Teaching OMG!

[LucilleBluth]

I have been training to teach this year. I started my PGCE as a 43 year old in September 2024. I’m about to finish it-well I say that. I’m feel like I’m hitting rock bottom with two weeks to go. I have worked in schools as support staff before so I wasn’t totally blind and I have good friends who are teachers, but oh my god, it is such hard work. The workload is insane-the kids are lovely but I’m dealing with so much extra stuff like SEN, EAL is off the charts, behaviour, kids without equipment and who can’t cope unless a lesson is chunked and scaffolded so much I may as well spoon feed it.

I don’t feel I can do it full time so I applied for a Cover Supervisor role-15 qualified teachers applied for a £21000 year job, I,didn't get it. What’s the point

Teacher pay needs doubling. I’ve been awake since 1am.

Oh 100% it's the government and media doing the 'pitting'.

I've been a primary school class teacher for twenty seven years.
Being a teacher, it's a lot like being in an abusive relationship. You don't quite realize the extent to which you are bring abused until you manage to escape.
No matter what you do, it's never good enough. No matter how much you do, it's never enough. No matter what goes wrong, it's always your fault.

This post is the epitome of the nonsense that teachers hear on a daily basis. It's basically telling the OP to stop whining and that they should be willing to sacrifice their own life and happiness to allow themselves to be exploited and stress for other people's benefit.

If schools need motivated staff, then the onus is on schools to figure out how to create conditions where they can recruit and retain them, not on people to sacrifice themselves if they can do better elsewhere. Thankfully teachers are starting to have higher expectations for themselves and leaving for better jobs elsewhere.

I do worry about the future of education though. Teaching is quickly becoming a job that's only attracting those who can't find anything better. This was becoming very evident by the time I left and was one of the push factors in my leaving. We couldn't recruit good teachers into my department, meaning I was having to basically take on the load of babysitting other 'teachers' (often unqualified cover teachers who had very little knowledge of the subject or on how to deal with teenagers) as well as doing my own job.

He’s not a perfect teacher, and he’s a very poor and selfish leader who has taken the easier classes for himself and left the difficult groups for those earning far less. This is one of the things that’s wrong with teaching. People used to have each other’s backs. Now it’s all about what’s best for me!

My dd is currently coming towards the end of a pgce
It's not just the job, the pgce course is totally unfit for purpose and totally inconsistent
My dds mentor doesn't want to do it, and has made dds life very difficult
I don't think she'll go into teaching and its a shame, she's a hard working subject specialist in a shortage subject but the 2nd pgce placement has nearly broken her

This isn't a teacher, it's someone who just talks about his subject.

Top set KS4 and KS5 in grammar schools don't need teaching, they'll just listen to whatever you say and retain it. There's lots of people out there who could do his job very easily.

There are not lots of people out there who are good at actually teaching(at least not who willing to work under the current working conditions in state schools).

👏 👏

Another moaning teacher thread. Yes ur jobs hard. So are many many other jobs which literally lives depend on. Don’t worry ul soon have 7 weeks off to recover while other ppl will still be bursting their arses.

Talk to me about the stresses in your job and I'll listen and try to understand.
I'm not suggesting that teaching is the most stressful job in the world. I'm not saying we've got it worse than anybody else

I have given my thoughts on the job based on 27 years' of experience. I feel my points are valid and impact negatively on the education of children.

Talk to me about your job and I'll listen.

See this is a cycle that isn't helpful. Don't look to others and think they make it look easy. If he got sent to years 7 and 8 and he's a strong teacher he'd be fine. People often want to do year groups of teachers who have a good work life balance thinking it's the school / class / year / subject. It's not. It's just people who have found a balance.

You sound like one of the year 7s OP is struggling with.

They'd need updating every 5 minutes.

Not even worth engaging with.

That's interesting @Ciaroscuro what is the objection to having specialist teaching and resources?

The 'hubs' that a lot of schools are setting up don't have specialist teaching in, because there's insufficient funding.

They often end up as being a growing group of extremely high need children chucked in a room with a couple of LSAs on minimum wage who are quickly replaced by another when they inevitably leave. It's not comparable to a class of 8 in a purpose built special school, with a qualified teacher and loads of resources.

This is very true; I would hope that IF this does become the government's suggested alternative to EHCPs in mainstream that there will be funding to every school for a teacher in these classes. Not using qualified teachers for the most needy children is indefensible imo.

This is very true; I would hope that IF this does become the government's suggested alternative to EHCPs in mainstream that there will be funding to every school for a teacher in these classes. Not using qualified teachers for the most needy children is indefensible imo.

I haven't heard that being discussed on any level and think it is extremely unlikely to be the case, unfortunately.

@FalingothEr….do you not think nurses have to be educated to degree level? They do! It’s a requirement of their NMC registration… you know their professional body…that requires them to be fully accountable and responsible if they were to cause harm! ( please tell me you don’t advise children about careers in your job as a teacher?!)

@LucilleBluth

Whilst I agree with all of this, you want to try being a qualified, experienced TA! I get paid a tiny fraction of what even the most inexperienced, just-qualified Teachers do, yet I teach full classes, by myself, a huge amount of the time, dealing with all of the issues you mentioned, plus a thousand more. Parents often have no idea how important & influential we are or how much we actually teach their children. It's insulting & humiliating. After 11yrs, I'm looking to get out, which breaks my heart, but TAs are repeatedly overlooked in terms of recognition & remuneration. Unions are ineffective & no-one is ever campaigning for us.

No I didn't know that. I didn't know they needed a degree. Apologies.

I don't appreciate your last comment though. I don't advise children about careers, I'm a primary school teacher. I wouldn't be expected to know every career route would I?

He will have been away from yr 7 and 8 for many years and lost the skills required to teach that age group with that level of ability.

An ex colleague of mine does exactly the same thing, and the truth is that they were useless with the younger years and only do well in GCSE and above because the pupils have been taught by excellent and inspiring teachers but parents and SLT love him because ;he gets the GSCE grades'.

You do have it worse than most people.

I taught for 8 years in the 00’s and it was bad enough then. Left, was lucky enough to find a private sector ‘normal’ job on the same money and omg it was an absolute breeze in comparison. But other people were constantly moaning about the workload and stress.

I now work for a different private company, the same is true. If ever I feel overworked I think back to teaching. I don’t earn more though than if I’d stayed in teaching. But life is much easier and I did learn to organise a huge workload.

It’s noticeable at dd2’s secondary how young most of the teachers are these days. They are the only ones who can take the pace, until they can’t.

Consider looky for a job in a small private school. I did three years in one, only leaving because we relocated to the other end of the country. There were expectations for co curricular involvement e.g. Christmas Fair, concerts etc etc but the day to day was easy!

I totally get that from a childcare perspective or because they want to spend that time with their children. What I'm trying to say about teachers is that the are often still working on those days 'off'. I used to to still have to find childcare for my days off so that I could do all of the marking, planning, report writing, IEPs, risk assessments etc etc that I used to do in the evenings when I was now doing nursery pick up and bedtime etc and many others did the same. We used to take it turns to watch them at someone's house so the others could do school work.
Many teachers who work say 3 days are week are squeezing 36 hours into those days, or still working 50+ hours a week but just doing more on the evenings and weekends rather than getting paid.

He is not a perfect teacher and is a shit HOD. Lazy, lazy man.

Exam classes are a piece of piss. He should be taking years 7and 8 so he can really see how the curriculum prepares the students for the exam years.

I've been HOD English in UK secondary and FE as well as Au secondary and this is the job. You know your department and curriculum by teaching it. I always taught the range for just this reason.

I’ve said yes the Job is difficult but other jobs r also equally or more difficult with significantly less down time. All I ever see is teachers moaning non stop when I see with my own eyes junior docs literally crippled with the work load and pressure and lack of time off whereas teachers have 13 weeks off a year at least and yes I know they all say oh we r not paid for tht. They r salaried like everyone else mostly so yeah they r