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

@Stripeysocks1981 maybe it is insulting to the child that many of these professions aren’t there for the child. The only profession that is there consistently for the child is a teacher. And you are all telling them to quit. So who will be there for them then?

Many of you berating the teachers seem to forget that there are children at the heart of this. Teachers can’t put a child on a 2 year waiting list. CAMHS professionals can

maybe it is insulting to the child that many of these professions aren’t there for the child.

If...but...maybe...what about.

The PP still has a point no matter how much you want to dismiss it.

The thing is, these threads are popping up on a daily basis and have been for the last couple of years.

There comes a point where everyone no matter what their job, has to do what's right for them rather than keep complaining that they're on their knees etc.

Pointing out the obvious does not mean nobody wants teachers to teach.

It just means there's nothing anyone else can do about their decision or carry on or quit.

Hahaha where have I told then to quit?? 😂

I actually just scrolled back up to double check the OPs thread title. It says

do teachers have a HARD job
Not do they have the HARDEST job

Well I think you'd have to be incredibly ignorant or naive not to see it's a hard job. But the OP wasn't ever asking if it was the hardest, so I don't understand all the pile on by people saying but what about nurses etc?

A huge number of people work very hard under very demanding circumstances. Teachers are among that number.

An equally huge number of people don't have even the faintest notion of what a day is like for a teacher, or a nurse, or a social worker or any other job for that matter! And for us to make informed decisions about many things- the upcoming election for one - I think it's really important that people have a better insight into various parts of society.

I have no clue about farming for example, but I'd bet that if I sat down and talked with a farmer about how brexit has impacted their livelihood, I'd be more informed about it and that's never a bad thing.

People don't like to hear teachers saying what the reality of the job is now because for many of them they can pop their kids in at the start of the system and get them back relatively unscathed. Only the people who don't have that experience understand the severity of what's going on. The poster above who mentioned self harming for example is quite right. If that was your child you'd want specialist support...it is NOT there

I don't think teachers are nurses, SaLT, OT etc and its daft to suggest they are.
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But there are teachers who are monitoring children's blood sugar throughout the day and giving insulin injections before lunch, and teachers using breaktimes to do physiotherapy exercises with pupils with cerbal palsy, and teachers having to use speech and language screening software to try work out what issue a child has and then using a 'universal service pack' to try identify the right type of response to the issue raised, because a SaLT isn't coming for years.

My own son was referred to SaLT and the team rang the school,asked what the school was doing already and said it was everything they would have recommended so they wouldn't accept the referral. So for my son it is teacher led SaLT style activities. Or none.

So I know wet paper towel was just a bit of analogy, but actually giving insulin to pupils is quite a different thing to what most teachers expected being a teacher would involve. And it used to be something you'd maybe get a TA funded but that's rarer now.

Sure teaching is hard - but it really isn’t anything special. There’s so many careers that are hard and get a lot less recognition than teaching.

I know teachers work hard, and I actually do respect the importance of their jobs. I am just rather sick of the woe is me, holier than thou attitude that I hear too often that frustrates me no end. The teachers who think having to do a few hours overtime is somehow newsworthy, the ones who reckon nobody else ever had deadlines, had to work a weekend. That nobody else has to deal with people who don’t listen to them, or cope with utterly stupid administrative requirements that hinder rather than help their work. That unlike them - nobody else could possibly have to deal with *%#^ in their work.

Everyone has tough days, and everyone needs to vent occasionally - you aren’t unreasonable venting. But just be careful that you don’t talk yourself into thinking that the difficulties in your job are just so much of a different level to others. Cause they probably aren’t.

Here we go again with the ‘no one works as hard as teachers’ said by no teacher on this thread.

This is pretty close
All jobs have stressful days but in teaching there are more stressful days than most.

which I think is the type of comment that grates with other people but thats not really what the vast majority of teachers here are saying. Which is how the job differs, deviates and goes way above and beyond "teaching" which is the bit they are paid for, and everything else seems to rely on goodwill. They are doing tasks and extra responsibilities that in previous times would have been aspects of a SALT, social worker, MH worker, school nurse's role and that is on top if their regular workload.

I have to admit I don't completely understand the holidays part. I know teachers are not paid for all the school holidays (in which most spend at least some of that time working) On this thread alone I've seen 28 days, 4 weeks and 8 weeks are paid holiday. Either way, I would imagine having an annual salary divided into 12 regular payments is easier to manage - in terms of bills, mortgages and expenses - than getting paid for a full month sone months, part of a month others, and nothing in August.

It's easy to work out when teachers are not in school - it's the school holidays.

School year is 39 weeks long. School holidays are 13.

We get paid for the 39 weeks we officially work which includes statutory holiday pay which will be the same as other public sector workers (I'm assuming) but I'm not sure what the number of days is if I'm honest because it can't be taken as annual leave. So it's not days you can 'use' or 'have left'.

You're absolutely right. Pay is spread out across 12 months so that monthly income is standardised across the year and so we can budget easily.

The person who said 4 months was just trying to be goady. I understand private school holidays are longer but I have no idea how that works.

So we get paid for 39 weeks a year but it is spread across 12 months.

The comments here, coupled with the recurring woe is me theme about how horrible it is for teachers, mean that teachers are coming across as thinking they have things so horrible - and that’s not the case for a gazillion other professions. If that’s not the impression teachers are aiming for - be aware that’s the impression many are giving. You’ve got two choices there - decide that anyone who disagrees with you is stupid/whatever - or maybe think about how you are coming across. I do recognise that this isn’t all teachers here giving this impression!

The ridiculous exaggerations that they’re doing a dozen professions’ work is egotistical. We’ve got a teacher giving the impression they think a cop having to take a sexual assault report from a child had it easier than them cause at least they don’t have to multitask? Nobody questioning a child about sexual assault has it easy!

I’m glad teachers learn about mental health first aid - they need that training for themselves as much as their students. But it’s not remarkable - my work has that too. It’s becoming standard in most industries around me - including bartending and hairdressing. We have posters up about what to do in a mental health emergency (just like physical). I deal with expressions of suicidal ideation, threatening behaviour and that fear that worse is going to happen one day. And we’re inadequately trained and not sufficiently equipped. Like too many industries. Thankfully though this does not dominate my job.

And I do imagine it’s horrific to have someone die by suicide while you’re trying to get them help. But you do realise that there are many professions where that’s a given not just a possibility?

We’re asa society absolutely need to address inadequate mental health care (child and adult), fund schooling properly etc.

But Maybe if the OP posted more like - I’ve had a really hard day and thinking of changing careers, or how do I convince people to consider these factors when casting their vote - the conversation would have gone very differently.

I don't disagree with you that we are not doing those other jobs as someone who is trained for them would do.

Most people are just explaining that the public service funding cuts have decimated services to the point that we are fulfilling roles that would previously have been passed on to a more appropriate professional/agency. That more appropriate professional/agency is no longer there so we have to muddle through and do the best we can. Which impacts on our ability to do our actual job.

We're not offering the same level.of support/intervention of course! But, in the absence of those actual professionals, we are trying to fit bridging the gap in between/whilst teaching and every one loses out - mostly the child/young person who should have access to the proper support and the other children who are missing out on teaching.

Meanwhile, we're tearing our hair out because we know were failing everyone despite doing our best because we can't be all those things and don't have the skill set but that doesn't stop someone having to do something and it stops with schools because that's the only public service that can't /won't turn someone away.

So it's not really a complaint about how hard the job is because look at all the things we have to do. But more an our children are being failed because some idiot somewhere decided that schools would just be able to deal with all of it. After all, how hard can it be? And we can't.

*People don't like to hear teachers saying what the reality of the job is now because for many of them they can pop their kids in at the start of the system and get them back relatively unscathed.

I don't think that's the reason.

I truly think MNetters are just fed up with the same repetitive threads being started over and over.

If people are unhappy in their work, there's nothing MN can do about it.

There's seems to be a topic for everything else, so perhaps an 'Unhappy in teaching' topic would be an idea.

Then people can hide it if they wish to.

I appreciate that this thread wasn't started as "aibu to make you aware of the state of the education system". But it has become a little bit about that.

I feel huge respect and sympathy for eg nurses, in a sort of vague oh my goodness that must be horrific, I couldn't do that job, I'm glad there are people who can type of way. If someone was experiencing emotional distress in their work as a nurse, I'd completely understand and feel sorry for them. Again at a distance. But in the wider context I am extremely concerned about the state of the NHS.

So I'm curious why no one seems that bothered about what education has become, especially given a lot of people here are parents.

A generation of young people, many of whom haven't had their mental health needs (and many other needs, eg SaLT) are about to make their way into society.

None of the posts I have read here are people saying their jobs are harder than anyone else's

So I'm curious why no one seems that bothered about what education has become, especially given a lot of people here are parents.

Because it has been done to absolute death for the last couple of years.

If you use the search function you'll find 100s of threads that show people are bothered.

But it's like any other subject that saturates the boards. People just get fed up of reading/posting the same old things over and over.

Tbh, I get that.

If I'm honest, I'm most worried about where we'll be in 10 years time. When the children I teach will be 20.

This sn't something that's just going to solve itself.

Oh definitely @OldChinaJug it's terrifying!

I also get the thread boredom but surely we're generally more intelligent than that?

Oh the NHS / education / social care is in a terrible state, how booorrrrring - I mean is that where we're at? Surely not?

@ShowerOfShites but it is very obvious that some people have zero idea how bad education sector has become and it is only getting worse. You just have to see the threads posters start complaining about a TA taking their child’s class and saying should they tell the HT that did she know this was unreasonable and that she should get a teacher right now! Like the HT doesn’t know it is shit and that there isn’t anything they can do about it.

I have spoke to parents who are very quick to right to their local MP about the school their child goes to because obviously it is the teachers fault about lack of funding at the school which impacts their child. It never occurs to them to write to the MP about school funding in general. They don’t see it as a national problem they see it as school problem

The strange thing with this boredom is that those that claim they are bored about education will be those spouting "It was crap when my kids went to school, Why didn't somebody teachers say something" in a couple of years time.

I see that there is an crisis in education (from teachers posting about it, from teachers leaving etc) I was going to add that having children at a critical stage of education, this worries me, but actually that is unfair as disruption or crisis at any stage of their education will be damaging.

And that there is also crisis in the many public services that work in conjunction with education....leading to increased workload for teachers in other (sometimes unqualified) areas.

And there is also crisis in other public services. (The amount of strikes in various industries is testament to that)

It's actually mind boggling how any government would even begin to start to somehow make them function and co-exist in a civilised way any more! The Tories have obviously cut funding to the bone in many areas but there aren't going to be any quick - or cheap - fixes. Even saying they'll recruit x amount of teachers won't help if the job is so unbearable they don't stay more than a year.
A friend has just done a 4 year degree with bursary, for an NHS occupation - she's already contemplating jobs overseas after shes done the job for a year ...

@Fizbosshoes I know, I mentioned the election earlier, but I don't know who I could vote for that would be able to fix this.

(Love the name BTW!)

The damage is too deep now, I think. In the past, Labour would have got in and thrown money at it but there is no money anymore.

I jsit can't believe what's happened to the country and public services tbh.

Teachers make it look easy because many of us are good at it.

Hello everybody,

I am currently in the first semester of a BA Primary Education with QTS course, which I moderately enjoy but find challenging due to a demanding four-hour daily commute (I don’t want to live in accommodation) that I will need to continue until at least March. That’s when I start my placement, which will be local. To be completely honest, I am scared of going into my placement due to the behaviour issues I have been hearing about in the recent years.

While teaching offers a stable and defined career path, I am unsure if it is my true passion and worry about the stress of upcoming placements. If I were to leave the course, I would face potential financial consequences, including a student loan overpayment, but could instead pursue a local admin job (I have prior experience) while studying part-time for a degree in Law or Business Management through Open University. This path would provide greater flexibility, work-life balance, and broader career options, such as roles in HR or management, though it lacks the job security and clear trajectory of teaching.

I am torn between staying in my current course and pushing through the commute or starting fresh with a more flexible but uncertain path.

My question is, what would you do and why? If you are a teacher and have been for many years, would you say I should stick with my current course or change careers as soon as possible?

I would try to finish the course and get through the ECT years.

If you are fully qualified teacher you will always have a way to make a living. Be it teaching tutoring or working abroad.

Think about changing careers when you have teaching as a fall back.

I'm leaving classroom teaching after almost 21 years and going to do EOTAS tutoring. Cannot. Bloody. Wait.
I doubt I'll be missed... I only direct teach 2.5 days so I'm sure they'll find a TA to replace me for a fraction of the cost.