Being a primary school teacher is INCREDIBLY HARD or AIBU 🫠

[BoneTiredandWired]

Today alone as a teacher I have: Intervened in three fights. Had multiple restorative conversations. Given up both my break and lunchtime to sort out arising issues. Unexpected fire alarm chaos. Taught music and German and had a real laugh with my class. Saw real positive developments of my kids abilities. Shortly later spoken seriously and told off my class.
Dealt with multiple crying children who don't want to leave my class next week. Sang and coordinated our summer concert songs.
Written the last of 28 individually written reports for all my kids.
Tidied up and emptied my entire classroom.
Had a 2 hour after school meeting.
Cried on the way home out of sheer emotional exhaustion and having to be strong carrying the emotions of so many throughout the day.

I ❤️ my kids so so much, but teaching is HARD and so so much more than people think it is

Cried on the way home out of sheer emotional exhaustion and having to be strong carrying the emotions of so many throughout the day. have you considered another career. The first rule is to look after your own emotions. No job should make you feel like this.

Agree 100%with all of this- today led a school trip with 60,of them - hence now exhausted in bed at 845pm.
It's relentless and often you have no time to eat or wee.
Much tougher than anyone outside school realises!

This really does not do the profession any favours OP. Surely you know MN is full of people saying teachers claim their job is harder than everyone else's? It's not, and most of us realise that.

I had a really lovely day today with my Y4s. Some days are really difficult and stressful. It's the same as many other jobs.

Do you like your job OP?

I really respect teachers, such an invaluable but undervalued job.

I struggle to hold the emotional threads just within my own house. Am always filled with awe at what primary school teachers accomplish with a hoard of them. Especially in reception where the tiddlers can still need help with things like going to the bathroom. Honestly hats off to anyone who does it.

I don’t think it’s ever an easy job, but how hard it is seems to depend on the school and the support from leadership.

My friend has taught at 2 schools that were terrible but is now having far more good days than bad at a new school. Parents and kids are engaged and the SLT are very supportive. She’s said it’s completely changed her view on teaching. She was considering retraining before moving to this school.

I would agree with this. I am constantly reading Teachers posting how difficult their job is, how they are leaving in droves blah blah. I am sure it is hard but there are many many jobs that are equally as tough but I barely see them complaining like the sheer number of Teachers. Why is that?

I definitely couldn’t ever do it and don’t know how people do it op, but as others have said do you generally love your job?

I think good teachers have an incredibly hard and underpaid job.

What about the teachers who aren't moaning but just quietly leaving the profession? What about the young people deciding not to train as teachers?

Why do you think everyone outside the profession doesn't get it? It sounds utterly exhausting and way beyond my capabilities so I don't do it.

Is it? I think most people value teachers.

Teachers, wrongly perhaps, think that parents on a parenting site might give a shit about what's going on in schools and that it's highly likely their kid isn't going to have a teacher for at least some of their schooling.

What about them?

Personally I think teachers must be miss sold the profession during training or something. If they realised the reality of it in the first year of training they can swap to another career track easily.

I've been teaching primary for 25 years. I do not for 1 second regret my career choice.

My advice an anybody today thinking of becoming a teacher is don't.

I don't see how people in their twenties will.be able to sustain this for several decades.

That's a good thing though? If people are realising it's not for them before going through the training

Until there aren't enough teachers - as is happening already.

I am a teacher (since 1997) and I bloody love it. It allowed me a great amount of time off when I had my own children (I recognise the privilege I had that we could afford that) but when I returned I could still make progress. I get deep joy from my job/ sure there are tough days and I definitely work hard but do do many professions. As a student I did factory, supermarket and bar jobs and you’re exhausted at the end of a ten hour shift doing those too. I recognise that my pay reflects my holidays and feel grateful that I had that when my children were young.
I see friends doing very long (and expensive) commutes or many that are doing jobs beneath their capabilities in order to accommodate family life and I feel lucky to work doing something I love that’s paid more than fairly.

I’m very fortunate that I don’t experience some of the horror stories of behaviour that I read about on here sometimes.

So you're happy for your kid to not have a teacher? That's unusual.

(Don’t judge the typos- promise I proof-read my reports several times!)

And? No one should be forced to be a teacher

The point is we already know there aren't enough teachers judging by the amount of bloody ones on here moaning about it week in week out. Again I ask why are there so many Teachers moaning on here like they have it the toughest ever ever when barely any other professionals post similar?

No but if my kid was thinking of being a teacher I'd be glad if they decided against it before going through the training and then finding out it's a shit job (according to lots of the teachers on here).