Secondary to Primary

[Al232]

Has anyone moved from secondary teaching to primary and can share their experiences, do you enjoy teaching across the curriculum, how is your work life balance (is it any different to secondary teaching), is it more demanding? I only ask as I am a secondary teacher but feel I would be better suited to primary, I really enjoy working at KS3 and would like to experience KS2, any feedback would be greatly appreciated thank you.

The thing to remember about primary is that you teach every lesson so no free periods and depending on the school you may find yourself covering multiple playground duties.

Every book marked every day in many schools means in a typical day you might have 30 each of maths, english, science and geography books, together with various other " bits and pieces" and similar the following day! Add two lots of homework on top and that's a lot of marking ( and yr 6s can produce a surprising amount of work in a lesson when they want to!

@Norestformrz

The thing to remember about primary is that you teach every lesson so no free periods and depending on the school you may find yourself covering multiple playground duties.

What? No PPA time?! How is that allowed!

I think norestformrz meant during the day!

CassandraTrotter it happens!

I moved from secondary (independent) to ‘leafy suburb’ state primary ... and back!
Advantage of primary- the children are small and funny (in a nice way). It’s amazing watching people learn to read.
You get to know your class really, really well.
No particularly tricky subject content- you need breadth rather than depth. Except maths where you need a real grasp of how they learn.
Disadvantage- so much marking - English and maths nearly every day, always for the next day, + another piece = 90 books a night! In my school all sorts of colours, codes and acronyms. Also the marking can be pretty pointless as the smallest ones can’t really read it, and only really respond to verbal feedback at the time!
I found it a bit boring being with the same children all the time
One afternoon of ppa rather than scattered free periods.
I really struggled with the leakiness of some of the little ones (snot, wee, poo, needing help with hair...)
Less colleagues
In my school the average age of teachers was very young and some of them had very worryingly low literacy levels / general knowledge themselves.

I am imagine that if I’d moved from a ‘tough’ state school to a leafy primary it would have been bliss though, so I’d say it would depend on the schools.

Another thing that makes a difference is that primary schools are smaller than secondary so there are less staff members to do things. From photocopies, assemblies, administering medicine, subject leadership, getting bus quotes for trips.

I've taught in both secondary and primary.

Advantages of primary:

• you get to know your class very well and form stronger relationships with them,
• you have a greater degree of control over all their learning,
• you'll have greater control over what you actually teach rather than following a department scheme (depending on the school),
• if you have a lovely class, you have them all the time (some years are really great!),
• greater variety in what you teach so you get to do lots of different things,
• the kids get excited over learning more often,
• much higher parental involvement.

Disadvantages of primary:

• higher workload (marking definitely but planning depends on the school),
• PPA as a block afternoon and is usually taken up by issues with the class,
• you will be leading a subject and be responsible for it but will not get any time for it nor be paid for it,
• if you have a difficult class, you'll have them all day every day (some years are really tough),
• much higher parental involvement.

There are so many lovely things about primary teaching...your relationships with the kids, the nurturing aspect, the progression you can see from being with them all the time, the merging of curricular areas so it all feels relevant, funny stories in the staffroom... for the right kind of person it's a lovely job.

I haven't but I have with people who did. All the positives and negatives as pp. The ones who did best were those who had slt who recognised that a certain amount of induction/ training was needed when crossing phases. Some only managed a year because they couldn't get their heads around the absolute power that English and Maths have over every other subject.

That may have been the case but there is so much emphasis by OFSTED now on the full curriculum that woe betide anyone who neglects the rest. We had a recent visit and they looked at reading, PE, computing and Music!

sittinginthesand, Dropitbouncer

Fewer, not less.

Sorry.

@viques

sittinginthesand, Dropitbouncer

Fewer, not less.

Sorry.

That was driving me bonkers too