I don't want to go back :(

[KareninsGirl]

That's it in a nutshell. We have experienced huge change in our workplace and I'm doing three times the workload I should due to others either bring absent or not doing their jobs properly.

I used to love my job but all I feel now is disillusioned and exhausted.

Please remind me of why education is such a great sector to work in?!

[ShowOfBloodyStumps]

Can I ask you all honestly if you'd advise against teacher training.

I'm supposed to be starting in September 2014 but some of the recent threads on here (and on the TES) are making me quake with fear. I'm already married to a public sector worker who adores the idea of his job but deals with the moving goalposts and public antipathy on a daily basis. He used to be angry about it but these days he's just sad.

I'm sorry you're all so unhappy. I wish I could say something that would help.

[ChippingInLovesAGoodBang]

:(

I don't know how you do it - far too much crap behind the scenes. It is lovely to watch the kids grow & learn and feel you are making a difference in their lives... but the price you have to pay for that is too high. Sadly it's burning all the good teachers out.

[TawdryTatou]

I would honestly say don't do it, Show.

I adored my job. It's all I ever wanted to do.

I returned after 13 years out, and it's unrecognisable. My school is run on a business model, I was observed 9 times last year, I cannot get past RI because I don't play the game, but my results speak volumes.

Who cares about that, though?

I have to carry members of staff who really do not give a shit, but who get paid more than me and get better obs results because they know how to play the game and milk the system.

The only thing that makes it worth while turning up are the kids - but I've had to mess them about so much lately in the name of Gove that I can barely face them any more.

It's shit. And I get paid peanuts.

[NewNameforNewTerm]

And the new primary curriculum beckons! Yet more moved goalposts.

[ChippingInLovesAGoodBang]

Showy - I know a few teachers IRL, between them and the posts on MN, you couldn't pay me enough to go into teaching as it is now :( and I love kids and teaching them.

[KareninsGirl]

I would advise against going into teaching...at least until Gove has gone. I never thought I would feel the way I do about a job I was so passionate about.

And I agree that data is usually interpreted to fit an underlying agenda, very depressing.

I stay for the students and to support my (mainly) lovely colleagues, but I'm not sure I can do this for much longer.

[Nocomet]

A governor and a parent of a Y11 who could have done with her S&L mark, rather than a teacher.

Our school is in SM, the reasons for this are to my mind a bit tenuous, deeply tied up in data, predicted grades and standard of management and bugger all to do with the quality of teaching the pupils get or how hard the teachers work at the white board face.

You are all appreciated, by the parents and the DCs, especially your Y11s.

[yorkshirepuddings]

I just feel that all my creativity has been sucked out. I've completely lost my spark.

I have loads to do for tomorrow and feel quite depressed. It is only the last year or so I've started to feel like this.

I've slowly come to the realisation that this will be my last year and I will leave at the end of summer. Making the decision has actually lifted a weight from my shoulders.

The only thing making the job bearable is the students - teenagers are so interesting and funny. I'll miss them.

[ShowOfBloodyStumps]

Oh lordy. I'm so sorry. I have become quite good friends with dd's teacher and she is one of the best primary teachers I've ever met. She is dynamic and interesting and committed and I asked her honestly whether she recommended her job the other day and she simply said she wakes up every day and does it for the children. Her refusal to answer the actual question probably speaks volumes. I don't know what the heck else I can do which I would be good at and would fit in with dh's job and having two children. All of the positives of teaching make me think it must be the best job in the world. All the realities of it make me sad for the whole profession and what it's being reduced to.

[SilverApples]

Showy, I'd advise against it too.

[ShowOfBloodyStumps]

Excellent, prostitution it is.

[notagiraffe]

DS1 came in and lay on my bed the other day and said, "I'm so happy.'
I asked why. He said, 'I love my school.'

I asked what he loved about it and he said, 'The teachers. They're all so brilliant. they're so funny and they make learning such fun.'

So you do make an impact. You do make a difference. I remember my favourite teachers and one of them had no idea how much I liked her. I was awful in her class, and yet i learned so much from her that I still apply some of what she taught me almost every day in my current job, and think of her fondly at least once a week.

You are under-appreciated on the surface, but you make a massive impact deep down.

[SilverApples]

Just remember Dom not Sub.

[SconeForAStroll]

I trained and taught years ago - pre-dc always planning to return. As Tawdry said it was all I ever wanted to do.

I want to go back but I am much too scared. It is such an all enveloping job anyway, so many hours, so much money on extra resources.

I am at a loss. :(

[SilverApples]

Oh, I often get greeted and waved at and chatted to by ex-pupils who remember all the good stuff, even ten years later. And their parents.
As so many have said, the children are definitely the best bit!
But the downside is outweighing that now, by a considerable amount.

[ninah]

more ethical, and better paid
if I had the body I'd join you

[ShowOfBloodyStumps]

I don't have the body really. If we joined forces, we could cobble something together surely? I can sing a bit. In a good wind. With a deaf audience. There's a niche market for that surely?

[WelliesandPyjamas]

So sad to hear all the teachers on here feeling like this, but sadly understand how you feel. My DH had to make the (extremely) tough decision to leave teaching after only a year, for many of the reasons I see on this thread. He's someone who loves teaching, gets an astoundingly enthusiastic response (and learning!) from children, but who felt pushed to consider the extremely negative effect of the profession on his family life and stress levels. So he left and now gets to spend time with his children every evening instead of withdrawing to the study until midnight...he gets weekends to spend relaxing with all of us...and gets to use his teaching knowledge to help his own children with their school work, instead of never seeing them. It was a very sad but correct choice to make.

However, it might have been that his chain of schools was particularly bad at appreciating staff and seeing what was actually being achieved in the classroom, and extremely good at placing extreme demands on staff and changing the goalposts all the time. As a governor at a different school, I see staff who are admired and appreciated, and who appear to be a team, although of course work very long and dedicated hours like everyone else.

Is there an answer to this? Can the profession be made enjoyable whilst also keeping a fair and constant check on pupils' progress?

[MaureensWhites]

I don't want to either. My school is 'needs improvement' - we're being observed all the time (my first ob 5 mins after children arrive on first day of term) and every carrot - 'you're really improving' comes with a massive stick 'but you need to do much much better'. Total and utter disregard by all authorities for the massive cocking mess our old head left behind when they swanned off a couple of months before Ofsted arrived.

I've had enough and I only work part time. Don't know how the full timers are coping with it.

[MaureensWhites]

I don't want to either. My school is 'needs improvement' - we're being observed all the time (my first ob 5 mins after children arrive on first day of term) and every carrot - 'you're really improving' comes with a massive stick 'but you need to do much much better'. Total and utter disregard by all authorities for the massive cocking mess our old head left behind when they swanned off a couple of months before Ofsted arrived.

I've had enough and I only work part time. Don't know how the full timers are coping with it.

[MaureensWhites]

Sorry for double post

[ninah]

We are requires improvement too Maureen I share your pain
requires knocking down might be more accurate
Show - my 'behaviour management' is spot on, I think we could be a winning team. You sing to them and I'll chastise them.

[TheFallenMadonna]

This term I have withdrawn all our year 11s from the November Maths exam, changed the Science course being followed by some of our year 9s follwing another government announcement (I know check the government press release website frequently as it is how I find out about major changes - which is just bloody rude of them actually!), read the new draft curriculum for the two core subjects I oversee, and tried to work out if/how we need to change what we do, and how we assess it. I am one of the people who does all those observations that other posters are worrying about (plus I get observed too of course), and I am worrying about the feedback I give, because our HMI said different things to the Lead Inspector. And if you look at lesson obs data and results, there actually isn;t as strong a correlation as youmight expect. Or you might expect if you honestly thought that 20-30 minutes in a classroom is suffient to judge quality of learning.

But - I still love teaching, mostly. And I love my management/leadership role too, mostly. Education is my passion and my vocation (unfashionable view now I think).

But I do feel like I am on a treadmill and the speed is constantly increasing. At some point, I am going to fall off. Hard.

[NewNameforNewTerm]

It is not just "requires improvement" schools. I teach at a school labelled "outstanding" and I don't want to go back. I worked nearly all holiday and I'm still not ready for tomorrow.

[KareninsGirl]

Any idea why I can't see this thread in the topics list any more? Could I have hidden it by accident? If so, how do I 'un-hide' it?