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’m not a teacher. But if I have a meeting, I spend an hour or two preparing for it. If it’s not a topic I’m familiar with I spend more. If I have to do an hour’s presentation, I spend at least a couple of days preparing. This is in addition to preparing and planning the work that needs to done. It’s not hard to see where the time not in classroom is spent. Unless you do a job that requires no preparation and just need to show up, this is similar to many other professional jobs.

It's much better paid and revered elsewhere - Germany you're "Beamte"(civil servant status) with shorter hours, less pastoral responsibility comparatively and a better pension. Dubai is £££.

As I said, I do cover now. I can confirm that classes without teachers are covered by non-specialists (me) and classes with long-term supply can become disaffected (it's why they use me instead, even then I cannot reach all the kids and they know me well).

I filled in for nearly a year for one class last year in a subject I am good at/have at least an A-level grade A in. This year I am in filling in for a year with two classes in subjects I haven't even done for GCSE. Fortunately, I have two degrees and a PGCE. I am QTS with heaps of experience.

Next year I will be refusing to plug any gaps beyond day-to-day cover.
I do the "fun" part of the job - teaching/delivering - but I am never going to return to full-time teaching. It's back breaking. My own kid in secondary has had so much supply this year. Plus their school staff turnover is much more than my school, which is deemed "good."

The students are coming with more challenges though. The knowledge gaps are massive. General trends in the cohorts: Year 11s are showing less independence (want everything spoon fed) 10s showing less socialisation (petty squabbles all the time) Year 9s less resilience (not sticking at tasks/more outbursts) Year 8s less maturity (just silly, low-level repeated behaviour) Year 7s less literacy (gap between lowest and highest in mixed ability groups is staggering).
It feels magnified since Covid.

You've always had different challenges/foci pastorally per group: year 7 transition, Year 8 embedding, Year 9 options, Year 10 work experience, Year 11 exams/college. All schools have always had kids with additional needs/kids with emotional and behavioural issues. It just feels that there are so many more of them now and it makes the job more social worker than imparting knowledge.

It's one of the few jobs that once you've done a day's working teaching and the associated admin that occurs during the day, you go home and do another day's work to prepare for the following day's work.

It's exhausting, emotionally and mentally. Don't get me wrong it can be the best job in the world but until you've experienced the sheer intensity that is teaching you just can't appreciate it. It's rapid fire decision making for 7+ hours a day. Apparently teachers make more on the go decision than surgeons 🤷‍♀️

I am a year out of the classroom, after 20 years in secondary. I agree with PP I am so much less stressed, I have way more productive down time (half terms were spent ill/working, Christmas was well, Christmas and Easter doing revision classes and marking EPQs etc) so even the holidays weren't really my own.

I still think I am not doing "enough" in my new job. After 20 years teaching and the craziness of a school I still struggle to come to terms with the pace of the new job.

Agreed. If it were an easy job there wouldn't be chronic shortages as everyone would be clamouring to do it. I wish they were. At my school we currently have 10 vacancies and several staff who frankly can't cope and wouldn't have been employed had there been anyone else applying.

Ok I will bite.
My year 11 classes do mocks one week.
So have about 90 students doing two essays each.
That's 180 essays which take about 15 mins to mark each with comments and targets etc.
I make that 45 hours right there.
So if I do that over three weeks that's 15 hours marking per week.
Then I have a class from every other year group who will be handing work in including year 12 and 13 which is more involved and takes longer.
Then add in reports, clubs, being a form tutor, planning, parent meetings etc.
It never ends.

I work 8am-4.30pm most days. Usually work through my break and lunch too apart from maybe 5-10 minutes at the most to use the toilet and shovel a sandwich down.
Then I do a couple of hours work in the evening 8pm-10pm 3 x a week. Plus a few hours on a Sunday.
Then there's parents evening or meetings after-school at least once a week.
I'm constantly thinking about work even when I'm not working - I need to do x,y,z tomorrow, worrying about a class or a pupil, stressing about an interaction with a parent.
And after all that you still feel like you aren't good enough. SLT will say you need to do more feedback, or an extra project or another admin task on top of what you are already doing without any extra time to do it in.
The holidays are good but they don't make up for the extra hours in term time. It takes a week off just to de-stress from the previous term and the second week you have to start planning for next term.

Nice little nit-pick there @literalviolence most bank holidays fall inside school holidays anyway. I said around 6 weeks holiday and this was a quick calculation. What’s it got to do with nurses? OP didn’t ask about the NHS.

I agree with pp Ilovebooks
I’ve worked in schools that had a tough workload and schools which have an easier one - from experience I think it depends on the school,area and perhaps the year group you are teaching. I’m currently in an ‘easier’ school

I've stayed in the same year group for a few years and I often reuse the same resources. I do differentiate for some but don't make endless resources for different groups. I try to be 'good enough' in each lesson, rather than outstanding.

Meetings are always short in my school and we use marking codes and verbal feedback for speed and efficiency. We are not micromanaged by SMT and this seems to be the biggest difference between some other local schools and mine.

I think the most time-consuming aspect is endless SEN and EAL and safeguarding paperwork which has monumentally increased over my 25 years of teaching. The most exhausting aspect is the the behaviour management and sometimes managing parental expectations. I work in what could be described as a challenging school/area.

Many of my younger colleagues are perfectionists which makes their life harder, especially with a young family. In many ways I think part time working can be harder as I can manage and adjust my workload over a whole week.

Without doubt, over the 25 years the punitive aspect of ofsted has driven the whole thing. We are either preparing for it or analysing and disecting it in meetings with curriculum changes etc. This constant reinventing the wheel is what drives the micromanaging SMT. What a monumental waste of time energy and money it all is. I think getting rid of it will be a gamechanger.

I would ask every profession that is striking and I would like to support.

We're not striking?

Ok so in primary we have a class roughly 8.50-3.30 and you understand what that entails?
During that time you would expect not to get a minute to catch your breath because you're dealing with the highly differing needs of 30 children. Then outside that time we also do the following:

Run clubs
Deal with behaviour (keeping kids in at lunch, having restorative conversations, making phone calls, collecting dysregulated children from the yard, fixing things that have been broken, giving first aid)
Meet with parents, speak to the on the phone or respond to their emails.
Plan: long term, medium term, weekly, daily, individual planning.
Write support programmes for SEND or struggling children.
Buy resources (usually with our own money)
Make resources such as visual time tables, lanyards, word banks, games.
Mark books
Prepare and present floor books (for schools who have them)
Upload and comment on photos on various platforms.
Write end of year reports
Write incident reports
Write reports for any SEND referrals needed.
Maintain the classroom including tidying, putting up displays, sorting cupboards where 30 children fling resources haphazardly in the name of tidying up.
Attending meeting and training on average 3 per week, whole school, morning briefing, safeguarding, team meeting.
Talk to colleagues to support and problem solve.
Find lost jumpers, shoes PE tops etc, usually unnamed and exactly the same as 27 others in the class.
Research new ways to get pupils to stay on track and stop biting people or throwing chairs.
Read up and research the lesson material.
Meet with professionals and provide evidence for their reports.
Meet with other schools for moderation.
Meet with school governors to give reports

And then if you coordinate a subject area (which most do)
Coordinate all years plans and make sure material is up to date.
Attend subject leader training and feedback to SLT and/or teaching body.
Prepare and lead whole school training.
Look through other year group books and write reports about how to improve them.
Meet with the curriculum lead to plan next years long term plan.
Audit resources, purchase, organise and store new resources then a week later go back and tidy up and re-audit the resources after year 4 were allowed to help themselves without adult supervision.
Write a report to go in the SEF
Write and evaluate a subject action plan.
Meet with and give advice to teachers who are struggling with your subject.
Write or update policies
Keep the website up to date.

I could probably go on finding tasks but hopefully this gives you a bit of an idea.

I haven't read the full thread but I imagine I spend several hours a week in things parents will never see. Ridiculously long referral forms for suspected SENDs. Curriculum design documents that are 30 pages plus and keep changing (I lead 3 subjects, and I'm part-time). Emails about booking the music teachers for next year or sorting out the residential or organising speakers for assembly. Uploading documents to the website that have to be there but no one ever, ever looks at. That's all outside the actual job of teaching, which in a small primary with no one to share with takes from about 8-4.30 just to print off work for, prep resources, mark and teach. That doesn't include actually planning the lessons, which will take me a working day every holiday for the half term then a few hours a week of making resources. Then everything else beyond that just adds to your day - the photocopier not working, having to make displays, dealing with a safeguarding issue at after-school club, dealing with contractors cos there's no one else to, having to upload photos to Facebook etc etc.

I don't think underestimating your holidays by 3 weeks really can be called nit picking! I didn't say OP asked about nurses. My point is that teachers do get more holidays than other jobs which require similar levels of training and are public roles. They may be deserve it but I think we need to be honest in the conversations (and no I'm not accusing you of not being honest. I think you just miscalculated).

@Mummame2222 I've been a primary teacher for 14 years in KS2. I now work 2.5 days, and in that time I'm in school for 27 hours (I go in on my half day unpaid so I can get my some of my marking done). Things I have to do outside those 27 hours/school hours:

Marking

Planning

Resources

A form after every lesson noting down children who need extra help, notes for next lesson etc.

Plans for children with EHCPs and SAPs (school action plans).

A meeting once a week til 5pm.

A singing club (I choose to do this voluntarily)

Paperwork linked to my subject (primary teachers are required to lead a subject. The paperwork workload for this is huge thanks to Ofsted)

Training courses (child protection, online safety etc). These are online now, but can be quite long. The child protection one was nearly 2 hours. Understandable, as it's so important.

Fill out safeguarding forms if needed. This is becoming more common unfortunately.

Liaise with social workers if a child with one as an important meeting coming up.

Pupil premium and SEN profiles every term.

Curriculum reviews at various points in the year.

Updating planning (lots of people think we can reuse everything. We can to an extent, but the needs of the children may be different the following year, the govt changes goalposts constantly etc).

Assessments

In summer term, write reports

Plan separately for 2 children in my class who can't access the Y3 curriculum.

Parents evenings (4 throughout the year, so not too many luckily)

Productions (two evenings)

I also have 2 kids of my own, so life is busy!

In the holidays I try not to do too much work, but I always put the kids in childcare for at least a day or two (depending on the holiday. More in the summer) so I can get some bits done.

I couldn't do it full time and look after my children. I'd never see them!

I didn’t underestimate my holidays by three weeks, as I mentioned bank holidays fall mainly in school holidays. I stand by my around 6 weeks statement. Feel free to patronise me further @literalviolence about my ‘miscalculations’
I was just happy to answer the OPs question with my relevant experience. I think we’re done now.

My friend is a secondary school teacher. One day in the summer holidays last year I went along and was signed in as a visitor. We spent all day removing all the displays and putting up new displays. She spends a lot of time marking. In the actual classroom quite a bit of the day is spent on what I call crowd control.

You said what are teachers doing in their holidays? The implication is there that they should be working. that’s why you had the comment

It’s not always about the hours we are working it’s how hectic the day is that leads to teaching burnout. Imagine having 5 back to back meetings every day that last an hour. You had to prepare for those meetings before work. In between each meeting you might have 30 seconds before the next one arrives so you don’t even have time for a toilet break.

After the second meeting you may have a 15 meeting break but increasingly so we are put on duty because there isn’t enough staff and students can’t be unsupervised. You then have a working lunch where people from the meetings can pop in to ask you questions and you start marking the work from said meetings. After the meetings you will probably then have some sort of training sessions or another 3 hour meeting with stake holders.

You then have to prepare for the next day to be exactly the same. Imagine how much work that would create to mark. That all has to be done in your own time. That isn’t the issue though, it’s the exhaustion of never having a single moment of the day. I haven’t even mentioned that 60% of the people in the meetings don’t want to be there and actively disrupt you every time you speak. Plus their parents question drop in to question every decision you make too.

I sometimes drive home and can’t remember the drive at all. It’s very difficult to describe to someone who isn’t a teacher.

I'm not patronising you. Your calculations are wrong. You say you take 6 weeks holidays then list 9. The bank holiday falling in the school holidays is entirely irrelevant. I just counted what you said

4 weeks summer
2 weeks xmas

that's 6 weeks already. The you say you also take some leave at Easter and half terms. It can't still be 6 week. You don't do teachers any favours when you takedown to people like this and refuse to be clear. But I'm happy to be done because there's no point in continuing a conversation whe you don't want to be clear in what you're saying.

I do not believe teachers get paid for all of their holidays - just like every job, teachers are entitled to weeks every year where nit expected to work.

OP do you work every day of your annual leave?

Union guidelines

1. Shouldn't be supervising pupils or having meetings at break or lunch
2. Shouldn't be having to email outside of work time
3. Shouldn't undertake extra responsibilities (unless paid)
4. Shouldn't have to submit lesson plans to SLT
5. Shouldn't have to provide extensive comments on every pupil piece
6. Shouldn't have to submit formative assessment for scrutiny
7. shouldn't do extra contingency relating to awards/quals
8. shouldn't be keeping/filing records
9. shouldn't be transferring manual data
10. shouldn't be analysing attendance or results data
11. shouldn't be managing data in school management systems
12. shouldn't be collecting £
13. shouldn't be investigating absence
14. shouldn't be bulk photocopying
15. shouldn't be typing up/revising manuscripts
16. shouldn't be typing letters to pupils/parents
17. shouldn't be producing class lists
18. shouldn't be doing displays
19. shouldn't be collating reports
20. shouldn't be administrating work experience
21. shouldn't be administrating exams
22. shouldn't be administrating cover
23. shouldn't be ordering/maintaining ICT equip
24. shouldn't be ordering supplies
25. shouldn't be stocktaking
26. shouldn't be taking minutes
27. shouldn't be organising bids
28. shouldn't be teaching, setting or marking work of absent pupils
29. shouldn't be covering absence
30. shouldn't be subject to more than three observations
31. shouldn't do mock inspection activities

NASUWT | Tackling Excessive Teacher Workload (England and Wales)

The way I put it roughly to people who aren't in teaching is that PPA is 10% of teaching time.

For a 60 minute lesson, that's 6 minutes of preparation time.

How likely is it that someone can do all the following in 6 minutes:

• think of a lesson topic that flows from last lesson and prepares for next lesson
• design the teaching input to match the needs of the specific class
• resource the lesson generally eg prepare materials, make PowerPoint, ensure you've got the right resources for your tasks
• consider each child with SEN and consider what they need as bespoke support for the lesson
• plan relevant homework, if required
• mark homework, if required
• mark the work produced by 30-33 students in the lesson, if required

I work full-time in primary and out of all the school holidays, I only properly relax in the Summer for about three weeks.

The other times are preparation, assessment or trying to recover (always poorly 😞 from being run down).

It's a relentless role as many have described above. You never really switch off and over the past few years I've noticed my role has increased in mental health support, medical support and behaviour.

Easter is coming up and I have to put one week aside to write reports when my lovely boys want my attention. It's a hard one that's for sure.

It’s always been that teachers have to do marking and lesson prep outside of teaching hours though. My mother was a teacher in the 60’s and did this. You are well aware of this before you train. I guess it depends on your ability and organisation skills as to how long this takes.

The trade off was 12-13 weeks holiday.

Teachers in those days weren’t constantly complaining about how they had the hardest job in the world nor were they revered as saints.

It was a vocation they chose to go into.

@CanNeverThinkOfAName my aunt worked in the 60s too, and said teaching is a much harder job now, mainly due to the pointless paperwork. It isn't comparable to today's job unfortunately!