Disillusioned teacher... what else can I do?

[Grockle]

For the mostpart, I love my job. I love the children. I love teaching. I actually quite enjoy assessment & data stuff and I love writing reports, annual reviews, meeting with parents etc. The children make me laugh and I feel so proud when they make even the tiniest bit of progress.

BUT I'm not well - physically & it's taking it's toll mentally. I have had 2 meetings this week about new (more involved) paperwork, OFSTED this, performance management that, SEFs, SDIP, everyone must be a co-ordinator, we must all do monitoring & audits... I'm tired of all this, I just want to teach. To help the children reach their potential, to celebrate successes with them and not have to worry about jumping through hoops for anyone else. I think it might be time to leave. But what would I do?

Another one signing in (experienced, good/outstanding according to Ofsted, passionate about my subject).

Love teaching. Coming to hate being a teacher.

Teaching is becoming a grind for a lot of us. And it seems to be for the same reasons. I LOVE being in a classroom - it's what I'm good at. Stand me in front of 30 stroppy teenagers for an hour and I'm perfectly happy. But the amount of paperwork, target setting, performance management, audits, etc is just ridiculous nowadays. I've no solutions - just that after more than 20 years in the job I keep feeling that that 'this isn't what I signed up for'. Teaching has changed ridiculously since I began - and nobody seems to care about how darn good you are with the kids. Just how good you are at paperwork.

i too have just left teaching to become unemployed. I absolutely love(d) being a teacher but it too was making me unwell. i also have 2 children and one sunday i was sat worrying about if i was meeting the objectives for x in the class when i thought..why am i thinking about other people's children i have my own that need me. I too was working too many hours and never switching off. We are now so POOR! i am looking for a job and have put myself on the supply list- i miss teaching so much, was a good teacher and very conscientious but something had to give.

mumtoaandj potential poverty is the only thing keeping me in the job at the moment. I'd love to quit and just tutor, but couldn't afford childcare so would have to only tutor in the evenings, which would mean missing them with DD and DH (and effectively never seeing DH).

It depends on how much you want to earn OP.

I gave up teaching in schools 15 years ago, apart from a tiny bit of supply locally- and set myself up as a tutor.

I worked up to 15 hrs a week- 3 hrs x 5 days- and because I had trained ( as an extra) in SpLD could charge more per hour. My earnings equated to a 0.5 post in schools. Not megabucks but stress free. Drawbacks are you start at 3pm and when your own kids come home, and there is wear and tear on your home if you teach there (I did.) It's quite intensive teaching 1:1 for a few hours with no real break.
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I do /did it professionally: give parents a contract at start of each term, take payment for half a term in advance, write a report once or twice a year, do assessments to chart progress.

You could also think about:
Teaching with the OU
Other " people centred work" like counselling or parent coaching.
Museum officer.

I know several former infant teachers who instead of returning to work full time after maternity leave have become child-minders. They can then look after their own dcs and a small number of others (much easier than a class of 30)!
There are also the franchise opportunities (probably cannot name them here) where former teachers offer classes for pre-schoolers e.g. music, gym, creative workshops for artists, language lessons etc.
Other options to consider may be EFL or similar or adult basic skills classes e.g literacy and numeracy.
There are fewer options in FE than there used to be as most colleges are themselves now becoming focussed on exam based courses.
HTH

Astr0naut are we teaching in the same organisation because I've got the same living nightmare lol.

Wow! Just come across this and saw the date. I was wondering how any of you had got on, especially since the new curriculum came in and the crippling cuts began? I am just about to begin my fourth year of teaching and sadly already feel like most of the above commentors.