I hate this FUCKING waste of a space job.

[FedUpTeacher2]

There. I've said it.

Role on 31st May.

I went part time after having children. In many ways it's a double edged sword. I really need the days off, but the reality is that I need them to do the work I'm expected to do, but it ends up being unpaid. I don't know how I would do the work full time. Also, the pressure is greater on the days I'm in as so there's much to do that can't be taken home. It's definitely worth trying out part time if you can, but I find I can work for 5 days, be paid for three and still not do everything I need to do.

Yes, lots are stuck. I'm fortunate in that I'm veey much the second earner. Dh is a deputy head and I wouldn't do his job for all the tea in China.

I left state secondary 18m ago, half way through the 'journey out of Special Measures'. I was utterly broken by all, physically and mentally.

I do supply now as well as 2 days self-employed teaching my specialism. It's wonderful, truly wonderful. You get to focus on the children in front of you without worrying about all the background nonsense.

But it's not a career, I can't get a mortgage, I think the supply market will be saturated soon with ex teachers, and I need to pay into my pension. So with a heavy heart, I'm having to look at taking a post up again. I'm gutted.

Another one here on the way out. I feel like i dont want to give up and leave but nothing is ever enough. Disruptive pupils get away with hell while you have to prove you've bent over backwards to help.

I would be tempted to be off sick for the 18 days!

I worked at a school where you weren't allowed lunch if you forgot your jacket.
You taught for 3 hour long lessons (bad enough with sixth form, but imagine with year 7)
All field trips were done in the holidays
You didn't get any pay rise if you had more than 5 days off per year or have more than two days off per term.
You had to teach a 1.5hour session after school (Monday - Thursday) for students who had missed lessons through absence (so pretty much every evening then! )
Had to cover other staff (no cover brought in)
HW feedback had to be done within a week of the HW being collected in. (Bearing in mind I had 180 students this meant marking a minimum of 180 essays/projects/CW etc per week (on top of catch up lessons.
No staff room as it 'breeds discontent'

This was all in an OFSTED outstanding school. Behaviour was excellent- why? Because if a child was naughty they somehow disappeared, the kids new this and were scared of being kicked out.

The school banned wiki because the kids used to write negative things about the school on it.

So so so many other things.... 'messing' with attendance data for one thing.
I hated it and left. It would have killed me there.

Sorry about spelling typos - trying to feed baby at the same time!

Messing with attendance codes, another part of the game. Exactly the kind of thing i hate about it. I used to think our head had dome morals now i think he's just a puppet.

Yeah the game thing.

'It's all a game'/ 'you have to learn to play the game'

It's not a game. It's people's lives

So what's at fault here? Is it the cookie size fits all approach? Or is it the kids themselves as in their behaviour? Would you still have your problems if kids were well behaved?

I'm not a teacher. I work in corporate where standards and aspirations are very high and very measured. And the hours our long. However I don't have 30+ kids to deal with. Its hard for people on the outside to understand the stresses because education is measured. Surely if child capable of grade C or D should just be allowed to get on with his or her best ability? How did we as a society get so soft where we have to keep the naughty kids included? Where's their stick for them?

If I draw on my experience as a child in school the naughty kids are naughty precisely because they were untouchable. That was 30years ago. Has nothing changed?

Why can't we draw more detailed data in school that goes beyond grades that really drills down on the problems. For example there should be more data on family backgrounds single parent unemployed divorce poverty or whatever other factor comes into play..or mixture etc. Each of these groups of kids can be monitored and data drawn out with corresponding achievement plans. If I as a parent saw this data beyond 5 a to c's it will give me aich better indication of the health and achievement and potential of a school than just 5 a to cs.

The loneliest place in the world is a classroom full of kids you can't control.

Just adding support from a non teacher here. I do work with vulnerable people though and it's so hard to explain the pressure to others who don't have a similar job. Only my nurse and teacher friends understand.
I can't imagine the emotional and physical pressure you're under but I admire each and every one of you. If you can teach you can do bloody anything! Seriously there's an alternative out there if it gets too much.

I am shocked, but not surprised, to read this. I am a secondary teacher trained in the uk. Worked in a relaxed school for 3 years, then buggered off abroad. It always amazes me the expectations of schools in the UK on the teachers compared to here. I work in a top top independent school in Australia. No homework marking expectations at all, no marking of books (in most subjects the kids don't even have proper exercise books), no national exams (apart from the last year of school), no performance management. I am shocked by how laid back it is here, but it goes to show that good education can happen without this micro control.

Naughty kids untouchable. Policy of not excluding. All about inclusion at all costs. And of course if you ask for support a lesson observation is your reward.

I'm with you. The only reason I carry on is those precious moments when the class are 'with you'.
Not so much this week though - disaffected yr11 students doing their best to ruin everyone's chances (even though I'm on their side and want them to do as well as they can), a yr10 group with disruptive students whose every word is believed by behaviour support staff, then all of the rest of it as well - A level students who shouldn't be doing the course (but management insist we keep them because we will lose funding otherwise), a yr8 student who was allowed to move because they thought the work was too hard (but they always chat when I'm explaining what to do)....
I could go on, but won't.

The loneliest place in the world is a classroom full of kids you can't control.

Too true.

Can u throw in the cuts to ratio lower down the school? When I started in nursery I had 30 children and three TAs. This year I've got 23 and 1. Bearing in mind I have a fair few still in nappies and three who are definitely on the spectrum with all the difficulties that brings... I regularly find that neither my TA or I are capable of working with anyone else other than these children. When I'm supposed to be teaching we are wrangling (for want of a better word) these pupils who are either distressed so lash out at others or distressed and hurt themselves. I'm not saying they shouldn't be in mainstream school but I am saying there should be more support for them more readily accessible.

Moomoo - I agree. I have a child in my class with significant needs. He has a hugely negative effect on the learning of the other 29 children but that doesn't seem to matter and there's no money to support him. It's terrible for him and the other children and for the staff.

Fucking he'll ShadowBoy.

Was this a Harris academy by any chance?

I'm an NHS nurse, not a teacher but I think there're a lot of parallels in our professions. A lot of my friends are teachers and I have 2 children in primary school.

I see how hard my friends / my DCs teachers work. You are appreciated

Don't become a social worker

I think all teachers/nurses/social workers do about the same, feel as crap as each other, too much paperwork and pressure to meet targets etc,not enough time with people.

I'd pondered social worker as I could train locally. But yes out-of one frying pan into the fire!

Yes, I see lots of parallels with nursing. I can also see that social working is also impossible.

It keeps coming back to that word for me. Impossible. If they funded things/ worked out what time was actually needed for a task and allowed it/ had realistic expectations/ reaslistic class sizes/ realistic support, then the job would be possible.

When I started teaching, the work was high and the workload was large, but the job was possible. Now it's just NOT POSSIBLE.

And now I'm left realising I don't want to do an impossible job anymore.

Do you remember the analogy? (Always told by trainers)

'Little Johnny wrote a piece of work pouring out his emotions and explaining how hard his home life was. At the end of the work, the teacher did not acknowledge the content, but wrote "next time, use capital letters" '?

How dreadful that was. The teacher ignored the disclosure and focused on something not relevant at the time...

Well that IS primary teaching now (in my experience).

Woe betide I listen to the content. If I don't pick little Johnny up on his capital letters and provide next steps for improvement, then SLT will want to know why! And telling them the content was more important would not be good enough reason.

No one cares about little Johnny anymore. Only his grades/ levels and that they are good enough.

Yes there are other high pressure jobs, but not many where the pressure is workload AND emotional AND when you have to justify even nipping to the toilet (with someone overseeing the class). You might do 99/100 things well and someone will be on your back asking why the 100th wasn't done well. You can have a career spanning 10-20 years that's always been good, yet get on the wrong side of management and your job can be lost within a term. No one trusts the teacher. Always, someone from management has to be watching. Scrutinising. Checking up.

And then the news says female primary teachers have more than a 40% higher risk of suicide, why am I not surprised?

YorkshireTree it was an academy- one of the first ones out there. Not the academy chain you mentioned though.

Was a soul destroying place. I do like where I work now. Had I not moved and found a much better place (also outstanding from OFSTED) I'd have left teaching at that point.