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)

1 hour planning and 1 hour assessment per lesson is ridiculous.

I do all of my planning for the week in a 2 hour slot on Monday mornings (21 lessons). I add in details and do photocopying before school on the other days - 4 hours max.

I have 2 meetings per week - one whole school and one departmental.

I mark homeworks in class so that they can do their corrections there and then, and take in their books every couple of weeks for a “tick and run”, given that they have already received feedback. Maximum of 2 hours per week.

So this adds up to 10 hours per week beyond actual teaching. We teach for 30 hours a week, so just one hour over. I get in an hour early each day, and do one hour of after school prep. This means I have 4 hours to do HOD stuff and answer parent emails.

Nothing goes home.

I have read the mythbusting and it doesn't wash with me - I know what the reality is, having been quizzed minutely by two OfSted inspectors; having seen the ParentView in which there was a 100% response and a 100% glowing satisfaction which counted for nought; and having had to justify the fact that some children with SEND will never make the required grade - or children who have been home-schooled and have arrived in school at the age of 9 or10 with none of the prescribed skills. Every "failure" is a black mark for the school and the battle to get the inspectors to understand the realities of life on the ground and the inability to wield a magic wand is soul-destroying.

I am proud that our school takes on these children and nurtures them and meets their needs (not just academic, but for a sense of self-worth); but sickened that this stance results in OfSted giving everyone grief.

No wonder teachers are wanting to leave.

What is this thread about? working 70 hours per week as a teacher but still plenty of time to work in a homeless shelter? Or you could work 70 hours per week as a teacher but you cant be arsed because you prefer working in a homeless shelter?

You seem to imply you have been 'forced' back in to teaching and yet you say you dont need the job but are quite happy to slag it off.

What is this thread about? working 70 hours per week as a teacher but still plenty of time to work in a homeless shelter? Or you could work 70 hours per week as a teacher but you cant be arsed because you prefer working in a homeless shelter?

I didn't refer to the house shelters. somebody else did.

This thread is about the fact that i don't want or need to teach, I am teaching entirely out of my own good will, t at some inconvenience as there are other things I prefer to be doing,

This thread is about career teachers walking out in droves, because they are treated like shit and worked to death.

This thread is about unrealistic, demanding, rude, aggressive parents , who don't seem to realise that is their attitude and behavior that is contributing to teachers walking out, either because they give up on teaching as a career, or because they were only doing it out of goodwill in the first place, and see no reason to sty and take the aggro.

This is a thread to try and show a few of those parents the light!

if you want your children to have teachers, treat those teachers properly, and teach your children to as well.

Other wise you won't have teachers.

That's all

But greenshoots some of the unrealistic demanding stuff you suggest parents do is ask for differentiated work for their children. That isn't too much to ask if their child has Sen, and if you really think that seen parents who want their children to have a curriculum that actually meets their needs is unrealistic and overly demanding, then I don't necessarily think teaching is the job for you.

oldbirdy Parents obviously want their child with SEN to have a curriculum that meets their needs. That's a reasonable expectation. Teachers want to be able to have a work-life balance and a realistic workload. That's a reasonable expectation.
The point is that due to huge class sizes and lack of teaching assistants, it's not currently possible to deliver both those things. That is not the teacher's fault and it is unreasonable to slate teachers for the failings of the education system which causes these problems.

I understand if people teach an essay based subject so they have more to read and feedback but I mark more often as a Maths teacher. I mark every class or almost every class once or twice a week. Also Maths has always been the most popular A Level subject wherever I taught in so more students per class. But it doesn't take all those hours to mark.

The other things I don't get is meeting. As a normal class teacher, what do you have to talk about that can't be done in an email to everyone involved? Someone will have to minute the meeting anyway so email is the equivalence. As a HoD of a core subject with a team of 12 in a school of 1500 students, the most I had in all these years was 3 hours a week. Some weeks I had no meeting, some weeks I had one or two. Factoring in unexpected meetings, everything will even itself out over the whole year and I got extra free time as a HoD.

Briefing is another stupid thing, how about everyone has something to say email what they want to say to one admin person or one email address. That person copy and paste everything into an email and send it to every staff. It saves everyone 15,20 mins every week. Noone will have to miss anything because they sit at the back of the staff room or because they are on duty or they are late to briefing for whatever more important reason.

I used to work in jobs where turn over was regularly 30-45% annually but it was no big deal. Many of my friends who work in finance move job every 2,3 years to gain pay rise or promotion. I see many teachers stick around one school for years and are too afraid to make a move into the unknown. I think due to moving around more frequent, I learn a lot of good things and learn to be able to spot bad practice more readily. Maybe I just see this as a job after all so I am less likely to do things that I gain nothing from and I would never spend my own money regularly for the job. The most I would do is some chocolate to my form once a year or my favourite class before they leave. I buy my own pens as I am picky but other than that, not a single penny.

oldybird do you think it is reasonable for a child who cannot access the curriculum at all to be in a class of children doing normal work. For child who, at 11 or 13, or 15 has the academic capabilities of a 2 year old, or a 3 year old, and is in a GCSE class. ( This is ridiculously common)That child needs an entirely separate lesson planned every single hour of every single day. and That is the equivalent of teaching 2 classes. What if that child is attached to a TA who's timetable is changed to cover an absence, and suddenly you are given 24 hours notice that he will be in your A level class tomorrow, and requires you to plan, deliver and assess speech therapy exercises for him at the same time as you are supervising a risky practical.

Or what if a child requires all their work sheets to be printed on green paper. How do you do that, if it means having to override the photocopier at some point, and prioritise your printing over every one else's, because that is the only way of feeding in green paper, and to do that the ONLY way you can is to find a time when there is no printing queue at all, and that can mean sitting by the photocopier and waiting for a couple of hours, every time? I once had parents insist on green paper, when I had no access to green paper, and had to go out and buy it out of my own pocket, then get told it is the wrong sort of green....

Or how about a child with VI, when the printer only prints one font size, and that cannot be changed, so you have to write our every single work sheet by hand for one child.

Or a child who dislikes having a woman in authority over him, and can we accommodate that please, (or a parent who won't speak to a woman at parents evening!)

Or a child who's SEN require them to sit at the front, I have 6 front seats, and in one class 15 children who are "required" to sit alone at the front....

Or the child who keeps losing or forgetting or breaking their glasses and can't read without them, so needs reading to, or the child with the broken hand who needs you to scribe for them. Or the child who's parents require that they are repeatedly prompted to stay on task, and who I m expected to give extra time to and make sure I give extra encouragement to,

At the parents who claim their child is "bored because they are not being stretched" when they have plenty of opportunity to stretch themselves, but can't be bothered.

These are just some of the parental expectations, it is quite possible to encounter these all within a single day.

some children have genuine SEN, some don't , none of it is the child's fault, but none of it is the teachers fault either, and frequently the demands are unrealistic, and I simply do not do them. There are not enough hours in the day

Briefing is another stupid thing, how about everyone has something to say email what they want to say to one admin person or one email address. That person copy and paste everything into an email and send it to every staff. It saves everyone 15,20 mins every week

we do this too, it can run to 40-60 pages on a friday evening

I'm out too, OP. Apparently me being in a wheelchair is too high risk.

If you have a child with VI, you should be using their TA to adapt resources. Ditto with any other TAs you have.

NONE of my VI students have a TA Fffion

of course they deserve and should be supplied with the best resources, but there is nothing I can do about that, I don't have the time or the resources to produce them. There is no point the parents having a go at me! ( Not that they have, in this particular school, not t me, but at several other colleagues, who's response has been to resign)

You have several VI students and no TA, and you are in an “excellent” school?

It doesn’t sound excellent to me.

It would probably helpful if people stated when their experience is of the private sector.

Being visually impaired doesn't guarantee a EHCP or a TA.

There are two VI pupils in my state primary school. Neither has any TA support other than what’s generally available for the class. And that’s not much with recent budget pressures.

Those SENCOs have some questions to answer.

There’s no money, Fffion. TAs were first in line for redundancies when the cuts kicked in.

Noble I completely agree. However on the first page the OP included parents wanting differentiation in a list of rants that would cause her to resign and would and had caused parents to resign, in amongst injustices such as complaining about punishments which were deserved etc.

As I said in my earlier post, whilst it is not teachers fault that they are overstretched and find it hard to differentiate, neither is it the parents not the child's, and the OP's stance that we should appreciate and respect our teachers (fair enough) and not ask for differentiated work as part of that, is not on at all. Children only get one chance at education. We have to stir up to change things, not simply accept that our children are not going to get the support they need. Fortunately there is sen law backing this up and, op, if you genuinely have 12 year olds functioning at a 2 year old level without support then your SMT/ sen department is failing those children, who should have ehcp and support or be in an alternative setting. Wanting parents to put up or shut up isn't a solution to the problem for anyone.

Sorry, first paragraph should say caused colleagues to resign

oldbirdy but there is no point in complaining about the teacher if it is not in their power to sort out the problem.

By which I mean saying that teaching isn’t the job for you is unhelpful as it suggests the problem lies with the teacher and their inability to meet unrealistic expectations.

Noble
The OP didn't say complaining about the teacher, but to the teacher. Quite different.
And differentiation is part of the teacher's role. If a teacher us finding this impossible, I would hope they would raise this with SEN Dept or management themselves rather than stop doing it and then getting angry at any parents who suggest their child still needs it.

Noble not at all; my beef with the op was her assertion that as parents we had no right to ask for differentiation as this would make teachers resign. Managing pupils with seen should be seen by all teachers as a core part of their role, with appropriate support. It is the support that is missing, and that is no more the parents' fault, it the child's, than the teacher's.