How long do you spend at school?

[Nonie241419]

And how much do you work at home? My DH bit my head off tonight when I got home and told me I'm working ridiculous (unnecessary) hours. I get to work between 7.30 and 7.45, and leave pretty close to 6. I only work 2 days a week and have a staff meeting after school one night, then run (compulsory) after school club and have a meeting with my sort of job share after school on the other night. I get paid for PPA time, so don't get any non-contact time in the school day. I rarely get time to mark whilst at school as so much of my time is spent gathering resources, setting up/preparing and tidying up, plus tasks/conversations that have to happen actually at school.
As such, I bring lots of marking/planning home, and spend 1.5-2.5 hours on it around 5 nights a week. DH thinks I'm doing something wrong and that no other teachers spend this amount of time working. Certainly, I can't imagine being able to keep on top of work if I worked full time so there must be something wrong with my time management.
I'm really struggling with the pressures of work. I am plagued with mouth ulcers and have broken out in hives this week after a horrible staff meeting. I'm already drowning under marking and am utterly on the back foot with nearly everything (new year group I've not taught since teacher training 12 years ago, and no useful info/planning/overview of what we needed to do until the weekend before school restarted in September).
I'm seriously thinking I'm not good enough to be a teacher, that I'm letting everyone down, but I can't think of anything else I'd actually be good at/cope with.
Is DH right and I'm working too many hours for what I actually achieve?

DH leaves for work at around 7am and arrives at 7.15ish. He then usually works though to 6pm-ish and more often than not will do school work in the evening for 2-3 hours after the kids have gone to bed. He has meeting after school several nights and before school on 2 days. He also has a tutor group and runs a club on a Thursday after school for science gifted and talented. He always brings work home on weekends and will pop into school at least once a month/6 weeks to do a mornings work on a weekend.

He is HoD in an outstanding secondary school.

Your DH hasn't a clue.

The hours you do don't sound OTT. It's a while since I was teaching (primary) but have lots of friends still in the profession.
Your 2 days don't have much room in them for you to eg do much marking after school because you have meetings and run a club.
You sound like most teachers; very committed and that inevitably means doing marking, paperwork at home.
A new year group that you have little experience of will inevitably increase your workload, but hopefully it should get better as you get used to it over this first term.

I spend around 11 hours a day at school with no breaks and then 2 hours each evening working. I usually do about 4 hours at some point during the weekend. That works out to about 70 a week, some weeks it's a lot more.

The thing I'm finding hard is I just can't switch off anymore. I'm up now going over a child protection issue in my head from yesterday and worrying. It's making me ill too op

Ive definitely worked in schools that have been easier than the one I'm in now but I've decided that I just can't do it after mat leave because I'll never see them (currently pregnant with my pfb) and I'm going to do something else.

I'm a visiting SEN teacher doing mostly consultative work and I am unbelievably lucky that this means I don't have to do the crazy hours and I have no problem going part time as I have my own case load and don't job share... however I know I would have to do similar hours to you OP if I was class based in a school. I have two DC under three years old.... If I wasn't in my current job I would be long gone from teaching. I will never get this time back with them again, no way could I work those kinds of hours I would never see them... teaching is destroying family life for so many of my school based colleagues. I know loads who want to get out of it and retrain. And although the hols are great it's just not worth it. I'm not a militant trade unionist but I do think we need to get behind the current workload campaign.

This is one of the reasons I left teaching. Part time really isn't part time. The only way to reduce your extra hours is to be worse at your job.

I think 2 hours of marking 5 evenings a week is excessive if you only work days. Do you need to mark every piece of work in great detail? Can you plan so that some lessons do not generate marking? Is your job share partner doing the same volume of work? Do you think the problem could be your school?

I am in school by 7:15 but usually leave before 5 because my HT told me I shouldn't be staying late as I am in early. I teach in KS1 so perhaps don't have the same amount of marking as you.

Full time, 8-4.30 most days. I have to leave then as I collect my kids from childcare. An hour or two at night. Will be more during report season, etc.

7.30 - 5.30 in school and 1-2 hours at home every day, plus 4-6 weekend hours. If I take a weekend or few evenings off, I'm then playing impossible catch up for the term. PPA time is filled with meetings, learning walks etc

I work three days a week and am subject leader for a core subject. I'm in school 8-5.30 as a minimum and do maybe 4-5 hours a week at home.

Some weeks can be busier.

I'm lucky that I get ppa once a fortnight and that our marking policy is quite manageable. Plus at the moment I'm getting a small amount if regular subject leadership time. I can see that getting eaten up though.

Is the 2 hours marking every night or just the nights you work?

Your marking load seems heavy, but the rest perfectly normal.

That is insane. I don't know why the English system seems to expect this. I'm in Scotland, I work 4 days. I arrive at work at around 8, I leave at around 5. I have colleagues who stay longer but it's their choice. I sometimes do marking at home but not every week. We are involved in working parties developing areas of the curriculum within our school and council cluster group, we have meets and CPD time. I get 2 hours non class contact a week (as I'm .8). I couldn't teach in England I think, it would be far too much and I physically wouldn't cope with it - I'm part time now due to health issues.

I work in FE. Contracted 8.45 - 17.00. Probably do 8.00 - 18.00 most days plus marking etc and planning at home. Plus 2 tutor groups and responsibility for 1 course (years 1 and 2). 60 hrs per week. Minimum.

I work 2 days a week. In at 7:30, leave at 4:30 one day (because of childcare) and 6:00 on the other day. I do a minimum of an hours work at home on 5 days of the week. It's ridiculous and I never switch off from it. Seriously considering getting out of teaching.

0.7 in a high school English dept. I do about 26 hours per week in school (have not inc lunch times unless on duty) plus another 6-8 at home. So approx 35 hours I would guess. More near exam times tho. It's manageable but I do as many hours now as I did when id been qualified 2 years back in 1997.

What I mean is that I do as much now on 0.8 as I did full time in 1997

School by 8am, home around 6 (later for obvious things like parents' eve). An hour or two in the eves and Sundays. I take Saturday off. Secondary HOD non core.

I have just gone FT. I've got two young DCs at home, both very poor sleepers, and we both work. I can't spare more than 44 hours in the week and limit myself to 3 at the weekend. There will be seven evenings over the year when I'm at work until 9pm and they'll just have to have late nights then.

Over 39 weeks a year, this works out at significantly more than a FT job with 'normal' holidays (four weeks and bank hols). And of course there's the 40 hours plus of holiday time marking an planning.

Have any of you calculated how many hours you're working over the month / year?

It's not sustainable for me. I'm only just keeping up so I'm looking for a way out.

I've mentioned this before on here too but it amuses me that my FT contract is 32.5 hours a week. Tha is what the public think we're doing (8:30-3:30) with 13 weeks off a year.

I am in at about 8.20 and out at 4.30. I do 2-4 hours of marking at the weekend. I don't work in the evenings.

I am probably not doing my 'best' - before kids I would be in 7-6 ish and still work at home. I have dropped all my responsibility points and am now 'just' a classroom teacher.

That amount of marking sounds excessive for two days teaching. Other than that it sounds fairly typical.

Dh was head of year and arrived at work at 7.15, left at 5.30ish, worked from 9pm-midnight most nights and one whole day each weekend I don't think it should be like this but that's what teaching is like these days

I'm sure teaching wasn't always

The weekend was for marking, all the extra work in the week was pastoral stuff, phoning home, data stuff, endless emails. Even working like that he barely had time to plan lessons. He also worked right through Christmas and easter holidays more than once. Usually took a week or 2 off over summer thank goodness

Oops didn't finish my first post. I'm sure teaching wasn't always this stressful. In some schools iI suspect t might still not be so demanding. Didn't people do it for the holidays in the past?!

I arrive at wiork 7.45, leave between 4.30 ond 5.30 depending on the needs of my own children and clubs, staff meeting etc. I do the parent taxi thing, cook supper etc until 8.30 or so, at which point my DH gets home. I then work till 11 or so. Full day on Sunday, though do have something of a lie-in.

I suppiose I don't work very different total hours to when I worked as a middle manager in industry - I suppose that was more 8 - 7, 5 days a week - but it gives me the flexibility to take a gap to be 'mum', and the holidays. My DH calls it the ultimate compressed hours job.

IME primary teachers work signiificantly longer hours than secondary class teachers on a day to day level, but don't have the peaks and troughs of e.g. coursework or exam marking.

I get into work at 6:30 and leave between 4:30 and 5:30. I only take work home when it's assessment time, or similar. I am sick of having no life so if it doesn't done in those hours (with no stops for breaks) it ain't getting done.