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.

Pgce has its own pressures. Having your own class is very different. I'm sure there are teachers like me who found and stayed in a school that had high expectations but reasonable workload. Slt were supportive and colleagues shared planning and prep.

What on earth are you talking about? SEND teaching IS teaching just as teaching people of different backgrounds and aspirations is. It isn’t a difficult add on any more than the disabled are in life in general.

I'm looking at this with horror as have considered retraining. Can I ask..really genuine question as someone who has supported a reception class weekly for a year and seen how much support is needed by the children....what's going wrong? How do we expect this system to produce well rounded adults if the adults teaching them in such formative years are so stressed and unhappy. Asking genuinely as a parent too...what do experienced teachers feel needs to change?

Not sure I can add anything new that hasn' been said already but yes, teaching is shite. Your job is never done and you can never properly switch off from it ever. You have to work overtime just to get the bare minimum required done. You can cut a few corners but it's never enough because then they throw something new or extra at you. When I left after 10 years I felt like I'd been released from prison.
You've nearly got the qualification- bit that doesn't mean you have to teach. There are loads of transferable skills you will have practised along the way. If you look at a teaching job and can't face applying- listen to your instincts. Apply for a range of jobs and see what happens. Best of luck!

Pay doesn't need doubling. Contact time needs drastically reducing. It's not possible for a full time teacher to deliver the education needed and deserved and fulfill all of the admin, assessment, training and pastoral requirements expected by the school when they are teaching 300 kids a week. Teachers in the European schools we do exchanges with absolutely boggle at our workloads. And they earn more than us.

The only time my job feels sane is now, when my exam classes have gone.

The poster used the word "incorporate" not "add on".

This was my sister's experience, she lasted less than a year.
She wanted to re train as a teacher to have time off when she had her children, she was 40.
I am so sorry that you are going through this.

I did not know this @Ciaroscuro
It sounds sensible to me.
Why is it not a good idea out of interest? I went to a sink school and was pretty bright and NT and the minute I was taught with similar people school became better for me. I was less bored and irritated in classes that were constantly being disrupted. That year - for the first time - saw students from a failing school go to Oxbridge.

What she actually said was extra stuff like SEN, EAL

"children....what's going wrong? How do we expect this system to produce well rounded adults if the adults teaching them in such formative years are so stressed and unhappy. Asking genuinely as a parent too...what do experienced teachers feel needs to change?"

Reduce workload by reducing contact time. It's the only way imo. But to reduce the contact time of the existing teachers... you need more teachers to cover those teaching hours. And there already aren't enough. Reducing contact time would make the job less off-putting and might attract more people to teaching, but you can't offer that until you already have more teachers. Catch 22!

The only other way of reducing workload is to reduce the workload necessary per class, and I can't see that happening (though it does vary to some extent from school to school).

I'm talking about the poster you most recently quoted.

Whatever I say, you're going to take it out of context, so I will leave it there.

Teaching children with SEN does bring extra requirements to the job, the extra admin completing IEPs, EHCPs, meetings with SENCO/external agencies, the need to adapt every lesson, quite often more than 8 different ways.

Mainstream schools are not simply able to accommodate everyone as a level playing field, that is a simple fact and probably one of the main areas of stress for teachers. We leave school each and every day feeling like complete failures due to this simple fact. We don't have the time and resources.

Mainstream school set up is stacked against children with SEN and EAL, more so SEN. The field of Inclusive Education is complex. Inequalities of provision and resource allocation and distribution, the government making teachers fully responsible as a way to detract from the real issue.

The simple use of standardised testing in Mainstream schools significantly excludes and fails SEN children but our 'ability to teach' almost hinges on the outcomes of these standardised tests....extra pressure.

YANBU. I left after 7 years. I work for the Civil Service now and my work life balance is 1000 times better.

So I would say that it categorically ISN’T an extra requirement any more than a Dr treating women is an “extra requirement”. It’s a mindset but a very important one.

You'd make a great teacher you've got the complaining down to a T.

I understand the importance of inclusive mindsets and I absolutely agree that all children, regardless of need, deserve to be valued equally. But it's vital to distinguish between mindset and practical responsibility.

Saying that teaching children with SEN involves extra requirements isn’t suggesting that it’s a burden or an “optional extra” it’s acknowledging the reality of what it means to meet their needs effectively in a mainstream setting.

Writing IEPs, attending multi-agency meetings, adapting lesson plans sometimes eight different ways, these aren’t hypothetical tasks. They are time-consuming and vital parts of the job.

Comparing this to a doctor treating women is a false equivalency. Doctors are trained and resourced to meet the diverse needs of their patients. In contrast, mainstream teachers are expected to support an incredibly wide range of learning needs, often without adequate time, training, or support.

Mindset alone doesn’t create time, reduce caseloads, or remove the high-stakes pressure of standardised testing, all of which disproportionately disadvantage SEN students and those teaching them. This isn’t about whether we want to be inclusive we do. It’s about being honest about the systemic barriers that prevent us from doing it well.

Until those are addressed, simply calling for a shift in mindset feels dismissive of the real struggles educators face every day.

I was told by a careers advisor in my last year at university that this was the one sector to steer well clear of. I did it - at two separate FE colleges. They were right. Whilst also an undergraduate, I took on a temporary office job in the Occupational Health team of a large local council. We're talking well over 20 years ago now, and the numbers of teachers on long-term sick leave owing to stress was phenomenal. They were far and away the largest staff complement who were in this predicament.

I've taught English literature as a university academic for 20 years, so a very experienced teacher (and what we do nowadays is proper teaching, not old-school lecturing). I've seen a lot about the horrible, bullying culture of senior leadership teams (FE were dreadful for this), overload of teaching hours, etc. On top of that we now operate on an aggressively competitive business model owing to the introduction of fees and the rebranding of students as 'customers' rather than learners. Our sector is in free fall. The humanities in particular are suffering and huge job cuts are being imposed across the sector. So many talented colleagues up and down the country have already lost their jobs and more will follow.

I don't want a career change at my time of life. I'm still a good 15 years away from retirement. But it might be necessary and given cuts across the creative industry sector my only viable option is to jump into teaching. My Advance HE qualification - the PG certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education - doesn't confer QTS, so there's that little hurdle to overcome, too. The one major advantage would be keeping my TPS, payable on average salary scheme (ie highest earning throughout career so what I'm earning now).

But oh, what a horrible option! I was under no illusions that teaching in a school would be an easy job but it's so hard to face a potential career change I don't even want, when the only alternative is as brutal as this. The only other option is trying to hang on in HE by a thread, from recruitment cycle to recruitment cycle. A professorial chair now looks an increasingly unlikely prospect were I even able to hang in there. It's such a depressing prospect.

I did not ancitipate this mess when I first embarked on PhD study for the sheer love and passion for the subject. I feel your pain, OP.

I understand the importance of inclusive mindsets and I absolutely agree that all children, regardless of need, deserve to be valued equally. But it's vital to distinguish between mindset and practical responsibility.
Saying that teaching children with SEN involves extra requirements isn’t suggesting that it’s a burden or an “optional extra” it’s acknowledging the reality of what it means to meet their needs effectively in a mainstream setting.
Writing IEPs, attending multi-agency meetings, adapting lesson plans sometimes eight different ways, these aren’t hypothetical tasks. They are time-consuming and vital parts of the job.
Comparing this to a doctor treating women is a false equivalency. Doctors are trained and resourced to meet the diverse needs of their patients. In contrast, mainstream teachers are expected to support an incredibly wide range of learning needs, often without adequate time, training, or support.
Mindset alone doesn’t create time, reduce caseloads, or remove the high-stakes pressure of standardised testing, all of which disproportionately disadvantage SEN students and those teaching them. This isn’t about whether we want to be inclusive we do. It’s about being honest about the systemic barriers that prevent us from doing it well.
Until those are addressed, simply calling for a shift in mindset feels dismissive of the real struggles educators face every day.

For those who wish to put their "mindset" to the test : https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/landing/train-to-teach?gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22434217573&gbraid=0AAAAAD_WOvrwGl7JwfUdGEtUWZj2deLjD&gclid=CjwKCAjwpMTCBhA-EiwA_-MsmRSgCQsRVHvTUZUHLwgd5-pzWA9NlnUGCyTpFrYXFZ4dhlR3k9DchBoCZW0QAvD_BwE

I did my PGCE late 40s and taught for 10 years. I loved it, despite the stress. But then I went into private schools.

I felt I wanted to impart my subject knowledge to motivated pupils, but I also enjoyed longer holidays, smaller classes and more money (quite a lot more money at the end, as I taught a scarcity subject).

I did feel that I wimped out a bit as I would have loved to inspire pupils without such easy lives, but I do feel that for every teacher in the private sector, it frees another to work in the state sector, and I did quite a bit of voluntary work in the state sector.

But it is the right teacher for the right school. Someone I did my pgce with was an ex youth worker. His subject knowledge wasn’t great but he loved managing difficult classes. I think he found his niche in a challenging school.

Some schools just aren’t well managed at all and are toxic for all teachers. But there are a lot of schools about so, if it isn’t working, cut your losses and look around. Most good teachers can find something to suit.

I think it is a good idea.

Parents are very reasonably concerned, as it's not clear that their child's individual programme will be legally protected, as it currently is via EHCP. However in my opinion the current system is not working well for most people anyway; it's stressful, frustrating, complex and expensive.

Saying that teaching children with SEN involves extra requirements isn’t suggesting that it’s a burden or an “optional extra” it’s acknowledging the reality of what it means to meet their needs effectively in a mainstream setting.. I think it suggests something extra to your usual job, and as such isn’t an appropriate descriptor. Teaching children with SEN requires a different approach, sometimes that is less not more and at no point is it extra. Language matters and language about SEND matters a great deal.

I’m choosing to ignore the poster who is being awkward-I’m already contemplating jumping in front of a train, I don’t need it.

Multiple SEN needs and pupils who struggle to understand, write and speak English (from different countries I may add-so what language am I using for subtitles in my BBC Teach video-Shona or Ukrainian?)-it makes for an almost impossible job. But it goes without saying that they are all wonderful young people-that’s not the point.

Add to this the talking, making noises, putting on lipgloss, telling me my lesson is boring, messing with a water bottle, not having a pen, chatting about the latest group chat drama-and I’m strict.

Are you secondary?

Best advice friend got was volunteer work in a secondary with teachers that have excellent classroom management.

Dc school has massive sen. Some of teahxers are amazing.
Like the one who has breakfast food for their class every morning and gives snacks during the day.
They have lesson plans that involve movement.
You say spoon fed but you are dealing with kids with wide range difficulties like struggling to read and write. So dc school do booklets for every subject module and teens fill sections in with extension bit for kids who can do it. Makes it so much easier when I'm helping them revise if they havnt managed to fill bits it I can still help them.
PowerPoint presentation on Google classroom of lessons also helps parents help their kids revise.