Scottish primary teachers-am I mad to do the pgde?

[Jellybabyjen]

I have been accepted for this year. My daughter is 3, I work in community development in a job which I don't hate but is a bit stagnant.
Basically, other than one friend who loves her job I've found nothing but negativity from qualified teachers or ex-teachers. Everyone keeps saying that unless you have a 'passion for teaching' you will hate it. I love working with children but my time in class is limited to a few volunteer days and although I enjoyed it, teaching has never been the only thing I want to do.
I applied as I was looking at it as I do with all jobs, I like the idea of being more creative in my work, there are a lot of jobs in teaching in my area, hopefully I would get time with my daughter in holidays, the pay is not awful etc.
So what I'm asking is would I be mad to retrain? Are there any recently qualified people who would recommend the job? Is it really the 60 hour weeks people keep talking about and if so then why? I'm seriously considering withdrawing my acceptance so any words or wisdom would be a help

How resilient are you? If you are a perfectionist you will struggle and find it stressful as the job is never 'done' - from what I see of the survivors they are resilient and realistic about never being able to please all of the people HT, Ofsted, parents all of the time. Choose your school carefully - there are some with happy staff, but you need to do your homework and a bit of digging to find out what the culture is really like.
Does your happy friend have DC? Again, harder if you have DC - 22 year old childless people living with their parents probably have an easier time of it... Alo, bear in mind that whoever wins the election, there is likely to need to be be a reduction in spending in the public sector (teachers' salaries...)- even in Scotland...

Thanks for reply. I am fairly resilient and have studied a health postgrad pre-child. Community development is not a perfectionists field and ever changing however we don't have the same paperwork and admin I fear in teaching!
My teacher friend has been teaching 5 years and just had her DD so will return part-time to her school. She's in it for the 'passion' though, did first degree in child & youth studies with specific aim of doing pgde and being a teacher.
I've only recently considered it (dec 2014) and wouldn't have given it a thought if the uni near me hadn't started doing the pgde course. I just had no idea there was such bad feeling in the profession and with so much negative outweighing the positive (or so it seems) I'm really not convinced its a wise move.

I enjoyed the few days I've shadowed in a class and already teach exercise classes for all ages and also adult groups in my job which I enjoy.
Are you both teachers? Why do you do it? What are the positives??

I can imagine thaf is a challenge! I wonder if teaching up here in moray/highlands will be quite different to Glasgow? What would you say takes up the majority of your time? Planning?

I love working with kids of all ages but don't have much experience with 7/8+ mostly with the littlies. My background is science so I think I'll enjoy that and I love exercise so PE maybe

Thanks so much for being honest. I will try and arrange a few more days in schools over the next month, hopefully that will help x