Will any teachers own up to becoming teachers for the hours/holidays, rather than because they desperately wanted to teach?

[weddingdress]

When I finished my A-levels I was going to be a teacher, but I took a job in industry for the summer holidays (they didn't know I didn't plan to stay) and by Sept I was enjoying it, I'd been promoted and was earning good money, so I never went to Uni.

I am still with the same company 20 years later and have had a reasonably successful and rewarding career. They sponsored my p-t degree, so I could do a PGCE.

Since I had DS1 8 years ago, I've been working 2 days a week. 2 10/12 hour days plus commute and I enjoy it a lot, but there's no way I can do it full-time and unless I do, there will be no further progression for me. I just can't see a world where I am prepared to do those hours day in day out while I have a family at home and by the time they've gone, frankly I'll be almost retired.

I enjoy my job, but am a little frustrated when I see less capable full timers working above me and I can't see me doing the same job until I retire, so I've been considering having another look at my original career choice.

But, although I think I could be a decent teacher (have volunteered in school, with cubs and children's nature charity) I can't say I feel any desperate calling to do it. Before I get flamed, I really don't think it will be an easy option, My Mum and sister are teachers and I know the hours they put in, but they are at home in school hols and by around 5pm, even if they then work into the evening. On the days I work, I rarely see the DC's at all.

spongebrainbigpants -exactly. that's why I don't currently work. I found I wanted ds 1 to nap so I could get my work done and would be anxious when he woke up and I hadn't finished and this was on the days I didn't work being .5. If found it just didn't fit in with my child.

I also found I was the one up at 6am getting me ready then getting ds 1 ready and hoping to God he didn;t get breakfast down me, was sick on me. I drove him to nursery, went to work and then did break duty, did lunchtime clubs, had meetings after school and put up with collegues tutting when I left meetings to go and pick ds up for 6. I put him to bed and literally didn't stop till 7pm. I ate then settled down to mark ready for the next day. I really could not do it. Dh worked in London so I did everything. I was passionate about my job but felt I wasn't seeing my son or having a life.

...and yes, I took work on honeymoon as we were being 'ofsteded' the following week. I worked in a difficult school and needed to show a lot of paperwork and evidence that could not have waited till I got back.

KingRollo's right about the coasting grammar-school teachers

I have always loved teaching, but teaching in mainstream is gruelling. It was fine pre-children, but I now find a great work-life balance working pt in a special setting with very little marking and lots of time for planning and meetings

In comparison to a RL job ( why is school not RL?), there are 30 or more children plus TA's, etc wanting your attention every minute of the day. That is draining, even when you love the job. Imagine having just 6 children round at your house all day, every day in the holidays. That gives you some idea!

I teach because I love it - but on the days when I'm not loving it I do think about the holidays, always being able to pick ds up from school and the money (I'm a self employed music teacher so my hourly rate is pretty good).

From being in schools and seeing classroom teachers - I don't think that would be for me.

I never understood why a school is not real life. In many ways I think it is about as real as you get. Unlike many jobs in the commerial/ pen pushing public sector you are actually doing something useful.

The kids where I work seem real enough. Certainly the one who bumped into me in the corridor and accidently stepped on my foot this morning. [ouch emoticon]

I admire nutters teachers.

I am coasting in my job as a teacher at the moment - I work part time and have 3 young kids, only 1 is in school full time. Holidays are great, I am at the top of my scale and I don't really - if I'm honest - have to think too much about what I do. This doesn't mean I'm not a good teacher or that the children I teach aren't getting a quality education when they are in front of me. I need a new challenge but I'm not going to get it anytime soon with my kids at the age they are. I don't have the energy to pour into it the way I used to , that's for sure. I do enjoy the teaching and I have a great SMT, really supportive. Fab colleagues too - it all makes it worthwhile.

KingRolo - I do sometimes wonder about coasting independent fee paying schools as well.

Terms are shorter than state schools, kids generally easier to teach and more supportive (albeit pushier and demanding) parents. I believe pay is also a bit higher in independent schools than state.

Not all independent schools are coasting of course and in somee the teachers work extremely hard and it is expected that teachers do much more extra curricular activity on top of a normal school day.

The holidays are a bonus but the term time hours are not that good. I have to drop my girls off at 730am to get to school at 8, then I don't pick them up til 430/5 on a good night, later on staff meeting nights or twilight training sessions.

I often work at home when they are in bed too.

Also, you can't have a lazy day like in some other jobs, it is very tiring if you give it your all, and if you don't give it all you are letting the children down.

Lots of independenent schools actually pay less. I was offered 25K to lead a department in a girls boarding school, I would earn about 35 -40K for doing that in a state school.

Many independents especially boarders ask a lot of you in terms of extra curricular activities.

But I would have got discounted fees which may have made up some of the short fall.

Rachmumoftwo if you are being honest you can have a lazy day, you cant do it very often but if you are not well or for whatever reason cannot give the kids your whole self you can coast.

ABetaDad - I used to drive past my DD's independent school on my way to work (up until December).. Because of my cmmute I used to pass the school at about 7:15am, somtimes earlier. There were always cars in the car park. Similarly when I go to collect DD from after school club - between 5pm and 5:30pm - there are always teacher's cars in the car park, besides the ones who are supervising after school care.

I know the teachers in the pre prep (I don't know much about prep yet) go in for a few days at the end of each term plus a few days before term starts.

They are also working in their holidays, weekends and after school. And these are long term teachers who have been at the school for many many years.

For example DD's class teacher had an operation on her hand recently and had to stay home for a week - should have been a fortnight but she naughtily came in early. During her time off she went out and bought white material and made several white aprons for the girls, all one handed - because they needed to be done.

Although they officially have PPA time, because it is a small school this is often lost due to covering staff who might be out for some reason, such as courses.

Certainly the teachers in DD's pre prep work as hard as any state school teacher I have met.

I have no idea if their pay and terms are the same or not.

I help out at the school two afternoons a week, and last term was helping 3 days a week getting some primary experience. I saw what they did on a very regular basis.

I would rather have less holiday but know that when my day/week/term ended I could actually STOP work. I HATE working evenings and weekends, it's really hard when you've got a family and the work takes ages. I was 11 hours marking mocks last week and have put 6 extra hours of c/w marking since Sunday noon. I've resigned myself to the fact that my poor year 9s are NEVER going to get their homework marked. Unless I try to do it tomorrow whilst they're watching a film of R and J. But then I'll feel gulity that I'm not explaining it to them!

The long holidays mean nothing when you're in the middle of an every second counts term and feel like a drudge. And we have to pay massive amounts for our hols because they're in the school holidays. Even on camp sites.

They should make holidays shorter and give us marking and prep time within our working week then time off and holidays would be just that. It isn't the money, the holidays or the job that keeps me at it; it's the awful alternative of 'media sales', PA/PR being a rep of any kind.

All the interpretative planning and creative stuff has gone and been replaced with pre prepared powerpoints, filling out data, marking to page long mark schemes, reading and answering pointless emails, writing reports where you're not actually allowed to say what you mean... and so on.

Most of the kids are great though. I feel sorry for them having to go to school and do nothing but have exam skills crammed down their thoats over and over!

Eilatan your description of teaching does not sound like one that is familiar to me. I would not like to loose my holiday because there always will be work to do at home. Teaching is one of those jobs where there is always something you could improve. Even if there is nothing to mark or prepare there is always more I would like to learn about my subject.

Hulababy - I very much agree that most independent school teachers work very very hard indeed and they certainly do at my DSs school now (far too hard in my opinion).

However, it is noticeable that another independent school I know very well the whole school is quite 'fat and happy' with their league table position and full waiting lists. They really do coast with most teachers drivng out of the school gate at about the same time as the kids. I also know they get paid about 20% more than the state sector and even more if they take on an extra role such as 'Coordinator for Early Years Reading' or whatever.

Not tarring all schools or teachers here at all but the 'coasting' is just very noticeable in this particular school I know.

I get paid exactly the same as a state school teacher. I work a slightly longer official school day, and have to do duties and prep. I don't have PPA time and we don't use supply teachers in our school (we don't pull many sickies though). However, my teaching time is about 70%, and I get long holidays. The ethos is very much 'work hard, play hard'.

The job really suits me. I get to teach, which I love. I don't have a lot of paperwork, and we don't do endless tracking and target setting. I can't complain about my marking load (I am not an English teacher), and with small classes, it doesn't take that long to get through a set of books. I am expected to mark very diligently though, in a way that will help the pupils improve their work. Tick and run is not tolerated.

I don't find the planning too onerous (or at least, I'm not complaining). I tend to see what the class needs on the day and am willing to change my lesson plans to suit. I am lucky that my technician is very tolerant. It's pretty straightforward in Science as there will be an obvious experiment to do. I usually leave written work for homework, so we can be active in lessons.

I came out of a demanding corporate job, with very high standards and lots of travelling. I actually found my PGCE quite easy in comparison.

However, when I first started teaching, I didn't like it. I was happy to get pregnant and give up. I returned to teaching after 8 years out for financial reasons, and after a couple of years landed a plum job.

All teachers are expected to mark diligently though whatever the school. I have worked in a variety of secondary schools and always had the same standrd of marking

At our private school there is no way you can coast. The parents wouldn't let you. They are on to you as soon as there is something they don't like! It keeps everyone on their toes. Its a great environment though, the free cooked lunch forgives everything.

I can't see how you can take the job just for the holidays. For 38 weeks of the year you do actually have to work - one would hope at a job you actually like.

I would have thought that in most good schools neither parents or members of staff would let you coast.

Actually, teaching is very inflexible if you have children. When most people think of working part-time they imagine 3 days a week or something. My timetable paid me the eqivalent of 3 days a week but I only had one day off every two weeks. My hours were all over the place which made childcare hard - including 'blanks' on my timetable - hours in the middle of the day when I wasn't teaching and wasn't getting paid either but still needed childcare as couldn't collect dd from childminder for one hour. It was crap.

When dd2 was born I intended to go back to teaching but at a year old she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. I had to give up teaching because there is no lee-way for all the appointments I need to attend - no chance of being to go to physio or paed appointments or your own children's sports day. You are there for the hours you teach and bugger it if you need to go to an appointment or see the bank or take a holiday when it's not flipping expensive. And yes, the holidays are nice, there's nothing like slogging your guts out all term only for your immune system to finally give up so you spend the entire holiday ill. Also if you have young dc's you often have to pay for childcare even if your children don't go in the holidays.

It's not as simple as it looks and in my experience is incompatible with raising my family.

Obviously your case is different as you have regular appointments to keep. I totally acknowledge that teaching is inflexible , my do works from home and is a SAHP so dd can be properly cared for beacuse of my work commitments. But most professional jobs have a level of inflexibility. We do have those holidays so do not have the sress and expense of holiday childcare. Every now and again the holidays dont match but I willingly trade not being able to see every performance of dd play for having al the holiday with her.

i think it can be great where one parent is a teacher, and the other a sahp, or p/t or flexible hours. but for us, dh worked longer hours than i did, and often travelled for business.
before dd i used to work about 60 hr a week, more than that when i trained & was first teaching. by never getting a drink, going to the loo, talking to friends, having a break, i cut my hours down to about 50 a week once dd was born, and it nearly killed me. seriously, i had my gp tell me that i needed to consider cutting down my work as no-one could be as constantly ill as i was without there being a serious underlying reason, and after having every known blood test done twice, he said stress & overwork were making me ill the whole time.
i just found it impossible to do the job well without sacrificing too much of my time with dd. and if you don't do the job well, it rapidly becomes a living hell of badly behaved kids, angry parents & p**d off staff.

i'm beginning to wonder if this is the best roll i've seen for a while.
it's turned into a bit of a 'well i worked THIS hard' thread (myself included ) with no sign of the op.

These threads almost always get competitive, kickassangel. Hee, hee, here I am up at 4.30am to prepare something for today. I wonder if I have beaten TSAP to my desk .

Seriously, as a teacher, I spend a lot of my time encouraging - mostly pupils, but also colleagues. I am a bit dismayed for the OP that she is receiving very few encouraging messages.

I for one love my job, and don't find it outrageously onerous. I came from working in industry, which I felt owned me more. I think the OP has a fantastic work ethic and she has thought things through - willing to do the work but realising that her directed time will end at 4pm or whatever, then giving her choice over when to do any extra work, not necessarily if.

I manage fine as a teacher with five children. I put in place the support network I needed at the time, for example, having an aupair. This makes a huge difference to life as you can relax about things like child illness or inset days. It's not really much different to working in any other job. In my industrial job, I spent a lot of time travelling or in meetings - this is just as hard to squirm out of as teaching.

I don't share the same experience as most of the teachers on this thread. Perhaps they are in middle or senior management, where you really do have to work for your extra couple of thousand a year. I'm not really interested in that at this stage in my life (with younger children), and I think I am pretty well protected by my bosses.

My suggestion to the OP is to spend a couple of weeks in a variety of schools, and see what you think for yourself. Shadowing a teacher is probably as much data as you can get to help you make your decision. Don't just do one school and say yes or no - go to at least one contrasting one.

I loved teaching but it ruined my health. My GP told me to stop or die early.

It is fabulously rewarding and one of those professions where you know you make a real and lasting difference to people's lives. But every time there is a social panic and on the new you hear people syaing "The schools should...." My heart sinks.