DS asked why there aren't many male teachers

[IndigoBell]

DS2 (Y3) asked why there weren't many male teachers.

He said "Is it because women are cleverer?"

:(

Where are the other children coming from?

Taking groups away during school holidays because it was significantly cheaper and the only way our parents could possibly afford it.

Looking back I put other children before my own but at the time I didn't think of it that way

My sister and her family are spending the 2 weeks Easter holidays with us, she must be slacking.

Ah. No. I don't do that. I am taking revision classes for 2 days this holiday, and did one day at half term too, but that's it.

Yes EndoplasmicReticulum I had to get childcare for the four weeks and for the four days over Easter that I spent in Crown Court supporting children giving evidence against their father and for the days over Christmas attending meetings scheduled during school holidays and the Saturdays attending conferences ...

Meetings during holidays are completely unacceptable.

When they are child protection I attend unacceptable or not

OK.

Still, I think that some of your activities are unrelated to teaching, and others are clearly optional (as are my revision days). Most teachers do not need childcare for most of the holidays.

If they stopped changing the syllabus every couple of years, we wouldn't have to work all through the holidays!

The GCSE coursework is now differnet every year, so different modules need to be prepared.

THe A level which was all about tragedy (for 3 years) is now about comedy. SO that's 2 new plays to read/analyse/prepare; not to mention swotting up on aspects of comedy.

Oh, and I think I'm teaching A level lang next year, when I'm technicallly a lit teacher. SO I'll be swotting up on that too.

In ten years of teaching I think I've had one summer holiday when I've not had entirely new stuff to do.

I could weep when I think of my Byron summer.

Ah now, we're having to re write everything by the end of next term, so summer should be a doddle

I don't think I'm unique, many teachers work during the holidays and I know a lot of young teachers who have second jobs during the holidays

Don't know any schools locally with more than 1 male member of teaching staff, though these are primaries with 12 or so teachers. Most HTs round here are female. I trained as a teacher in 2009, vast majority were women. In a tutor group of 20ish there were 5 males.

Male applicants for primary ITT were down this year

We have one in y4 and another that goes year 6 head is male .

But after school club has couple make assistants to and they are fab , dd adorded them and it is good for her to have the influence of male ( apart from her brothers ) and to realise that not all men are like her dad was

Male *

Speaking as a primary school teacher I would say more women than men go into the profession because they believe that it is compatible with having children. By the time they find out that this is indeed a pile of crap it is too late.

I'd hazard a guess to say that men don't go into teaching because traditionally women do. Also it less well paid, less respected and has a general reputation of being easier than secondary. But I may be talking out of my arse....

Clinton however is definitely talking out of his arse. Of course you need to have a certain degree of intelligence to be a teacher but it has less to do with IQ and more to do with having the personality strong enough to discipline a classroom of 30 monkeys without going insane.

Which I don't, and that is why I'm leaving next week.... woohooo someone pass the

Male applicants for primary ITT were down this year

I'm guessing this has a lot to do with the pension situation.

One reason - pay!

I've come to teaching late in life (and rather offended by the line that women teachers are not of the same calibre! I have a masters degree AND 15 years management experience thank you very much! )

I'm happy (ish) to move to a 60 hr a week job for £21k (because I wanted to do something more morally rewarding with my life). However, I don't want to work out the hourly pay on this as it would hugely upset me! Men want to be paid for the work that they do (and rightly so). It takes five years to get to be on £30k (which is still less than half my old salary), and not a great 'breadwinner' salary.

messy a definite WOO pass the wine after the week I've had with my 30 monkeys!

This is a really interesting thread.

We live in Canada and I'd say 40% of the teachers at my children's school are male. My daughter has a male teacher this year and he's absolutely fantastic. Incredibly enthusiastic and very funny; the kids really engage with him. Our school also has a male librarian and a male music teacher. I'm not sure why but where we live teaching seems to be quite a hip thing for men to do and I think they bring wonderful things to schools. There should be more!

Hmm. I think you do need a high level of intelligence, particularly if you are going to take on a management post. Sadly, there are a lot of teachers in SLT who have been promoted beyond their abilities. And the quality of new entrants is highly variable. I think the idea that it's all about management is a bit depressing. And I work in a school with some v challenging behaviour.

All about classroom management that is.

Pay doesn't really explain why there are more female primary teachers than male because in secondary the situation is very different with the same pay scale.