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.

Primary teacher of 15 years here. I am part time now (3 days), and it is MUCH better. I wouldn't ever go full time again. That said, I do a LOT of unpaid work (like marking on my days off). A LOT. That's the norm in teaching. What makes it a more bearable job is working in a great school. My school is amazing, and my colleagues are wonderful. Management is incredible. Anywhere with toxic leaders is a horrible environment, much like any work place.
Parents are getting way more difficult. The entitlement is off the scale. Many of them now don't want to do anything at home with their children (like read), as everything now seems to be the school's responsibility. Paperwork, safeguarding etc is time consuming.
However, would I do anything else? No. The actual teaching bit is still enjoyable for me, thankfully! It's bloody exhausting though. 😂

Like many jobs, it sounds like it's survival of the fittest.

Great if you are relentlessly positive, can work at a million miles an hour, thick skinned and are able to ignore criticism and failings in the system. Not so great if you are at all sensitive, conscientious and want to improve things.

I would be the latter so it wouldn't be the career for me.

I wonder what all the paperwork is - apparently GPs are the same. I would guess it’s ’look I’ve done this this and this with this child’ so parent/ Ofsted can’t blame you or the school for anything

FYI, I work in several schools. I have auditors in annually and audit and ofsted are different. Ofsted is more stressful. It feels so much more make or break and you worry so much about the impact a poor rating has on the children and the community potentially for years.

How many of your clients routinely punch and kick you, or throw chairs around the room, or attack your other clients, or scale fences to escape, or kick iholes in walks and doors?

How many hours do you spend after work speaking with clients’ parents and outside agencies about safeguarding issues?

I spent years working in a very stressful corporate environment after university. Almost burnt out so had a break, did a PGCE and taught. I can honestly say that teaching was intensely more stressful each and every day, the workload was unmanageable towards the end and I've never felt burn out like it.

I loved working with kids. Building relationships, watching progress... It has the potential to be a great job.

But I left after 30 years because the stuff outside the classroom took over my life. I started dreading Monday morning at about 2pm on Saturday.

I spent all Sunday on a laptop writing in tedious detail what I would do the following week and what mistakes and misconceptions children might have. Literally inventing potential difficulties that: a child who is exceeding expectations might have,
a misconception a child meeting expectations might have,
and a misconception a child not meeting expectations might have.

Ooh. And a misconception that a Romanian child might have.
And then I'd have to list how I would address each of those misconceptions because obviously I couldn't be trusted to just think on my feet and say, "No, tigers don't eat elephants because they don't live in Africa".

Meanwhile, my friend who trained here and then moved home to Ireland opens the book on page 12, teaches the lesson and gives them the homework on page 14. She goes home at 4pm and says nothing on earth would drag her back to the UK.

Was about to say the same thing. It’s likely your clients physically and verbally abuse you. And I f they did, I bet you wouldn’t be told that was acceptable or have your Union say that was part of the job now.

Pupils aren't clients anyway. They are in your care. Teachers have safeguarding responsibilities and in some circumstances can even consent to medical treatment if noone can get hold of a parent in time like on a trip. It's a very different concept.

A parent is closer to a client.

EHCP funding applications and supporting documentation

SEND profiles/targets/target updates/provision maps

Recording safeguarding concerns / follow up meetings on confidential systems

Recording pupil behaviour /medical concerns and actions on confidential systems

Admin/planning/risk assessments for visits and residentials, including chasing up responses/ lunch requests/medication and forms

Analysis of data for your own classes and entry onto internal system

Analysis of data for the subjects you lead and report preparation for governors/ ofsted

Reports of book scrutinies / pupil voice/ colleague voice for governors/ofsted

action plans for your subjects with termly updates

preparation of orders for your subject and budget management

Weekly targets/feedback for any student teachers you have

personalised communication with parents

termly curriculum outlines for parents

preparation of data and evidence for performance management

write up of appraisals for anyone you manage

organisation of parents evenings / printouts of data and information for parents

preparation of rotas

Long term curriculum plans- often unnecessarily rewritten based on the whims of SLT
Medium term plans for your class
Medium term plans for your subjects
Short term plans

YABU.

I worked in a stressful corporate job pre DC. Long days, weekends away working and week-long international conferences.

That was a walk in the park compared to teaching!

As with everything, it depends what you’re comparing it with and what you’re used to.

If you’re used to highly stressful and joyless 12 hour days with corporate wankers, then teaching quite possibly will be a breeze in comparison. The pay won’t be the same and you’ll still work in the evenings and deal with the odd dickhead manager, but you will also laugh every day and make a huge difference to young lives. And you will get well-deserved holidays.

I love my job but it’s the hardest career I’ve ever had - far harder than DH’s and he gets paid x4 what I do.

I’m an early years teacher.

I now work part time because full time is too much at my age.

We often joke at work that everyone should spend a day as a teacher and see what it’s actually like!

I truly love it though. But I’ve quit the state sector and would never go back. I now work in a private preschool. I feel guilt about that, but I can’t do state again. Ratios too big, not enough funding, learning pressure too much far too young (I believe strongly it should be follow the child, play based etc). We have a lovely ratio and it’s STILL a very hard job.

I wonder (as I’m an early years teacher and this is almost all children figure out all day long - how to be around others, gain residence and stamina) if covid meant that some children missed out on socialising with peers and other adults in their early years and missed out figuring this out?

I never realised until I saw it first hand just how stressful the job is. (2 ex-teachers in the family.) So much planning, paperwork, report writing, safeguarding reports, organising etc. Dealing with a variety of pupils/learners/students (and parents) who have challenging behaviour, additional needs, English as a second language- not to mention unsupportive SLT.
They have both left- not because of the children- both loved this part! But the rest of the bull poo that went with it. Both much happier with free time now and less stressed.
And people wonder why there’s a shortage
Hats off to teachers 👏🏼👏🏼

That’s exactly what it is.

The only thing I miss about teaching is the children, as many have pointed out its the planning, marking, meetings which are pointless, in my last position we had 3 meetings a week when I asked why was told by my SLT it was because that what she wanted and that's what we would do! She also marked me down on all observations because I queried why so many meetings. Everyone thinks that teachers finish as soon as the children go that's not the case and all those holidays? You don't get those weeks off as you are busy playing catch up!
My husband worked out with the amount of hours I was earning less the minimum wage, tired and stressed all the time. Think long and hard before being a teacher.

I wonder what all the paperwork is

Really? Where do you think the lessons come from? Tailored and re-tailored to meets needs? That’s for every subject maths English guided reading science history geography PE forest school - all need to be planed for each hour of each day and then notes to see if it was successful and then mark the kids work to gauge their understanding - plus you have SEN targets, kids with extra support, on top of social services, phycologists, doctors etc to deal with then there’s the team meetings etc -

I've been a primary teacher for 10 years, and the first 5 I loved it...then I think eventually you burn out, but I am also a single mum.
I think your cohort helps. For example, in 10 years, I've never had a class that doesn't have at least 2 EHCP children and 3 SEN support. And also 1 child that is 'voilent'. It hasn't ever bothered me as I've known no different, but I hear from teachers who have never been hit/spat at/bitten/kicked (that was just yesterday) and bet they love the teaching.

Teaching is wonderful (when you make it through a lesson without the disruptions), and the children are a huge positive. Even the kicking ones appreciate you, really.

Just don't go into teaching thinking it's 30 children who want to listen and learn.

I was a primary school teacher for 30 years and I loved it. Unfortunately, it became part of a MAT, and looking back I was definitely pushed out. But, I'd seen it coming and put a plan ( financial) in place. I left 6 years ago. I'm now a cleaner and love that, too.
I miss the creative side but I have grandchildren and do lots of fun things with them !

The actual teaching of the children was what I loved but there was just too much other shit to put up with.

It was bad enough in Scotland but from what I've heard, it's a lot worse in England.

I wouldn't advise anyone to go into teaching.

@RaraRachael exactly, it's all the other shit.
We'd have endless meetings and training sessions on how to teach creatively to engage children, to meet differing needs, etc, then told repeatedly we all had to teach the same so the children's books looked the same.
I couldn't get my head around that.

@Viavita and when you'd been teaching as long as I had, you'd heard all these supposedly new initiatives before under different names, over the years.

Just endlessly reinventing the wheel with NQTs looking at experienced staff as if they're dinosaurs

I agree, this is like our school.

Compared to a corporate job in the city with immense pressure (I know several people who have committed suicide), teaching is not as hard.

I think teachers have become more openly vocal and critical post COVID. I don't necessarily think it's because the job has got worse.

I think there is less accountability asked of teachers than there are in other professions. But they seem to feel really hard done by when questioned. And I'm not talking about "Jonny says he didn't draw a knife even though it's on CCTV" I'm talking "Jonny is a little bit bored going number bonds to ten for the seventh consecutive year can he please have something slightly more challenging, if it's not a problem, please thanks very much" (bow bow scrape scrape).

This week alone:

• register, then in-class live email trail about students missing from class (if a student isn't in my class I have to report it within the first 10min of the lesson - fun when other stuff kicks off at the same time): I have to start the trail, then keep an eye out for responses and repeat this after half an hour if the student is still not there: around 15x this week, taking up a total of 30min, excluding the register itself (only 2min/pupil)
• email responses to parental questions re. homework and behaviour: 6x this week, taking up around 1.5h of my time in total (multiple emails back and forth between parent and me regarding one bit of homework because they had difficulty with the app)
• phone calls to parents re. behaviour (required), star of the week (required), attendance (required) - around 45min/ day (they are "only a quick call" but I've had multiple sets of parents on the phone for 10-15min at a time), all also recorded on our communications platform to prove I have made said phone calls (because the phone log isn't enough, apparently)
• we had a deep dive into my subject, which involved paperwork to show we had carried out student voice, book trawls, learning walks, staff voice, weekly subject updates, updating seating plans and annotations, updating SEND information because a few students had been moved classes this week - given that most of this was paperwork from other weeks, I'd say about an hour prep for this, gathering all the information, printing etc.
• student information requests - 2 this week, taking 30min each to fill in as each required evidence
• safeguarding - 2 incidents this week, taking 20min each to record with all the details the form requires and then follow-up with the DSL
• data tracker updates with recent marking and grades - 10min per test (3 tests this week) - marking said tests around 45min each
• updating the form board (required and monitored weekly) - finding information, printing, backing and actually attaching - around 45min
• reporting yet another leak in my classroom (that has, apparently, been fixed twice in the 6 weeks we have been back) - 10min
• daily pigeon hole checks and handing out paperwork to students - 3min/day (15min total)
• logging all of the week's practicals and risk assessments on our online system - 1.5h

These are top of my hat; this does not include planning and adapting lessons (2h/day), actual teaching (4.5h/day), meetings (2 this week at 45min each and 2 briefings at 20min each), duties (2 a week at 20min/ day), tidying the room (10min/day), short updates with the head of department and technicians, restorative conversations at 15min/day, transferring books and information about new students, getting the week's attendance incentives etc.

We are on 14h 40min paperwork per week if my maths is correct, or 3h 6min/day on top of teaching, planning, meetings, duties and all the other bits, which take place between 8.30am and 4pm. Suddenly, taking all of these together, we are on over 10h 15min/day easily, and that is pure work, not any of the bits that make said work possible (walking between rooms, verbal updates with colleagues, booting up IT equipment, breaks/ lunches to go to the loo and shove food in, getting books/ pens/ textbooks etc.). So a school day ends up being around 12h/day.