AIBU to have never done more than 2 years at a school?

[poppyeleanor]

Wondering about this.

School 1 (NQT) - 2 years

School 2 - 2 years

School 3 - 1 year

School 4 - 1 year 1 term

School 5 - 1 year 2 terms

School 6 - 2 terms

School 7 - 2 years

School 8 - 1 year

School 9 - 1 year

School 10 - 1 year 1 term

(Took 2 years out between schools 9 and 10.)

So I suppose I’m wondering about this. For the most part, there haven’t been sinister reasons.

My NQT school was really bad, and I stuck it out for two years but it became unbearable. I left and got a job in a better school but it was a long way from home, so my next role was closer. However, I didn’t enjoy it and it did have ver high staff turnover.

I then applied for a promotion and got it, and then another promotion. The second promotion was just not a good fit for me at all. I got another promotion then, very rapidly. Stayed for two years then had a big relocation and family and then my current role ... and now I’m going to move on again.

Has anybody else moved around lots?

Well yes, but I haven’t only moved on due to being crapped on. I’ve moved on due to relocating, promotion, circumstances changing and in some cases, realising the school is —barking mad— not right for me at that time.

After all, life is too short.

You're right life is too short.

Though you asked how people would perceive moving on that regularly and I do think for quite a lot of people it would be unusual and raise questions.

I think the middle ground between regularly moving after 2 years and staying somewhere for decades is probably the ideal, even if punctuated with the occasional short stint.

Completely agree - hoping to do that now!

Mine has gone...secondary

School 1- 4 years- NQT as HoD then mat leave, not given part time when returned so...

School 2/3- 2 terms (part time supply)

School 4- 17 years pt

School 5- 2 years and 3 months pt

but I've also been teaching in primaries for the last 10+ years as music teacher/peri

There's a danger that you'll be viewed as a greasy pole climber who stays just long enough to get the better job title and piss off everybody by trashing effective policies for the sake of change and then trots off to the next promotion before the GCSE results come in to show what actually happened on your watch.

Doesn't mean it's true in your case, but it can and does happen.

It should strike a right balance. If I was to recruit you, I would think that you might be moving on very soon and turn to someone else safer.

On the other hand, I think teachers should move around a few schools before settling down in a school that is right for them. I know that in real life, it might be difficult to relocate or you might find the right school straight away after ITT. I have moved schools a few times and it makes me very flexible to work with different staff and pupils. I adapt to a new environment, policies and routines very quickly and it is not afraid of changes at all.

Did you not feel like a permanent newbie to the school?

I'm your polar opposite.

I applied for a temporary, one term contract to cover for a member of staff who was seconded into leadership in another school.
I'm still there 22 years later and have been promoted onto the SMT.

I've basically been a newbie throughout my career, changing within every couple of years.

I've never had to worry about a year 11 class, as you usually get a year 10 when you start, as others take their classes through. This means not having to teach all five year groups in secondary (reducing planning) and takes away the exam pressure. If I could apply to do it, I'd just teach KS3!

That's the most non committal attitude to teaching I have ever heard!

Why don't you move to a middle school county? You'd love it and might even stay a while!!

We'd love you in my school as we all hate year 9. You could do it for all of us, please...

I’ve basically been a newbie throughout my career, changing within every couple of years.

Deliberately?

You know, you could just ask a HOD to let you do just KS3?

I don’t know that it is non committal. It might be that she just doesn’t feel confident with KS4. Some people are like that with a level.

Yes, but she could request to just teach KS3. She'd have her hand bitten off!

If you don’t feel confident with a key stage, ask not to teach it! Don’t keep swapping jobs and leaving kids in the lurch.

That’s ridiculous, jane

That sort of statement is why teachers end up staying in jobs they are unhappy with.

Honestly, middle school is the answer there.

Not many places have them, as you must know?

No, not now But applying for jobs all the time is exhausting.There are definitely staff in my school who choose only to teach KS3.

But if people are moving all the time, then presumably they’re not happy, ever? I’ve left one job after eighteen months as it wasn’t the right school for me, but the thought of moving that often throughout my career is exhausting, and surely detrimental to the kids we teach?

What level are you at now?

That sort of statement is why teachers end up staying in jobs they are unhappy with.
Actually more often than not if they're a good teacher and the school can make things work then they will.

Jane makes a valid point, but I wouldn't expect someone who has built a career on never/rarely seeing more than one cohort of GCSE students through a school and always taking the view of "I'm great the grass is greener" to understand that principle or value the impact of stability in staffing.

I've known staff request to train to pick up KS3 in a related subject and have done the SKE course to do it.
I've had my roles ammended on a couple of occasions.
I know someone who moved to teach almost entirely SEND within a large secondary.
I know someone else who got a cross phase secondment within a MAT
I know someone else who requested to be removed from KS5 is starting allowed, and got it.
I know someone else who offered a second subject and had a split timetable of mainly KS3.
I know someone else who took on reduced teaching hours to pick up several half days being a school counsellor and the school funded their training

Once someone is established in a school and they're shown to be a good teacher then places will do their best to keep them. I can't say they'd see much point in putting the time and effort in for someone who has shown they're only hunting for the next promotion and will probably disappear within 18 months.

The problem is Lola, you and piggy and jane seem to view a number of changes far more personally than I do. Although I have sometimes worked somewhere that just isn’t right and was making me miserable (a view often shared by OFSTED) there have been other schools I’ve loved but I couldn’t stay because my life changed.

To briefly explain, my first school was horrific, behaviour wise, and did that delightful trick of giving the NQT aged 22 all the bottom sets and then acting astonished when she struggles I left after two years, but I was so keen to get out the school I applied to was just too far. I was still in the early stages of my teaching career and I was broke from my mortgage and commuting costs! Hence I left the second after two years.

My third school was an extremely fast-paced and ambitious school. I applied for an internal promotion, didn’t get it, applied for an external promotion and got it (I was surprised.) So I only stayed a year.

Fourth school was on its way out and was due to close, a fact that I only learned when I arrived. So I started looking again within a year. I again got the first job I applied for, as second in dept at a lovely school. A year after I arrived, I fell in love (puke ) I’d actually arrived at that school in the January so I prepared to start my ‘new life’ a year and two terms later. No hard feelings at all and I got my first HOD role.

School 6 was where there was a psycho head. I lasted two terms, leaving at Easter. Two weeks after I left, she was dismissed. I was genuinely scared for my career at that school. I got my second HOD role (school 7) and I did just over two years there. I loved it but I had to relocate due to a personal reason (don’t want to be identified.) School 8 was a one year contract, as I left school 7 in a rush, luckily they were understanding. (It wasn’t anything illegal or anything by the way, just something sad.)

I was looking for a post on HOD level and got an assistant head role at school 9, but then got pregnant and it wasn’t a ‘good’ pregnancy. Stepped back, and then only decided to go back when babies a bit older. That was school 10, and I hate it, but stuck it out for just over a year.

So really, its just been life. It’s been sometimes yes thinking ‘this is not for me’ but it’s also been moving, marriage, babies, loss, love. There’s definitely times where looking back I think I shouldn’t have done that such as getting a job in a school that was barely commutable but then it was nearly fifteen odd years ago and I was only 24 ...

It's really not a case of viewing the moves personally OP.

It's about quite honestly saying that I don't believe someone who has the attitude of moving around every 2 years has enough experience to decide that advice from another poster where they suggest someone talks to their school about their career desires is bad advice which causes people to end up stuck in jobs they hate.

The advice Jane gave another poster was good advice, but you rubbished it and said it would keep teachers in jobs they are unhappy with.

I think in general teachers stay until things are utterly unbearable rather than just merely ‘unhappy’, Lola, and that is a contributing factor in the retention of teachers. That’s not me trying to rubbish Janes advice, and sorry if that’s how it came across.

But ‘don’t keep swapping jobs and leaving kids in the lurch’ is emotive. If proper notice periods are adhered to, kids shouldn’t be left in the lurch.

You said her advice would leave people stuck in jobs where they're unhappy.
It doesn't.

It's advising people to talk to their school about their career ambitions and interests, which is absolutely reasonable.

I wouldn't comment on why teachers leave in general, because I've seen so many different reasons. Most people don't leave every 2 years though and there's no avoiding the impression it gives.

I don't think jane was being emotive there at all. There's a difference between finding another body to teach a class at the end of someone's notice and then there's the wider impact of someone's patchwork career where they start initiatives, get promotion or decide they don't like the school and move on, take GCSE class but start looking for their next job before their first GCSE class has sat their exams.

The problem is because you've not stayed somewhere long enough, I don't honestly think you realise the impact of that approach. In my experience, somewhere where enough staff have that mindset is really unsettling for the students.

I’m sure it is! I haven’t planned things this way - there’s a few schools I’d probably have stayed in far longer had life (as opposed to the school) not taken me elsewhere, but I do think I’m quite unusual.

However, the opposite stance can also be damaging. I do think it’s good to know that there are other options if a school isn’t a good place to work, and I honestly do think it’s good for teachers to know what working in different schools is like.