Teaching full-time 'unendurably hard', says Lucy Kellaway

[noblegiraffe]

Lucy Kellaway, the financial journalist who was so sure that teaching was a nice ease into retirement after a hard career that she set up a teacher recruitment path for older career changers before training to teach herself, has dropped to 3 days a week and switched from maths (core subject) to Business and Economics (mainly upper school I would have thought).

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-teaching-full-time-unendurably-hard-says-lucy-kellaway

I agree with her on the issue of full time teaching though - I think the only reason I’ve stayed in the job so long (over a decade) is because I’m part time. I honestly don’t know how you full-timers do it.

But schools are shit at part time teaching. My timetable is a patchwork mess over two weeks, and I’m not allowed to apply for promotion. I have the same number of performance management targets as a full timer and I’m judged on exam results from shared classes. Communication is terrible so if I miss meetings, I don’t find out what was said.

If part time teaching is the way forward for staff retention, then schools really need to get better at offering it in reasonable conditions.

Teaching would be a tiny bit better if they stopped people who have never bloody taught a day in their lives from pontificating about it. Why the fuck was she allowed to set up a new career pathway into a career she demonstrably knows nothing about.

I mean can I do the same, but for being a GP?

We all know that teaching part time is “unendurably hard”. It is also completely unsustainable that people have to drop down to part time and then work on their day(s) off in order to achieve something resembling a work life balance.

The focus should not be on pushing part time, it should be on making full time workable!

Full time, I meant full time.
It is, in fact, so hard that my brain has turned to mush!

Not being ageist, but Lucy Kellaway will be 60 in the summer. As a woman a few years younger, I don't see many mothers of four still working full time at 60, whether in teaching, journalism or any other profession. I don't think anyone would choose teaching as an easy wind down to retirement. I think she did it to give something back. I think many pension schemes penalise people who want to work pt as they approach retirement. Also, , if you have had a fragmented career or worked pt earlier, you often have to grit your teeth to carry on working ft later - it's the price to pay for spending more time with your children when they are young if you don't want an old age of grinding poverty.

Why the fuck was she allowed to set up a new career pathway into a career she demonstrably knows nothing about.

Absolutely!

I’m guessing because the DfE is desperately throwing millions of pounds at new ideas to get people into teaching - instead of trying to keep the ones in who are already there!

At least Lucy made it into teaching unlike most of the Troops to Teachers.

So, we’ve had-:

Troops to teaching
Mums’ army (or was that TAs?)
Retired folk back into the classroom
Private school teachers being parachutes in to help us poor state teachers who don’t know what we’re doing.

What next?!

I saw a comment on MN on another thread that said that top universities had been approached and asked to teach in schools (and said no).

The focus should not be on pushing part time, it should be on making full time workable!

This.

Applekatie, everyone can learn new skills. And attitudes, for that matter.

People from other careers can have a great many skills to offer, just as you do.

Obviously not the same level of educational experience, but then neither does any teacher new to their work.

For GPs, a four day week is considered full time due to the long hours eg 12 hour days. I really think that 4 days should be standard full time considered condensed hours for teachers. Of course that would cost more so won't happen.

I started teaching part-time 8 years ago when I had DC1. I wouldn't be able to cope full time and give my children the life I want them to have. Hats off to those who manage it.

In that time, however, I've seen the availability of part-time roles go down. I used to see quite a few adverts for part-timers, now they're like hen's teeth. New headteacher in my school obviously hates those of us who job-share. It's a ridiculous situation. The reality is that primary teaching in particular is full of young women who will likely want to start a family. I know loads of good teachers who left the profession after having kids because they couldn't find a way to balance work and family. Such a waste of a precious resource.

Applekatie, everyone can learn new skills. And attitudes, for that matter.

People from other careers can have a great many skills to offer, just as you do.

I absolutely agree with you. However, when you career change it is customary to learn the skills and gain experience before you tell other people how to do it.

It’s not that she told other people how to do it, she told people to do it, before she herself did it. She wrote columns saying ‘join me in becoming a maths teacher’. She did a Ted Talk

And now she’s actually done it she’s said it’s unendurably hard and is no longer a maths teacher (the desperate shortage subject she was banging on about) but a part time business teacher.

I wonder what those who followed her think about that.

I’m sure Lucy kellaway has her faults but I don’t think she has ever claimed this was a nice easy route into retirement

Surely we would like a situation where FT is manageable and also that PT can be made to work well without shafting any of the teacher, their colleagues or pupils

The lack of imagination SLTs show towards part time working is astonishing. It is fairly obviously (to me!) a good thing which if used properly can really benefit a school (we are a much less tired resource for a start!).

But to quote my HoD before results day last year ‘I don’t want to have to defend the departments results to SLT, what do they expect when they’ve let two of you go part time?’

😮

Despite the fact that my results have been consistent with before I was part time and consistently better than his for almost 10 years now. And they were again last year cheeky fucker!

‘The focus should not be on pushing part time, it should be on making full time workable!’

Absolutely agree.

I’m coming up to retirement. I thank god on a daily basis that I worked full time for almost all my career. The only part time phase was when my own children were pre schoolers. I’ve seen so many of my (excellent) colleagues remain on part time hours permanently, and more often than not it’s because they say they couldn’t cope with full time, and they use their ‘days off’ to do prep and marking. So, they’re effectively doing full time hours for part time pay, and a seriously deleted pension.

The problem with teaching is that it’s so open ended - you can work 80 hours a week (and I’ve no doubt some teachers do) and the job still won’t be done. The last thing the profession needs is people martyring themselves to it by doing the job of a full timer for part time remuneration.

Education is a mess at the moment, and sadly I won’t be sorry when I leave. But the one thing I do believe I’ve got right is to be increasingly strict with myself about having cut off points, and also getting the benefits of a full time salary and pension (which let’s face it is one of the very few perks of the job)

The focus should not be on pushing part time, it should be on making full time workable!
I agree.
It's so school dependent and even schools who are keen to promote work life balance are limited by pointless tasks.

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-dfe-looks-tas-help-solve-teacher-shortages

TAs to teaching now.

I teach a sixth-form only subject and my choice since entering teaching 8 years ago has either been to have my timetable loaded with extra KS3 subjects to make up a full timetable or to be part time (the exception was a stand-alone sixth form that had so many students they had no problem filling up full timetables with one subject). When I was FT I regularly used to spend more time on a weekend marking 3 x 30ish KS3 books than I did on my specialist subject - and I was their only teacher in it, responsible for getting 50 students through final exams each year! My DH (works in HE) thought this was totally mad.

I am now part time so that I can just teach my specialist subject, among other reasons. My school treats part timers well, although we still have all the normal issues around having to come in specially for parents' evenings or other events, timetables spread across multiple days, trapped time, etc - but the difference is, if the school can make things better for you, they will do, if it is logistically possible. However, all the schools I've worked in have allowed part timers to be heads of department and take on other responsibilities as long as they could make a good case that it was feasible in their hours. I know from on here that that's not normal. It should be, if the person meets the criteria.

I think both things need to happen: the FT timetable needs to be doable in less than 60 hours a week (I know many do even more than that) and PTers need to be treated much better to keep people in the profession. I regularly wonder what the heck is wrong with schools that they don't treat their staff better when there is such a shortage!

My number one gripe is that when you apply for jobs they often do not reveal even the most basic information that would help you know as a parent whether the job is do-able for you. For instance, what times are you required to be on site; does everyone have form tutoring and can this be shared; is there a decent system for remote working; how many students/classes are there in your subject; how many members of staff teach your subject; what is the reporting structure? I really want to get an idea whether a job is logistically possible before filling in a complicated form, lining up referees, telling my existing school I've applied elsewhere, preparing an interview lesson etc etc. Because if a job doesn't work for my family as a whole, it doesn't work. It is a very strange way to act when there is a shortage of teachers.

I’m not sure that teaching full time can be made doable. I’m part time, I’ve been working for years so I barely have to plan lessons and know what I’m doing, I teach maths so marking is pretty straightforward. And yet despite cutting all the corners, I don’t think I could do it full time.

I think the only solution to reducing workload to a manageable level is to reduce contact time for full-timers: essentially make them part time.

I've gone back to full time this year after 4 years of 4 days a week. I hate it. I have to work one full day a weekend and I'm destroyed and barely see dd during term time.

FT is still doable in the independent sector. Obviously class size is a factor here, but there are many other aspects of ‘state’ education that aren’t done in independent schools and pupils aren’t suffering. There has to be a way.

Noblegiraffe- yes, the job needs to be made more manageable, completely agree. But it needs to be from the perspective of making full time hours manageable. So many individuals end up on part time contracts but often working full time hours because their ‘days off’ are taken up with prep, marking, thinking about work. I’m honestly shocked when I look around me in my school- in the female 40 + age group most are part timers. Understandable in some cases where they have tiny children still, but that group includes women like me (over 50) with much older kids. There are too many women martyring themselves by giving effectively full time to their school but getting p/t pay, and (really significant this one) a seriously reduced pension. This can’t be the answer. It’s papering over the cracks.

I’ve learned to manage my work load because I’ve been in the game long enough, I’m relatively senior and I absolutely refuse point blank to give my weekends over to school work. I put in 10 hour days in school, and bring home as little as possible. The payback for me will be early retirement in July with a nice lump sum and a good pension - and I really won’t be sorry to go. Love the job but as everyone says, it’s become ridiculous and I’m doing less and less of what I trained for.
I agree fundamental changes need to be made- but encouraging people to work part time to prop up schools is not the answer ... why should the individual pay the price for a problem which is systemic?

Totally agree Hubanmao.

I'm determined to remain full-time if at all possible. Management just take the piss with part-timers.