To think Primary School Teacher could be a great job?

[greyskiesandcarpet]

I hear so many negative things about teaching nowadays, but I wonder how bad primary teaching is, in comparison to any other demanding corporate job? This isn't me washing over the fact that some of the job must be really tough, but I want to hear some positive stories. I know a couple of people that couldn't deal with the stress of corporate life, but have excelled in teaching.

Why?
Are you considering it as a career?

I used to teach secondary and I still really miss actually teaching and lesson planning but the work load was insane and often I was spending time doing pointless paper work when I could have been doing things to help the students learn. It was very frustrating.

Teaching is potential an amazing career but thr demands are too high for the rewards.

Oh, it can be great, no denying. I used to love planning interesting and practical lessons, seeing children grasp concepts (literally, sometimes it's like you can see that light bulb ping on above their heads!), kids telling jokes, sitting and eating lunch with them, them being excited about life generally and all the things like that.

There are, though, a lot of negatives. Whether you avoid these to a lesser or greater extent depends on what SLT is like, how the MAT treats more experienced teachers, what the parents are like and lots of other things (mostly) beyond your control. Some have found the school that works for them but many have found the unrealistic demands are too much or they're pushed out for being more experienced and more expensive.

I still work in education but wild horses wouldn't get me back to mainstream primary again. Which is sad. Anyone thinking about it needs to spend some time in some schools, volunteer, speak to staff, see what it's like from the inside before deciding.

I think it's telling that governments are always trying to entice people into teaching, but have no interest in keeping people in beyond the initial year or three.

Asking only for positive stories is not going to give you the full picture. I could write pages of positive things about 30 years in teaching, but the fact that I have left should speak volumes.

I’m afraid your hope to hear positive stories may be a vain one. The majority of teachers, I think, would say that the teaching part of it is fine and why they went into the profession. Unfortunately, these days, that’s just a small part of the job and is far outweighed by the dross that teachers have to deal with.

If you’ve looked at any recent threads, you can’t fail to notice that increasing expectations, increasingly poor behaviour and impossible demands, have turned it into a profession that people are leaving, not joining.

I'm a primary teacher and I bloody love it! I find it more stressful than my previous corporate career though.

This ^^

What good is anyone telling you the nice parts. You need to hear both the good and the bad to make an informed choice and the truth is the bad parts vastly outweigh the good bits.

You won’t get many of those positive stories on here, the teaching contingent on MN seems hellbent on being militantly negative about the job.

In real life, I have several friends who teach, have done for decades now and love it. Yes, it has its stresses as every job does, but they’re paid decently, speak positively of it in general and love their long holidays.

It could be a great job, if teaching was all you had to do. I adored the actual teaching part of the job.

If all you had to do was the teaching and book marking, a primary teacher could easily work 9-5 (or more like 8.30-4.30) and most would be perfectly happy with that. Six hours of teaching, a few hours paperwork. Lovely.

But then when do you do the long and short term planning, the differentiated resource creating, the data entry and analysis, the parents evening, making phone calls home about behaviour, meeting with the SENCO and parents for SEN plans, planning the school trips and writing risk assessments, running an after school club, the staff meetings, the training sessions and cross-borough meetings, subject leadership tasks, organising seating plans and ability groupings, marking the homework?

And those are just the things I recall off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more. And they don't include the mundane day to day things like keeping kids back to discuss behaviour, break duties, sorting out squabbles the dinner staff report, parents wanting "a quick chat" at home time etc.

You won’t get many of those positive stories on here, the teaching contingent on MN seems hellbent on being militantly negative about the job

That is simply not true. Just look at this thread so far.

And your language: contingent, hellbent, militantly. Biased much?

Teaching kids would be the great part, with the kids that can sit still, behave, not distract others, then there is the parents 'the child my child sits next too knocked their eraser over I demand they are excluded', the red tape, the emails at midnight that have to be answered or a parent will complain, the 'my child is innocent I won't believe anything against them even if they are on CCTV doing it'

A full time job on top of a full time job is how I'd describe it.

The first job is mostly very wonderful.
The teaching part.

I have 3 good friends who are primary school teachers. 2 of them love it, love the head, the school etc. 1 finds it very stressful. The all appreciate the amazing holidays (especially the one that came into teaching after being a social worker as the others went straight from uni so never experienced the shite of 5 weeks off a year).

Oh sweet summer child. Of course there are good bits. Children are amazing. Actually teaching is amazing. The job however is close to unworkable in very many schools. Perhaps research why that is, rather than posting Pollyanna questions.

I couldn't have said it any better.

I loved it for nearly 30 years until a change of management ruined everything. I retired in 2015 and it seems to have got worse since then.

You are right it could be a lovely job.

Our kids’ primary teachers loved their jobs, without exception.

Well maybe if teachers could just be teachers it would be a fantastic job with actually really good pay. But due to the way things have gone teachers are no longer just teachers, they have to become, social workers, special needs teachers, therapist, negotiators, paperwork watchers (ie making sure everything is 100% spot on for Ofsted). Now train them properly for all those roles please and then compensate them accordingly as well and maybe we are getting there. Long gone are the days when teaching is just teaching and the poor teachers are not given the training needed to be able to do all these jobs either.

If we could actually higher professional staff to do the extra roles in schools that teachers have had to take on and let them get back to actually teaching kids, I'm sure it would be a much more forfilling and less stressful job again.

Why would they tell you if they didn't?

That's not true.

There are plenty of teachers who hate their jobs, especially in primary schools. They all love teaching, but unfortunately that's just a small part of job. Do you really think a teacher is going to show / tell parents or their students how they actually feel? Of course they're not. They're going to paint on a smile and get through the day, until they finally admit they can't keep going and then they're going to leave.

@ClonedSquare it must depend on the school. Ours does the same activities and school trips per year group every year, I’d be surprised if they don’t just refresh last year’s risk assessments. Teachers don’t run any clubs. Parents “evening” starts at 4pm and finishes at 6pm (at our secondary school it is all online and if you can’t get a spot to talk to a particular teacher then that’s just tough). We have queues of parents willing to help with gardening and PTA events. It’s a good place to be.

If we had more schools like this - reasonable places where staff are respected - it would be bearable.

Im not saying the job hasn’t been utterly devastated by bureaucratic standard setting and quality checking and box ticking. But for sure SOME schools are happy places, where teachers aren’t treated like shit, turnover isn’t awful, parents mostly appreciate the teachers and cooperate, where demands of work are managed down as far as possible and there is time for planning and it’s okay to take a few days off to attend a funeral because the school has enough staff to covers.

Whinge · Today 09:18
MrsSkylerWhite · Today 09:07

Our kids’ primary teachers loved their jobs, without exception.

That's not true.

Yes it is! though it was a long time ago. They’re 29 and 21 now. Things have probably changed for the worse.

@SpringKitten The points you've addressed are the ones which take up relatively little time, I just mentioned them on top of the other issues. It's the planning and assessment, data entry, staff meetings and training, subject leadership that take up all the extra time.

I did work in schools where the management was reasonable, I felt respected and we could take time off for funerals etc. My schools were considered very good places to work by teachers, and certainly better than many my friends worked in. That doesn't change the fact that teaching and marking is a full time job in itself- often more than a full time job, as I’d be in 8-5 most days teaching and marking books and still not be entirely finished if it was a heavy English day. So ANYTHING on top of that is going to cause work-life balance problems.

And on the other hand there are people like my sister who spent 25 years as a primary school teacher ,and was effectively bullied out of her job.

Volunteer to get a better idea.

It was a whole different job 15-20 years ago so honestly the experience of those few teachers over two decades ago is completely irrelevant to what they would feel these days.