Give it to me straight, DP is considering training as a primary school teacher

[OlfactoryFresh]

DP is 40, and has been on the periphery of education for most of his career, facilitating youth workshops, teaching after school clubs, lecturing in FE, being brought in to secondary schools to deliver specific modules that the school can't, that sort of thing.

He (and I) are fed up with the freelance lifestyle and, as he is particularly enjoying the primary school after school clubs he is teaching, the obvious thing to consider is training as a primary school teacher.

So, my question is, is teaching in a school really as hellish as we hear? The whole point of this would be to get a more 9 - 5 (ish) existence, with a decent reliable salary. There's no point making the change if he'll be working evenings and weekends.

Yout thoughts please!

I would discourage anyone from going in to teaching at the moment.

manually enter every single score for every single question for every single child on every single exam
utter madness for a professional to spend time on data entry that could be done by an anyone - eg SAHM who would be glad of a few hours work in school hours a the minimum wage.

There is no money to pay anyone to do data entry.

I did the GTP in 2007/2008. The stress and lack of support was the final straw for my marriage. I am told it is a common outcome.

Imo, I would not.

I would hate to think that nobody ever again is going to be a teacher, it is a job that I loved and only really left because I had two consecutive maternity leaves for babies 5 and 6. I will never work again but if I did I would teach. One of mine is thinking about teaching - if not two - I am happy to support them.

You do need to learn the word no and if you are going into it for family reasons remember that. I never wanted to be the best teacher in the world , never wanted to save the world, reverse the injustice of the class system - I wanted 12 weeks off a year with the children, a chance to be home early to give them their tea and some sense of job satisfaction. I got that because that was always my priority. I also chose a school that allowed me to do that. Somebody entered my data and did some analysis for me, I used pre planned lessons, I marked against the clock and said no more than I said yes.

It was tough and the hours were long but I had my holidays free, never worked on a Saturday, was home by 4pm at least once a week and had a sense of job satisfaction.

When was that though Philosophy? The madness has really increased over the past couple of years.

I taught in a large, well-resourced and well-funded (65% pupil premium kids) high school and there was still no-one available to enter data or do analysis so you were lucky Philoslothy As in common with most schools, you do all of your own data, analysis, reports, marking, recording, reports to SLT on your findings, photocopying, admin, filing, paperwork, phoning parents, detentions...this will take at least the same amount of hours per week as you spend teaching.
You will be desperate to race through the teaching day (which is almost a sideline to the real job) as you know you've got so much other work to do.

And with the best will in the world, and I was organised, I rarely made it home for DD's teatime, other than on a Friday - but the trade-off was piling a full suitcase of exercise books into the car to do over the weekend.

Kids go home 3.15 on average. You do duty, then have your first toilet trip of the day, maybe put the kettle on, probably eat your lunch, read your 100s of emails received that same day - some asking for instant action. 2 nights a week will be meetings, normally one dept and one CPD, so that's until 4.45-5pm. This is before you've looked at a single book. There are 60 in your pile to do before you go home. You can't type, you have to write, so it's slow (especially if you've been ordered to do the ridicluousness that is different coloured pens). Oh, and you're tired. You've taught large and different groups of children all day, YOU working hard at the front of the class, while they sit and listen. You've probably got a sore throat.

It is an all-consuming job. Any newcomers must have this made very clear.

When was that though Philosophy? The madness has really increased over the past couple of years

Less than two years ago, I would really like to go back but any kind of work with six is too much.

It is an all-consuming job. Any newcomers must have this made very clear.
It is demanding but it was never my whole life perhaps because for me it was never a vocation and I was never going to be a super teacher

Thanks for the answers Karen, Nobel etc.

This just seems... So futile. Thousands of teachers are lottery working themselves into the ground for little tangible benefit .are student outcomes so much better than 15 years ago?

Based on threads like these there is NO WAY I can understand what drives people to go into teaching in the current environment.

I just heard a radio advert for teacher recruiting. Ha, I fell for that 3 years ago. Many who hear it, career changers from demanding jobs with tight deadlines, difficult clients, arsy bosses etc will think its just a matter of being more organised, and fall for it.

OP tell your DH to step far, far away from the idea of being a primary teacher. Everything about the job is shite, not least the money for what we do. I've never wanted to go into leadership, just wanted to be a classroom teacher - after almost 30 years I earn £36000. No hope of anymore money unless I go to UPS 3 or the Government give us a pay rise. My pension is also stuffed thanks to Government changes.
There's a reason they are desperate to recruite teachers - the lucky ones have fled as fast as they can for the hills.

Why can't you progress to UPS3 Lara2?

I agree that everyone in mainscale teaching is either desperate to get out, or enduring the greasy pole to leadership.

I took the greasy pole to leadership, not least because it gave me some power over workload expectations

I taught for ten years and got to primary SLT level - I think that if I had continued I would have been heading for a breakdown, illness or addiction of some description.

I now do an office-based job and have evenings and weekends!

Gosh, that's pretty unanimous. It sounds absolutely horrific. We're reversing away from that idea speedily!

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts, and for those of you trapped in this situation.

To add some balance if you start a thread asking for people who adore their job it will be filled with teachers

I do it because I love the kids I teach. If I wasn't teaching them, there are very few teachers to replace me-we have single numbers of applicants for jobs and often they are not good quality applicants. The kids are the only thing keeping me in the profession at the moment.

leccybill - I can progress to UPS3 but have to think very carefully about doing it because of the extra workload that comes with it. Have DS2 who is autistic and DH who has MS to care for, so can't take on anymore on top of the workload I already have. I have to work full time as DH can't anymore - just pissed off that I get paid crap after so many years

It's sad, but I'm glad to read he's reconsidering. I've read a lot of posts (and talked to a fair few mature potential PGCE students) who have been quite rude implying that because they'd 'worked in the real world' (unlike me, who apparently just works in cloud cuckoo land) they weren't scared of a bit of hard work and thought I was just exaggerating and moaning about what the job involved. I've seen some of these local people in recent years and several have said to me that they wished they'd listened properly and steered clear!

Looking into what the job entails (obviously this doesn't just apply to teaching!) before you take the plunge-and properly listening to what people say- is so important.

I'm a secondary teacher, working 4 days. I generally work 2-3 evenings a week and a few hours at weekends, in addition to my teaching days. It is just about manageable although not ideal. I really like my school, my colleagues, the kids, and they make it (usually) worthwhile. However, I think primary teachers have it far worse. My SIL, aged nearly 50, recently re-trained to be a primary teacher. I did my best to put her off without being too damning but she went ahead and is having a miserable time as an NQT. I really wouldn't advise anyone to do primary teaching now...