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?

I think you are working too long hours and your DH is right. Could you do these hours every day if you were full time. The trouble is when people do this it soon becomes expected. Then even more work will be piled on. And longer hours necessary to keep up. Why would anyone be a teacher!

I am HOY and teach two subjects. In school 8-5 ish (leave then as have childcare to get home for), then do about 3 hours for 5/6 nights a week and then about four hours over the weekends...I worked out its about 60 ish a week, not including the various extras like parents evenings of which as a HOY there are many. Work through every break and lunch too always. Plus residential trips etc etc. At least as HOY whilst it is barmy in termtime I find it slightly less hectic n the "Holidays" (ha ha9 than when I was HOD. Been doing it years too so not even a newbie building up my skills!

I must be really lazy then. I don't do anywhere near those hours. I work ft and am in school 8:30 til 4:30. Mon-thurs and 8-4 on Fri. Every night I bring one set of books to mark, with maybe two sets at the weekend. So maybe an hour or two each evening. I don't have meetings every week or clubs to run if I don't want to though.

I have just worked out in answer to a previous question that if I work 60 hrs for 40 weeks a year and 10 hours for the other 12 weeks then split over a 47 week year (ie the regular 5 weeks hols most people get taken off) then I do a 53 hour week for 47 weeks...yes teachers get a great deal with hols! However, like Dragonlette, I have met a few who manage on less and are brilliant so depends on so much I think..school, age range, whether it is a examinable subject, clubs etc etc.

I work 2.5 days now and get in at 8ish ( I have to use a breakfast club that starts at 7.45 and then drive), and leave at 4.30ish to pick up the kids, sometimes a bit earlier, sometimes later. I mark through lunchtimes and take about 2 hours worth home 2 days. I work falt out all day planning one day off, mark for half the day one other day off and then do NO WORK all weekend.

When I was Ft, at a different school, I was in at 7, left at 6, worked till 10 every night and one full day every weekend, sometimes more. This was due to the nature of FT, the stupid marking policy and the insane pressure of it. My new school is sensible and PT is great. I see my kids! I have a weekend!

I have been both secondary and primary, and found Secondary much easier in terms of marking, even though I was a marking heavy subject ( History and polictics). Some primary schools are insane, expecting 90 books marked per night.

In school from about 7.45 til 4.15. Do 1-2 hrs each night except Saturdays. English teacher at outstanding secondary. It's intense while I'm there but manageable if you're organised. Some times of year are crazy though eg coursework deadlines, build up to exams.

I also work 2 days.
I do get PPA time though.
I start at 8:15 or so. Home by 5:30. Staff meeting one night. Club another.
Very little actual planning or marking done at school.
I reckon I spend about 4/5 hours at home planning for school.
Your hours at school sound fairly normal. But you are perhaps spending a little longer at home working than I might expect. Especially if you are still 'drowning' in marking.
It does depend in the expectations of your school however. Along with any responsibilities you have, what subjects you teach and how old the kids are.

"Every night I bring one set of books to mark, with maybe two sets at the weekend."

As a primary teacher, the expectation is that ALL English and Maths books are marked (or at least looked over) every night for the following lesson, and that informs tweaks to plannng for the following day. So that is 2 sets every night. If I teach e.g. History, Science, then the expectation is always that every book is marked for the following lesson, so I either have to add a third set to overnight marking or, for once a week subjects like Science, mark them each weekend (but that can up to 4 sets or so). It's just a sdifferent way of doing things _ I am always surprised how rarely DS's (secondary) books are marked, even in an outstating school.

DH (sec DH) gets in about 8am and leaves around 5pm if he hasn't got a late meeting. He doesn't (and never has in the whole of his 20+ years of teaching, bar the very odd moment) do any work at home.

I work in a specialist setting and get in at 8.30 and leave between 4 and 4.30 apart from staff meeting - leave by 5pm. When I was in mainstream - as a class teacher and then DH, I got in about 8am and left between 5 and 6 and IIRC, did very little at home other than at reports time.

Over the past 27 years in the profession I see that the most stressed teachers are the ones who either have horrific management or make themselves more work than is absolutely necessary. You MUST be able to switch off and relax at home, life is too short

I work in an EBD school and do 815 (briefing starts at 830) until 230 (kids leave) then debriefing until roughly 330. I am able to do nearly all of my planning in the holidays (I don't have children) and marking is maybe 2 hours a week (our school has 50 students and they are not prolific writers).

I mark the same amount of stuff though in secondary. We just do each set once a week rather than every lesson. So each set of books that I mark has 3 lessons and 2 homeworks for me to mark. It takes about 2 hours to mark ks4 books, and about 1.5 hrs for each set of ks3 books. If I did it after each lesson then I'd probably only take 20-30 mins for each set of books. Obviously different subjects take different amount of time to mark and I'm lucky that my subject (maths) is one of the more straightforward ones to mark.

I don't understand why you are marking so much. We've carefully written our schemes of work so the kids mark their own. We do 2 big marks. Once 1/2 way through, and once at the end of a project. That's it. I thought most schools did this.

I don't understand why you have a compulsory after school club. Are you paid for it?

Orange, do you teach primary? Or secondary? All primaries I have had 'inside' experience of have an expectation of overnight marking, to a fairly rigid 'at least 1 positive comment' - 1 school I have wiorked in specified 3 - and '1 point fopr improvment'. And English in particular marked closely against a set of c. 3 success criteria, for every day.

(So for example I do not always mark closely against spelling overall, but I do mark closely atgainst the week's target spelling pattern. And I will mark - in 2 colours, 1 for positive, 1 for improvement - against criteria such as vocabulary selection or use of subordinating connectives if that is what we have been focusing n for that piece of work.)

Maths takes me the least time of any subject. English takes me the longest. Everything else from no time at all - PE - to a quick 'tick through' against the objectives of the lesson, to a full in depth scrutiny for longer pieces of writing in any subject.

Wow, I didn't know that! I teach secondary, there's a huge push towards student assessment at the moment in secondary.

That must be bloody awful, I don't know what to say. It's a ridiculous expectation...

I am on ML at the moment, but will probably never go back. I worked 4 days a week in school 7am until 6pm and on the fifth day 7-4pm - I think! I did a few hours most nights and tried not to work weekends but would often end up doing a few hours.

IME primary teachers work much harder

My old primary: every book, every night, Next Steps,3 stars and a wish. That was 90 books a night. My new primary: VCOP once a week, Deep maths once a week. Much more effective and lovely. My last secondary: My Yr 7-9 every fortnight, my Yr 10 and 11 every week with detail, my year 12 and 13 huge marking every week. Which was an essay a week, 30 in each class, in depth. I thought that was harsh till I moved to primary!

Philoslothy
Very sad that you are thinking of not going back. I have read some really inspirational stuff from you on previous threads about organisation ( copied your tips - they worked! ) and how you have managed a big family with work/life balance. if you are bailing out, not much hope for the rest of us ...

I loved my job however we would like to try for baby number six which will mean coming off maternity leave and then going straight back out again - which I feel uneasy about doing. So will probably resign rather than mess work about.

I am also lucky enough to not have to work and balancing my job with six children and a demanding home life is more of a challenge than I want.

I am glad the tips worked,

I might go back when all the children are back at school but probably just as a mainstream teacher. I do miss it,

Weren't you SMT Philoslothy? I remember your tips too, you sounded like an amazing teacher. But dc6, wow!! In awe!

Yes I was, if I could go back part time as SMT I would do but that is not an option.

I have been developing my own business while at home and am enjoying that - that also includes some teaching of a kind.

I was a fairly average teacher, however I was quite good at managing my time because I love my life at home.

bigTillyMint
Completely agree
Also on Twitter
@sjwilk: Forced out of teaching due to workload pressures #TeachFirst t.co/GtXL3udJpI
Some teachers are their own worst enemies.

bigTilly,

The point is that neither you nor your DH work in mainstream primaries, and i do think that is where the current burden in terms of hours is falling. I see secobndary colleagues here saying that they mark a set of books after 3 lessons and two homeworks - the question I have been asked (including in our recent Ofsted) is 'show me, in your books, how your daily assessment has led to changes in the learning journey for this child vs another child for the following lesson'. I could not do that without at the very least taking in and scanning every book.

The expectation of lesson to lesson marking (and the daily modification of planning and adult deployment as a result), and of classroom learning environments that constantly change, as well as the more limited capabilities of children to e.g. assess work themselves, the range of subjects taught and the smaller workplace (meaning that if e.g. after school clubs are expected by parents, there is a much smaller pool of staff who can provide them and very little money to employ outside providers - again, a normal expectation in every school I have aught in is that every teacher runs a club, otherwise there simply wouldn't be any) does make primary, at present, a longer hiours culture, even with amazing time management. There are also e.g. fewer specialists - in a secondary, I assume that a particular subject teacher might not have to attend every meeting regarding a child they teach with SEN. As a primary class tacher, i have to attend such meetings for every child with SEN in my class. Fortunately I now have relatively few - it was mor onorous in my ast school, where the SEN list contained around a third of every class (Ofsted opriginally thought we were over-diagnosing - but on their visit decided we were in fact being very conservative in our identification...). Equally, it is normal in a small primary for every member of staff to have a subject responsibility, in very small schools often 2 or 3.