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.

DH has just left teaching after 26 years. He was highly skilled in mainstream education, pupil referral units, alternative provision, and had worked extensively with the most difficult pupils.

He said it's the worst he's known for behaviour and schools not being able to manage it effectively, mainly due to entitled kids ruling the roost and parents not backing school policy.

He had no support from the school when he was targeted both physically and verbally, and did not feel safe at work or the local area (he still won't go near the town he taught in).

He took a pay cut to leave and it's worth every lost penny.

I taught for 19 years and left a few years back for a private sector job. I would never go back to teaching for all the reasons posters have listed.

My private sector job (education related and involves some teaching but not in schools) is a walk in the park compared to my experience of teaching and I must have been okay at it to have stayed in the profession for 19 years. Here are some of the pros and cons I’ve experienced.

Pros

• Extremely manageable workload. Working 5 days a week now in my private sector job with statutory holidays is the same workload as when I taught for 2 days a week and a bonus that I am no longer burnt out.
• Experience is valued and people will pay to retain experienced members of staff.
• Holidays are holidays - no expectation to work at all in my holidays. My time is my own.
• Ditto weekends and evenings after work. Not true of teaching.
• Respected by managers and members of the public. Not true of teaching. We only have to look at some comments on this thread, read articles about schools in the press or go back a few years to Covid to see the derision some people have towards teachers.
• Flexibility and control. I can say no and stop an activity if I feel something is not working or has the potential to be unsafe and I am listened to and supported. Not necessarily true of teaching where I have seen staff get physically hurt and verbally abused (have experienced the latter a lot in school) and they are just expected to get on with it. Teaching is an inflexible job even though teachers are expected to be extremely flexible themselves.
• Pay - I am paid for all the hours I work and I can claim overtime. Pay rises have been paid which are comparable to the teaching ones but no fight to get them unlike teachers. I realise I am lucky in this regard.
• Resources - I am given the resources to do my job. In teaching I had to buy a lot of basics from my wages because there was no money.

Cons

• Pension is poor but I am very happy in my job and will hopefully be able to continue working for longer. This is priceless.

I would argue that job security in schools is not great especially when experienced teachers move up the pay scale. A poor head teacher can easily manage people out if they get too expensive / their face doesn’t fit. Also with the pay rises not being fully funded, schools have to make savings and that is often at the expense of staff.

Another pro I forgot to mention - my work is no longer scrutinised and I am not micromanaged. Scrutiny in schools is off the scale and adds huge amounts of unnecessary pressure. It’s a breath of fresh air in the private sector being trusted to do your job and praised for doing it well. Maybe I just work for a good company.

My daughter trained to teach after her degree. She spent one year teaching and in awful conditions, the head was nasty to her (it was a failing school) She kept her class up to the reqired standard, but became really depressed. She gave it up after the year and won’t even consider agency work

teaching really is an easy job for people with the right skills

😂😂😂

Teaching is easy in some contexts for people with the right skills. I found teaching my kids to cook was easy.

Teaching in a UK mainstream classroom? Nah, nobody has the skills to make that easy and anyone who pretends they do is having a laugh.

No pension compared to a brilliant one before and no sickness benefit compared to taking time off whenever I wanted (not that I abused it like most).

You really think that 'most' teachers abuse their sickness benefit?

Teachers are more likely to go in when ill than other workers because being off sick creates more work.

Like, if you know you have to provide cover lesson plans by 7:30am then it can be easier to go in

And would rather work when sick then deal with the inevitable dysregulated aftermath of the class from a day (or more) of cover.

And would rather work when sick then deal with the inevitable dysregulated aftermath of the class from a day (or more) of cover.

Absolutely. I remember walking back into my classroom after having a week off after having a miscarriage. The class had a different supply teacher every day and the mess was appalling-I just sobbed. It took me days to find everything and put it all back together. I remember thinking I should have just gone in.

Oh yes, definitely

I suppose those with the time on their hands have moaned and moaned a lot. It took me back to that dreadful staffroom culture of moaning about everything and everyone,

I’m amazed that those who are so unhappy with teaching or maybe so unsuitable for teaching have not left and found a much easier career elsewhere.

I wonder why ?

Ummmm....they have. Hence the recruitment and retention crisis.

So why are you not going back to teaching if it's such a stroll then?

Maybe read the whole thread ?
You might just see the answer.
Loved teaching but things did not move quick enough for me, I was ten years in and things were getting boring. I love curriculum changes as that added interest, but let’s be honest , it’s hardly a challenging job if you’ve got the right character.

It's hard to get a teaching job when you live under a bridge.

It's hard to get a teaching job when you live under a bridge.

Absolutely.

It rather reminds me of the ex-teacher poster whose husband was head of a school where he got the teachers to clean their classrooms and man the office phones in shifts, to save money.

Ai is your friend

You said you "would love to get back into teaching". Have you forgotten that?

In nearly 20 yrs of teaching the one thing that teaching wasn't was boring.

But if you taught the same thing day in day out, without changing it for the pupils, or discussing the content with pupils.
Or trying to link it to modern day values and interests and were in fact a pretty poor teacher then it would be boring.

Crisis ? No worse than most other industries, and much better than many industries. Engineering etc

Only ever had 2 ofsteds, but personally did well with both, not that it was difficult, considering we had 3 to 4 days notice and knew what the benchmarks were

You haven't taught in a very long time then.

Someone who seems to have taught pre-Gove, if at all, really is out of touch.

No just 10 years……..not that it was learnt much extra after, I guess year 3

"Just 10 years"

😂

You have no idea.