Teachers... Do you like your job?

[CherryBomb87]

Do you love every day or do you cry in a cupboard at lunch? Are you primary or secondary? What subject do you teach?

I'm about to start my maths degree so I can teach. Would love some honest feedback (I've done a number of experience days but I feel like they're a bit biased ! 😂)

TIA

Secondary special. Taught in mainstream for 20 years and now in special for 5 years. I love it! I love being in the classroom. I gave up my SLT role to teach again.

BUT... the paperwork, the extra hours, the impact on family, the sheer exhaustion has to be considered. I've lost relationships because I didn't have the time to give back to anyone once I came home.

Would I do it again? Yes. In a heartbeat.

Sorry didn't answer all of your questions. Core subject (so as not to be identified). Cry at lunch... j don't think I actually have a lunch away from the kids ever but yes I've cried!

Good question. Maybe the responses given by the teachers on here might also shed light on why there is a problem with recruitment and retention of teachers especially at Secondary school level.

Secondary English.
Love teaching. Hate hate hate all the bullshit.

Primary
Love teaching.
But the teaching is actually about 10% of the job now unfortunately.
Endless safeguarding admin
Endless progress reports
Endless SEND admin
Endless meetings staff/parents/SLT/Council/Social/FIT/CAMHS etc
Emails day and night
Parents messages
Risk assessment constantly needing changing
Resources to change to fit with new model of teaching that has been introduced (flavour of the month)
Endless learning walks/observations/justification of my planning/day structure.
Endless data

I could go on and on....

Love my children and playing such a huge role in their lives!! So yes I think it is worth it.

My experience is primary though unsure of secondary.

Yes, I've cried at work! Mostly near the end of each half term when I have burned out yet again! 😕
Never infront of the children!!

MFL Secondary. LOVE IT! Love the kids and being in front to the classroom. Love teaching languages, literacy and cultural input.
Like MrsHamlet above, however, hate the bullshit, ridiculous amount of paperwork, Ofsted fears, etc.

I’m an ex teacher. I loved teaching! But I didn’t love all of the admin nonsense and the additional unpaid hours I was being asked to work. And I didn’t love the low salary with insufficient prospects.

At the end of the day I needed to work a standard 40 hour week so I could raise my DC, and I needed to get paid a respectable salary with prospects to earn more in the future. So I quit teaching.

Love teaching as was about a decade ago, now not so much. Low level misbehaviour seemed to be endemic and I tried a few schools in my time, it just grinds you down. I was exhausted at the end of every day.

I left secondary where I taught an optional at GCSE subject. If I had a maths degree I wouldn't go into teaching, not just because you can earn so much more elsewhere but also because of the pressure for results because you are deemed to be a core subject.

Placemarking. Looking to go into teaching when I've finished my degree.

English secondary for a long time. Loved it but the last few years have become impossible so I left and went to SEND school. What I loved - teaching the kids. What I hated - pretty much everything else in the end. Micromanagement, behaviour, rudeness, SLT, bullying from SLT, excessive marking, book looks and observations framed as learning walks. Paperwork. Pointless meetings. Crap training. Classes of 35. Lack of support. Removal of staff rooms ....Above all the lack of inclusion for SEMH/SEND - they are being lost in the system as teachers don't have the time for individual care with everything else they have to do.
I now work in specialist provision and it's what I went in to teaching for and no longer feel like I am producing little creatures for a school number!

There's a bit of a biased sample here that people who hate teaching and leave are no longer teachers. 🤷‍♀️ I only wanted to be a teacher all through school and uni but the reality of the job meant I would have had to make sacrifices in my personal life which I wasn't willing to make. I had zero downtime and spent the holidays recovering and catching up on planning and marking. In the classroom I was working with inner city children who had a lot of challenging behaviour and parents who didn't give a fuck. The worst incident was a pupil threw a lit firework at another pupil at lunchtime and it exploded in her face. I wanted to help these kids so much but there's nothing much you can do against the tide of other factors and it's so depressing to see their futures screwed up before their lives have even begun. After a few years of running on empty nonstop I ultimately burnt out. At 27. I've never fully recovered.

Secondary- biology, geology, geography taught.

I’ve never loved it. I like teaching. I dislike the total disregard for workload and that the customer (student) is always right. When a student does well, they are praised. When a student does badly we are berated. This is my 17th year. As soon as my three are in secondary I am out.
I'm fed up of the insane workload. I worked Saturday and Sunday and this morning. I’ll work Friday afternoon. teachers earn well but not when the hours are taken into account. We can’t recruit at our school- despite being in the leafy suburbs and with good OFSTED. So workload has gone up as they make classes bigger. We are also now exited to run more support workshops because they can afford the support staff to do it. I’ve told my kids to stay away from teaching as a career.

*can’t afford support staff so we are expected to do more- sorry- fat fingers mashing the keyboard.

Secondary teacher.
Love my subject. Love the kids (most of them anyway). Love that every day is different and it's never boring. Love the holidays 😂
Hate that it completely and utterly takes over your life until you are about to drop with exhaustion. Hate the unrealistic expectations from management and parents. Hate the workload that never ever ends.

I’ve always liked it - but enjoy it even more since becoming SLT.

Worked ten plus years In a mainstream and generally loved it.
Have been In a PRU since Christmas and oh my god.... it's a nightmare. They are on short turn around with us (six week minimum!) but the things that get overlooked would make you weep. Also my boss is a relentless bully. Am looking at other jobs at the moment as are most people I work with.

Husband is secondary maths teacher- he likes it, has a laid back personality which is very suited to teaching as he doesn't get overwhelmed with the workload or react to tricky kids. He will also never be out of a job and we have worked abroad too.
I was primary but quit to have our child and have never gone back..IMO there is a lot more work in primary, the kids are needier and I don't have the same kind of personality where I can just leave work be, so went back to my pre-teaching career.

Secondary school teacher of 13 years. Currently on maternity leave.

Love the teaching, love making a difference to pupils’ lives. Love my subject. I loved having the chance to be really creative and teach in a fun way (when you had the time to do so and were allowed to do so).

Hate the fact that no matter how many hours you work, you are never anywhere near the top of your workload - it’s a very demoralising feeling. Hate the pointless
paperwork that takes time away from the things that matter. Hate the attitude from some parents. Hate the fact that it is simply expected that I will work in my evenings and weekends when I should be spending time with my family. Hate the person it has slowly turned me into over the past 7-8 years.

I have only every cried once in school (not in front of the kids). A pupil threw a pencil case directly at my 8 month pregnant stomach on purpose. I was shocked but managed to keep teaching the lesson. I went in the staff room quickly before my next lesson and a member of staff in there could see I wasn’t myself and asked what was wrong and I just burst into tears.

I'm an ect (secondary) and I really like it so far. Training was the hardest year of my life. I think that getting a school with supportive staff and SLT is crucial. I spent some time training in a school that didn't have this, and I barely got through it, mentally.

Secondary MFL. Yes, I still like my subject and I still like teenagers. What I dislike is all the pointless vogues where we are given the three line whip to do things a certain way and be observed doing so, when in three years' time it will fall out of favour and we'll have to do another silly thing. Good teachers need subject knowledge and good relationships. HOW they then impart the knowledge should be down to the individual and what works for them and their classes. Kids don't need every class and every teacher to look, sound and feel the same. How dull and imaginative! They need to know the teacher cares about them and their progress, they need to have faith in the teacher's subject knowledge and they need to know how to behave so that everybody can learn. Good teachers ensure those 3 criteria are met - the rest should be up to the individual.
It's bloody hard work though. Don't let anyone try and tell you different. It's relentless, and you can never do enough - however hard you try, fault will always be found by management or parents. You need rhino hide.
Yes I have cried in a cupboard, but only once in all my years because of the kids' behaviour. More often because of management behaviour or sheer overwork/exhaustion, or because I was at work when I was in no fit state to be there but felt I couldn't be off.

Wow, thank you everyone - some really honest answers.

It's very sad to hear about the bullying from SLT. That has definitely become more prevalent in the corporate world as well - my colleagues and I have found every corporate job in the last decade has been toxic, full of bullies, extreme expectations and gaslighting. Hopefully through those experiences I've become a little more thick skinned and at least in teaching I'm doing something positive rather than just lining some big bosses pockets.

Please keep the feedback coming, I need as much of a dose of reality as possible before I start my degree! I'm certain I'm doing it but expectations are important...

Secondary maths- special education. Absolutely love teaching, interacting with the students, making a difference. Both adult children also teachers, one primary, one secondary. Both also adore working with the kids, very fulfilling and all three of us honestly feel privileged to work with the youth of today.

Hate the additional work which is nothing to do with teaching. Most of it is entirely pointless, and not designed to have a direct and positive impact on students. Have said the classic ‘If only the students weren’t in today, I could get all my work done’ How pathetic is that?

I would still teach if I had my time again.

I teach secondary science- I think there are really good things about the job. It's certainly never boring! And I get to talk about my passion all day. I think the kids can see through you if you don't care about your subject, so it's worth teaching something you really care about.

Workload is a big issue, some people can set firm boundaries around this. I'm not so good at it, and I'm also very prone to getting sucked in by the very needy kids- the ones who need extra support and help to do well. Which is not a bad thing, obviously, but it can mean you invest a lot of time and energy in one student, who potentially just isn't capable of succeeding at that moment in time. I'm trying to do less of this, but it's very hard!

I'd say in general the kids are "fine"- but maths is often a subject they struggle with, so behaviour can be more challenging. Morseo than behaviour, I'd say the big issue is mental health and social issues- these are a massive problem in teens and there is really limited support out there. You have to learn to protect yourself emotionally a bit. I was really bad at this in my first few years of teaching, I'm still not great at it, but if you get really sucked in, it will honestly damage your mental health too, so try to protect yourself where you can.

In the first few years especially, I'd also add pay isn't great. M1-3 is less than the national average full time salary, and given the hours you are working, it often doesn't feel worth it. But by the time you graduate, pay may have gone up to reasonable levels! And as a maths teacher you can sometimes negotiate going up the pay scale a bit faster. The pension is good, but don't forget it comes with big deductions.

Schools are very different from each other, so I would say if you find you don't like one school, it's fine to move. However, it is a fact that most state school maths departments are currently short staffed, and this creates extra workload, and may be hard to escape.

A maths degree will give you loads of options though, so if you find that teaching isn't what you'd hope it would be, it won't be wasted!

Teacher for nearly 40 years in Primary. Absolutely loved my job but if was back again l would have liked to teach Maths at Secondary.
Like others here..loved teaching the children, quite happy to prepare what was useful to me but hate the never-ending add ons that keep coming..l am in lreland. They are soul destroying and achieve nothing worthwhile.