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

I've done it for over 20 years. There have always been aspects that are challenging but as I get older I really find the biggest issue is that it's so tiring. I'm mid-40s and find just the time in class with the children so much more draining than when I was younger. You have to be constantly switched on. Don't know how I'll manage another twenty years!

So you've decided to tell them that they're wrong about their jobs instead of considering that they might know more about it than you.

That's quite arrogant, don't you think?

I was in a meeting the other week in a school in my volunteer capacity. There was a young girl who was self harming due to sexual abuse in the family. She was on many referral lists but not one external agency was currently giving her support. The only support she was getting apart from her mum was from school. It is shit.

So posters you keep telling teachers to quit because then there will be more young girls like this who will end up with no-one looking out for them

@crumblingschools Totally agree. I'm a primary teacher (20.years in) but returning to uni part-time (at 43!) to do a Masters in Counselling Children and Young People.
I hope I can help a little.

Schools, in the same way they have to have first aiders, they now have staff trained in mental health awareness. Because that is cheaper than the Government paying for actual mental experts

If anyone doesn’t agree you get all defensive

If most people who do a particular job are in agreement that they find it hard, I don't see how anyone who has never done that job is really qualified to agree or disagree about how hard it is.

That would go for any job, not just teaching. If a nurse, a doctor, a social worker, a lorry driver etc described to me why their job was hard, it wouldn't occur to me to argue with them tbh. But for some reason everyone seems to feel qualified to weigh in about teaching.

I agree this is unreasonable....and has probably built into a teachers role by stealth - as more cuts are made to SEN, CAMHs, and social work, and more safe guarding procedures are implemented, more gets added to a teachers role.

How or what could be done to address this? It's probably happened gradually and now got to a tipping point....but what needs to happen to get the balance back where the major part of a teachers job is actually....teaching? (And its seen as more attractive to both new and current teachers)

I've asked the question (twice upthread) because as a parent I'm told (and believe!) that I should consider who I vote for .....but what are other parties proposing to do to address the issue, or what do teachers think they should do?

@Fizbosshoes One major issue is that you now no longer need any qualifications to bevome a teacher. Also, support staff can be used to cover PPA and teacher absences (which both are frequent events).

@Fizbosshoes they need to put more money into the external agencies. No point having 2 year waiting list for CAMHS for a child who could be a suicide risk.

Bring back Sure Start to start families on the right track to start with.

More funding for SEN. Chatting to someone who works in a Special school, for 10 places they have over 200 children who could potentially take those places, and this will be replicated across the country

Labour are going to introduce breakfast club for all, who do you think will end up helping to staff this, especially in small rural schools? Yet another thing to add to teacher/support staff workload

You can describe it any which way you like - teachers have more free time away from work than the national average, that is an undeniable fact. If you wish to describe it as unpaid - absolutely no problem but the average salary of £36,000 is blooomin decent for only DOING your job (directed hours I believe its described as) for 9 months of the year. I am not in any disagreement with the shit show that Education is in right now. I am fully supportive of teachers BUT - there is significant time away from that shit show, most Importantly the summer break.

I have teaching friends and they admit to not doing work (planning etc) in the school breaks and neither would I quite frankly BUT stop with the ‘We are not paid when kids arent at achool’ its insulting to people who only have 14 days holiday per year If lucky.

By all means have a better annual salary and give up some of the generous pension scheme - you can't have it both ways sadly 😞

Even with all these holidays teachers are leaving in their droves so the bad bits of teaching outweigh the good of having long holidays. Shows how shit the job is now

I agree @crumblingschools . Plus, we parents need to take more responsibility for our own and our children’s behavior. If my children ever spoke to a teacher the way @sweetiepie1979 was spoken to, they’d be in a huge amount of trouble at home. I’d never speak to a teacher that way either. Physical violence is even more unacceptable.

When did teachers get 16 weeks off per year?

And its not just the 2.5 - 3 days unpaid training.
Its unpaid training to be an unpaid mentor and all the additional work that goes with it.

Its work on top of work. Just for the sake of it.

Yes they listen to distressed kids, like they have always done. How are they being ‘mental health experts’?

If you are an accountant would you expect to do 10 hours a week unpaid overtime to be a social worker, another 10 hours being a mental health expert.

Teachers aren’t social workers, or mental health experts, supporting kids in school or dealing with safeguarding doesn’t make you a social worker any more than me helping my child’s learning makes me a teacher.

I do think we should accept that the holidays are a great part of the job - it’s fine to say that. Framing them in a negative light of “we work through them and don’t get paid!” isn’t necessary. I personally probably wouldn’t expect to be paid for that amount of holiday!

I also absolutely wouldn’t call myself a social worker or mental health expert but like I said in a previous post, different teaching roles may as well be different jobs depending on the challenge of the class/school, so I accept I may well not be qualified to comment on that.

Sometimes I think teachers are tempted, because of people being critical and confrontational, to deny any perks of the job or frame them in a more negative light. Our jobs are unique in some ways, and some of those ways aren’t great and it’s ok to say that, and others are great… and that doesn’t negate the difficult parts.

The thing is, teachers know they are not mental health experts or social workers.

However, we no longer have timely access to actual experts - where services exist at all, waiting lists are years long.

Therefore teachers have to fill the gaps and provide the service to the best of their abilities in the interim. We know it’s not ideal. We know it’s not our core competence. But we cannot ignore and leave children and families with the Levels of need that we see every minute of every day.

By all means have a better annual salary and give up some of the generous pension scheme - you can't have it both ways sadly

We lost a lot of the generous pension scheme in 2011 and have a much shitter annual salary too. Far from suggesting we can have it either way, we have had it neither way.

I am a mental health expert. My patients ask me for help with benefits and housing. I do what I can to try and help whilst they wait to see benefits officers, housing workers etc. That does not mean I am working as an expert in those fields. The constant hyperbole is irritating.

Therefore teachers have to fill the gaps and provide the service to the best of their abilities in the interim. We know it’s not ideal. We know it’s not our core competence. But we cannot ignore and leave children and families with the Levels of need that we see every minute of every day.

I understand teachers and schools are taking on a wider remit for safeguarding than they have done, and no one is suggesting you ignore families in need. That doesn’t make teachers social workers though and it’s pretty disrespectful of that profession to suggest it does, as a PP has done.

I agree with you. We're not SW or MH support workers and I actually think that saying we are diminishes the role of those professions when they are so much more involved than we ever have to be.

However, we have to deal with the impact of those in school and I think that's what people are really meaning.

I've worked in schools where I've had to meet parents after school for an hour because I was offering MH support to them because there was none available outside. I'm not claiming to be an expert, which actually makes it harder to do! But I have had counselling training so I'm aware of the basics.

I've also noticed a big shift in the training we've received this year in school. It's no longer just pedagogy or new curricula, we've also had a variety of trauma training so that we can support children because it's recognised we are now doing more of that than ever before.

This week, I had a child come in sobbing. He didn't want to speak and spent the first half hour sobbing in the corner. I took the register, kept an eye on him, answered questions, taught the rest of the class their first lesson, set them up to work and then spoke with him when he was ready. I listened to his concerns, supported and counselled him whilst intermittently managing class behavior and offering brief support with work where possible. It finished and I immediately jumped back into teaching the class without any time to even catch my breath, having listened to quite a distressing account of his morning before school.

In that time, the children who needed academic support didn't receive it, so 7 children who require small group work and adult support were left to flounder on their own. One was supported by another child, two did nothing but chat (no work completed), and the rest tried their best but got everything wrong and so, effectively learnt nothing. I haven't yet had time to sit with them and reteach the lesson. I probably won't. So that's learning missed - which is what most people consider to be my actual job.

Some of the other children tried really hard and worked well, recognising that I was dealing with something and wanted to be seen as responsible and doing their best (bless them!) A significant number rook advantage of the fact I wasn't fully attending to them and chatted/got up and walked around (despite reminders and praise for those making good choices) until I made threats of missing breaktime. Three children did miss part of their breaktime because their behaviour persisted.

Five of the more sensitive children (those with asd and those with trauma) were distressed by their classmate's distress so i needed to help them regulate their emotions and reassure them afterwards too. All within the lesson, whilst communicating instructions to the rest of the class and during the transition to the next lesson.

I've no way of communicating the emotional or mental impact of that to someone who's never experienced it. That is why I'm (we're) exhausted by the end of the day! And it's not because (as some have suggested) some people aren't 'cut out for it'. You'd have to be devoid of any humanity to not be affected by that.

And that was just one lesson in one week. And it's far from an isolated incident. Similar happens several times a week. There's no let up. It can be that intense from 8.45 when the children come in to 3.20 when they leave, when it's straight into a meeting or marking 90 books or treking around school sorting resources for the next day or ordering resources or contacting outside agencies or completing forms for outside agencies or meeting with a parent or phoning a parent or completing paperwork or updating the online safeguarding system or analysing data or despairing because the only photocopier in school has broken again and we're waiting for the engineer to come again. And most days, it's a combination of 5 or more of those.

When all I really want to do is have a 15 min break to decompress and process the day. But I can't because I've been in since 7.30am and I've got to he out by 6pm because that's when the caretaker locks up and I need to make sure not too much is left until tomorrow and I've already done playground duty (so no break) worked through my lunch (although, usually because I've been drawn into dealing with a behavioural issue and not doing any of the things I really needed to for an upcoming deadline) and I'm running out of time...

And then I come home, sit in the garden for an hour, eat crap because I'm too tired/drained to cook properly, support my own child for a bit, fall asleep on the sofa at around 8.30pm, eventually drag myself to bed and repeat the following day.

I'm not saying other professions aren't equally difficult or draining but no one accuses other professions of being lazy, work shy, incompetent and useless either! I actually love my job and wouldn't want to do anything else. But that doesn't mean it isn't hard.

I cannot fathom why teachers think their job is much harder than anyone else's? So many posts here regularly. DH is police. Works horrible shift patterns with no time for even a cup of tea as it's so busy. Frequent overtime that's not always paid. Work on days off to just catch up with all the admin. Has a large team to manage with performance issues, illness, bereavement and other things - which let's face it are far more complex than needs of a child.

He gets abused and videod everytime he's out on the streets doing his job. Deals with absolute scum everyday who are more armed than he and his team are. Has dealt with suicide, child abuse and domestic abuse - sometimes all in one week. Has to get vaccinated regularly to prevent again hep c etc.

Oh and he is also schools officer on top of his day job - so does his share of safeguarding for no extra pay.

Yet takes it in his stride and accepts it's the nature of his job.

I work in private sector - 14 hours day are common and no overtime. Use weekends to catch up on emails. Manage a team and need to coach, mentor, performance manage, develop them on top of my own job. If I don't deliver projects on time, I am always at risk of being managed out and nothing is as shit as having to explain to sr leadership and investors why the budgets you receive aren't showing the benefit they expect.

Personally I think not everyone has the resilience or capability to do every job. I have to manage out a lot of people who have a very idealistic view of work and don't understand the pressures of the modern day. If you're struggling to this extent to work with children, I can assure you it's a LOT harder to work with adults. Your kids move on after a year, they have parents who can support - it's not the case for non teachers.

OodlesPoodle

Ultimately, I think outside because we're working with children. Who are the most vulnerable members of society. They are impacted by things that they have no control over. We are there because we care about them and want to do what is best for them and yet there are constant obstacles to doing so which impacts on our ability to do it. Which then impacts on outcomes which is what we are judged on.

We all love our own children and I'm aware every day that every single child in my care deserves the absolute best I can give them and sometimes I can't. Their parents expect (rightly so) that their child's needs are met throughout the day and sometimes, because of constraints, expectations, circumstance, we are unable to do that.

I don't think my job is harder than other people's but everyone expects the best for their child and we want to give it.

But teachers get a lot of additional support from other professionals to look after these kids. You see them for just a few hours in your classroom. You then get to hand them back to their parents. If there's issues in school or home you call police officers like my DH who deal with the really unpleasant stuff that you will never witness. You have social services, counsellors, other teachers, a head of, PTA etc. You're not looking after them at home or once they leave your class. For the other professionals they have to work with them over the course of their lifetime in some cases.

So this idea that you carry this huge responsibility, all alone, is not correct and unfair to everyone else who supports you.