A few questions for teachers.

[TheFalconInThePearTree]

I'm trying to choose my subject for University next year, I want to do Chemistry but was considering doing a chemistry degree that's combined with a teaching qualification as I'd love to teach science and I'm trying to keep as many options open to me as possible.

Everyone tells me I'm mad though for even considering teaching and sometimes when I remember the crap my teachers at school had to put up with at school and the complete disdain many of the pupils had for them I do begin to wonder.

I'd appreciate it if any of the teachers here could answer a few questions.

How did you qualify as a teacher?

Do you work in primary or secondary and if the latter what do you teach?

Do you teach in state schools or in the private sector?

Do you enjoy your job?

And finally I'd appreciate hearing about your teacher training, anything at all.

TIA.

I would echo all the fabulous comments put on here by the teachers so far. Teaching is a vocation - It is exhausting and all-consuming but it can be tremendously rewarding and no two days are ever the same. I hope you manage to follow your dream, Falcon.

squeakypop - i too found my PGCE year easy (musch easier than my degree) and I was in a very rough inner city comp but then teaching "properly" in that type of school is not akin to the PGCE year.

I did a PGCE (secondary maths) after a four year BA degree in Maths and Philosophy.

I work as a secondary maths teacher

I teach in a comprehensive school

I (mostly) enjoy my job, but to properly answer that question would take many paragraphs! It is tiring and it never ends - you just choose which bits you have to not do, in order to sleep and have a life. But you get great day to day interactions. Also not so great, I suppose.

I'm glad I did the PGCE, but I wasn't considering teaching when I applied for university. Most secondary teachers I have come across did PGCE or GTP, rather than BA Ed type courses. In fact, I've only ever met one who did have the BA qualification! I went to the institute of education in london, and I appeciated the size of somewhere dedicated to teaching.

I agree, ASD.

In my PGCE, I taught a maximum 50% timetable (so had plenty of time for lesson planning and marking), had a student partner to bounce ideas off, and was always supervised in the classroom.

It's a very different scenario to have back to back lessons with little immediate support. It is much easier in the second year.

Actually i disagree a little cos by the second year you are a little bit more jaded (unless you have great support) although coping with workload is much easier so agree on that point.

Blimey Squeaky; that sounds like a dream-PGCE year. How wonderful (but unusual) to find a school that puts so much support in for its new teachers. All too often new teachers are thrown into the classroom and left (even with the best will in the world) to get on with it. And then they wonder why so many leave the profession after just a couple of years!

There was lots of support in my PGCE year, but less so in my first year post qualification.

Then the only concession to being a NQT was one extra free period, and an inset day once a term. We still had the full quota of duties and covers.

I have a feeling it is probably better nowadays. I don't know about the state sector, but I imagine that it is more generous than in my school - here, our NQTs get a reduced timetable and do no duties, cover, or invigilation.

Sorry: was being dim and thinking you meant your probation year, as it used to be called.