Any teachers on here?

[Isteachingalwaysthisbad]

This isn't AIBU but hoping for opinions on my little sister's primary teaching job. My heart breaks for her. Sorry it's long.

She is in her 2nd year of teaching (ect) and is planning to give it all up and change career which is sad because she loves the job but feels it's the only option for her mental health. She always wanted to teach.

In her current class she has three SEN pupils but only has a teaching assistant a couple of hours per day. Also a large number of pupils are working years behind, plus also various behavior issues amongst the class.There is little support from SLT and they cannot offer any further support (staff shortages etc).

On top of this there are aggressive parents who shout and swear in the playground and also to the teachers. They also fight with other parents. My sister feels very threatened by some of them.

Parents complain to SLT with minor issues such as child had toy taken from them in class, ( shouldn't be playing with in any case), child wasn't selected for something etc

The children do like her and are always writing her little notes and telling her she is their favorite teacher.

Do other teachers out there have to deal with the same, is this what teaching is about nowadays?

Teaching is hard, however her school is not representative of all schools. Mine is lovely, lovely staff, parents and children . Yes, there are children with SEND but they are well supported. I'd suggest she tries to find a different school before leaving the profession. It's a great job in the right place.

Posts like this do annoy me.

Teachers do have different workloads, you know.

I'm an English teacher. My marking load is much higher than my colleagues in other subjects. My subject is compulsory to the age of 16, which means I always have full classes except at sixth form, but even then, it's still a popular subject. Marking a full class of essays takes about 3 hours. It's not possible to do it faster - you have to read about 6 pages per student. 6 x 30 pages = 180 pages. And on top of actually reading it all, you've got to annotate the issues with it, provide feedback against the marking criteria, etc. You can't make that task shorter. And that's just one class. Most state school teachers of core subjects have 7 classes.

If I have two lots of homework to mark per week, that's 6 hours of work, and I can't do it during the day because I'm teaching, so that gets pushed to after school or the weekend.

I also direct two school plays every year - so that's hours of admin and rehearsals that get added to my workload.

Then I'm also a form tutor, so that's more admin.

And then the lesson planning. I don't just reuse the same lessons again and again every year because my classes change and need things adapting for them, maybe I don't want to teach the same text again, maybe I want to incorporate something new I just learned about or saw or whatever - so that's another few hours' of work.

And then of course there are all the emails, from students and parents and colleagues and SLT. And the data inputting. And the admin of school trips and events and so on. And if there's been a concerning conversation with a student, the admin of that needs to be dealt with. That's usually a daily occurrence.

And I forgot to mention the interminable after school meetings! Two a week at my school, both until 5pm.

I do have free periods, but they're never actually free periods - sixth formers come for extra support, colleagues need help with stuff, you get called for cover - etc.

So when do you do all the work that being in a classroom all day generates?

I genuinely don't know how anyone can work just a 45 hour week and not take any work home.

Perhaps if I weren't an English teacher...

Most schools are the same, probably worse. She will be much happier if she changes career. Teaching is shit these days.

I retired 7 years ago after 40 years of infant teaching. Over the last 20 years of my career it gradually changed beyond recognition, to the detriment of the children in my opinion.
I’ve spent the last 18 months volunteering in my local school once a week. One of the two top achieving in the area. I’m going to stop at the end of this academic year as I can’t face the chaos much longer that I’m seeing going on, the teachers need medals.
2 of my former colleagues still work as supply teachers and say all of the schools they go to are similar in that the teachers are run ragged and the level of SEND with no extra support is impossible to cope with on a daily basis.

It's representative of most schools. You're very, very lucky. I got out of a toxic school earlier this year. I now do supply and tutoring. The grass hasn't been much greener anywhere else. Everyone I know in education, in various different schools, want to get out.

At least with tutoring I can actually teach, only cater to one child's needs, and the parents are mostly supportive and appreciative that their child is getting extra help. It's really opened my eyes.

It definitely gets easier in the third year. Different schools can have very different cultures as well.

The parents complaining about every little thing is ubiquitous now, but parents won’t be fighting in the playground at every school.

It sounds pretty normal, sadly. If your sister enjoys teaching, I would say try another school first. Or at least, finish this academic year.

I teach in a SEND school now and while it's harder in some ways, in others, it's much easier. Hardly any face-to-face contact with parents and no SLT expecting you to get 30 children sitting silently, facing the front and not fidgeting. So much more relaxed for students and staff. Does depend on the type of needs though.

I finally came off the Scottish teaching register after 40 yrs.

Yes, that's what it's like now.

Reading this thread eye opening. I'm not a teacher.

I cannot imagine a parent coming to scream at the teacher for what ever reason. That's mental to me. No one else would tolerate that in their jobs. Why are teachers expected to? Disgusting behaviour.

In my last year in my permanent post, a parent complained that I was bullying her daughter, a senior pupil. I was subjected to a formal investigation.

The complaining pupil, her classmates and I all gave the same account of events, save for the fact that only the complaining pupil said that the situation was out of the ordinary and bullying.

I'd told her to be quiet and get on with her work.

The mother refused to accept this: "My daughter always tells the truth!"

The SLT chickened out when I suggested that they should tell the mother that her truthful daughter had once announced to the class that her mother was "a slut".

Yes, I'm retired and no longer giving a hoot.

I did a bit of supply last year. Pupils were openly vaping in the corridor.

I was hurt twice breaking up fights. A younger colleague was punched whilst walking down a corridor. A pregnant TA was hit. All in the same week.

@EnidSpyton

I agree. English teachers always have a heavier load.

What did you change to, out of interest?

I’m afraid you’re wrong about weekends. I have to work both days at the weekend in order to keep my head above the water. Every weekend. If I have a story to mark (year 6), that will take 8 hours of my weekend (15 minutes per book). Then I have more on top of that.
That’s fairly typical.

Because anti-social behaviours are considered 'unmet needs' in education. Practically all other services have collapsed, especially those supporting people with addiction and mental health issues. We're kind of like the final frontier and if we let people down, then there's nowhere left for them to go. Essentially, many teachers have become punch bags for a highly dysregulated society. That's why management is so important because they'll protect you.

Secondly, it's so much easier now to 'gang up' on teachers. Social media was like made for this. People are looking for someone to blame for the fact their lives are such a mess. And teachers have become that someone. I refer to it as 'the discourse of derision'. The more people blame teachers, the more that turns into their twisted truth because everyone agrees with them. The logic then morphs into 'Well it's all their fault, so they get what they deserve.'

My daughter is a first year ECT in large primary school. Seems a reasonably supportive school but she has to share a TA and has been having issues with behaviour from children with SEN and also with none. She says the SLT are overwhelmed daily with calls on radio for support. She says the children are disrespectful and downright horrible at times.
She is sticking with it as obviously she is only first year ECT but is starting to have doubts due to staffing issues (sharing TA, children who should be one to one not having this support, affecting her mentoring time), behaviour of children, use of iPads as standard as part of teaching at the school (everything accept English and Maths) and the distraction they cause constantly.
She has wanted to teach for many years and is very good at it but the changes in children’s behaviour is becoming very noticeable now. I think she will look at changing schools for next school year to one without iPads and see if that helps at all.

After 30 years in classrooms I moved into a specialist role visiting individual children in schools. I cover a fair range of South London and adjacent areas so I see every kind of school.

Schools vary enormously in terms of behaviour, even in schools a kilometre apart.

Workload can vary - some schools buy in Maths and English schemes while others still have each teacher producing 4 or 5 PowerPoint each day.
Marking expectations are so different from when I trained. Granular levels of analysis which kids can't/won't even read back.
SLT can vary. Some are incredibly supportive. Some are cunts.

But it is still a relentless role where you are on show all day every day.

Children's behaviour and parents' behaviour are unrecognisable from when I qualified nearly 40 years ago. Noone can focus for longer than a few seconds. Everyone thinks that their concerns need to be dealt with now or else.

On a good day, it is absolutely joyous.

There are not enough good days for me to recommend it to anyone else as a career.

Accurate, apart from the parental abuse.

I work in farming. I have met a surprising amount of ex-teachers involved in farming and smallholding. So far, everyone has said that it is much less stressful, less hours, you don't take your work home, and it's so much easier without having to deal with people every day!

Me too. I was going to do supply but the notion lasted until the tattie holidays then I gave away all my resources.

If you genuinely don't know how teachers work 50/60/70 hours a week, then I am guessing you're not actually a teacher?

Even if you did manage to find a utopian school where all planning/marking/behaviour/parent communication was taken out of your hands, you would be aware that it is not normal and other schools expect more from their teachers?

And if you really were teaching Y6, I'd be very concerned you weren't marking practice SATs papers to track progress, and even worse, doing regular deep marks of their writing considering it's TA for ks2 SATs writing.

And with all your "experience" I'd wonder why you don't have any additional responsibilities? Even if you didn't want to progress up the ladder, it's standard in primaries to lead a subject after NQT/ECT.

And with 6 children with SEN in your class plus a further 2 needing EHCPs/1:1s is be very concerned you weren't meeting their needs if you aren't spending time providing scaffolding and adjustments.

I'm surprised your school have kept you on if you refuse to attend mandatory after school meetings.

And if be curious to know how (Y6 especially with the standard WhatsApp dramas) behaviour is like in your school if you don't have to call parents/write incident reports/update behaviour logs.

Even if you are a teacher, I'd worry about your competency if you are completely ignorant to the difficulties in education at the moment.

Before l got out, my stock room was known as The Crying Room. Everyone would go in and cry.

Theyve all got out now. It’s awful.

Staff that is. Not kids!

Yes, most of mine are gone now.

There are many ways to teach and many different school. Finish the ECT time there somewhere else and find your place. I would be loath to give up when it came so different in different places.