Teachers with young children.

[Poetryinaction]

Hi. I am part time in secondary and my kids are aged 5, 3 and 1. I am really struggling to keep on top of everything this year, as I am working 0.64 across 7 days a fortnight. I have to run off at the end of the working day to get the kids, and they are very demanding until at least 8pm, often later. Then I am trying to cook, clean, life admin, keep fit?? I am finding all the extra demands (getting the classroom ready for Open Evening/ being a tutor etc etc) really hard to fit in. I have a pile of marking to do this weekend and no energy or enthusiasm. I feel like I'm failing, when actually I am doing my best every minute I'm at work.
Does anyone else feel the same? Can you only be a good, well prepared teacher if you don't have kids? That's not right is it?

Oh yes. Quick meal ideas:
Scrambled egg.
Cheese or beans on toast.
Fish pie made with precooked salmon, frozen mash and a quick cheese sauce.
Pasta and pesto with veg/ tuna.
Tortellini.
Noodles or microwave rice with egg , peas and soy sauce.
Pizza.
Pancakes.
Cheese scones.
Couscous is quick.

I’m FT primary and so tired. I have one DC age 6. I am so worn down by having to do work 7 days a week. It never ends! I feel so guilty at the weekend when I end up shutting myself away to plan lessons while DH plays with DC. :-(

It's just the job. The expectation that we will do so much outside of school hours, and I just can't at the moment. I feel overwhelmed and rubbish at my job. I hate that feeling. I actually love the time in the classroom.

This is it a nutshell really. We shouldn't have to be juggling to this ridiculous extent. I couldn't cope if I was full time. Kids all now in school, DH is now exDH, but my 1 day 'off' gives me breathing space to catch up. Floors still not hoovered today 😂. I blame the dog.

Excuse the typos! Will be back later in the week. Good luck all. Hope the littlies give you all some sleep!

And my dh won't agree to a cleaner.

He presumably is doing all the cleaning then?

It is hard work. I have 3 and work 0.6. You have to learn to have really clear boundaries to not pick up a FT equivalent of all the 'extra things' the job entails. 0.6 should = 0.6 of ALL work being asked of you, not JUST 0.6 teaching hours. It takes some getting used to, but I used to keep a note of all my hours and feel completely justified in stopping once I'd done 36 hours in a week.

@Poetryinaction thanks for the meal ideas. I've been meaning to get some frozen mash. So far my main quick meals have been:

Eggy bread
Veggie sausages
Beans
Veggie meat balls
Fish fingers
Frozen chicken pieces
Soup and crusty bread
Couscous with veg and ham mixed in.

I have an inset day today so a late start, but year 6 open evening means I won't get home until after 8pm! Thankgod for grand parents. Gutted I won't be doing bed time, it's my only time with DD. I've started letting her sleep in my bed because I miss her so much in the day. Massive mum guilt with going back full time. I miss doing all the toddler groups and spending time with her on those extra days off I have.

I also feel like my brain is wearing out! I have so much stuff to remember, I've just ordered a whiteboard planner for the kitchen so I can plan meals and try to organise my life a bit better so I can spend more quality time with my DD.

It's hard - not in teaching but long commute to work. It's tiring and you have to be organised I guess. I used the staff gym in my lunch break, and did cleaning either on one of my days off or in the evening after son was asleep.

It’s so hard when your days off are looking after pre-schoolers. It gets a million times easier when they start school ime.
Mine are 5 and 9 and I work 0.6 over 3 days and have a great balance now. On my days off I do all my planning/marking/data whilst they’re at school so never really need to work in the evening or at weekends.
I do prioritise work that will actually benefit students and am very relaxed about the rest (crappy form time activities for eg)

Your issue is that your DH thinks he can not agree to a cleaner. It will get better apart from that!

Fishonabicycle it’s not a competition but I think part of the issue for teachers on this thread is that we work through our lunch breaks and do marking, planning, special needs paperwork etc etc when our children have gone to bed.

Put your foot down. Either DH does all the cleaning without being asked or you hire a cleaner. I work full time with one 5yo DC and love it. (Obviously more DC would make it harder!) We have a cleaner every week and never do a jot of cleaning apart from wiping down the kitchen after cooking. DP and I share all the other jobs and life and child admin. Take turns on kids parties etc. It's not my job to run the family single handed.

It DOES get easier. My 2 youngest DC are now 8 and 12, my eldest 26.

Absolutely the worst time was when youngest was between ages of 1-3 and my DS was 5-8. And of course, my eldest was then a teenager and still needed me too, but in different ways.

Getting youngest DD to private nursery, then son to school, then me to work was a killer, felt like I'd done a day's work by the time I actually got to work!

I've never known exhaustion like it, coupled with a bullying head, made for a very unpleasant time for a few years. I'm a single parent too.
I was sometimes so exhausted at night I'd flop to bed and set my alarm for 5am to do my paperwork then, as I was fit for NOTHING after the kids were in bed.

But it is definitely getting easier now. My DCs are older and better able to organise themselves in a morning etc. Helped massively by our new head bringing in 'Smart Marking' verbal feedback at school, has lightened the work load immensely.

There's still times when everything feels a bit on top but on the whole it's much more manageable.

I've got a 2.5 year old and am 10wks pregnant with the second. I'd been HOD for 7 years but have it up this September. Was a crap mum and a crap hod. Now teaching full time and it's better, but still just so much.
I've got a chronic illness so need to look after my health better. No family support and husband has a long commute, so it's bloody hard now. With 2 it's going to be worse and they won't even be getting dropped off/ picked up in same place.
Definitely thinking of a career break....

I can’t imagine doing three days teaching per week (or 4 some weeks) with all the work that entails, then spending the other two days with three pre schoolers. I have just started a 0.6 role and it works because the DC are at school for 6 hours on my two days ‘off’. So, effectively I have bought two school days of PPA. Without that, I wouldnt be sleeping enough and certainly not exercising or relaxing. Ever! Sorry, no good advice - just sympathy.

Thank you all for the kind words. As an aside, if anyone can help me with this I'd be grateful. I thought M6 this year was £35,961? I am 0.64 and worked this out as £23,000. But my contract says £21,968. I will raise it with work. Thanks again.

I agree with Cuckoo and likeafish
Once the little ones are in school (or if you can afford an extra day at Nursery now?) then you use those hours for all your prep and pointless paperwork, and it frees up evenings and weekends.
Plus of course, by then, you are getting up in the night less often, so EVERYTHING gets better.

The stage you are at is a nightmare to be endured through gritted teeth.

I am at a exceptionally high performing school and last year was so hard as a full time mum of a toddler that I went down to PT. I'm on top of everything if I work all the days I am off.
I'm changing roles this January and this is my hail Mary to stay in the teaching profession. I love my job, but I'm starting to realise it is just a job and my family is more important

Without that, I wouldnt be sleeping enough and certainly not exercising or relaxing. Ever!

You have just described my life!

Bless you Twinkle sleeping with your dd. I would find full time so hard, though I did do 0.84 and HOD when my eldest was a baby.

Me too dippy!

But surely this is the problem:

‘Once the little ones are in school (or if you can afford an extra day at Nursery now?) then you use those hours for all your prep and pointless paperwork, and it frees up evenings and weekends’

Those hours shouldn’t be spent working. These women are part time!

Agreed. Plus, I don't want to wish away their babyhood for a time I can work harder.I just want to feel less stressed.

Yes @parrotonmyshoulder that is the problem.

When I was teaching, I would work around about 12hours per day worked, each week (ie, when I worked FT, I worked about 60hours a week, when I work 3 days a week I would work around 36 hours a week). When I was 'young, free and single' then I could fit those hours in more easily - sometimes working all day Sunday, sometimes working late into the night, and different patterns around other things I was doing, but once you have small children, then obviously you not only have much more to do in life, and you are doing it on broken sleep, but you lose flexibility about when you can do it. But you can't afford to turn up without having prepared your lessons - there's no option to say "stuff it" tonight, I'll catch up next week, or whatever.

I remember phoning for an insurance thing once, and going through the whole 'What do you do / are you FT or PT / how many hours do you work' type info and the bloke on the other end of the line couldn't get his head round the concept that 35 - 36 hours per week only elicited a PT salary.

I totally and utterly agree that a 36 hour week shouldn’t be deemed ‘part time’. That said, I’m very glad that on the vast majority of school days I can pick up my own kids at 4.30. Yes, I work very hard on my unpaid days but on the other hand at least I don’t have to stay at work on my paid days until 5.30pm. I mean, plenty of families get in from after school care at 6pm and survive, but it feels fortunate to get home earlier with the options that brings. The way I see it, fitting in work at other random times is the price paid for that.

I only manage, because I refuse to work in the evenings now. I may read emails and respond to any urgent ones at my convenience and I may do an hour or two at the weekend planning, but I am at work between 7 and 5 during the week and doing 50 hours when paid for 35 is what I consider any "reasonable" time on top of my directed hours.

Do I meet every deadline? No. I do what I consider necessary to teach and assess my students and support those with extra needs where I can. Pointless paperwork can and does wait until the rare occasion I have some extra time or I actually get asked for it (even rarer).

I also use my students in form time to sort out displays, do errands like taking recycling and delivering messages or get paper/ pens/ books from resources. They love it, because it gets them out of pointless morning tasks.

We have to supervise our own detentions, so the kids there get to tidy up, sharpen pencils, cut out card sorts, stick sheets in or whatever else helps me as a "restorative justice" task.

Marking is done on exam questions only and I can mark those during break/ lunch or during independent tasks. I use stamps during lessons to show I have looked at the rest of the work and to show I have acknowledged any responses to marking - the kids often hand their books to me open on the day's page before they go in book boxes, so I can do it there and then.

Anything else, like data entry on books is done in lesson time - I don't waste my own time to do that.

It takes a "fuck-it" attitude to a lot of things to manage with young children. I am full-time in a shortage subject with a substantial TLR (one extra free a fortnight for the money) and with an autistic teen and a toddler at home.