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.

Don’t become a cover supervisor! Worst job I ever had - zero respect from students. At least as a teacher you get to build a relationship and reputation.

This is very true and (some) permanent staff can look down on you.

Teachers don't get overtime payments. That's one of the problems.

Or expenses.

God I would have loved to have been paid overtime for parents evenings, trips, report writing, or been able to claim expenses when I bought necessary resources/fed children etc.

Are you fibbing just to make a point?

Reading various threads on MN about teaching and teachers - just want to say I have always massively appreciated my DD’s teachers all the way through school.
From reception onwards (and she actually graduates a great University in a fortnight ❤️) - her teachers have been incredible!

I am very grateful to them for helping me bring her up on my own x

edited to add - it does sound tough work dealing with the parents a lot of the time who seem to be looking for ways to criticise.

Well done your DD 👏 👊 and her teachers 👩‍🎓

No, I had to check everyone’s payroll to make sure it was right. Teachers, TAs, FLO, admin staff. The payroll includes all staff, and therefore I had visibility of all staff payslips. And some teachers did have additional payments on top of their substantive salaries, for additional responsibilities. Why are you implying I’m lying? If you’re a teacher, surely you know that £40k is a very standard full time salary?

You know teachers pay scales are available to the public. NQTs / ECTs get nowhere near 40k.

Main pay scale:

M1 £30,000 £31,650
M2 £31,737 £33,483
M3 £33,814 £35,674
M4 £36,051 £38,034
M5 £38,330 £40,439
M6 £41,333 £43,607

ECTs do not earn nearly £40k.

Also, regarding overtime and expenses... part-time teachers can sometimes be paid overtime if they agree to attend training or parents' evenings on their days off, beyond the amount they are expected to do pro rata. Full time teachers do not get paid overtime.

Teachers can be paid expenses for thinfs they have paid for which are for school. E.g. equipment, or emergency payments for things on school trips. Or do you think I should have just sucked up the expense of 30 kids' train fares when our coach driver turned up at the airport unfit to drive?

I retrained to be a teacher (secondary) at a roughly similar age.

By the end of my PGCE, I hit a massive wall. There's something uniquely brutalising at a PGCE. Not unusual to have weeks where you're pulling 70-80 hours. It's insane.

First year of ECT was also intense, but less, and I found my feet.

Second year of ECT was another intensity step down and I wasn't constantly slammed as my confidence and capability grew.

Just about to finish my third year of proper teaching. It's like half as much effort as the PGCE. I don't think about teaching 24/7. It's fine. Even the tricky days are fine.

The average teacher pay is £37,500.

And you said that this was a few years ago when new starters were on £22K.

'D'P calls teaching my 'dirty little secret' and he absolutely hates what I do on account of the insane workload. And it really is. I know, I know, lots of other jobs put in a lot of hours. What I find really turns the screw with teaching is how the additional hours are in no way billable yet are entirely essential for one to be able to do one's work. That, and the relentless 'performance mode' all the time. Exhausting. There's no way I could cope with a 5-day/ week contract as while contracted to work 4 days per week, I still have to work from home on my 'non-working day' as well as 3 out of 5 weekday evenings after the DC's bedtime until 12-1am, and one day or evening on the weekend. And that's me -very reluctantly- cutting efficiency corners to try to reduce time spent working at home. It sucks bad.

I wonder if the difference between teaching and other stressful, demanding jobs is that I think teaching is the only one where you are also (on top of everything) required to manage 30+ other people into doing what you want- from listening to instructions to carrying out the task- and not doing anything else which is more appealingor more urgent! Without any meaningful sanctions for the majority of these people, very few of whom want to be there and even fewer want to do your tasks.

I saw something once which said that teachers’ brains while working are doing far more than actual brain surgeons- the need to manage the room creates a huge demand on its own.

I’m sure it’s very stressful but I highly doubt teachers brains r working more than brain surgeons. Come on now

What's funny?

R u stalking me 😂

My friend re-trained as a social worker in midlife. I pointed out to her this was madness. She hates it. 🤯

That does make a lot of sense.

In other stressful professions you are focusing solely on one or a couple people/projects so you can give your all to that one thing/person.

But with teaching you are having to constantly split your attention between 30 different people all day.

Other professions like surgeons and lawyers have days where they work alone/less intense days. A brain surgeon doesn’t perform surgery every day.

So I guess it’s that constant need to be ‘on’ and split your attention that makes teachers burn out more regularly than some other professions.
I know nurses also have a high amount of burn out and I guess it’s for similar reasons.

Why would they not?

Multiple personalities and needs are being managed by teachers, in every classroom. A brain surgeon is focusing their precision on one person; focus, which is not being distracted.

Pays fine, workload is unmanageable. I work 3 days to keep my sanity. I’d have left altogether and retrained if I didn’t need the holidays for DS who has SEND and can’t go to holiday clubs.

Something that seems to be beyond the comprehension of some people. It's a different kind of brain activity.

It’s intensive multitasking. Your attention is being split multiple ways by competing priorities. You are trying to remember a huge amount of things both for right now and for later on. Surgeons are usually allowed to work in optimal conditions for them and their attention doesn’t have to be constantly distracted and refocused between very different things.

ETA and in secondary you might easily work with 5 or 6 different classes in a day, that’s getting on for 180 people all of whom you have to meet their needs both in the immediate moment and potentially some follow up action which arises in the lesson and you have to remember to do later.

This.

When people argue that teachers can’t compare to clinicians because we don’t make life-or-death decisions, they’re missing the reality of teaching as an intensely decision-heavy profession.

Research shows that Teachers make roughly 1,500 decisions each day, that’s about 4 decisions per minute during an 8‑hour school day. This isn’t just trivia , it’s a constant mental strain that contributes significantly to decision fatigue and burnout.

For example, a 2021 Education Week article notes that while the “1,500 decisions” figure originates from older studies (1960s–1990s), modern teaching has only increased in complexity with it now demanding fast, high-stakes decisions across tech, social–emotional learning, safeguarding, formative assessment, parental needs, trauma.

Another study in February 2025 by AARE’s “Teachers and Time Poverty” project used time-tracking to confirm: in a given 30‑minute span, teachers reported averaging 21–30 decisions, often under time pressure and with high stakes.

So yes, the number of decisions a teachers has to make, often on the spot is very high, which is often why many will refer to the tiredness as 'teacher tired' and quite often display traits of dissociation.

many will refer to the tiredness as 'teacher tired' and quite often display traits of dissociation.

OMG yes, now that you point it out that’s exactly it. I associate that feeling with being trauma triggered (I have CPTSD) but you have nailed it. (Of course it could at times be both- teaching can also be triggering!)