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.

What is it you do with the extra hours little? Mine is a mix of lesson prep and subject/SLT stuff. Trying to figure out a way to drop it down somehow!

You need to Invest in a subscription to a resources website and prioritise the important stuff. I am in year 6 and do not work like that.

I like the idea that your DCs took 6 years being born! Ouch!

But the workload : nope, not 'normal' and not OK . And the poster who said your children will grow up and start to go to bed later is spot on.

The teaching profession has to sort itself out. Your working hours are not 'normal' nor does it seem a good worklife balance to be at school over an hour before it starts and then 3 hours after it finishes: this is also above and beyond. Teachers used to arrive not long before the bell and leave not massively long afterwards, sometimes taking marking or planning home but often taking several weeks over it and then writing very brief comments or a mark. It is not sustainable for the profession to run itself into the ground like this in the pursuit of some Holy Grail of 'progress'. We work (according to a recnt study) longer hours than nurses, doctors and the police and longer hours by far than teachers in other European countries.

You are both SLT : how much of this workload is of your own doing? How much of it could you yourselves influence for yourself- and other teachers in your school?

Box clever. On meeting nights I work maths so that we peer mark and check as we go and English, as far as possible, i plan to be continued to the next day.

So our meeting night is Weds.
Monday i do a full mark of everything to get a feel for misconceptions. Tuesday I mark one table of maths and english in class, and the TA marks her group according to my guidelines. Weds we peer mark or do it in class, or carry over. Thursday I plan for full mark English, quick mark maths, and reverse that on Friday. I mark guided reading every two days because I plan tasks that spread it, and grammar and arithmetic are all peer marking and stamping. Topic i mark 2 tables in the lesson. If i manage 3 topic lessons in a week ( I am year 6 so I don't always) I mark them all that way unless they have done a big topic write that usually replaces an english mark.

You can't do everything. You're only human. Plus i have kids to shepherd to scouts / guides / swimming / gym and a life.

I do most of my planning in ppa. It helps that i am a lone one form year 6 teacher- i can just get on with it. I skeleton plan and often leave friday blank to plan for what is needed.

I try not to work more than an hour at home when i get in after leaving at 4.45 ( I flat out mark from 3.15 till 4.30) and my tweens are unwinding. Then I do the shepherding about and catching up. Sometimes I need to do more but not often.

I also don't do any unecessary bollocks suggested. I've been teaching since 1998 and I can sniff unecessary bollocks from a mile off now!

That should read I take the rest home on Tuesday.

Also, not being in SLT helps - no extra pointless meetings! That was a choice!

I’d definitely say that’s not normal and you really need to look at your workloads.

I’m Assistant Head in a three- form primary with a 0.5 teaching commitment in Y6. I’m also Y6 year lead.
I get in around 7:45am and leave around 5 Mon- Thurs with meetings on both Mon and Tues. Friday I’m out the door at 3:30pm every week without fail. My head actively encourages us all to leave by 4pm on Friday.

I’ve perhaps done about 4 hours work at home since September. I work bloody hard in my school days to fit it all in. I don’t take a lunch break most days and eat at my desk but I’m a single parent of a 12 year old and 5 year old and I have to have time at home with them.

What time do you arrive and stay in school until? Are you working 7.30-10pm? So 2.5 hours?

I don't work every evening, but I am at work from 8 to 6 every day and have no more than 10 minutes lunch break. I am a slacker though and have been stuck on M6 for years. I don't do a lot apart from my class teacher work because I have a lot of commitments outside school.

The budget cuts have massively increased our workload though as we no longer have TAs. If I did all that I was supposed to, I'd have to work a lot more in the evenings.

It is not a normal or sustainable way to work. Only when teachers start saying no will things improve. Unfortunately I don’t see this happening any time soon. I had a career in another field before I was a teacher which was better paid and I never had to work these hours. A lot of people in education have not worked in other areas and therefore think that this whole culture is normal - it’s not.
I am in the process of leaving teaching to a job which is fairly well paid but I will work my 37 hours and that’s it. Life is precious and all too short to spend it like this

I get in at 8 - kids in at 8:40 so tend to mark/prep then, mark over lunch sometimes but have duty or clubs 2 days a week. Then get interrupted about stupid IT things as that’s my responsibility. Leave approx 5pm. Have one club night, one staff meet night and generally another SLT or similar meeting another night. So not lots of free time at school but some. Then work 7/7:30 to 9/9:30ish sun-thurs. could definitely lean on schemes more. I’m currently working on reducing marking so hopefully that’ll have an impact too. It’s all the other crap from IT and English that is responsible for. Takes far too much time and IT is a sweeping term for anything that involves the internet or electricity it seems.?

Kids must do a lot of worksheets in England.

I get to school at 7 30am. I leave 10mins after the kids go. I bring nothing home (save the odd echp that needs to be written etc)
I get all my work done during the day and that's it. I still get some more senior members of staff shake their head at me when I go home (one even going so far as to call me a part timer) but it's all done. Check my books, planning etc. I've done it and to a high standard.
There is an odd culture in teaching where it seems people think you aren't doing enough if you don't do it for hours. We should break that perception. I'll start

While all you primary teachers are here... why do you have a meeting every week??

To talk about the next thing that’s changing basically 😂
How on Earth are you marking your books every day and getting out the door by 4pm? I am very intrigued

I think because primary is a smaller environment you meet a lot. In secondary we have more groups and subgroups so fewer (but still too many!)

Yes meetings every week -

Usually a whole staff meeting once a week and 1 or 2 other shorter meetings for various other things.

I get into school about 7;45, I leave 4:30-5pm 3 nights a week and 5:30 the other two.

I start work again about 7pm and then I work until 9-10pm 2-3 nights per week and about 5 hours at the weekend.

I've been teaching for about 12 years.

Sadly the ridiculous demands on time were one of the reasons myself and many others went part-time. (Primary.) We were made to feel unprofessional and not putting the children first if we didn't write a paragraph on every child's writing or relied too much on peer marking. Heaven forbid you weren't in by 8, left before 4 or tried to leave the site to post a parcel or similar at lunchtime!
Sadly not all bullies are under 5' tall....

I'm Primary. I teach 2.5 days and have 1 days out of class per week for Management time, and half a day for PPA. I have one whole school staff meeting every week, one Senior Leadership meeting, and usually, one meeting regarding my other areas of responsibility. Plus, I'm currently mentoring a student so have weekly meetings with her, and am having meetings every other week with someone in another team in an effort to improve that area of the school.

Add to this job sharing/team teaching with my 2 colleagues, and being part of the safeguarding team, and my workload is pretty horrible!

Those saying about it being a particular school / HT / SMT - I don't see that. I did 21years in schools, wred under 7 different HTs at 4 schools. I've always averaged 11 - 12 hours of work per day worked. By which I mean, doing 55 - 60 hours a week when I was FT and 33 - 36 hours a week when I was paid 3 days a week. So, not working those hours every evening, but if I didn't in evenings then working at weekends, or on my non-working days, or starting in school at 7am at different stages in my life. I've worked different patterns from when I was young free and single, to when I had 3 dc, depending on childcare arrangements, etc, but the hours have always had to be there. It isn't down to particular HT, but the culture and ridiculous , constantly changing Primary Curriculum and fads and fashions, and the constant demand for "paperwork" and "proving" that you have done everything and recording if anybody sneezes at any point.

From my experience this is very much an English thing as there is a very different style of summarize assessment compared to say Scotland. Most Scottish teacher I know work 8-5/5.30.

And for those that saying time spent in school after the kids have gone is taken up by meetings and clubs, are the clubs paid hours and are all these meetings part of your working time agreement that has been agreed by your union?

Full time Primary teacher in my 16th year, single mum to 3 children....yes you are doing too many hours at home.

Prioritise!
And like another poster said - say no to unnecessary paperwork. Anything that doesn't directly benefit the children is unnecessary.

Does your school have a smart marking policy? Our does & it's a life saver.
The pink & green marking & heads who think teachers aren't outstanding if they're not writing paragraphs at the bottom of each piece of work in every single book......are on the way out. It was crazy, unsustainable and did not improve children's learning.

Something is very wrong with your school systems if you're doing that many extra hours. Whatever it is needs raising with SLT and sorting.

I'm primary but I only have 18 children in my class(private) so I mark in break and lunch time. Rarely take books home. We're two form so we split planning and resourcing. We also get the equivalent of one day ppa a week. I'm in at 7.30am and leave at 5.30 twice a week, 4.30 twice a week and 4 on Fridays.

That is just not normal. For context, i used to work until 10 PM at night every single day. However I was being paid nearly a quarter of £1 million a year to do so. You need to find a better balance or you will hit burn out.It’s true that while you are developing materials for a New Year there will be additional time you need to spend. But you can’t let it become routine.

At the moment I leave work at 5:30 every day and I do no more. If work is really busy there are two evenings a week where my childcare means that I can spend a bit more time at work. I am still out of the building by 730 at the latest.

Completely normal. I work part-time in primary and still work every weekday evening! I don't do any work at the weekend at all though, thanks to being part-time. My DC go to bed a bit later so I work until at least 11.

DH is a secondary teacher. He is in school longer as I do all pick-ups and drop-off so gets most work done in school. He does a mixture of teaching and management so can get all his teaching prep done during free periods at school and just does emails etc at home.