I am not sure I agree that Teachers have absolutely exhausting jobs - much more so than most jobs - as said by man on r4 this morning

[RevolutionHere]

i am not sure what my dh, former welder would make of this statement

this is an argument regarding long summer holidays,

Respectfully, what does it mean practically to say teachers don’t get paid for their holidays?

Teachers get paid an annual salary.

It’s paid over 12 equal monthly instalments.

I have heard before that teachers are paid to do a certain number of days’ work, which is less than most people are expected to work in a year, but I don’t understand how it practically impacts your salary.

What difference would it make to say your salary includes the time you are not expected to be in school?

Hopefully people go into jobs that suit them, it's not mandated that anyone has to do a particular job.

Personally, I think teaching is amongst the harder jobs to do, but alongside that I would put hospital doctors and nurses (long shifts, few breaks), police officers and firefighters, carers, armed forces, early years childcare providers, warehouse jobs and waitressing and hospitality work. All challenging in their own ways.

There are some jobs which I do think are relatively easy - some office jobs for example in supportive and flexible environments with easygoing colleagues. Some depend on the particular demands of the job - being a solicitor, for example, could either be intensely stressful if in a corporate city firm working 100 hour weeks or fairly chilled if in a smaller practice with fewer demands or in-house with a supportive team.

I don't think anyone goes into teaching expecting it to be easy. Lots of people get a buzz from particular types of jobs - saving lives, working with children, nurturing others and seeing them develop. And that buzz can offset a lot of stress. There's no point having an easy job if it bores you senseless and leaves you feeling unfulfilled - that in itself can be stressful. And teaching is a very structured job in some ways - it offers some autonomy but in a highly timetabled environment. I think that can work better for some personalities than being in an open-ended office environment.

Or @RevolutionHere you could rephrase your last message as:

“I now have a better understanding of the unseen challenges of teaching - that are really hard to recognise from the outside or from the position of being a student. I also recognise that this post maybe stemmed from some jealousy I feel that teachers seem to have a longer break during the summer than those in my profession. I now understand that at least a week of this leave will be spent preparing/planning lesson upon lesson/ laminating name labels for the new kids coming in September/thinking how you can help those kids (with all their different needs) feel safe and happy enough to learn. I realise you do a really important job hopefully instilling compassion and a love of learning in the next generation. I’m sorry if my post offended anyone.”

of course i do, why on earth wouldnt i? i have already said, did you not read, that it is not relevant.

I think this thread is a bit unfair. It's not like all teachers are saying it's more exhausting than any other job. Just one man on the radio!
I work in a school. It is exhausting. My dad was a doctor. His job was exhausting. There are many, many jobs that are exhausting. Some more exhausting than others in my opinion. But that doesn't really matter anyway. It was a bit silly of that man to say what he did.
However the point is, it is an exhausting job. I've never been a welder so I cant argue that it's more exhausting than that, or equally many other jobs. But there are so many types of exhaustion - physical, emotional, mental. You could be physically sat at a desk all day but the nature of uour job so stressful that the exhaustion is crippling. So to be honest I find your comment about welders to be almost as silly as the man on the radio. As others have said before we can really make judgements and comparisons we need to walk a day in others shoes.
Your post does seem goady though simply because I wonder if you'd have posted it if the man had said it about another job - welding for example, or builders or well any other profession. Would you have bothered to have come on here and posted it? Even if yoi disagreed? Not too sure. I think you may have just dismissed it as nonsense. For some reason teachers seem to get people riled up. Maybe it's the holidays - who knows. But it's very tiring when all you actually want to do is the best by the kids in your care and some parents can literally only criticise - some not all!

Let's just all try and support each other. As others have said, all work is tiring. No need to compete about which profession is the most.

i dont care about your 6 weeks
i wouldnt like that

@RevolutionHere i don’t know much about welding, and I may be mistaken, but other than it being manual labour - how is it a difficult job? Mentally? Stress? Is it high stakes? I don’t think many people would think welding was that exhausting?

you may never have had the kind of job that gives you anxiety the night before, or keeps you awake at night, or distracts you/ spills over into your home life worrying about decisions. That’s exhausting.

(I’m not a teacher btw)

How many years did he work as a teacher before becoming a welder?

It’s mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting. You should try it (High School) 350+ different pupils a week often in different classrooms, plus a form group twice a day, plus all the marking, plus all the prep, 5 or 6 different lessons a day, all the problems pupils have and cause etc etc.
Yes it’s rewarding when you’re young and have boundless energy but by mid 30’s you can easily be burnt out. I was lucky I could quit mid 40s some of my older colleagues were like the walking dead - worn out.

But it’s just different. Each job is demanding and tiring in its own way.
Don’t forget that the role of the teacher has changed exponentially over the years. Part teacher/counsellor/social worker.

I am going to be frank and potentially insulting

bit welding seems to be physically very demanding but not emotionally or mentally exhausting

you can switch off - you can complete it. You can finish a days welding and go yes I am done and sleep well - the physical exhaustion is sated due to rest and you can go again the next day. Yes the physical efforts can take it toll but mentally and emotionally you are ok

that is how working with children works

No disrespect to teachers coming from me 😂😂 Not half😂😂 Your distain is shining through.

I invite you or your husband to come work in a school for a half term. See how you feel. I was literally crawling to the finish line! I don't teach though i do safeguarding, still everyone i see regardless of role struggled at the end of term

Oh come on. You knew exactly what you were doing by posting this OP

I really wish that Mumsnet would issue a temporary moratorium on teaching OPs (whether by people like you who don't actually know what the job entails, or by teachers who want to moan at this point of the year - because their threads lead to OPs like this)

steel work is hard physical work, many hours ,more hours than mmost, due to the low pay and job insecurity

I’ve worked several jobs in my time, and have been teaching for over a decade now.

It’s the only job where I’ve been pushed over while heavily pregnant, had a chair thrown at me, been called a r*tard when my voice wasn’t working properly, and had a parent hide behind me when her kid tried to attack her. It’s the only job where I’ve had to keep 29 kids calm while one has a seizure, and the only job where I’ve had to go the funeral of a 12 year old and try to hold her mother up when she saw me and collapsed.

It’s also the only job where someone I taught years before hugged me on the bus when she saw me and told me I’d saved her life; where children have gone on to study my subject at university because of my lessons; where a child told me she could finally tell her parents she’s gay because my reaction to it made her feel calm; and where I find something to laugh about every single day.

The job is incredibly hard - undoubtedly the hardest I’ve ever done. The wins described above come after months and years of lows in each situation. But when you get the wins, and realise you have genuinely changed people’s lives for the better, it’s brilliant.

This. I know teachers have it hard.

However. I work for the NHS. We have ridiculous case loads, huge responsibility including safeguarding, long unpaid hours, staff leaving and not being replaced, massive stress. We are all exhausted and stressed. Yet we get on average 27 days annual leave

I’ve asked several times now. Which jobs do you think are more exhausting? How many?
Im retired by the way, so don't need a nap.

Go on lovely…you come and give it a go, teaching three year 9 classes, usually a class of at least 30 students (the most difficult behaviour wise, as well as being a form tutor, year 7 classes, year 8 classes, year 10 and 11 classes (with year 11taking GCSEs), at least one year 12 and year 13 ( Alevel classes). Then after school meetings, yes we do not leave the same time as the students believe or not. Running after school club. Parent teacher meetings for all year groups (after school in the evenings), then back in by latest 8am, yes we have meetings before lessons start at least twice a week.
That’s just the general stuff.
Then the extras, like social worker duties because parents aren’t parenting. Children are not fed properly, don’t do homework, vaping, drug taking, bullying…oh and then the violence against teachers.
Forgot about mentoring and supervision of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) and trying our best to convince them that this is a worthwhile profession.
Forgot…marking books, lesson planning, marking exam papers. (After school in the evenings when our own kids have gone to bed).
Then OFSTED decide to pop round for a week to make sure all is hanky dory.

I’m sure others can add to this.

Our students finished on Friday but we still have inset days so will be in for the next three days.

And remember are paid pro rata the long holidays do affect pay!

I love your username!

Well I’m not a frontline A and E nurse. But I am a doctor who has worked in A and E (am now a GP). And I have several friends and family members who are teachers. And I would say that the job nowadays for teachers seems equally demanding and draining as working in A and E. Especially since the pandemic.

Part of the issue is actually the constant teacher-bashing as evidenced by this thread. The general public seem to really have it in for teachers, GPs and social workers, and I am aware that all 3 groups of professionals are finding it increasingly stressful and difficult in terms of expected workload, responsibility but also morale. I see people in these 3 professions all the time as patients who are really struggling with burnout and depression, far more than any other job (ok maybe I will include nurses in there too actually). And there is a real recruitment and retention crisis in all these professions, if they are so great why don’t more people do it?!

I don’t remember the last time a welder came to me with this sort of thing - wait actually yes I do! It was around 2008/2009. Nobody is saying a welder doesn’t work hard or has it easy. Of course it’s a physically tough job and I was feeling extremely sorry for welders in particular in the recent heatwave.

But there is a particular issue with these 3 professions at the moment, they are pressured in a way that few outside of these professions can understand, and honestly a huge part of it is the constant bashing and lack of public support. It really affects morale.

Imagine you are a teacher. You’ve just finished up one of the busiest parts of the year, marking exams, having parent-teacher meetings and putting on leaver’s parties and assemblies etc. Yesterday you’ll have seen in the papers that parents are pushing for the summer holidays to be reduced further for childcare reasons. There goes your only real perk. And do we think the public are going to be happy about teachers pay being increased right now in the current economic and political climate if they decide to do this as a result of working more weeks? So you’re already looking at the very real prospect that in the coming years, you are potentially going to lose a significant amount of your holiday entitlement, for no extra money at all. Nobody sane is ever going to be happy about that. Then this morning you’ll hear this guy on the radio slagging teachers off. Come on to mumsnet to get away from it and here is this teacher-bashing thread. Put yourself in their shoes for a second. It’s just relentless and people don’t understand how soul-destroying that can be for people. It really doesn’t help anybody.

Forgot to mention I used to do about 17000 steps a day when on SLT. Not a huge amount for many jobs, yes, but it is for a job where you’re just walking round a small classroom when teaching and mostly in meetings when not. It was all the duties and patrols. I found physical tiredness completely manageable though compared to the mental exhaustion of difficult conversations with staff, parents, pupils etc. The pressure and shit you have to put up with is entirely disproportionate to the pay which can be really demoralising. The kids are mostly amazing though and keep many of us in the profession.

It seems pretty knackering for the money to me. I work much longer hours than teachers but I'm paid much more and I don't have that "always on" thing teachers do. I can have a quiet afternoon with my office door shut if I need to and while I get loads less holiday at least I can take it when I please.

Anyway if I thought teachers had a great deal I would be one. I don't understand the moaning from others about it, not like it's a closed profession.

Yes and no one is denying that but teaching is also not that well paid

and it is the mental and emotional exhaustion you are never off - like parenting

as an aside it’s parenting parenting is the most exhausting!