How much has teaching changed in the last couple of years?

[whereisvioleta]

I haven't taught in a state school since 2008 - I loved it, but did find it exhausting and challenging at times. If I were to go back to teaching in the state sector now, how different, generally speaking, is a teacher's day to day experience now compared with back then? I read a lot on here about how the workload and stress levels have ramped up dramatically recently - is this the reality I ought to prepare for? Many thanks.

It's the best job in the world. Ruined by distrust, impossible targets and constant scrutiny with complete lack of thanks or positivity.

Thanks for your replies. It's both sad and scary to hear what you're saying

No I'm sorry! I meant sad for you guys! And I guess teachers in general. It really sounds dire just now.

Prepare, but don't die. I left teaching in 2006. I went back in 2011. It has changed, but in the ways you would expect. Yes, YOU are responsible for every childs result. I was initially shocked at the amount of flak I got for failing to move on a child 3 sublevels.

But then, I got my balls back. Hang on. Not everything has changed. You get your teacher head on. I assessed my class. Overlevelled, they were. I sat them SATS. Proved, this was.

To the Pupil Progress Meeting I went. Ridiculed I was. Backed by the LEA ladies I was.

Left the school that bullied I did.

IME, huge numbers of schools are hugely harried by targets and progress on SIMS than prior to my leaving. Figures, not kids, matter. Results, not kids, matter. It sounds daft, but the idea that one childs level 3 might be an Everest and an amazing win has GONE. Unless they are are SEN, SA+ and so on.

I coped by finding a small school with an ethos I liked. Like the old ethos: every child matters. They do still exist, but they are hunted out of existence.

I also went part-time. This saved me.

paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork. My teacher friend is telling me about more and more pupil progress meetings and how her TA is having to do paperwork showing how the pupils they work with are making progress.

If you thought the workload was bad in 2008, don't go back! I left this year after 14 years because it just got too much and that's with being part time. It's NEVER enough no matter how much you do I've only ever wanted to be a teacher and my family are shocked that I've walked away but I feel like I am me again!

Target driven culture. All that matters right now are results. I've been witness now to two different heads cheating - one because my friend teaches my son and I was told that she was given two different sets of levels after the children left year 1 - a set that the parents were given and the actual levels. The school got outstanding in their ofsted report that year and they were also top of the league tables, the congratulatory letter from the LEA is framed outside the office. The other head is the one I work for who gets rid of pupils who aren't making progress, cheats for children on their sats, adds 'missing' data as needed and goes along the merry path of making their school desirable, achieving and a mockery of everything education should stand for. I hate being a part of this system right now, it is soul crushing and I don't know how to even attempt to change things.

It has changed enough to push me out. Results matter children and teachers don't.

In my last school, observations were all about what the students said, even if I could prove otherwise.... (I'm talking about a couple of criticisms eg over-reliance on a particular style of setting homework for example.)
My new school, not so much. It really is the luck of the draw, combined with gut feeling these days.

I'm now part time with no responsibility which has renewed my enthusiasm for the nuts and bolts. Planning, teaching, marking. Any other admin dross is done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Levels have been scrapped (thanks Gove) so now we have an inset in Jan to come up with a whole new system. No one yet knows how we'll pull that off.

It's awful. I want out, like half the profession seems to.

Everynow and then I look at my lovely yr1 child with a real zest for learning and excitement and intelligence... and then look at the junior schools obsessed with levels (as they have to be) and targets on each piece of work and grades.... and wonder about homeschooling for a bit. (Former secondary teacher)