A question - how many teachers on here are thinking of quitting due to Gove?

[bronya]

Everyone I know who teaches and can afford to SAH with their children is going to hand in their notice this year. Many others are looking for new careers. Is this as widespread as I think it'll be?

Honestly I feel trapped. Used to love it but now browbeaten by data obsession, constant pressure for each lesson to be good, accelerated progress for all pupils. I'm in tears most days. However, DH is a sahd as the pressure on my kids we felt was too much with both of us working full time and doing the sums we could just about afford it till DS started school. I'm a shadow of who I used to be. I'm always either at school or working.

I feel trapped too. I only work 2 days a week but in reality I do more like 4. My school is (allegedly) outstanding, but the pressure to stay that way is constant and almost unbearable. I don't think all schools at the moment are so endlessly target and data driven, but they soon will be. I see good practice being undermined constantly for the sake of results. I would love to leave but can't afford to, and being UPS1 makes it virtually impossible to find positions to move to that aren't NQT or main scale for part time contracts. I think I'm a good teacher, I love being with the children (mostly!), I work as hard as it is humanly possible to do, and I still feel constant worry and stress. Has anyone had any experience of getting regular part time supply eg PPA cover? Or is that the Holy Grail?!!

PPA cover is all done in my school by teachers of 60 who have just retired but can't afford to actually properly retire! There are loads of them all doing two days a week-PPA cover only. They like it but find it hard work as the school is challenging and even though they were full time teachers there before, the chidlren still see them as 'only supply teachers'

It's depressing that even after qualifying decades ago, they still can't afford to actually just leave :(

Cuggles - hope you're enjoying your break!

What am I doing now!? Living my life!!
seriously!? We're lucky that I don't really need to work...dh (bless him) had been on at me for the last 5yrs to jack it all in as he knew how frustrating and maddening and soul destroying I was finding it all!
I'm doing a bit of IT work for my old school! But on a very casual basis... Just keeping busy with the kids! (although I did think my house would be tidier now I supposedly have the time! Sadly I'm just a slovenly woman!)
I do miss the fun of teaching now and again... But those moments were rapidly few and far between... Thus no way enough to ever make me regret leaving... Although the money was good! But i came to the conclusion that if I was in the position to leave... And enjoy my life... Then I should take it! I also suspect this is a little tied up with the passing of my lovely dad two years ago! Life's too short and all that!!
Phew! Hope you manage to make the right decision for you!

Thanks Bea! I do enjoy it and with one due to start school next yr and one the yr after I can only imagine I will enjoy it more! I think we might be in a position that I do not have to go back but I feel that I had better not have too long out and completely burn my bridges (although at ups3 might be too late for that!!) And I did love it but not sure I would anymore..and how much would my family suffer!?! So hard! Enjoy yourself..fully concur life is short...my stepdad was so excited about life he would build for himself in retirement and then died at 64! Finally bought his dreamcar and drove it for a month so yes..carpe diem!

I work in NHS but seconded to education as speech therapist working in language units and I am leaving in January.

None of our secondary kids get to follow any alternative
Or functional curricula now (Cope/Asdan taken out when we became academy). Some of them have no road safety skills, cant buy items in a shop or talk on phone giving basic details and I am getting hassle because they aren't going up x no of levels each term on a graph as it means I'm not adding value. They are 11-16 with less language than my three year old and I get questioned on why I don't want to spend the two days intervention they have preteaching GCSE Science vocab they will never use!

It's just not for me. I am actually moving country as I don't want my kids in this system!

I'm going on maternity leave - can't wait! Will have to return so I can keep the OMP but looking into alternative careers for the future. So many brilliant, talented and hardworking colleagues are planning to leave and I dread to think what education will be like when dedicated and experienced teachers are driven out in their droves.

I am on maternity leave - just left, I don't know what will happen when I have to go back. I work with amazing talented people, both adults and children, and everyday I see my friends getting snowed under, depressed and browbeaten. Including our Head, who is brilliant, but can't do the jumping through hoops nonsense and is thinking about leaving too.

I am dreading going back to a job I love and people I care about. How crazy is that?! I have been teaching for ten years and can't imagine not teaching any more, but equally can't keep up the pace I have been working at with a little one. I just can't. I am hoping by the time I go back, Gove will have done something criminal and handed in his notice.

I had a dream where Gove was sacked-I actually woke up feeling all glowy for a minute.

I would quite like to work in a schools' room on a hospital (having been in hospital as a child and really enjoying my time in the school room) but don't know anything about where such jobs would be advertised or if they are even run by teachers now?!

So sad to read this. I do agree with the terrorism analogy tbh. I am trying as hard as I can to not lot it get to me. Gove isnt interested in my airy fairy 'soft' subject so isnt directly meddling. Luckily SLG and pare ts are a d we do a lot if extra curricular which always showcases us. However, target grades, intervention and monitoring are the bane of our lives still. Feedback progress made to students who have barely got their teeth into a task! Throw mini plenaries in every 5 minutes it is ridiculous. I am also aware of schools taking quite underhand tactics to e sure students get their target grades. The cuts to sen privision are criminal. I just wish more parents were aware.

Done it already - moved to an international school. School life without Gove and pals is a lot better. :)

worried, I really wanted to go down the hospital teaching route too but can find no info or way in at all no matter how I search!

From what I hear Ofsted causes a lot more stress than Gove. But it is heartening to see there are still some teachers who want to stay in the job.

I would disagree. Having just done an OFSTED, it's stressful but it's now over. Whereas the pain of GOVE goes on and on.

And OFSTED is a tool of the Government.....

Those who are leaving, but not retiring.....what do you plan to do instead? Just curious....

Agree that Ofsted is at least a fixed time scale. Gove is relentless in his tinkering around with exams, making it impossible to keep up with the curricular and text changes necessary, let alone actually understand each 'improved' version of the spec.

Left after 20 years last July having spent the year being really miserable with the pressure. I was in a senior role in a secondary school and on a good wage. I am not working at all now and I don't know what to do next. We've gone from a good family income to just above the national average income. We'll survive and I'm happy to live a very frugal life if it means some time and space away from the awful pressure.

Miss the children and families very much. Don't miss the role I was doing at all.

Feel very sad that it came to that point but life's too short. Never thought I wouldn't be a teacher, really is my vocation. And though I say so myself I was really good at it.

I was embarrassed to say to colleagues that I was leaving the job with nothing to go to, but one by one they all came to say they would if they could. It's a really sad state of affairs.

I looked into hospital teaching and the jobs are very few and far between. I have a friend who teaches in a childrens hospital, she is both QTS and a qualified nurse. The jobs don't come up very often and are mostly through the Local Authority which "owns" the hospital.

I also looked at prison service teaching, which sounded, if anything, even more stressful!

I stopped teaching after having two kids in quick sucession, and I haven't gone back to it yet. I did stints of supply and am now a HLTA. I love it, it's nowehere near as stressful, but I am wavering about returning "proper". I could do with the income and pension (such as it is now!), but I also quite like seeing my kids and having an actual life.......

And when I see what has happened to teaching in the years since i've been away, it's very sad. Tests, tests, observations, tests.

Ofsted? Over?! only if you are good or above ...

This is why I left the state sector and now teach in a private school. ISI (independent school inspectorate) are much more sensible than Ofsted, we can stick two fingers up to Gove (although not sure how much longer as I think the Government is also planning on interfering with the international GCSE). Teaching is still hard work, but I have my enjoyment of it back again. Never going back to state ever ever ever again!

This is sobering reading.

I am currently in the second year of a degree with the aim of becoming a secondary teacher. This thread makes me sad and scared.

:(

I left my part time teaching position last year. I've been doing part time supply since and absolutely love it. All the stress lifted immediately and I enjoy doing the job, without the added pressure - family life is once again calm and happy

Hellocleaveland - I am doing two days supply after leaving a two day a week teaching job. I was feeling the same as you - stressed most of the week despite only being paid to work two days . After leaving I started with a great supply agency - my monthly pay is similar to what it was (except in holidays - but you just have to budget for that) and I honestly have my life back now - best decision I ever made! I even regularly supply at my old school, which is actually fun & enjoyable again!

Desperate to leave, but can't afford to. My HT is lovely, but I'm so sick of justifying Early Years and the ethos, way of working etc. it's not the job I entered in the '80's. I feel stressed and boxed into a corner because they want to remove everything I hold dear about my job. I don't think I can last another 15 years, but can't see what else to do that would earn me the same money. My DH was diagnosed with a life limiting illness at the beginning of the year and whilst he is ok-ish now, there will come a time when he will be unable to work. So, it's down to me - but can't see it being teaching for much longer.