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!

Former HR in a school. The advertised salary is what they are paid and is paid in equal 12ths throughout the year.

I don't believe any of this. Yeah, he might look like he's living the life of Riley but I doubt that's true.
E grades for teacher training? Doubtful.

I don't think you meant to tag me. I'm in a two-class primary and was making tbe point there is just no one else to do those jobs.

Just focusing on the lesson planning - can someone explain why, when the same thing is taught year in year out, the lessons aren’t standardised? Why do individual teachers need to be coming up with all sorts of plans and linking this to that when the same thing is done every year? Also, you can buy lesson plans online - why don’t the schools just buy them and give them to the teachers to enact? Genuine question 🙏

I have often wondered whether UK teachers have it so hard because there seems to be such an emphasis on planning lessons, creating / printing materials etc.

Would it be acceptable to rely mainly on standard textbooks / workbooks at all in the UK?

It all sounds exhausting and is if people are constantly reinventing the wheel. Do children get that much extra benefit?

I get that every child / class is different but are they so different that a centralised scheme of work is impossible?

I don’t understand the points about planning for each lesson. My mum was a teacher (admittedly in the 90s) and used the same lesson plans for years on end. I’ve now had two kids go through primary school and my current year 6 is doing exactly the same work as his older sibling did - studying the same books, the same essay questions, the same topic (Victorians). It’s the same teacher. The lesson plans must be the same (I assume with some variation for the kids in the class who need who need extra help whose needs might differ year on year).

Crossposted with @Devonshiregal !

Our teachers, especially primary school, used to quite openly get on with their marking while we got on with our work. Would behavioural issues make that impossible now or would it just be unacceptable?

I recall doing this even at the very start of my career, about 16 years ago. There is no way this would be acceptable now. If I even sit down at my desk and SLT see me, you get a talking to.

I teach Y5 and have children who read and write at a Reception level. No TA. They need help absolutely all the time to access any work at all. I wouldn't consider that I have a particularly needy class.

I get into school about 7.45. I'll work almost non-stop until 5. I do take a lunch (30 mins). Then I'll come home and work some more.

I've done no work so far this weekend but I'll have to later.

TBF, that sounds like my office job!

That's interesting. We quite enjoyed these moments. One teacher used to put music on.

It was never very complex feedback - right / wrong / spelling corrected / couple of comments.

But even just printing things for a lesson takes quite a while. You might need 6 different sheets on several different platforms. You need to scan over them to make sure they're the right level for the children. Maybe alter the odd thing to make them usable. Print the answers so you can live mark. That might take, say, 7 minutes. But it's one lesson out of perhaps 5 in a day and that's if you have schemes where everything is ready made. We can't afford schemes but even if we could there is nothing ready made for 'a geographical study of your local area' (which you might need to research before you even begin planning) so it all has to be done from scratch. Don't underestimate just how ridiculously often expectations change so all your old lessons have to change too.

Secondary English Teacher here. It's hard to explain what we do with our time because it's so different every day but just so full on. I arrive at 7.45 for an 8.20 start. To begin my day I get my computer set up, date on board, objective on board for P1, everything out that I'll need. I double check resources have been copied, trimmed and are sufficient, open all the slide shows I'll need for the day. Then it's usually back to back teaching. During that time it's explaining, checking, live marking, one to one for students who are struggling. Keeping pace in the lesson, reviewing and the evaluating at the end is tiring. I'll get those students packed up, the room tidy and wait for the bell, one set out, the next set comes in and it's the same again. Our break time is directed time, we are on duty usually but if not then I'm getting stuff out and ready for the next 2 ish lessons (depending when lunch falls - ours are year group dependent). Now I usually manage to make a cup of tea or go to the loo but never both.
The next lessons starts, repeat, repeat. Lunch time is usually dealing with the million emails which have arrived during the morning - issues with students, requests from SLT, resource requests for absent students, requests from parents. I get the resources out for the next lesson and deal with as much of the email situation as possible. Then it's repeat again. We have 5 lessons in a day.

At the end of the day we have classes, I do these twice a week - one is y11 revision which needs to be planned and delivered like a usual lesson, The other is a ks3 reading group - I resource that with texts, activities and snacks. We then spend a really nice hour discussing and working together on texts. Once a week we have training which goes on until 5pm.

After those things I then have to plan and resource the lessons for the next day. My pay stops at 3.10. Clubs go on until 4.10 so this begins after then. Usually I have 5 lessons the next day so I look through the books for each class, check against my medium term planning for the class, create slides for the next lesson making sure I address any misconceptions in this lesson. I go through the books and mark for SPaG and misconceptions (this is not for official assessment), I do this for each class I have the next day, each one takes me around 45 mins and longer if I have photocopying to do,

Then I tidy my classroom to have a screen break, I check stocks and replenish (pens, books, papers). Then I go back onto my computer and log any behaviour incidents and praise. Then I go back over my emails and action them, usually this involves accessing data and providing electronic copies of resources needed for the next day.

Once that's done I can go home. Sometimes the planning has taken me longer so I'm not finished and I need to do this once I get home. Sometimes it's because I've had something to deal with concerning a child and so I don't get back to my planning.

I get home, and return to being a parent and wife and me.

If I have assessments to mark I take a few home each night from each class, this seems to be faster. Once the assessments are marked for each class I then record the data. Then there's the extras like reports, parents evenings, revision open evenings, options nights, all of which change the routine I detailed above. It pushes the work to my weekends which means I end up doing school work every day of the week.

Whilst we are doing all of this we are also attending to every need of our students - conversations, questions, arguments, discussions. That's exhausting.

In the holidays I work on medium term planning for the next half term. I go through my books again to look for skills I need to focus on with them and bring them into the generic planning that I have done over the summer to make sure it's appropriate. Again, I'm doing this for every class I teach and it's time consuming. I then catch up with marking (usually assessments), go in and change displays, renew supplies such as pens etc, make sure my classroom is stocked with the texts I'll need. I'll refresh displays or renew them completely to match the new schemes of work we will be moving on to. I'll also do revision classes over Feb half term and Easter.

The time in the holidays is as above, not every week, but definitely every holiday. In the summer I take 3 weeks where I do nothing this is to make up for the number of weekends and evenings I have worked without being paid any extra.

That's what I do. I get paid on the upper pay scale and I don't have any extra responsibilities. I'd say outside of my actual teaching it is the marking which takes up the majority of my time. I can't get this done at school.

That makes sense. We didn't have TAs but we did have children who went out for remedial reading lessons, right up to our equivalent of year 4 or so when that seemed to taper off.

The other thing that strikes me about British education is that kids are expected to progress very fast very young, so I suppose they will get left behind quite easily.

That's what I mean, I think.

Nobody was photocopying worksheets or printing things out before we had easy access to that technology. My secondary school had one photocopier in the 1990s. We might have got handouts once a month if that. My primary school may have had one but I don't remember much evidence of that.

We just had textbooks, writing books and sometimes workbooks.

Technology is more of a tyrant than a servant sometimes. That's before you get started on emails.

Do you think people who are off work sick with MH issues because they’re burned out are having a jolly holiday? No. They’re sick and trying to recover. That’s what it’s like being a teacher. You work 60-70 hours a week and it makes you ill. You burn out. Then you get a few weeks off - not for a holiday, but to recover and try to pull yourself together ready to do it all over again.

Not that you even get all of the holidays to recover. You still have work to do - preparation and marking, classes for kids who are behind, etc.

The other issue is that you have to be “on” all the time. Think about how anxious you feel when you’re doing a presentation, when everyone’s eyes are on you, when you’re being watched and you have to behave perfectly. That’s what it feels like being a teacher, all day every day. It’s exhausting.

My planning is minimal as I’ve been teaching for over 20 years. I can’t speak for other subjects but for secondary maths in my school we have a scheme of work which tells us what topics to teach when and it’s up to us how we do that. So for example last week I needed to teach Pythagoras to year 8. I’ve taught it loads of times before so I know how I like to start it with a top set, or how to approach it slightly differently with a lower set. So my planning involves finding my preferred resources, photocopying worksheets, making a note in my planner of what examples I want to give, and then adapting things for any individual kids. It maybe takes me 10 mins to do this for a 50 min lesson. Unless the photocopy is jammed and then it takes longer.

I like the fact that my school trust us enough to say “teach Pythagoras this week” and we can do it however we like. Some schools have set PowerPoints you have to use and I would hate that. I just need my knowledge of the subject, the common misconceptions, what works as a good example, a bit of a real life example etc A whiteboard and pen.

But even 10 mins planning per lesson adds up to an hour to plan a days worth of lessons. And the reality is if I have an A-level lesson that will take a bit longer as the maths is more complex.

Same when I was at school. We can't afford textbooks, plus everything is meant to be exactly the right level to challenge children. Heaven forbid they understand something, do it and have learned the skill they needed to learn. They should always be learning at a level which is a challenge to them. There is actually a bit more of a move towards textbookw again in maths though.

Trying to teach a class of 30+ year 6s who range in ability from year 1 to year 8...on your own and to suit all learning styles and meet all needs. Continuous assessments, observations, documenting everything, children who refuse to do as you ask, constantly changing expectations, no support at all from home in some cases...I honestly could go on...

And holidays are unpaid, we just get our pay spread over 12 months.

I'm fortunate enough now to be part-time and work two days a week in school...I do, on average, 20 hours a week overtime for nothing.

Was just coming on to ask this! My kids are learning the same stuff in school I did 30 years ago - same English books and history.
so why on earth isn’t there set teaching plans to match the syllabus and exam work?
across the uk so all schools teach the same and teachers/staff can then adjust for the individual needs as required - which is hard enough

And even if you manage to be "on" and perfect 100% of the time, you may well have 1 child who has rephrased your interaction so you now have an hour long meeting with a parent to complain about you.

This is a ridiculous question. Teachers get a great deal more holidays than most professions, OP is asking if they work in them for a reason. Don’t be obtuse.

I was at A level, FE so awful awful pay and none of the holiday benefits. If you’ve got an essay based subject you are screwed. Maths etc. you can automate a lot of the marking. Let’s say you’ve got 45 essays to mark and they take 15 mins each to read and write feedback, which in itself is not realistic. That’s already 11.5 hours per week unpaid labour before any of the multiple other things you have to do. I was only being paid part-time, 22 hours, in the first place and every years they’d try to take more hours away.

The best way I can explain is short term vs medium and long term. The days are entirely taken up with the actual nuts and bolts of teaching, helping children in front of you and following up and logging any safeguarding issues/ SEN concerns or strategies but mostly dealing with behaviour. (Recording, emailing, phoning parents)

Medium term I try to keep up to speed with assessments which are vital for knowing what the students understand and therefore inform planning.

Long term it's planning schemes of work, making resources, creating displays etc

The list of tasks is literally endless.