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.

I doff my cap to you.
I often think with all the many feral kids and the ones with asn, how do teachers cope with having to teach the other kids as well.
I couldnt/wouldn't choose this career for ANY amount of money.
Thank You
💐 xx

I did 10 years in FE because I realised during my PGCE that I wasn't cut out for secondary. FE is ok for behaviour and workload, but the pay is shite and there's a lot of zero hours working. I now teach adults in the charity sector and have almost no admin. Pay is still shite and I'm self employed, so no sick pay, holiday pay or pension, but I LOVE my work. Love teaching.

I agree with this. One of the exciting parts of teaching used to be about being creative with resources. SOW can stifle you because their focus is on retaining and getting more funding through inclusion. In fact, education is nothing more now than a business.

I did my PGCE in 1995 and behaviour was hideous. Workload was also shite. Which is why I went to work in FE.

I left 15 years ago and it was bad enough then. Since then nearly everyone I worked with has left the profession because it's become even worse.
It's the workload and the stress and often bullying SLTs adding to the stress.
There are so many children with EAL and SEN and that means differentiating work for all of them, chasing up referrals and assessments for SEN children and putting strategies in place for them, often with very little support.
One of the things I struggled to cope with was trying to do my best for those children but it never being enough because you're stretched so thin and then that horrible feeling of letting children down even though you're giving your all.
I had a couple of episodes off with stress for weeks when I just could not move off the sofa. And then my GP said this is making you really ill and if you don't change career you'll end up permanently unable to work or end up in an early grave. So I left teaching and the UK and started again in Austria.

Several years later I was asked to go back into the classroom to teach children English in a primary school in Austria. I really didn't want to after my bad experiences in the UK, but it's completely different and it's wonderful. Not everywhere is perfect though as schools in Vienna do have a lot of issues.

However there are a few things that do make it easier in Austria:
Smaller classes (the largest class I teach has 19 children in it)
Shorter school day (from 7.30 am to noon, not ideal for working parents but there is afternoon childcare provided by the school)
No extensive planning, teachers make notes in a planner and that's it.
Government scheme for Maths and German with workbooks that every child works through at the same time (no differentiation and not ideal but somehow it does actually work. The children reach a good standard by the time they leave primary school)
Children can resit the year if they have not reached the standard. Sometimes this is on a voluntary basis and sometimes the school will insist on it. This means you don't have children who are constantly struggling at the bottom of the class and never make the time up. It does have the disadvantage of course of a child not moving up with friends and peer groups.
For secondary education there are different types of schools to suit different children and then a second transfer point at 14 where children can go on to a polytechnic school, then apprenticeship and vocational school or they can choose schools with a specific focus such as tourism, healthcare, graphic design or grammar school etc.

It's not about pay, it's about the conditions.
I'm not saying Austria is perfect because it isn't. It's completely different and the teachers are not stressed in the same way as they are in the UK. In fact they are so laid back it took me a while to get used to it. But when you see the children learning and progressing without all this stress and targets it's wonderful.

If he's a secondary teacher there is a HUGE market for tutoring, either online or in person. He should also pick up examining. CIE is a brilliant place for LOADS of work. If he's good at it, they'll offer different exams and qualifications for him to take on.

I make a full-time teacher salary working only 1/2 to 2/3 of the hours.

I left for personal reasons although I wouldn't have been able to continue with the workload anyway so it all worked out for the best. I wasn't unhappy as a teacher. I LOVED the actual teaching bit. But the admin was easily a full-time job on its own with teaching itself added on.

Some of my family are teachers.Some have retired now and are jolly relieved! I think. I find it crazy that Teachers are so much maligned, with people saying they have loads of holidays. Only working 9 to 3 etc .The behaviour of kids is getting worse I think.On a recent day out with DD(Dear dog!) A group of young Teenagers were assembled ,waiting for their trip to commence.A young boy was sitting on the wall away from them looking upset. His Teacher appeared and spoke to the boy.She went over to some boys and told them off roundly . very quick and swift .I was impressed but didnt envy her!

Workload and behaviour are huge problems. Another thing that really struck me when I was teaching is the additional work created by schools getting rid of setting. One school I worked in had no sets at all; the other had sets at GCSE only. My two most enjoyable, successful classes were my top set Year 10 and bottom set, heavy ALN Year 11 - because I didn't have to spend hours differentiating and scaffolding every piece of work in so many different ways. There was still some scaffolding etc, always will be - but not to the extent where I was trying to get someone three years ahead academically and someone who shouldn't technically be in mainstream school to the same point in the same amount of time.

I've just left, it was the constant data drops for SLT, the need to prove everything all the time. You could have a fab lesson, full of rich discussion but that didn't matter....if it wasn't in their books it didn't happen. Children are pushed to the brink, teachers are pushed to the brink...all so someone from SLT can come and scrutinise everything and have a pretty little spreadsheet to keep them feeling warm and fuzzy.

SEN are suffering, no support, no TA's, no outside agencies to support, parents are at times in despair and its the Teachers who are often in the firing line, even when we often end up neglecting our own families and our own mental health to support the children and their families. For some parents, not all, that will still never enough.

Marking policies....again, who are we doing that for? Not the children's benefit, just keeping SLT happy and their warm and fuzzy feelings, knowing that teachers have spent hours of time wasted on marking.

TA's, paid a pittance, yet schools so desperately need them, teachers need them, pupils need them....SLT doesn't need them because the over inflated CEO's pay packets give them more of warm and fuzzy feeling....they must make cost saving measures at the bottom to keep those in their ivory towers at top happy!

Missing your own children's school events, our children can't be poorly, we can't be ill....if you are you need to find someone to cover you, set the work, have everything ready...its easier to work ill or send your own children to school unwell.

Working 50-60hrs a week......oh but the holidays....yes, the holidays, short weeks are spent preparing reports, lessons for next term, then the summer holidays (yes, soo lucky) we spend the first few weeks burnt out recovering, a few weeks with our families, cramming in hair appointments, dentists, doctors, car servicing and general admin we can't do during the term time, then the last week is spent ramping back up, preparing the classrooms for the new term, books labelled, displays, resources, seating plans, and the cycle starts again.

I have worked in schools, prisons, children’s homes and in a mental health hospital.

I really wanted to become a teacher and I was excited to have a lifelong career in it.

But I could not cope with the mental toll of it and the workload.

I actually really enjoyed being in the classroom but it was all the other crap that went with it.

I stayed for as long as I did because I kept telling myself that it would get easier and I think I was too stubborn to quit but I wish I had done it sooner.

I hadn’t realised how much it impacted my health until I had left.
6 months after leaving I had lost 3 stone without trying, my hair was thicker and longer, my skin was clear and I was sleeping better and actually enjoying life more.

Something needs to be done.

There are lots of stressful careers out there but you only have to look at the threads on here to see how teaching seems to be the main one that people struggle with.

If it helps at all OP, I found my PGCE incredibly tough and my first year of teaching was easier (not easy!) because I had my own classroom and could take shortcuts with planning. I still left teaching after I had my kids because it was so tough and such long hours.

Apparently FE is not good either.

I looked into doing it and everyone told me to stay well clear.

I wouldn’t be a teacher for any money. My step daughter qualified as a teacher 3 years ago and works in a village primary school. The kids are mostly feral, the parents are rude and entitled, the paperwork is insane and she goes home in tears more often than not. I think we’re heading for a huge crisis in this country with large numbers of experienced teachers leaving the industry. New starters will be needed to fill the gaps until they in turn become disillusioned and leave. If you carry on with it OP, then best of luck to you - you’ll need it.

My mum's a teacher and she said these days you have to get into it when your young with energy.

Like I said, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. I went from working in a special school (I loved it) to a high achieving grammar as Assistant SENCo, to mainstream teaching and it has blown my mind.

I love my subject and I’m passionate about teaching it, but so much EAL, behaviour issues and SEN in one classroom impacts teaching. It’s not that I don’t care about those issues, I absolutely do and I do my best to accommodate, but it’s almost impossible, with even the 80 percent timetable I have at the moment, to teach quality lessons. Literally half the class don’t have equipment, they’re not ready to learn or they don’t care. In year 7 they don’t have the reading age to access my curriculum, plus there’s too much to fit in.

I'm so tired, it’s been a fucker of a year. I emailed my mentor to say that I can’t see out the last 2 weeks. I’m not sleeping, I’ve been awake since 1.30am.

Austerity and probably Michael Gove messing around with education.

You will be one of many. I wouldn't go back to school teaching if I was paid a million pounds a year. I left because of workload, behaviour, parents and impossible expectations from a sociopathic SLT. I shudder when I look back at my experience of primary education. It was a very dark time in my life.

You're near the end, see it through and get your qualification, then take a holiday to consider your next career step. Good luck.

Yes, definitely stick out the last two weeks of your course to at least get the qualification OP! You can then use it to side step into another field within education if not at the coal face of actual teaching! Hang on in there for two more short weeks!

@LucilleBluth I think you'll find that SOMEHOW they'll drag you through to qualify. The need for teachers in the UK is so huge they can't risk letting someone not pass.

Get through the PGCE. Struggle through the NQT year(s?). If possible, move to Australia, have a lovely life and a well-paid teaching job that is the teaching job we all dreamt of.

Get the PGCE, two weeks left, just hold on until the end, you can do it!

Get the qualification and QTS and then you are a qualified teacher. That will always be there.

Civil Service has graduate schemes, have a look at those, LA's often have jobs around education, there are many options out there where your work life balance will be so much better.

If you feel like teaching might still be for you, try supply, its a bit like try before you buy, scope out schools, you might find the one.....if you don't, then you know you tried.

Life after teaching group on FB is a great place to see how teachers have moved on from teaching and very supportive.

Good Luck OP, you have the next two weeks in the bag and then you're free!

This is a timely thread for me, I left teaching (after 16 years) when my daughter was born 5 years ago. I have lately been having pangs of missing it, and wondering would it be so bad if I could just find a nice school etc.

I taught primary, predominantly Early Years, and my issues were rarely, if ever, with the children. Yes sometimes the parents although I doubt that would have been enough to make me leave on its own, and many were fantastic. It was management, the constant pressure, insane workload, endless paperwork, the hours of work you had to do that were ultimately of benefit to nobody - least of all the actual children. Most of all though it was this constant assumption of bad faith - you're constantly checked up on, inspected, observed - and even though I almost always got great feedback my anxiety just couldn't take it in the end.

The work I do now is interesting though not really as rewarding, but let me tell you working somewhere where I'm valued, trusted to do my job and treated like the professional adult that I am has been an absolute revelation. Not to mention the flexibility and freedom to work the hours that suit me as long as the work is done. Childcare during the holidays is much more hassle admittedly, but it's balanced by my ability to do the school run every day, go to all my daughter's events etc. Pay is comparable, pension has taken a hit!

Train & tube drivers earn (significantly) more than the people who are responsible for educating the next generations. It’s awful!

I really think more SEN schools, taking SEN children out of mainstream on the whole would really help teachers. Why isn’t more being done for this?! Funding of course.