What’s normal?

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

I’m asking as I think I’ve lost perspective. Or so my husband thinks.
We are both full time, experienced primary teachers. Both year 6 and I’m on SLT. We have three young children who are in bed by 7:30. We both then work until approx 10pm each night except fri and Saturday. This is fairly normal right?
My husband is under a lot of pressure at work currently and is becoming resentful of the extra and says it isn’t normal to have no free time during the week.
I’m honestly not sure. Surely it isn’t just teaching that requires additional hours? (He’s talking about a different job. No idea what)
Would appreciate other primary teachers thoughts.

Unfortunately it is normal in teaching, yes.
There are some other jobs where is is fairly normal too.
There are also jobs where people don't get home, to put their dc to bed before starting to work in the evening.
However
There are FAR more jobs where you don't work every evening at home, of course there are.

Not normal. I'm a teacher and might work one night. Not every night.

As SLT you're setting a poor example to your staff. If the job can't be done in realistic hours you need to look at what can be dropped as a school.

We need to start saying no to school taking over home life.

Another teacher (also y6 and SMT) here saying it's not normal. What are you doing for an extra 2 and a half hours every night?

If you aren't getting your responsibilities covered in reasonable hours you need to look at how efficiently you are working, what you are doing that doesn't need doing, ways to streamline what you do and where to draw the line.

If it's not benefitting the pupils then you should be asking why you are doing it, and as SMT you should definitely be avoiding unecessary paperwork.

It’s pretty much what I did as a classroom teacher. DH works outside of teaching and doesn’t work at all in the evenings though.

I don’t think there is a ‘normal’-surely it depends what job you do?

What time are you leaving school? If I stay until 5.30 then I don’t need to do work at home. If I leave earlier then I do usually.

I think you should consider the future. Young children go to bed early but they grow up. I've now got children going to bed much later and working in the evening has become much more difficult. While I agree teachers hours can be as described I doubt they're sustainable. Especially as you have three children. I'm trying my best to cut down on the hours at home. At some point you have to draw a line.

I think also the difference between other jobs that demand similar hours is that the pay is generally much better in those other jobs. When you start working out your actual hourly rate teaching can look very low paid.

That is ridiculous. I have never ever worked until 10pm at night (except voluntarily doing my part time MA alongside work) and I’ve achieved a lot of career success so far.

Your SLT needs to sort themselves out.
Are there crazy planning and marking expectations?
It’s no life for you both.

I don’t have children so I appreciate my life is easier. But typically I need to spend a few hours marking or planning on a Saturday (or Friday night), I start at 8, usually work through lunch but I finish work by 4.30/5 most nights. Genuinely.

Gosh, not really for me. I finish work and I am done, work 8:30 to 5:30, but no school holidays off etc... maybe it evens out? Even DH who is in higher paid job will do extra perhaps 2 -3 nights out of 5 not every night.

Its fairly normal here (one reason why I got out). I think it is for a lot of primary schools tbh to meet the perceived needs of ofsted/marking each day/etc etc.

I wish Id retrained/got out earlier to be honest.

However as youre both teachers you do at least get awesome summer holidays together. But at what cost? In our local infants all mainstream teachers ar eunder 30...

Ive maintained it wasnt family friendly for many people. Having free evenings/weekends and being able to see kids nativity/topic plays etc has been worth a lot to me.

Thanks for the perspectives. My school actually has a good attitude to workload. I’m new to year 6 so a lot of my work is getting my head around the curriculum and figuring out how to teach it. Also developing areas eg ICT (willingly) which requires extra input. Hopefully next year that will lessen.
Husbands workload crackers and intensive marking especially.
Not sure how we’d both get out really - we’re tied to the salary mainly. And the hours.

Normally at work until 5 but that’s rarely work time. More clubs/meetings/blah so not much work time

Would I heck be working at home until ten o'clock at night every night of the week.
You are doing something wrong and no mistake... perhaps try changing schools to one with a more sensible approach to time management.

You are not living your life and that's incredibly sad. And if I've learned anything it's that no one will appreciaye it.

I think that is normal IF you aren’t continuing to work at the end of the student day. I get to school by 7.30 at the latest so I can do 30-45 mins before school then stay after school for an average of 2-3 hours and then don’t take work home most days during the week. That means that most days I am doing anywhere between 2-4 hours on top of the official school day. Some days it is more, it is almost never less. I do around 3-4 hours of work over the weekend on top of that.

I work part time (for this very reason) I work 3 days and only work 2 evenings max usually 8-10 unless I have assessments to mark then I have to make time on days off.

I'm not SLT and work in secondary. I leave work at 4.30.

I have to be very strict about time at work, no excessive chatting, no informal meetings, no lunch break mostly!! It's a miserable way to be but luckily I've been there a long time so have plenty of passing friendliness to keep me going!! I also do a lot of peer marking with work that doesn't need grading. And I steal lesson ideas wherever possible!

Sadly I think for some people it is the norm. I wish I had more to give the job but my mental health and my kids suffer too much. You have to DECIDE to give less and stick to it. It's the only way I can make it work.

I can't afford to leave it's the best paid part time job I can do!

Can your DH consider part time?

If your school has a good attitude to workload then a lot of the problem may be your own diligence. You just have to develop a ‘that’ll do’ attitude. I work hard every day but I’m damned if I’m not going to go to the gym and spend time cooking or watching tv in the evening too. Yes OK maybe I’m not doing Ofsted outstanding lessons every moment of every day, but I’m not burning out either and I’m there for the kids.

Yeah and I steal 90% of resources from Twitter or similar- hardly ever make my own.

I perhaps am being diligent - it’s a fair point as they could make do a lot more than they are. Part time isn’t an option for husband, he’s asked before and it’s a no go.
It’s been interesting this as I honestly thought it was standard. Making me rethink a few things - even just to grab a couple more evenings I guess. We’re both debating leaving teaching but I wonder if that would make it more manageable. Just the worry about not being on top of everything really aside from the pressures externally

Not normal after the first few years in your career, IMO.

I’m also Y6 and SLT with 3 small children and certainly don’t work that late in the evenings. Admittedly, I’ve been in Y6 for a long time so I have a bank of resources to hand that I can just adapt and once you’ve taught the same thing several times you get quicker at planning/resourcing. I head in early (7am or thereabouts) and I refuse to work in the evenings unless it’s a busy time of year, such as report writing or exam weeks.

No, it isn't normal and probably not sustainable. It isn't fair to be expected to work like that either.

There’s definitely no expectation from my boss to work at home. My husbands is another issue.
I only went back full time in April this year after working for 3 days a week for 6 years whilst children were being born. I think I’ve forgotten what’s normal! I’m actually not working tonight as it’s my birthday. Husband is though :(
It’s definitely harder as I’m new to year 6 and hopefully next year it will be easier. But equally I think I’ve been doing more than I need too.

Yes- set a good example to your husband by showing him it is possible to work less and achieve the same results. It really is. My old housemate used to find it irritating that I’d be relaxing in the evenings whilst she was constantly reinventing the wheel with lesson plans. But we both got the same sort of exam results from students, and I was promoted more quickly. More work doesn’t equal better.

Oh and happy birthday. Hope your DH spoils you at the weekend instead

I'm 20 years into teaching, classteacher and SLT with lots of different areas of responsibility.

I work from 9 - 11 most nights, having got home from work at about 6.30pm. I also work for about 4 hours every Sunday.

I have very bad work/life balance and it's something I'm trying to look at.