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?!

[Spider7]

I left a year ago. Just too much wrong outside the classroom. Can no longer recommend as a career. Loved the kids. They do appreciate you, even the rude ones... bar one or two. Hope the latter part of my post helps.

[soapboxqueen]

I have no idea. Although if it were the case I would expect to see tangible support for improvement or training. Otherwise it's just bullying.

[howmuchwouldyoutake]

Can I join you? I'm filled with dread at the thought of going in tomorrow. I'm in FE and don't get as many holidays as schools so was only off Thursday and Friday.

I had hoped to spend Mon - Wed catching up and getting ahead but meetings, training and a parents event swallowed it all. I'm more behind than i was before half term :-(

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

It's just awful. So many good teachers are leaving left right and centre.
I dont care about Ofsted, or SATS, I just care that ds goes off to school happy in the morning, and is learning.
All this box ticking and pressure cant be good for anyone, kids included.
Lizziegeorge-what did the nightmare parents do?

[Inclusionist]

I'm going too but have to make it through the next 5 half terms. Seems like a mountain right now.

So sad to be driven so deeply into the ground.

[NewNameforNewTerm]

What scares me most is carrying on like this for 16 more years! I won't be an effective teacher when I'm in my 60s and I already feel middle-age having an impact on my energy levels.

[ReluctantBeing]

I've got another thirty three years to go. I'm 35. Just not possible.

[Loonytoonie]

Another one to join you with serious blues and low-ness.

I was observed 11 times too last year and now, even after the summer break, I feel burnt out with nothing left to give.

We have jumped through so many hoops, adjusted our teaching methods to keep county and HMI's happy, that I feel I've essentially lost my 'craft' of teaching my subject.

Feel sick to my stomach at the thought of going back. It's not the kids, it's the crazy marking scheme, the demands for data.

[ReluctantBeing]

[alwaysonmymind]

My stomach has churned just reading everyones thoughts . I went on supply at Easter. I now see my children in the evenings and at the weekends. A lot of the staff in the four schools I regularly go into are on their knees, newer and more experienced. It is so sad. I remind myself that I can just walk out at the end of the day but I miss the satisfaction of seeing a group of children develop and progress, and not just academically, the emotional improvements too.

I feel a bit like all the PPs. I am not really looking forward to the jobs I have lined up this week.
But what else could I do? This is the only think I have ever wanted to do

[KateBeckett]

This thread makes me feel sad, but relieved as well. :( hugs everyone

[ravenAnyKucker]

Yep, me too.

I have three meetings after school tomorrow. (3.15-3.30, 3.30-4.30, 4.30-5.30).

Not a bloody one of them has anything to do with improving the experience or outcomes for the kids.

Each has been generated by some other poor bugger with a Performance Management target which entails Delivering INSET to their hapless colleagues. So I shall be sitting at the back playing on my phone whilst I'm PowerPointed at.

I should be cracking on with all the proper work I'm behind with after taking my family away for the weekend .

Oh yes, & the idiot Gove appears to have re-designed GCSEs on the back of an envelope this week. Again.

[Spider7]

Although depressing, this post is a positive for me. It confirms to me that I did the right thing in leaving. I felt so bad about it at the time. Esp as more than a few kids had chosen my option knowing they would be taught by me. Sometimes I have wondered about going back. But the posts here remind me of the claustrophobia I felt & the bullying & jealousy that was rampant. Lol, mentioning 'bullied' was a big no, no that could result in disciplinary & threats of being sued!

[BrianWont]

There are gazillions of things out there that ex-teachers can do. There are ex-teachers everywhere. Trouble is, teaching is so all consuming that when you're on the inside you don't have the time or energy to do the research into alternatives.

I currently work in HE admin (earning more than I did as HoD in a comp). I switch my PC off at 5 pm and forget all about work till 9 o'clock the next day. It's bliss.

Don't be scared - start looking, start applying.

[Careca]

I am so sorry

My children have got fabulous teachers, dynamic, inspiring, funny, patient. My youngest kid is FLYING in yr 7.

I am so grateful for you teachers, what a crying shame that disillusion and stupid pressure is driving so many away

[SilverApples]

The children are the best bit, endlessly interesting and no two the same!
I've never been bored in a classroom.

[MsFiremanSam]

This thread makes me so sad, and yet confirms how I and all my teaching friends feel. I've worked in a leafy lane school and I'm now in a school with results well below floor standards. I've been teaching 6 years and am a qualified Advanced Skills Teacher, but I'm burnt out. Teaching takes absolutely everything out of you. I constantly think about leaving. I love the job and the kids with a passion, but the data-obsessed SLT's, driven by the regime of the odious Gove, are sucking the soul out of education. The workload is unmanageable but 90% of it doesn't benefit the kids at all. But they need us! What will become of education if all the best teachers leave? Every time an experienced teacher in my school leaves, they're replaced by unqualified teachers. It's so depressing.

[exoticfruits]

I find it so sad. All the teachers that I know love working with children but they are all stressed. There was one that I really admired, she was excellent and so on the ball, making it all look easy and yet it turned out to be at tremendous personal cost and she was off work for weeks with stress, and she was one without children of her own.
I don't think anyone will spend their entire working life in teaching, they will burn out. Many older teachers look for job shares, it isn't just those with young families. I know many who work as TAs, or do supply teaching so they can have a work/life balance. I meet ex teachers everywhere and they all say the same- love the classroom,but hate the job as it is now.

[NorthernShores]

I'm looking to return after 5 years out. I miss teaching, but not the anxiety. All the Gove target tuff is new to me and I'm not quite sure what I'm walking back into...

[BeQuicksieorBeDead]

Gove should read this and be ashamed. What he would actually think if he read this is that a happy teacher is an underperforming teacher, like his mate Wilshaw says.

I am off in maternity leave now, left on friday, but I spent all of half term doing assessments, data, learning journeys, planning, etc etc so that my poor nqt maternity cover has half a chance if keeping her head above water this side of christmas. Our head is brilliant but the cracks are beginning to show there too, he doesnt know how long he can keep going with the pressure and ridiculous dictates handed down from on high.

I really dont want to go back, even though the kids and parents are great, I love my team and I love the actual teaching.... I can't bear the thought of for hours of work every night after school, when I dont get home until six anyway, with a six month old baby. We all work eleven hours a day as it is.

[Inclusionist]

Unfortunately I'm finding it can't be done with a small child in tow BeQuick.

I just feel like I'm rubbish at both jobs.

[soapboxqueen]

That's exactly how I feel so hence me leaving.

[KareninsGirl]

How's everyone feeling, two days in?

I'm still teetering on the edge.

[Orangeanddemons]

I feel better. My classes have been lovely so far. obs next week though ...

[BeQuicksieorBeDead]

inclusion and soap I suspect I will feel the same when I go back. My partner is going to do the majority of childcare which is brilliant and I am very lucky, but school eats my life up and I can see I will either become very crap at my job, very crap at supporting my dp, or have a breakdown! Colleagues that have gone part time just seem to have less money, not more time .....

I love my job and I can't imagine swapping it, but I really want to be the best mum I can be, and the two dont seem possible in my head. Somehow I will be letting someone down.