Would you date a teacher?

[Claire926]

I have met a nice man who is starting a PGCE in September. I do not have a problem with teachers as I know some people believe they have a reputation. What my concerns are if I was to get in a relationship with him would he have time for a relationship? He would be working full time at school plus doing assignments. Also, would he always be working long hours with planning and marking etc after he graduates? I have heard it a stressful job and don't know if I could be with someone who has no time or the job ends up affecting their physical and mental health.

[2155User]

DH and I are both teachers

Both always home by 4:30pm, not once in over 4 years have we brought marking home. + you’ll get quite a bit of time together during the holidays.

I love it!

[Samedaysameshit]

OP I get your point even though everyone else seems to dismiss your worries
I’m married to a teacher.
She is very dedicated and gives it 100% which leaves 0% for anything else.
As a result I do all the cooking cleaning sorting kids out etc.
She is in bed by 8.30 at the latest.
Luckily I am in sales do work about 3 days a week and get everything done .
Oh and I earn 2x as much which is handy.
So answering your initial question no I wouldn’t if I had the luxury of hindsight.
It’s not her fault it the job. It’s ridiculous and enough is never enough.
Anyway that’s my input.

[2155User]

@Samedaysameshit

In the nicest way, what on earth is your wife doing?! That sounds a crazy/insane amount of energy and effort that I’ve never witnessed before

[Goongoon]

I am very interested in what reputation you’ve heard they have OP... is it the constant working or wild partying?!

[Haggisfish]

I think a new relationship and doing a pgce would be difficult tbh. It should be better after that and holidays are bloody brilliant.

[Regretsy]

I know where you’re coming from OP as my love life was a mess during teacher training, actually lost a semi long term relationship during the NQT year as i wanted to do well and it took everything I had. He called me boring because literally all I talked about was the job, he was right! I think it depends on the kind of person but as pp said enough is never enough IME.

[Regretsy]

Also the PGCE year was pretty wild, without going into too much detail we all got on VERY well. I think it was our way of coping tbh.

[CayrolBaaaskin]

Yeah like teachers work all the hours. So they do

[halfthesun]

I am a teacher, full time, two kids plus I am dating a head teacher. All is well and since it is the summer hols we are having lots of dates. My PGCE year, 2010, was horribly stressful BUT at the time my husband worked crazy hours in the city so I still somehow managed to pick up kids and do all the stuff at home. You just adapt to the situation .... have the feeling most jobs are pretty full on these days. Zero scandal at every school I have worked .... at if you are suggesting teachers have a reputation for being naughty!

[Lozzerbmc]

I’ve never heard of teachers having a reputation? and anyway the 9-5 job doesnt exist any more so I cant see why teachers would work longer hours than anyone else and they do have long holidays!

[Elmer83]

I think I can help on the reputation part...not saying I agree!
1: They have no grasp on the “real” world - I’ve heard this a few times, meaning they go straight from education to then working education.
2: Believe they are always right and can’t bear to be corrected - They are so use to be seeing as knowledgeable by kids they can come across arrogant to adults

1. Part-timers - Due to holidays (I hope parents experience of homeschooling during lockdown may change this opinion!) 🤣

[vikingwife]

What an odd question

[CaptainMyCaptain]

Long holidays but you can't choose when you have them. My husband sometimes found it difficult to get annual leave during school holidays, priority often went to people with children. He was very glad when I retired.

I also worked a lot in the evenings and fell asleep by 9. I think the workload might get less with time in secondary if you have one or two subjects to keep on top of but the primary curriculum seems to change all the time and schools keep bringing in new bought-in schemes etc. The culture in some schools is completely toxic nowadays. No teacher stays very long at my old school since it became an academy as the workload is ridiculous but it's not like that everywhere. Yet.

[OnlyFoolsnMothers]

That’s all future school holiday childcare covered- hell yes!!!

[CaptainMyCaptain]

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

That’s all future school holiday childcare covered- hell yes!!!

My NDN is a deputy head. She worked full days for the first two weeks of this summer holiday. Out at 7am and home at 7pm. Not normal but they needed to plan multiple scenarios for September.

[OnlyFoolsnMothers]

2 weeks in the whole 6 wks isn’t much compared to having to fill the whole time - id still take it

[Hardbackwriter]

DH and I had been together a couple of years when he did a PGCE in his late twenties. He's now been a teacher for 6 years. My ex before him was also a teacher (I promise I don't have some sort of fetish!) and he was my boyfriend from uni so, again, I was there throughout training and then the first couple of years he taught.

In both cases, the PGCE and NQT years were pretty tough, and he needed a lot of emotional support. It certainly wasn't the case that we never saw each other, though. I only saw ex at weekends because we lived in different cities and he cleared all his work in the week to keep the weekend free, which I think meant he worked very hard during the week but then we had weekends together. DH has now been settled into a school that he loves and which has much less crazy expectations than many for the past three years. He used to work until 5.30 and then not bring any work home at all; he had to stop doing that because of the nursery run but he works maybe 2/3 evenings a week, it doesn't feel excessive. He barely works in the holiday and it's been amazing from a childcare point of view that he has so much time off - we were able to have a term-time only childcare contract which saved a fortune.

Some downsides of going out with a teacher: no cheap holidays; socialising with groups of teachers is, in my anecdotal experience, crap because they talk endlessly about school so I learned to avoid that. Ex and his colleagues used to go to the pub every Friday and I learned to arrive after they'd have finished because they would sit and discuss individual students and it was unbelievably dull! Upsides: almost every teacher I know is really, genuinely nice; the holidays (before we had DS DH used to do all housework when he was on holiday so I spent a quarter of the year with a househusband and dinner on the table when I came home, which was blissful - not so much of that now that he spends his holidays toddler-wrangling!); I personally like and value having a partner who does something so meaningful and valuable.

[VashtaNerada]

The PGCE year is tough but after that you can focus on the actual teaching and it gets easier. And it’s up to you how you manage your workload. Some people like to stay a little later each day, some prefer to come home and eat with their families and do marking later / on the weekend. The workload very much depends on the school and the individual though, I’d say mine was manageable. And then long term if you have DC it’s a huge benefit to always have someone home during the holidays. Saves money on holiday clubs etc.
The ‘reputation’ bit is though! We’re all very different.

[Hardbackwriter]

I do joke, though, that with DH I was the world's least successful gold-digger because when we met he was a city management consultant outearning me by miles and who took me on luxurious weekends away and for fancy meals, and then he did the PGCE and has never earned as much as me again since! However, if you really want a job that will screw up your personal life then I'd recommend management consultancy, the hours were so mad.

[Marmozet]

Nope! I dated a teacher and she prioritised work over us so much, it was like having to pencil in an appointment at the doctors. One time we went away and she had a ton of children's exercise books in the boot to mark.

[Aussiebean]

I get the reputation thing... just have to read the comments in the news. And the comments in my aunt in law’s Facebook post about why aren’t teachers doing more during lockdown. Apparently she forgot about all her friends and family who are teachers who didn’t appreciate the comments about how useless we are for not providing online lessons every hour.

Apparently we haven’t done anything in lockdown, we start at 9 and finish at 3. And we get all that holiday!!

I think a lot of people remember being taught in the 70s, 80s, it 90s when it probably was a lot easier. They haven’t quite realised that expectation, accountability and responsibilities of the schools and teachers have grown exponentially.

Then you have the teachers who put 100% of everything in and those who prioritise. But that is any job.

[Xenia]

My children's father is a teacher. It is hard to generalise about hours but things like taking time off to go to a child's carol service is hard - I don't think he got to one once unless at his own school whereas I (a London lawyer) never missed one (and earned a lot more than he did). On the other hand he was able to take a second job in some school holidays to earn extra money. (We paid for full time childcare)

for me the bigger issue (and I knew when I married him as he was also employed by a Cathedral as is an organist) was that playing the organ professionally meant he was not there at times that were busy with small children eg i would work until end of 24th December in London, rush home at 6 to breastfeed the baby and he woudl be out playing at services until well after mid night - mid night mass, then off to play at church on 25th . Holy Week before Easter was similar . The problem with that is you are doing last minute wrapping of christmas presents etc and feel like a single parent and you work full time. Also when we started his prep school was boarding so Saturday was a working day for him.

[IveGotFrills]

What's the subject OP? If humanities/Arts then lots of marking etc. but if STEM, less so. PE - fine

It will be a busy stressful couple of years but i'm sure he'll value your support and after that things do get easier.

[BigSandyBalls2015]

My only reservation would be having to take holidays during peak times and being unable to, for example, have a long weekend away in Jan or June.

[Brightyellow]

It depends - on the school, the subject, the workload and how conscientious the person is.

I know some teachers who are in school at 7am and work every evening. Others leave the premises at 3pm and don’t do a thing at home. (Same school!)

If they are an English teacher, they will be forever marking but then a PE teacher will have after-school fixtures.

Some schools put a lot of pressure on staff with extra meetings and training, others are less demanding.

It’s hard to generalise.