was a long time ago, so things may have changed but back then there was a massive difference between working in the two countries. On the whole, working in England was horrible and I didn't go back after having my son, even though I genuinely adored teaching (I still miss it and dream about it, even now) and I was excellent at it (even if I say so myself!). If I'd stayed in Ireland, I'd probably have taught for my entire working life. My mother was secondary teacher in Ireland for 41 years and loved every minute of it - she really didn't want to retire and went very reluctantly a few years ago.
In Ireland, you were not expected to work long hours outside of school. You went in at about 8:40 (though lots of people rocked up just before the bell rang!) and once the last child had left for the day you were out the door. One school I worked in was locked up by 3:30 - you had to get out of there or risk being imprisoned by the caretaker!
There was none of this bollocks about printing out reams and reams of paper and getting the children to stick them into their books. I could never understand that in English schools - what was the point? Just get them to open a textbook and write in their exercise books.
Some displays were expected but it was not expected that you'd have the place plastered in professional-looking triple-backed displays that took hours to make. Again, what's the point?
The marking in England always blew my mind. It was so incredibly stupid. In Ireland, you would do a maths lesson, assign some homework, the children would do that in the evening and the next day you would mark it with them in class, so they actually learned from the bloody thing! It worked so well - you would do the topic in class, they would cover the topic for homework, then you would mark the homework the next day, so the child had three exposures to the material in quick succession. Very effective.
The whole malarkey in England of assigning homework on Monday to be done by Thursday then taking the books home and marking them away from the children so they had no idea whether they did it right or not was utterly incomprehensible to me. Once again, what was the point? Of course some schools tried to tackle it by making teachers write multiple comments in different coloured pens, which the students then had to comment on - what an unbelievable waste of time! In one English school I taught in I suggested doing it the Irish way and they looked at me like I had two heads.
I was really shocked at how prescriptive schools in England were about how teachers teach - in Ireland (back when I was a teacher at least) you did get guidance on how to approach subjects, but basically it was up to you how you delivered a topic and the main aim was to get the information into the kids' heads, no matter how you did it. In England when I was told I had to teach long division a certain way and I wasn't allowed to do it any other way, even if the kids didn't get it, I was boggled. It made me feel like an initiative delivery system rather than a teacher.
There were lots of other differences, but I've wittered on. Basically in Ireland I felt like a professional who was trusted to do a good job without having to constantly justify myself. In England I felt watched and scrutinised and micro-managed. Teaching in Ireland was (mostly) fun. Teaching in England was stressful and time consuming and frustrating. The kids in both countries were gorgeous and amazing and funny and I miss them all the time.