I don't want to be a teacher but

[Greenshoots1]

The pressure to return was huge.

10 or 12 emails every day, offering work in "outstanding" schools

Every job search I did coming back with hundreds of vacancies in education.

I left because it was slave labour. I took other, lower paid jobs ( which ended up as more per hour than teaching, and gave me a far better work life balance)

I have retrained in my own time, with my own money and am looking forward to an new career, and have big plans for the rest of my life!

But I am teaching again. I was promised good money ( it is) in an excellent local school ( it is, both excellent and local) with well behaved children ( they generally are) and a caring management team ( they are too)

The work load is horrendous. I spend more time doing something or other with meaningless, pointless statistics than i do teaching my lovely, well behaved, local students.

I don't see enough of my family.

I am in the school more than 13 hours a day in term time, and bringing work home. I have been in 3 full days so far this holiday, and need to do at least 2 more...

I am personally paying hundreds of pounds for resources, as are other staff.

it is wiping out my life.

I am in a department of 10, 2 of whom resigned at Christmas, 2 of who have resigned with affect from Easter, and 2 of whom intend to leave in summer.

I am just mentioning this, because I am close to the end of my tether.

If anyone of you parents complain that your child is being punished unfairly because you have believed them over the truth,

If any one complains that I have not differentiated enough for their child.

If any one of you complain that I have not marked the homework quickly enough, or my lessons are not interesting enough, or that I have only been on school trips two weekends instead of the expected four, or that I have not returned your email or phone call quickly enough, or that I was not tip toeing around your child with the proper deference and respect in some way...

then I'm out of here. I don't need this job.

I am just bringing this up, because of the number of parents I hear complaining that their child doesn't have a permanent teacher in one subject or another, are coping with constantly changing supply teachers, or the school can't get a subject specialist

when actually the previous permanent subject specialist has left BECAUSE of that child's behaviour, or that parents ridiculous complaint.

We are a rare commodity. If your child is being taught by permanent subject specialists, it would help a lot if you taught your child to be respectful and appreciative.

( help your child - I mean. Not me, it doesn't make any difference to me - I can take the job or leave it, and if people are unpleasant to me, I will leave it - as several of my colleagues have just done)

Am allocated (sorry)

Where does this 70+ hours each week go?!

so...as a minimum....

say 5 hours week printing and photocopying
4 hours a week meetings
4 hours a week data entry
5 hours a week registration and being available to help tutorgroup
2 hours a week running detentions
1.5 hours lunch/break duty
1 hour phone calls emails responding to parents
2.5 hours week tidying room, cleaning boards, filing paperwork

so, you will see that teaching, before you have even started teaching, accounts for full time hours.....

Add to that 22 hours teaching, which requires a minimum of 22 hours planning and 22 hours marking, if the marking and planning is done to a bare minimum, just enough to scrape by on, with the holidays spent catching up on what can't be done adequately and thoroughly at the time...

You will notice that this is more than can be fitted into a week.

So how am I meant to fit assemblies in? Parents evenings? report writing? training? keeping up my subject knowledge? eating breakfast and lunch?ordering and setting up equipment?

and so on.

And this is in a good school with tight discipline and well behaved students, so I am spending very little time resolving bullying, and other incidents.

What is the answer? What needs to change

@ofcol I'm sure some teachers are bad at managing their time, but when you have so many complaining of the workload, doesn't it make you think there's a point rather than the opposite?

Lovely of you to chunk it all down, but reconsider planning 20 lessons in 3 hours. If you were to work without pause, without fielding colleague's and trainee's questions, without spending any time observing others (all takes up a fair amount of time each week) that would be a MAXIMUM of 9 minutes of planning per lesson.

Granted there are lessons already available. We might not even need to plan at all. But then, I don't like reusing old lessons. I'm a better teacher year on year and want to teach it better than last time. Even if I were to shortcut it, I still have to differentiate to meet each pupil's needs and that takes time. If it's an exam class, I might need to do a bit of reading or research too. Might also need to make a resource, or differentiate one a colleague made.

Then there's time spent with pupils. You seem to think all teachers plan, mark and teach. There's plenty more! I have an autistic child in my form group and I spend an unpredictable amount of time supporting him across the week. We have a very good relationship and he requires a lot of explaining and time to cool off/work through his emotions to be able to make his education a success. Not in your time plan though. Then there's more time for other students, helping them with something they're not sure about, guidance about uni etc. And my favourite, reading some creative writing they've done in their own time. Yes I could tell them all to go away so I can get my work done, but as I'm sure you realise, building relationships with pupils is one of the best things about the job and it takes time.

And my school gives us 1 hour of duties a week too.

What do you want to talk about next, how lazy those pesky junior doctors are?

(this is all addition to the OP's points btw)

And deeply embarrassingly I've misused my apostrophes - colleagues' and trainees' - there's certainly more than one of each of them!

I became a teacher 15 years ago having worked in business since university. It's hard work, but easier than any other job I have done. I put in long hours, but so do people outside teaching. And the holidays, pension and job security make up for it. Top tip: avoid the staff room, it's full of whinging teachers.

My top tip would be to make time for the staff room as it can keep you sane.

I have young children and work full time as a teacher - I work an 8 hour day at School 8am-4pm then pick the kids up, do tea, homework, bath, bed. I start work again at about 8pm - marking/planning/admin - for about 4 hours until 12/1am sometimes later. I do about another 12hours at the weekend. So a 70 hour work week is normal, if it’s a report writing week or run up to exams it can be longer.
I often skip lunch due to work/seeing kids/running a club. Tea I’ll eat with the kids or skip that if I have too much work. I eat lots of toast and cereal!

But.... I love having the holidays with my children and I get to pick them up at 4.30 every day. I have friends who work full time who barely see their kids - pick up at 6, a couple of weeks holiday a year. I also enjoy the kids I teach and I’d hate working in an office all day. Admin is the worst part of the job.

I have always been good at switching off. Teaching is one of those jobs where you could keep working 24/7 and still have things to do, so I have always drawn very clear boundaries and stopped working at a set time, even when there is work still to be done. I can’t do it all anyway so I will stop while I still have the energy to deliver my lessons - there is no point slaving over planning if you’re too exhausted to actually teach the meticulously crafted lesson after all. My perfectionist colleagues have sunk one by one - I think it’s a job which attracts perfectionists but is unmanageable if you are one. I’ve always been able to cut corners and my pupils haven’t suffered for it.

However, even I can’t do it anymore. It’s having to be ‘on’ constantly, the relentless interaction and no slack of any kind. When I started teaching I’d set the class off on a task and I’d sit at the front and mark books. That doesn’t happen now; despite a massive focus on independent learning for years, kids panic and ask an endless stream of questions. I’m constantly circulating the room, offering individual support, updating teams of paperwork on each child and collating evidence for all 200+ about exactly what I’m doing and how to get them to reach largely unrealistic targets. It’s not so much the length of the hours for me as the stress of the hours while I’m there - the pressure is insane and I can see it affecting the students who are suffering from anxiety in vast numbers which has exploded over the past couple of years. I really fear for my own children in the toxic environment of schools now which seem intent on putting crippling levels of pressure and accountability on staff and students alike. No one ever seems to be allowed a break!

Not sure about primary so I only comment about things that I know about ie secondary. I take less than 5 mins a day on average to do photocopying. Planning normal lessons maximum of 30-45 minutes a day but normally 15 minutes max. If I spend anymore than that then I would question myself about how I haven't been able to have something from previous years and can edit it. 1 to 2 hours marking 5 days a week. I run more extra curricular activities than any other staff apart from PE and music staff but I prepare things carefully in the first instance and adjust them only when necessary.

I ran lots if trips in the past. Once I have done a trip, I write myself a checklist and follow all of it after. The time investment at the beginning will pay for itself in the long run. I see many staff still need to ask for paperwork and what to do after running the same trip more than twice. Why? Save the paperwork on your own USB/area or put a shortcut so you can find it quickly. The amount of wasted time I see people running around and complaining about paperwork is staggering.

There will be crazy weeks with meetings, parents evening etc but it will even itself out in the end, especially the weeks in the summer term. I would say I now work around 50 hours a week because I do some unique type of work that wouldn't happen every year. My weekend work is about 4 hours and very little during holiday unless I have some major changes or ideas to work on.

4 hours a week meetings?? That’s ludicrous. I meet with my nqt for about an hour and a half and then there might be a meeting in the calendar every fortnight or so. Everything else can be sorted in emails

We have weekly whole staff, departmental, pastoral year group meetings and mentor meetings plus regular HODs, HOYs, pre-parents evening meetings, senior staff meetings and professional development meetings. This doesn’t include meetings with parents (off the cuff meetings not parents evening) plus meetings with pupils (we have to regularly have an individual meeting with each tutee), and then there’s termly whole staff meetings which last at least 2 hours.

I’d say 4 hours of meetings a week is on the low side!

well, I was giving 4 hours as the minimum!

We have weekly whole staff, departmental, pastoral year group meetings and mentor meetings plus regular HODs, HOYs, pre-parents evening meetings, senior staff meetings and professional development meetings

But you wouldn't expect an ordinary class teacher to attend HOD, HOY or senior staff meetings would you? HOD, HOY etc. are paid extra for their duties and SLT are paid very well - my dc attend successful private schools (one prep, one senior) - I can view the schools' accounts online and at least 15 members of staff at the senior school earn £60,000 pa plus (and the head earns way over £100,000 pa).

Both schools print a termly calendar for parents and staff which lists scheduled staff meetings - the senior school only has one HOY meeting per half term and one HOD meeting per half term.

and then there’s termly whole staff meetings which last at least 2 hours
Why don't the school hold these during INSET days?

Surely primary school teachers don't hold lengthy meetings every week either?

plus meetings with pupils (we have to regularly have an individual meeting with each tutee)

My dc's form tutor holds similar, 5 minute meetings during registration/form time which is why that time is allocated.

Greenshoots1

Two days ago you started a thread about homeless people dying on the streets from the cold - in which you mentioned that you worked for a homeless shelter - I don't know how you find the time.

It is so very sad. I am a primary school governor and I could weep at the garbage the teachers are forced to do. I sometimes feel that I am part of that garbage as I have to take up their time with various visits and scrutiny to please OfSted. I am filled with admiration for all of them.

We have reached a point where a good teacher is a good teacher IN SPITE of the tasks they are asked to do, none of which enhance the well-being of their pupils. When will the government get this and back off?

Professional judgement and experience is totally undervalued, while the ability to create statistics and fill in forms becomes the be-all and end-all of what the government values. I find it utterly sickening.

for all you wonderful teachers out there.

Two days ago you started a thread about homeless people dying on the streets from the cold - in which you mentioned that you worked for a homeless shelter - I don't know how you find the time.

if I cared about completeing the allocated work load for teaching, I wouldn't have the time! i don't. I just do what I think is reasonable, and have no interest in performance management, or anything like that. When I thought of teaching as a career i frequently wouldn't have even the time to sleep.

These days I am looking towards a different career, but have been persuaded to return to teaching for a while.

It is doable for me, as I don't need the job, and can just tell the management to do one if they try and over load me!

But the point of this thread, is that schools are relying almost totally on good will from staff, many of whom don't really want to be there, and don't really have to be there.

I am left amazed at the number of parents I hear complaining about everything under the sun, expecting to be able to make silly demands and control the teacher, and then bleating on and on about how their child's education is being ruined by not having subject specialists...... and NOT! seeing that they personally are the reason for that!

"Surely primary school teachers don't hold lengthy meetings every week either?" We have a weekly whole staff meeting lasting 1 to 2 hours depending on the agenda in Primary

Every job search I did coming back with hundreds of vacancies in education
I am in a department of 10, 2 of whom resigned at Christmas, 2 of who have resigned with affect (hopefully not an English teacher) from Easter, and 2 of whom intend to leave in summer

That in itself would not be unusual for any profession. Teaching is a large employer (especially if you work in London or a large city) - teachers retire, have babies and move for promotion all the time - it depends why they are leaving, where they are going and can we replace them that needs to analysed in greater depth. Do you know what percentage of teachers reach natural retirement age each year/go on maternity leave each year/move to the private sector?

Part of the problem must be that over 70% of teachers are female and teaching is definitely a full-time job, which many women with children (plus a husband on a good salary) simply do not want/need. I occasionally read the Staffroom threads - most of the posters looking to leave teaching do not want to move to full-time jobs with 5 weeks holiday and they end up taking TA jobs/tutoring jobs paying less than half a teacher's salary.

That's what I mean, many teachers can just walk out, and do.

they end up taking TA jobs/tutoring jobs paying less than half a teacher's salary.

but many such jobs pay more PER HOUR than teaching

http://www.ictsteps.com/2017/12/the-depressed-teacher.html

Mishappening

As a school governor, are you aware of the mythbusting publications issued by Ofsted? They must publish them for a reason...
www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-from-september-2015/ofsted-inspections-mythbusting

I see that the depressed teacher in Norestformrz's link also mentions the Ofsted mythbusting publications