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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

New career as teacher?

124 replies

baconsandwich · 12/02/2012 19:02

Am thinking of retraining as primary school teacher. Am 45. Am I mad? Anyone else out there taken the plunge at this age? Do they even want mature teachers anyway?

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letseatgrandma · 14/02/2012 17:00

I've stopped taking my daughter into school during the holidays because she searches out all her things I've borrowed for school

Me too! My daughter followed me around my classroom in the summer holidays clutching things and saying, "I used to have one of these, mummy...and this..I had one just like it...and those...mummy, they aren't mine are they?...where is my one-can we look for it when we get home, that was my favourite...!!"

Usually about things that had been in her room for years and she'd never looked at!

Dustinthewind · 14/02/2012 17:04

It leaks into other areas now. When my family can't find the spoons, or the bubble bath has been decanted out of its useful container, or the rug has gone, they don't even ask.
Then miraculously, in a few days, all is well again.

mrz · 14/02/2012 17:20

yes when I go for the breadmaker or foodmixer and realise it's at school or I buy new equipment simply because I can take the old one ...

MollyBroom · 14/02/2012 17:22

whenever my children cannot find something they ask if I have taken it to school. Also hide things if I know they are coming in, in axe they ask for them back.

EvilTwins · 14/02/2012 17:51

My mum was a primary teacher but she retired about 8 years ago. So normal was it to find that she'd taken stuff from home to school that it's still a standing joke in our family- if someone can't find something, the first question is always "has mum taken it to school?"

Dustinthewind · 14/02/2012 17:55

See, we are laughing about it now, but what sort of an education system relies on staff ransacking their homes and buying extra resources?
It's just daft isn't it? A jerry-rigged and haphazard mess.

MollyBroom · 14/02/2012 17:58

I do think there should be a support group for the partners and children of teachers. My husband and children have spent countless hours laminating, cutting out, hunting out packs of cheap pens in Tesco, putting up displays, filling in my mark book, sticking in stickers, tidying cupboards, building furniture.....

MollyBroom · 14/02/2012 17:59

An education system in which teachers care and want better than just good enough.

It does amuse me when I see reads about waste in the public sector and accusations that we take the piss with public funds.

Slambang · 14/02/2012 18:03

Been there. Done that. Having taught for over ten years and had many friends and relatives who have entered teaching at various stages of life, I can honestly say I do not know a single teacher who wouldn't get out if they had a realistic alternative.

Honestly, I really would not recommend it.

MollyBroom · 14/02/2012 18:07

That is not my experience slambang and find it very sad that it has been for you. I think most teachers will at some point in the year find that it all becomes too much and at that moment would want to jack it in. But they don't really mean it. Just as most other careers really which require significant commitment and challenge.

mrz · 14/02/2012 18:15

I can't think of any other job that I would get such a buzz from doing. Yes some days I'm tired or not feeling well but then a child does something amazing and it's all worthwhile!

moonblushtomato · 14/02/2012 18:43

I have recently started to phase back into teaching after taking a break to have sprogs. I have found it relatively easy to find supply work but haven't been looking at anything more permanent so couldn't comment on that.

I'm doing regular supply at the moment which is great when the DCs are small as there's no paper work.

Ultimately I would like to find a jobshare in a couple of years, which is what I did previously (and loved!) before my second phase of reproducing.

Teaching can be exhausting, frustrating and all-consuming but, for me, it has always been a rewarding, never-a-dull-moment, wonderful job. Maybe that's because I was only working 2 and half days a week

I knew a teacher at my last school who qualified when she was in her late 40s and she was the best teacher I have ever worked with. Go for it!!

moonblushtomato · 14/02/2012 18:44

mrz has got it in a nutshell

Misssss · 15/02/2012 09:37

I'm a teacher, well I will be for a couple of months more anyway. I've just put the finishing touches to my resignation letter and them I'm out. I can echo all the negative things about the job everyone else has said. The hours are dreadful, I wake at 6, in school for 7, work through all breaks and lunch. I leave at 6pm. I have an hour of me time where I shovel down some mega unhealthy meal I have microwaved or bought from a takeaway (because I don't have time to cook) Then I spent at least four hours planning and assessing. Plus most of the weekend. The time I don't spend working I am feeling guilty because I really should be doing school work! Thank fuck I don't have a family of my own because I have no time for anything at the moment.

I spent four years training on the BA course and always said staff rooms were full of miserable people just waiting for their pensions. Its true. There are some lovely motivated teachers out there but unless you are super human the job sucks the life out of you. I choose life so I'm leaving teaching. Its scary and I have no idea what I'm going to do next but working in tesco is a much more attractive idea.

I realise this is a very negative post but I thought I'd be truthful. I fell victim to the "Those who can teach" propaganda and thought it would be a nice easy career. I wish someone would have told me the truth at the start.

MollyBroom · 15/02/2012 09:57

Missss the workload is much greater when you start as you do not have a bank of experience to draw on. During the week I work similar hours to you although not at the weekends or holidays. I suspect we work about two hours a day longer than most other professions but we have the holidays which balances it out.
As a new teacher someone should be supporting you and helping you plan . Are there not schemes of work in your department ? Have you let anyone know how you are finding things?

Dustinthewind · 15/02/2012 10:18

Misssss, are you an NQT?
I've been teaching a long time, and I find the paperwork overwhelming now in primary. It seems to double every year.
Have you considered supply? I did that for a year and loved it, got to do the teaching whilst someone else did the paperwork and panicked about meeting targets, lesson observations and performance management at 4am.
But if it's what you need to do to stay on the right side of sane, then good luck with your resignation and the rest of your life.

Misssss · 15/02/2012 10:48

Hi there,

Ohhh I feel a bit bad now - two friends just posted on facebook that they have PGCE offers! I'm tempted to copy and paste my initial message to them but I'm being restrained. It is an ok job, I used to love it. Positives are that nothing beats the little notes you get and the sheer joy on a child's face when they have mastered something they found difficult. I love being with the children, I like the things they say and most of my colleagues are great too.

No I'm not an NQT - I found my NQT year fairly easy tbh it is just getting worse! I appreciate its not that bad in all schools, I have friends that do nothing, just print off Hamilton plans and scan them five minutes before the lesson starts. I just have a very unreasonable smt who have clearly forgotten what it is like to teach (they have a new initiative every day which involves yet more paperwork)

Maybe my school has jaded me a bit. Nothing ever good enough, violent children who have no (real) sanctions and incredible pressure. I suggest any prospective teacher go and have a good look around the school and if your gut instinct tells you no then don't apply. Just have a long hard look at the facial expressions of the staff. My friend told me that there was a long conversation in her staffroom about what antidepressants everyone was on. She's an NQT and was horrified at the amount of her colleagues that were on them.

Thanks Dustinthewind. I might do supply for a bit. I did some a few years ago when I'd finished uni before starting my job in September - I know what you mean about just going in teaching and leaving. It was good fun. I've just worked out that I could live fairly well (no holidays or new Mulberry bags) from working two days of supply a week so I might give the agency a call.

Dustinthewind · 15/02/2012 10:55

I found a deep sense of joy and personal freedom when I'd get asked back by schools I'd been in, and I'd say 'No thank you, and please take me off your supply list'
There were other schools that were fantastic.

MollyBroom · 15/02/2012 11:03

Maybe you should try a different school, or try secondary teaching.

StarlightDicKenzie · 15/02/2012 11:08

I'm going to be a primary teacher one day...........one day.

auntevil · 15/02/2012 11:40

Loved the comments about items taken from home to use in school. My DM was a teacher, I work in a school. The loft is our treasure trove. When I cleared out her house, I found things literally from the ark, and I could hear her voice telling me that it would come in useful one day. And she was right - just 20 odd years late!
Found myself buying useful things this half term that I know will come in useful.
Be warned - its catching

piellabakewell · 16/02/2012 14:22

Just have to say re supply teaching and the "there's no paperwork" comment...the reason there is no paperwork is because the class teacher is doing it all in addition to all the other stuff he/she does. Your free time is someone else's couple of hours getting everything ready because they are out on a course or whatever and want the class to still get the most out of the day with their supply teacher.

Dustinthewind · 16/02/2012 14:29

'Just have to say re supply teaching and the "there's no paperwork" comment...the reason there is no paperwork is because the class teacher is doing it all in addition to all the other stuff he/she does. Your free time is someone else's couple of hours getting everything ready because they are out on a course or whatever and want the class to still get the most out of the day with their supply teacher.'

I know that, and so does every other teacher on the thread. Which is why supply is easier than FT class teaching. Which is what I said too.

moonblushtomato · 16/02/2012 19:58

Yes, supply teaching has changed alot since I first started teaching full-time in the classroom many years ago.

Back in the early 90s the supply teacher would arrive with her guitar, own plans and do something amazing and excitingly different with the children for the day.

Now because of targets, pressure etc we just turn up and deliver the class teacher's plans. Some are better than others I should add.....

Good God, supply is definitely easier than full time teaching which is why it suits me completely atm as I don't feel I would be able to be the best full time teacher/mother I could be with all the planning at home involved.

When I was job-sharing I spent alot of my 2 and half days off planning.

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