Becoming a teacher while having babies/kids

[tlclyf]

I am really interested in doing my teacher training and becoming a primary school teacher.

I've just had my first baby, she's just turned a year old and goes to nursery. I am (hopefully) not done having children but what are the stances when you're a teacher? What happens if you get a call in the middle of the day that you're little one is poorly? You obviously cannot leave your class and go collect them - is it wise to leave the career goal for once I have finished and they're all in school full time? Or is it just wise to have a backup plan?

My family aren't flexible to have her if she is poorly so I can work. I suppose my other half could do it should it be necessary? I just don't want to completely wipe out being able to be there for her because I'm a teacher and can't leave work.

If you're a teacher with young children, how do you do it?

I think a lot of it depends on the support you have. It is a busy and demanding job, but I find it manageable with two children as my dh works from home so deals with drop off etc and gets them if they are sick. I work 8 until 5:30 every day, and a little at the weekend, I also use a holiday club for a couple of days each holiday to work solidly and get ahead .... Yes I miss things at their school, but we spend every holiday together which I think makes up for it... They get a lot more time with me than their friends do with parents in other full time professional roles.

I've been teaching 8 years and have a 2 year old DD with additional needs. Its hard and I echo what the majority have said regarding tiredness - its exhausting.

What's made it easier for me is I have family who help with childcare and my DH is able to take time off work if needed, I dont know how we would have done it otherwise.

Unfortunately I'm not enjoying teaching at the moment and if I'm totally honest I haven't for a while. I dropped a day when I went back after maternity which has helped but still I am struggling to find the passion I once had. I wondered for a while if it's because I have different priorities now and that is probably part of it but, the workload is relentless and behaviour within school drains me.

However, we have lots of ECTs who are thriving and loving the job!

Crazy to say, but teaching is NOT a family friendly job. I get home and feel SO drained giving all my energy to my school kids, that I have nothing left for my own. Mum guilt daily. Not trying to put you off as there’s many aspects of my job I genuinely love, but it is really, really hard

I think age is a factor...I was great as a 22 yo newly qualified...I'm done in as a 43 yo with a toddler and two teenagers! 😆

Do it.
Best thing I ever did.
Trained while my son was 9 months. Hard work but totally doable. I had pretty rubbish support from my placements, but overall, it was perfectly manageable.

I'm on mat leave again now, but rarely leave work later than 5pm. Usually stay until 4. My weekend work is minimal. I'm in a middle management role which does involve a few early/after-school meetings. But it's all manageable.
I do have a lot of support from family, though. I imagine my experience would have been quite different otherwise.

@scige Sounds positive. How long have you been teaching for?

The subject you teach is also an issue. I know no one really believes we work the hours we do, and some think we just need to organise ourselves better, but some things just take time. Last weekend it took me all Saturday to mark yr 11 essays. Why didn't I do it during the week? Well, I had a parents' eve on Tuesday. Cover work for absent colleagues to sort every other evening. General planning and tweaking of lessons on wed. Mock exams sorted Thurs. But I didn't work past 7.

Today I had coursework to look at, a pile of yr12 essays and some lessons to sort. I worked from 10 until 430. And I'm a fast marker.Took an hour for lunch though. Dh did housework and food shop. The dc spent the day on screens. But they are teens.

Been qualified for 5 years now - so relatively early in my career. Maybe the positivity will be beaten out of me during the next 5!

The subject you teach is also an issue

I agree with this. I teach a science, mostly A level so smaller class sizes, and I really spend less time marking than I have free periods. Less than an hour of marking per working day, and I never take any home.

My colleagues who teach English or history, and mostly gcse, seem to spend every waking hour marking essays, especially at certain times of year. It's awful and unfair. They should employ an essay marking assistant or something, someone who isn't a fully trained teacher maybe but looking to pick up experience.

first few years of teaching are difficult, because it takes awhile to know what you are doing and build up resources ect.

i only stay late one day a fortnight for meetings. I leave just after 3. I prefer to do any work I need to do at home in the evening after kids are in bed.

missing events at own kids school is difficult. I have moved my youngest to the school I teach at so I’m there and will sometimes be able to attend

I can only answer my experience and but I have just taken a £15 pay cut and went from 3 days a week to 4 because teaching was absolutely not family friendly. It was beginning to absolutely break my heart that I had to put my children after 30 others, I wanted to put them first. Honestly the way I was being treated by parents was making me unwell and I hated having to miss first days of school and having to negotiate and beg to go to nativities and hospital appointments.

I couldn’t be happier in my new job with flexibility and putting my own children first.

depsite the Mumsnet teacher troll brigades claims that teachers work 9-3 and get a million years holiday, we don’t. It’s a 60 hour week. Don’t do it! Yes you can leave to get kids if they are sick but if it becomes too frequent then it can be an isssue. I guess if you don’t need sleep and don’t want to see them on a weekend then go for it!

OP, I think it would be good to spend an hour or two reading the posts on the Exit the classroom and Thrive’ Facebook group. Not because you are a teacher who wants to leave (obviously) but it will give you a thorough understanding of teaching at the moment so you are making a decision with your eyes wide open.

I am an eyfs teacher, my little one has to do 10 hour days at nursery but i don't work at all at home. I love that I know we are getting lots of time together we wouldn't otherwise have and I know when he's at school I won't ever miss his nativity etc, because I'll be there!

But it IS a stressful job and I had 10 years experience when I had him. If you don't handle pressure well or find it hard to be organised, then don't do it.

Time off when my children were I'll was a real issue. As a single parent, with my own parents abroad and all of my friends working, I hit attendance management triggers ( 3 occasions in a rolling 6 month period, 4 in 12 months - an occasion being half a day). I was made to sign to say I would not have anymore time off in the next year.

I was in real danger of losing my job and took the very difficult decision to leave my child aged 9, alone at home. I find that very difficult to comprehend now, that I did that. Horrified but backed into a corner.

It's do-able but you will need a good support network. We only get 2 days emergency parental leave per year before we have to have a meeting with HR and it can impact my pay progression so I need my parents on hand to run and get DD if needs be and stay at home with her if she is too sick for school. Including commuting time, I am away from the house 12 hours per day so long days in breakfast/after school clubs, and we are out of the catchment area (with no jobs in catchment area for me) so DD does not get to come to my school. Then there's parents evenings, twilight trainings, outreach events etc so I would say twice per half term I won't get home till nearly 9pm so your DH would need to be on hand then too. Holidays are great to cut down on costs of childcare, but I will need to work at some point (general rule of thumb us 2 days on a week holiday, 4 days on a 2 week and 2 weeks on a 6 week). That can be difficult with young children if they can't entertain themselves for a few hours.

@Mumoftwo1312 true! Although what should happen is to add a realistic marking allocation per job and actually pay for it! You do need experience to mark and moderate properly.

I teach Economics (lots of essays) and deal with this by working 0.6 and marking when needed on the "free days".

This is obviously really unfair, but works for me.

OP was asking about primary though and the heavy workload is for different reasons there.

OP, I managed to train and qualify as a teacher while pregnant and then did NQT as it was then over 4 terms (it'd take forever doing ECT part time now).

My DH is very supportive, I had some support from my mum and we paid for year round nursery so I could work in the holidays.

I've only got one child though. Wouldn't have fancied it with more.

I also thought of becoming a teacher for a little while, even though having all the holidays with the kids would be fantastic I felt there would be a lot I’d miss out on. If your kids don’t go to the school you teach at you’ll likely miss sports days and school plays which broke my heart to think. Also the sheer workload of teachers, arriving early and leaving late, going home to mark 30 books in each subject. I feel like on the surface it might look like you get more time with your kids but I wonder if that is the reality.
However if this is your dream career and you feel it’ll be fulfilling and rewarding for you I would say go for it! There’s no point waiting for a perfect time because it’ll never come, don’t waste your life doing something you don’t enjoy.

I'm a teacher with a 3 year old. I absolutely love my job. I work 4 days with 1 day off with my daughter.

I have been teaching for 12 years and am high up on the pay scale within a small school so I have a lot of responsibility, we also have ofsted overdue and if I'm honest I am constantly exhausted. I often feel that I am not doing enough with my daughter or at work but I literally could not being doing any more.

I think it would be different starting out at this point in my life as you would hopefully not have as much responsibility and if you got a job in a bigger school you would have shared responsibility and shared planning.

there is no other job like it and I don't want you to be put off by lots of other comments but also be realistic about expectations. You will be working in evenings. The day doesn't start and end 9-3.
Starting out I was at work at 7.30 and leaving at 6 then working more at home but it does get easier the longer you do it.

I would spend some time volunteering if you can, at a local school and see if realistically this is something you want.

1. Wait until all your kids are at primary school at least.
2. Go part-time as soon as you can (3 days a week ideally, as 4 days is not as worthwhile).

Otherwise, think of doing something else!

@Shinyandnew1 i absolutely second this. It has been a fantastic safe space for teachers who are suffering in the education system.
To anyone else on here who feels trapped, watch the pit pony video. I think that’s what it is called, I’m being too lazy to check.

I’ve been teaching for 10 years. Husband is also a teacher. We have a 3 year old and 11 month old. Youngest been in nursery for about 3 months now. We have been called out to get her A LOT!! Get the call, ring the cover person to tell them you need to arrange cover. Tell your head of department, tell principal/ vice principal, leave. Always good to have some emergency cover work ready to go. We usually discuss on days we think we are likely to get a call who has the busier day so we can decide who will go collect. We try to take it in turns to minimise putting out either school. I will usually tell nursery I can’t leave until the end of the current lesson + say 10 mins to sort out cover work for the rest of the day.
Lots of teachers are parents. I wouldn’t let that put you off.
However remember you have to be in the job just over a year (if I remember rightly it’s something like 1 years 12 weeks before due date) to qualify for the maternity pay. Worth considering.

I think it depends what sort of a teacher you want to be. We have one teacher in our primary who has young children (one in nursery, one in another primary) and she arrives 2-3 minutes before the school day starts at 9am and leaves either bang on 3pm or sometimes she leaves the TA to do handover and leaves at 2:45pm, to go and get her own children. She does no work in the evenings except parents evening and never works at all at weekends or holidays. So it is possible to do, but she is a crap teacher! Not just the attitude about only being there for school hours, but she is rubbish as a teacher too, and I suspect she only went into teaching because it allows her to spend all the holidays with her children. Maybe I would feel differently if she was actually good at teaching, as then the hours she keeps wouldn’t bother me. We have 4 other excellent teachers at the school, 3 are a bit older and don’t have their own children and have been teaching for 25-35 years and it is their life (they tend to work 8/8:30am til 4:30/5pm which is a normal working day for most people), and one is younger and may or may not have children in the future. I have two friends who are secondary school teachers and they both have husbands who look after the children (all school age) if they are poorly. So yes it’s possible but I think the trade off for you having all the school hols off is that your partner would have to cover the majority of sickness absences (but then he wouldn’t need to take leave in the school hols so it might balance out).

I think it depends on your school as to the level of support you receive in this. Which obviously isn’t as it should be but it is what it is. The staff make up of your school also determines what is normal in your workplace. A work force made of older people with teenage children or none won’t have the same level of understanding.
That said I’ve been the only teacher in my school at this life stage, and now I’m one of two. I’m one of the named contacts for nursery but practically I will always be called first. They’ll call the office as obvs I can’t answer my phone, and a member of admin will usually find me an adult to stand in my room while I answer the call. I’ll usually then try to get hold of my husband but often have to accept that I need to be the one to collect. If it’s during the afternoon I just say I’ll be there asap as I could leave at 3pm if I had to. Getting cover usually involves asking SLT to cover or taking someone’s ppa in order to cover and invariably means work I leave the class isn’t done how I want. So it’s not ideal but my own children come first. Every time. As they’ve got older I find they are more resilient to nursery germs but certainly at first this happened quite a bit.

Don't do it. Teachers advised me not to do it when I was training. I wish I had listened. It has become worse and worse in the 10 years since I did my training. Currently looking to get out and never return. It is not a family friendly job and I definitely can't be the mum I want to be as a teacher.