A day in the life of a teacher

[ByFunDeer]

I feel like school life day to day it’s just so busy, me and the other staff are so busy. Am I the only one who feels off their feet constantly.. For the rest of you as a sendco, teacher or ta what is a daily play out for you throughout the day?

I was a teacher for 31 years. It was relentless.

I have recently quit primary teaching. It really was relentless. I didnt take a break all day - even eating my lunch sat at my laptop or cutting up resources. I would often be asked to cover duties so I wouldn't have time to prepare or set up my lessons. SLT would make countless mistakes, but expected me to be perfect.

Teacher, Head of Department (2 subjects)

6am - get up, do emails
7.30 - get to school, more emails, clean boards, write date, try to copy lesson resources, inevitably copier breaks / jams, so try and fix / hunt for another copier in a busy place
8am - check in with my team
8.10 - welcome the Y10s, check with them, start teaching at 8.15
8.45 P1 teaching, followed by P2 teaching, then duty at break
11.15 P3 teaching, followed by P4 teaching, then 20 minutes lunch, which by the time various kids have come to talk about homework / school trips / general problems = about 5 minutes
1.30 - same Y10s come back, iron out wrinkles, teach them some more
2pm - P5 teaching
3pm - kids go home, some sort of meeting 2-3 days a week, e.g. department, cpd, management
4pm - emails, reports, SEN feedback, safeguarding logs, phone calls home

I get 5 hours PPA over a fortnight and an additional 4 hours leadership time, but I also have a PGCE student and no extra time for them.

The only way I can make this work is by doing anything to do with curriculum at home. Currently writing the scheme of work for an entire GCSE during the summer 'holidays'.

I'm also a career changer. Worked for the man for 30+ years. Can honestly say that I've never worked so hard as teaching, and still it's apparently not enough, judging from people say about us (as a profession).

Just a TA, but.... I do additional break/lunch duties to help make ends meet, so every minute of my day is timetabled from 8.15 - 3.30. If I want to go to the toilet I have to be late to a lesson.

I left after 26 years. It had worn me out.

TA, secondary - I am on my feet from the moment I wake up until the moment I get home (even then there’s chores etc). We support students through all breaks and lunches, the school needs us to and we do it to try to earn a bit extra as our salaries are absolutely dire. We eat standing up and are lucky if we get to use the loo at all, which makes us late to lesson and we get told off for that. The job is exhausting, demanding, stressful and sometimes dangerous.
I honestly don’t know why we do this job, most of us are looking to leave.

I've been teaching for several decades. I'm ahead of year in a large secondary school
6.30 Get up and have a bath doing emails
7.45 Get to work make coffee in my office deal with any matters arising
8.15 Team meeting assemblies teach till break
10.30 Break check email make phone calls go to the loo
Around 1 pm, I have a short lunch break where I will eat for about 10 minutes of it
Finish school at 3 pm
Discipline issues phone calls, parents, meetings rarely can ever get out before 4:30 pm
I get more free time during the day than most normal teachers, but it's not like I'm sitting around eating grapes during it

But you know a lot if you don't like doing the job, don't do it. A lot of people find it tiring because they're physically not very fit. That said, constant performing for five hours plus is draining
All you need is to have a classroom up a couple of flights of stairs and realise how many colleagues are just horrendously unfit 😁😁

I did at least 16,000 steps every work day. I left because I wanted to leave, which was nothing to do with fitness.

I don't think it's the constant performing for 5 hours that's the issue. It's the enormous amount of admin.

What's weird is that I was at secondary myself over 40 years ago and we used exercise books and pens. Four decades later, and we're still using exercise books and pens. Sure enough, the blackboard has turned into a whiteboard but it's the same principle. What my teachers didn't have to deal with, back in the day, was presentation slides based learning, email and constant communication requests, often bolstered by Chatgpt.

It's perfectly ok that teachers don't want to be managing admin because that's not their role at the end of the day.

I'm a SENCO and DSL. No two days are ever the same. I get to work when the school opens and leave when it closes. Most days, I spend the whole day firefighting and then go home and do my actual work.

I have been a teacher for many years. My son is a teacher too. I see what people are saying on here. However if you don't have a moment to eat a sandwich or get home at reasonable time at least a few days a week then either the school is wrong, you've taken on too much responsibility or you are doing the job wrong.

HLTA - get in school by 8.20. Read emails/briefing, sort any resources needed for registration/P1&2. Have a form so with them 8.50-9.20.
Then it's literacy interventions, in class support or covering lessons until 3.30. I do a lunchtime duty every day so get 25 mins for lunch and a 15 minute break. Sometimes I lose part of this time because I'm following up on student behaviour/sending emails/discussing arising issues with other staff.
Don't get any formal PPA although my line manager gives me as hoc time to prep, depending on what else is going on during the day.
I try not to take too much work home anymore, although I have written my form reports from home and I do prep for literacy interventions.

A family friend of ours recently gave up teaching as she found it too hard -shes now quite happy as a paramedic doing shifts, which I think is quite telling.

A lot of professions are like this... for some reason MN seems to be all about how hard it is to be a teacher.

Yes, I agree, any young teachers quite like to do this Martyr thing
Then they go in the school holidays and paint their own classroom and don't get why everybody who's older knows that's a crap idea

I joined a school in special measures, it's now rated good. Yes, that's taken hard work. No, it's not like other professions ... I'm nearly 60 and have previously worked as a lawyer and within the NHS.

I think context is everything. If the school is in a white working class deprived area, it's quite different to if the school is in an area with limited social issues and high cultural capital.

... then either the school is wrong, you've taken on too much responsibility or you are doing the job wrong.

As I say, context is everything.