Talk me through a teachers work load… why is it so hard?

[Mummame2222]

So, I adore my kids primary school teachers, they are all wonderful. I admire the work they do, I could never, ever do their job.

I supported all the strikes and believe teachers when they say they are overworked and underpaid.

I’m just curious how their time is spent. The holidays you have off each year does this average out your working week? So say you work 60+ hours during term time, what are you doing during half terms and school holidays?

Just trying to get a better understanding of how their job is so difficult, and like I said, I believe them and support them, I would just like to be better equipped and more knowledgeable when I stick up for them as the inevitable ‘yeah they get so much holiday’ argument always comes up when I try to!

I was asked what my working pattern was. I answered that question.

I spend time marking the essays my students do on Fridays over the weekend. Marking them any other time would be problematic since they get them back on the following Monday.

And actually, just in case your question was more a pointed suggestion that I'm not working hard enough, frankly, I no longer give a damn what random people think.

The students I teach get great results, and the colleagues I work directly with value my experience and expertise. That's what actually matters.

All this is irrelevant. I don’t care how hard the teachers work. I care about how good they are at teaching. I want the best teachers teaching my kids, so in a competitive job market, I want teachers to be paid more. They could be earning 100K and working 35 hours a week if they’re fucking good at teaching my kids.

Please could you somehow persuade schhol leaders and ofsted of this!! Give us back our autonomy!

@Depressedbarbie Ofsted celebrate good teaching. There are many mechanisms available to schools to improve teaching and recognise what good teaching looks like. Money helps get better grads but not always. Many won’t go near teaching due to workplace culture and strikes. Grads have choices and it’s not just about money. They will work hard doing many jobs but don’t want a job with the culture that’s evident in many schools. Grads are recent customers of schools, and guess what - they don’t vote in large numbers to go back! Many schools need a culture change and looking at work life balance is one of them.

We could look at much bigger classes for some subjects. Eg maths A level. We need to pool resources.

Ofsted sometimes celebrate good teaching. Mostly, ofsted celebrate good box ticking and don't allow us to actually develop good teaching because we have to spend so much time on crap. Yes, they say that they dont want this. But the culture is such that schools feel its the only way to scrape through the inspections. Therefore we have to do it. The biggest problem facing good grad retention is the lack of autonomy and the intense responsibility without the means to actually make meaningful changes to achieve this responsibility. It's hard to explain how frustrating and demoralising it is.

I was a governor at a SEN school. The work load on teachers was overwhelming and I was broken hearted by the lack of resources and money provided for our most vulnerable children.

The salaries paid to teachers is derisory and the conditions of school buildings, criminal.

I suggest to anyone wondering 'what do teachers do ' should volunteer at a school and see first hand.

Many won’t go near teaching due to workplace culture and strikes.

😂 blaming the strikes rather than the reason for the strikes.

It’s a cultural thing. Many teachers don’t strike. Many people want professional jobs without unions. They have choices snd they don’t choose teaching. It can be a great job and I’ve known teachers who love it. They teach in well run excellent schools. Teaching is a turn off to many and it really isn’t just about pay. Culture at work makes a huge difference and poor SLTs, a unionized workforce and poor behaviour policies make many never consider teaching.

Teaching has always been unionised and yet recruitment struggles have been more acute as the issues that we went on strike over became untenable.

It’s like there’s a link between the government treating the public sector like crap, and recruitment issues in the public sector.

All this is irrelevant. I don’t care how hard the teachers work. I care about how good they are at teaching. I want the best teachers teaching my kids, so in a competitive job market, I want teachers to be paid more. They could be earning 100K and working 35 hours a week if they’re fucking good at teaching my kids.

Well yes, and excessive workload undoubtedly makes even the really good teachers less good at teaching!

I'm a secondary English teacher. I've skimmed the thread but may have missed someone else saying this.

A set of essays as assessments, needing marking no more than two weeks after pupils wrote them. If each one takes 15 mins to mark/put on spreadsheet. A class of 30 = 7.5hrs. You might have two classes doing this at the same time.

Then add in mocks for yr10 and 11. Two papers, for each subject, that's four papers per child, a range of topics and types of answer required. Each paper takes 15 minutes to mark. You have two classes. That's 60 hours of marking, usually expected to be done within about three weeks

@TheBitchOfTheVicar Do they mark in the holidays? I’m aware it’s not an easy job, but my BIL spent a lot of time travelling! Workload depends on lots of things. He was HOD. I’ve seen many disorganised teachers who take too long over many things. Others are just great at the job and more efficient. Like every other job you can think of!

😂 people don't want to become teachers because teachers go on strike and teachers have a huge workload because they are inefficient.

And yet we can demonstrate how our workload has increased over the years due to, among various other things, the collapse of other children's services, and we can show graphs of how our pay has decreased.

But it must, of course, be the fault of teachers.

If someone call tell me how I mark 150 year 19 mock papers and 62 A level Chemistry papers (x 3 as they did mocks in all of them) I'd be v grateful.
I also have to plan resources for next few weeks back and put in report data for 2 year groups.
During the week I start at 7am and usually leave at 6pm. The 1.5 hours before work are spent answering parent emails, sorting out any pastoral stuff and in meetings. After 3.30pm I'm be in CPD or dept meetings, marking homework/books/tests, covering detentions, on duty, assessing work to get data for each child I teach (currently about 370 of them). Sure there's lots more but I'm on holiday 😊.
Oh and next week I'll be in school, on my holidays, running revision clinics for year 11 and 13.
On top of this I'll be a social worker, anger management coach, holder of tissue box while they cry, negotiating expert, and on occasion a punch bag (thankfully only twice this year).

😂 see I'm tired! Year 9, not 19. Although at least they'd probably need the loo less by then.

@noblegiraffe Of course some people aren’t efficient at their job, or organised. As I said, it’s the same in most professions. Some are just better than others at the job and some don’t teach in demanding schools. Some teachers have great leaders and are supported in their jobs. Others are not. Some teachers strike and others don’t belong to a union at all. However we tend to know that truly great schools have great staff: other schools cannot retain staff or attract them. Better leadership and organisation go a long way.

Many ordinary people aren’t political so won’t want to join a highly unionized school. Lots might go to private schools. You can sneer at that but it’s true. They just want to work and, believe it or not, get along with pupils and enjoy their job. It’s possible.

Teaching is unionised, yes. Blaming teachers being unionised as a reason for the current recruitment catastrophe is ridiculous because teaching has always been unionised. We've been on strike in the past too.

However we tend to know that truly great schools have great staff: other schools cannot retain staff or attract them.

I don't think you realise just how deep the crisis goes...

Many ordinary people aren’t political so won’t want to join a highly unionized school. Lots might go to private schools. You can sneer at that but it’s true. They just want to work and, believe it or not, get along with pupils and enjoy their job. It’s possible.

Most teachers will join a union whether they are 'political' or not, for the legal protection it affords them. This applies to teachers who work in private schools too. Private schools are not above shafting or bullying their teachers, unfortunately.

Yes, lots of unionised teachers in private schools have been on strike recently over attempts to remove them from the TPS.

But I agree that the high unionisation of teachers is due to the need for legal protection against spurious complaints. We’re actually a pretty apathetic bunch, politically, all things considered.

My colleagues and I are generally in unions to provide us with a level of protection due to the difficulty all round with teaching at the moment.

Yup, I'm in the union for legal protection. If something goes wrong in my lab I can be held liable, even if an accident caused by a pupil being stupid. So having a union behind me is vital.

I've never striked (wrong Union), but have now switched to the NEU so I can next time.

Whether you get paid for holidays or not is spectacularly irrelevant, and detracts from your argument. You are immensely busy, and you shouldn’t be having to do as much as has been forced on you. The general public has huge sympathy for that.

However saying that …

You. Don’t. Get. Paid. For. Your. Holidays.

… makes no difference at all. You get paid an amount for a year. IIRC historically it was so that the amount per hour would be higher so as to increase other allowances.

Regardless. You have too much to do at peak times. As others are saying, it’s leading to burn-out. Surely. SURELY that should be the focus.