Interested to know what others think about this article on BBC?

[boundarysponge]

My weekly juggling act - being a teacher to other children and a mum to my own https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yvvr5z2pro

Teaching seems to be the only profession atm where there is a recruitment crisis and a retention emergency.

If fewer and fewer people want to do the job, well, that says far more than any ‘I work harder than you’ posts.

A senior lawyer earns way more than double what a teacher earns - probably 4-5 times?

@newornotnew honestly it depends on your field, if you are in-house or client-facing, and the kind of company you work for. People always think about the magic circle firms, which do pay eye watering salaries even to new starters, but that isn’t the norm for a lot of lawyers. About £90k-£125k is normal amongst my friends, the London-based ones anyway, but MC new starters are on more than that! Those salaries are a whole different ball park, but for the people on the ‘normal’ senior salary range I increasingly feel that it’s just not worth it. No work-life balance, no time with your families, constant stress, but you can have holidays in expensive places (where you will work anyway), a cleaner (who will never be as good as you want and you will always end up either vaguely disappointed or redoing it yourself), children in clubs every day of the week (when actually they’d like some time at home relaxing and maybe actually seeing their family), and a house that is expensive but really not all that - a small 3 bed semi with a tiny garden may cost over a million, but it’s still just a 3 bed semi with a tiny garden! I am perimenopausal and increasingly looking at my life and wondering wtf I thought I was doing!

Ah ok, thank you, that is 2+ x teacher salary, but not as high as I thought.

Yes I totally hear what you're saying about 'is it worth it'.

Work shouldn't be like this, it wasn't like it in my parents' time at work.

The only profession?

I've heard of one with GPs and nursing retention crisis seems to get some media attention - think Midwives are in news fairly frequently with one as well. I'm sure there are others areas and professions with rention issues but medical and teaching are public facing so effects are seen more.

I do agree they should look at why at some point persuably authorities/government and/or employers are going to have to - or import some labour from somewhere.

I don’t think you can really comment unless you are a teacher/work with kids and had another job to compare.

I had to give up teaching because I was not a good mum whilst doing so.
Its just absolutely draining.

I have had various jobs before and after teaching, all whilst being a single parent.
Of course working FT as a single parent is tricky but no job has been as difficult as teaching whilst being a parent.

I often wonder if it’s the same for other professions.

Eg chefs - do they find it draining having to come and cook every day.
Or carers that look after the elderly all day - do they find it draining to care for their elderly parents after work.

I guess it’s hard to find a good example as most things take an hour or 2 maximum, whereas being a parent is the entire time that you are home.

Same. I don't think anyone has it easy. I do appreciate the holidays now I have one child in nursery part time and I'm part time at school. But the intensity of this job is so much more than when I've worked in the private and charity sectors, it affects my health. I don't get a lunch break, barely take a slow breath on working days until very late in the day. I work every day in peak periods when my son is napping or asleep.

I could not do this job full time, I don't know how people cope. And I don't think it's the hardest job in the world, I just know what it's actually like and what jobs in other sectors are like, and why there's a retention and recruitment crisis. It's all the hidden things people don't see from outside school, and which I didn't see before I went into teaching thinking I'd be having more of a work life balance (ha ha).

There's working from home, being able to book time off, 8-5.30 or 6-9.30 expected working hours and not needing to bring work home with you. One example, my SIL WFH 2-3 days a week for a charity, doesn't have enough to do to fill her time, got 14 months off for maternity and a phased return, said she could use her lunch breaks to meet friends. I know not all jobs are like that but I at least used to be able to have lunch breaks most of the time in previous jobs and have a weekly WFH day.

Perks I do appreciate, I enjoy spending time with a lot of the kids and I won't have to pay for childcare in the holidays once my kid(s) are in school, the salary is not awful once you've been in the job a while. But I have had some kind of stress related health issue every year since I trained, just not while on mat leave! And DH and I do hope I'll be able to have a career break in the future.

Edit: there's definitely no chilled meetings or having a chat with a cup of tea like in my previous jobs. I'm hoping once I get some gained time back after the exams, I might be able to have lunch with my department occasionally. At the moment I eat in 5 mins at my desk, sometimes skip it,

I was a teacher for 12 years and have been a non-teacher for a decade now. I found I had more time for my own children working full time in an office compared to teaching, even part time.

Difference is flexibility. If one of them was ill I could wfh, or had good carers leave. I could take a morning off to go to an assembly, attend parents consultations when they started doing them in the day.

Of course it’s not the only job that is inflexible. But compared to my current job, when I am off I’m off and focus on them. The stress in teaching me always thinking about it. Again not suggesting it is only in teaching, but I think it’s hard to explain to non- teachers.

Teaching isn't for everyone. It suits people who like to work in intensive bursts with long breaks after, up to a point, but the downside is that those intensive bursts are dictated by the school timetable not by your own energy levels/creative steam. Logistically you need staff when you need staff ie when the kids are at school. That's what makes it hard with a young family. This lady will probably find it easier to manage as her own children get older.

I think the main thing about teaching actually is the constant message and feeling that although you're drowning in work, you're not doing enough, you're letting the kids down and there are a hundred things you need to do and a hundred more that you've lost track of, then you find out there's an hour long meeting after school so you've lost an hour of time you desperately needed for urgent things for the next day and some of your huge to do list.

The meeting is about all the things you need to be doing more of and better and differently and it's been noted if you walk in 2 mins late after the printer broke printing materials for the next morning. You haven't drunk water since this morning and haven't had time to go to the loo and there'll be learning walks and book checks soon to check you're ticking all the right boxes in your teaching and marking.

Adding to this mix piles of marking and nursery pick ups, kids having temperatures and needing collecting - that juggle is something every mum experiences but there's something about this overwhelming brain-ringing feeling of not being able to keep up at all. In my old publishing job it was similar at peak times and that was for a few months of the year only.

I would compare it to people having 3 kids.

Someone could have 3 kids but 1 is a baby, 1 is a tween and 1 is a teen.

Another person could have 3 kids but they’re triplets and babies .

I felt teaching as a single parent like juggling 3 triplet babies.
Its not saying that the other person with 3 kids doesn’t have challenges but it’s more mentally draining having 3 babies.

For me, it was more about it being mentally draining rather than lack of flexibility or hours etc.

Whereas I’ve worked in much more ‘challenging’ roles like a prison officer but I still wasn’t as mentally drained and found it much easier being a parent to my kids than a teacher.

I started reading it but couldn't read it all as got too annoyed as made no sense as news that's just life generally for most people surely?

Yet many, many people in the country - those who raised their kids decades ago, those who don't have kids - regularly show they don't understand this reality.

'Lawyers' covers a range of jobs, ranging from a solicitor in a local firm earning about 40k to more typical ones earning 60-100k, and a relatively few corporate City lawyers earning hundreds of thousands.

Lawyers typically, work very long hours, far beyond a teacher's hours and far fewer holidays (many of which are interrupted).

Teachers here (Scotland) typically earn over 40k in the earlier years, mid-50k once experienced, and over 70k if a principal teacher/management etc.

Teachers are not paid badly.

My DPs were both teachers and my DB is one. I think there’s way more bureaucratic pressure nowadays, but the pay is better too. My DF worked long hours tbh. My DB has very good boundaries, possibly people accept this better from a man!

The woman in the article sounds a bit wet - she actually seems to be managing well, and her husband sounds useless. Also why tell us that washing and cooking has to be done??

I wouldn’t want to be a teacher, it certainly is a demanding job, but it’s not the only demanding job out there by a long chalk and I know I get a bit tired of hearing about how tough it is.

The person I replied to specifically said 'senior lawyer' which isn't comparable to 'regular teacher'.

I disagree. All I hear about the medical profession is how few jobs there are for qualified doctors and nurses. There have been threads on here about that recently.

I really don’t think people understand much about the crisis in teaching, as posts are filled by supply (me) and more and more unqualified staff. Who are being exploited and also leaving in droves. There is much data on all of this.

Yes the article is basically taking about working mums. Not sure why they had to make it about teachers.

teachers do have a hard job. But so do the rest of us. I have plenty of work and responsibilities that don’t stop at 5pm!! I juggle a lot to stay afloat and have to balance family life. The complex nature of my role means I often don’t switch off either. My choice of role. I love my job. I’m just comparing.

my work also has little flexibility and I have to miss school events for my kids. I have guilt too. But we need us to work to pay for stuff.

it’s what we do. Teachers aren’t special so it’s annoying they’ve framed it like that.

But I do agree that it’s a hard juggle for some of us working parents.

and I agree it’s hard being a teacher (I value ours a lot and used to be one too) - but plenty of other jobs are also hard.

Typical BBC - I think they put the 18 year old intern on these articles who knows nothing about life. last week it was about not being able to afford a day out wasn’t it? With a day out including a three course lunch?

i don’t want to teachers bash but I agree with OP. Poor example - 8 years off for kids?! - only been working for four years since
going back and then part time only just moving to full?! Not exactly veteran service. And head of department too?

yes, lot of professions work over the 9-5. As a working mum, the only way for me to fit in a gym session is to leave at 5.30am rather than my normal 6.30. I can only do this as my DH steps up, so I’m not going to afford this lady too much sympathy.

Not sure why they had to make it about teachers.

It will be a pitched article possibly - to highlight the pressures in teaching recruitment/retention in general.

The article doesn't say teachers are special. It just says that teaching is a difficult job to juggle with home, which is true.

I think you’re missing the point.

the article speaks about a mum juggling her teaching job with family life. It makes out that it’s just teachers who have to do this.

in reality the article should have spoken about working mums as a whole. Nothing in the article is unique to teaching.

Yes I agree.

but unfortunately it doesn’t really help teachers as some people will just think “well I do that too”.

Yes the article is basically taking about working mums. Not sure why they had to make it about teachers.

It perpetuates and reinforces the negative narrative around teachers that allows people.to.blame teachers for the problems in the education system rather than the actual.causes.

Whilst the problem is lazy professionals, it can't be underfunding or wider social problems caused by government underfunding or whatever elsewhere.

This article was just another vehicle to do that.

There is a massive staffing crisis in teaching, and the biggest group leaving are women between 30 and 40. Both teaching unions have stated recently that if we want to recruit and retain teachers we need better maternity and parental leave and better flexible working.