English teacher is hardest job in school

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AIBU to think that being an English teacher is the hardest teaching job in the school?

Two GCSEs
Not optional, so larger classes with all abilities at GCSE
Marking is a slow process - particularly mocks with two GCSE subjects
All eyes are on your results
Researching texts can take an age
Literacy seems to come under your umbrella, when really it affects many subjects

I'm a teacher, but a different subject btw. I just see what my colleagues in English have to deal with in comparison

Maybe, but you all seem to be the best and nicest teachers too

You make a fair point, but does it have to be a competition? Different ages, subjects, students and abilities all come with different challenges.

Try science. 3 GCSEs. English and Maths prioritised for intervention as it’s on the league tables, yet science is compulsory at KS4. Dragging kids who don’t care about photosynthesis, the equation for momentum or mole calculations through a GCSE with no support from SLT is really good fun.

I don't think there is competition for who has the hardest job.

I used to be a science teacher and my job was the hardest because of the breadth of the curriculum, yadda yadda.

I wouldn't want to have the marking load of an English teacher, but I did jealously look on at silent reading.

Literacy is everyone's responsibility.

I work in schools and definitely agree that English is the hardest for lots of the reasons you mentioned!

I don't think making it a competition is terribly helpful. I think our SENCo has a horrendous workload.

I teach maths. Which, to me, is the easiest subject to teach. Being good at maths to start with obviously helps, but the fact that it’s so black and white makes things far simpler. Students are either right or wrong. Essay subjects scare me. I think all humanities must be tough to teach, but I do see your point about two separate GCSEs all crammed into the same time we get to teach maths.

Science is the same though, 3 subjects compulsory at triple OR trilogy. Maths - teaching maths when so many children really struggle with it isn’t a walk in the park either .

Exactly. And you can't fob off your weakest/least desirable students into Functional Skills.

I'd say Mathematics is just as hard, especially in Scotland where pupils can typically sit the following:
S4 - Nat 4 Maths or Nat 5 Maths or Nat 5 Applications of Maths or Nat 5 Maths and Nat 5 Applications of Maths
S5 - either of the Nat 5s or Higher Maths
S6 - either of the Nat 5s or Higher Maths or Advanced Higher Maths.

I think marking must be harder for English than sciences.
Sciences have tiered papers too at GCSE.
And as far as i can tell schools rarely offer functional skills.

The marking is horrible but you can assign a lesson of silent reading to give you a time to do it.

I had a migraine one Friday and just designated it as a quiet reading day. Lofi music on, no talking, for five different classes (no KS4 that day).

Science and Maths teachers don't get that luxury, plus I think English has a better reputation than Maths so it's easier to get the kids engaged. It isn't easy, but I wouldn't say it's the hardest.

The subjects with only one or two teachers like Music or RE, those seem like really tricky ones. How do you learn the names of basically 50% / 100% of the pupils? And there's no team to lean on, no one to share resources with. I couldn't do that.

I used to be an English Teacher at secondary. Workload felt unmanageable at points due to marking plus prep but also stress due to constant disruption (which isn't really subject specific). I would not go back for any amount of money. However, I have not been a teacher of another subject at secondary so I can't compare in terms of 'hardest'. I still teach now but different level and subjects.

I will say, teaching Functional Skills English was one of my favourite things to teach. Real life applications of English skills. I still feel it should be part of the Year 9 curriculum and offered to all pupils; my bottom set English students left better prepared for job applications and interviews than Set 1 did.

I always thought maths tbh. You can make science interactive and engaging. You can make English interesting and intriguing. Maths is just dull for a whole lot of kids

Surely modern languages

My kids school does 2 maths gcse as standard, they do a statistic gcse too.

I work in a secondary school in a pastoral role. I think heads of year prob have one of the hardest jobs. So much work to do, with a pretty heavy teaching schedule. Well at my school at least.

Senco is the hardest job in a secondary school certainly. The only job you must be a qualified teacher for.

In terms of classroom teaching, I think you really have to like English to be an English teacher 🤣. I love it!

I hear you op and even my friend, a Maths teacher hears you.if you are teaching 2 full subjects in the time maths gets for one, with essay marking at every turn mocks, termly exams are a nightmare. My head didn't get it
..why my department was always late in getting results in ...until I challenged him ...just take the exam papers home ...don't try to mark them ...don't keep looking up the criteria ...just sit and read them. Ok he said ...not a problem. Luckily he was a reasonable man ...came back on Monday with a typical teacher's marking load and said ...ok ...can't be done ....how can I help. We came up with a plan which helped a bit but I think the actual acknowledgement, for my team, is the thing which helped spur them in a bit. It is not really schools' fault. Ofsted keep demanding more and more. When we changed the marking strategy a bit out results went up rather than down. I think it was because the team had less burn out ...but this is unusual. As a Head of English I was lucky in my boss.

DH teaches 4 humanities subjects including English. The amount of marking is INSANE

It’s even harder since Gove got rid of the Foundation level.

Dragging low ability classes through Language Paper 2 is not fun. For anyone.

I used to teach (a different arts subject) in a large comprehensive. I used to chat to my two friends in English and saw how difficult their job was in getting children with no interest and very little skill to learn a load of quotations from a book that those kids will never ever need to know again. It didn't seem like a good use of anyone's time.

Most weekends they'd take big bags of marking home.

Just seems so miserable and stressful.

What do you mean by two different gcses? Do you mean English language and English literature?

Yes. Obviously there’s a lot of overlap, but it is two full GCSEs they have to be prepared for.