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.

angrypixie - I now work as a TA in an nfant school. Teachers (and TAs) there do 2 playground duties a week - actually FT may do 3 (???) But almost all the other teachers do take a break mid morning and mid afternoon. Many go out at lunch time too. I was also suprised at how late they have been getting into school at times. However they do appear to stay quite late in the evenings and have their classrooms set up then and do lots of prep ready for next day. I know the class teacher I work with works at home too.

I'm in the middle on this one!

I love the holidays, & as I've been a mainscale teacher for 9 years now, I do get to enjoy them.

I'm pretty ruthless about ringfencing essential marking time in the hols/weekends - I do x hours/days, agreed with dh who takes the dc out, & if I don't get everything done, tough. Planning I enjoy, it's the endless marking that needs to have time made for it.

So yes, I can see the 'double life' argument - I get to be a SAHM in the holidays, which I love but wouldn't enjoy full-time.

But I do love my job & my subject. Kids can tell if you're living for the holidays!

Maybe the OP should try supply if that's how she feels - I know lots of teachers who've gone down that route after having dc because they just couldn't give subject teaching their full commitment.

Sorry I have not had time to read the whole thread - but this is a issue close to my heart, DH is a teacher. He is often at school till 6pm, because he has to meet with a parent and that was the only time the working parent could get there, his day starts at 7:30am then there is marking. I work for a corporation and my day is 100% more flexible than his and 80% of the time its shorter to.

Teachers need to have a passion, they need to love what they do, and if they are only in it for the holidays - I hope they are NOT teaching my children.

But you could start the job thinking the holidays are convenient and then fall in love with it. It is very easy to fall in love with teaching

Im in the middle too! 11 years in, and Im really happy to be a part time HOD in a lovely school, 10 mins away, with the same school hols as my children! But I cut my teeth in some tough inner city schools i've experienced; verbal abuse, masturbation in class, a knife on two occasions, pupils drunk and 'off their head' and been called a bitch or told to F off countless times! Im glad i experienced all this as it made me the teacher I am today, and Im also glad I was doing this pre children in my early twenties!!

I love my job but wouldn't do it just for the holidays but they ARE a huge bonus! I find my job is constant peaks and troughs in busy periods (Perf Arts)I can be in after school until 6 most days and do performances at night, aswell as finding props, sound effects and set in between and at the weekends! Its the same with exam times, huge amounts of marking and prep! Its a real highs and lows job. In the same week I can cry with happinessand amazement at what the kids have done and I can cry with sheer frustration or stress! Its great but for me I had the calling!

You can share the highs and lows at the end of the day but a break is a luxury-there are too many things to do. I try to get 20 mins to sit down to lunch.

Listen, the 9 - 3 or whatever you imagine it is, is contact with children. How can anyone produce 6 hours of learning per day without a GREAT DEAL of additional work. Just do the Maths.

I suspect many of us had lessons that involved dp page 23-34 of the book and of you finish dp p25.

Before I went into teaching I had no idea how much went into planning a lesson and toally get why people do not appreciate that. We base our assumptions on experience.

Sometimes if I was really lucky I got time to go to the loo during the day. Lunch was usually half eaten away (hideous pun, sorry) with sorting out fights/ interpersonal problems/ pregnancy scares/ smoking in the loos. Breaks? usually not.

I work with teachers who do just work from the scheme of work and department resources or resources they made last year. So for some there is not the additional work. In fact this makes sense to do this for some of your classes if not the majority as you will go under.

I think that for every hour in the classroom you need an hour outside the classroom for preparation and marking etc. I run out of hours!

My HoD starts each year planning wise as if it was her first - she is constantly in a state of panic about the next week lessons.

I keep anything that really worked and use it for the same year group the next year. I modify something that worked okay and ditch anything that was a disaster even if it was probably just due to an external factor - tired from sports day the previous day or a kid having a nosebleed and distracting everyone. I use different songs and may use different musical extracts as there is only so many times you can listen to the same thing - but I don't reinvent the wheel each term.

If I taught the orchestra I would probably work on a 4 year rotation of piece, adding the odd new one and ditching an old one.

The first year of teaching full must be horrible, and the first year at a new school almost as bad.

I am lucky in that I do a day here and there so I can teach a modified version of the same lesson more times than average.

I thought about it for that reason but then decided I couldn't stand to teach children of any age, not even for the holidays.

I have since been a teacher/lecturer of adults on a vocational course - but as I worked at the college in the office, I didn't get the benefits of the long holidays
My Dad has been both a teacher and a University lecturer - even he didn't get huge holidays as a lecturer because he was always running some sort of summer language school as well!

I have a few teacher friends and tbh I don't think they have it that easy, not with all the bollocks paperwork etc they have to do in the holidays as well as actual teaching.