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?

Same but s3condary. We don’t need the comments some have made about the relative difficulty of primary/secondary. They are just different. Both have always been hard but are now verging on impossible. I retired early due to burnout but managed a few years of supply after that - there’s more control. I’ve now even given that up.

It was am independent school which finally gave me burnout…though I agree they can be more manageable, mainly due to smaller classes reducing the marking load.

Yep that’s pretty much the norm - sounds actually quite good/mild really.
Good colleagues get you through it though so maybe she just needs a change of school before giving it all up.

I'm half Eastern European. Cousin's in my dad's country of origin have told me that things are getting bad there too. They actually had a school shooting a couple of years ago.

I'll add that a good HT does make all the difference.

I worked in an area with 'multiple indicators of deprivation'. We got a very good inspection report and our HT told he was retiring while he was 'still at the top'.

A misogynist took over and my working life became utterly unbearable. I was a middle manager and the man seemed to set out to make my life as difficult as possible.

I'm trying not to out myself here. The HT started by picking on the women. We didn't buckle and he then moved on to the male middle managers who had thought him the best thing since sliced bread.

Our school had never been an easy place to work, but he destroyed the camaraderie that's we'd had. He's no longer an HT, but the damage has been done.

Others have mentioned the workload. One thing that I definitely don't miss is using my weekends and holidays to catch up marking. Thank goodness I no longer need to use my Christmas holidays to grade prelims/mocks. (Some subjects do take much longer to grade than others.)

Eep! Errant apostrophe!

This unfortunately is the reality. My oldest (Very bright, caring, great with younger children) really wants to be a primary school teacher. Part of me is very proud of her, but a bigger part wants to tell her to think of something else, that teaching whilst incredibly valuable, is either a very hard or an impossible job and she really doesn't need to struggle her entire career

We had a Crying Room too, with fresh toilet rolls brought from home.

Very standard. I spent a LOT of my own money on supplies. Often worked 12 hour days if not more with prep work and making resources etc.
Was kicked, spat on, pushed down stairs, groped by a students dad.
Deputy head once locked me in a cupboard to shout at me.
The day I left I was pregnant and felt physically unsafe when I was put in a room with a student throwing chairs and asked to wait with him.

As far as I know it's not got better.

I still work in a school but in a totally different role (exams) so don't have the face to face crap to deal with as only ever see students under exam conditions

We had chocolate too!

Yep. Standard.

We had a giant Swizzells sweet tin that everyone raided at some point during the day!

Thanks for the explanation. I wouldn't even dream of taking out any perceived frustrations on my child's class teacher. I firmly believe that educational support from home is very important and forms the basis for effective learning in school if the child is able. I am always mindful of the tough job they have wrangling 30 sometimes unruly kids with not much other support. We thankfully have quite a sensible bunch of parents in my DCs class. The parents would probably get in between our teacher and a potential trouble maker in defence of the teacher!

Out of everything listed I think having a TA for only a couple of hours per day instead of the full school day is unusual.

There's always one!!!

For the vast majority of teachers, it's a minimum of a 50 hour a week job.

The marking alone is hours and hours a week (minimum 5 classes for core secondary subjects, sometimes 6 or 7. 30 kids a class. Total minimum of 150 kids taught. Each book has to be marked every other week minimum. 15/20 mins per book.). Add in planning for 25 lessons a week. Those are the very very basic tasks. Plus mock exams. Data entry. Extra tasks.

Statistically teachers who work up to retirement at 60-65 die within 2 years of retirement. There is a reason for that.

There's also a reason most of us get out of the profession early. Because it's unmanageable.