Get into teaching- what's the catch?

[DragonOnFire]

So I went to a get into teaching event last night as I'm a long term post-doc researcher thinking of moving to a career where I can still teach but have a bit of job security.
I was impressed with all the funding & support available and can see there is a huge effort to recruit new teachers. Felt like there was quite a hard sell from all the different training providers and I was getting all the positives about the profession.
The only question I wanted to ask but wasn't sure I'd get a genuine response was- why are we do desperate as a nation to recruit teachers? Why are people leaving the profession- is there a huge exodus of unhappy/burnt out teachers that requires a constant recruitment drive to bring new teachers in?
I'd really appreciate some honest insight from teachers about workload, management, and satisfaction? Anyone got lots of positives?
I'm looking at applying to start training in sept 2020 and would be leaving a happy career in academia because I just can't see myself progressing into a tenured role.

It may be that they are being encouraging and nice. Teachers are much more positive about their jobs in conversation with non teachers than they are when asked for honest opinions on the internet! Lest someone starts a thread on MN about what whiners their teacher 'friends' are.

I have not found the politics in teaching any worse than any other job I have had previously. I am in an NQT+1 in a very challenging school, and love my job. I have found that those people who have had other careers have a different perspective so perhaps ask more people who haven't only worked in teaching I have teacher friends (who went right in out of uni) who said to me before I went into teaching myself "you'll wish you had a boring office job" as someone who has had many boring office jobs, I am still certain that they've no idea what true office politics can be like. Training to be a teacher was the best decision I have ever made.
Some schools are, I am sure, a hotbed of political maniacs. If you end up in a school like that, move.
Yes, during term time I am at school for 11 hours a day, 5 days a week and only stop for break and lunch. But I leave my work at school (usually: sometimes I bring things home if I want to spend time on them. Occasionally there's just loads to do, but that's pretty rare). In the holidays and at weekends, most of my time is mine.
That said, I will say I am exhausted and counting the weeks until Christmas ;-)

Dragon, like you I had a career in academia ( I even had tenure) but soured of the politics and being expected to go to numerous conferences even though I had tiny dc.
I swapped to teaching, the training year was frustrating as the teaching at uni was poor, would definitely recommend an on the job training scitt or school based provider. My nqt year was horrendous and I nearly quit so many times. Then I moved schools to one that suited me much better. I have been there ten years now and I love it, the kids are fab, my colleagues supportive. Some of the parents are bell ends, the odd kid is a dick but mostly it is genuinely enjoyable, ( i am jigging around in front of bottom set year 8 to give them a hint about particles having energy, someone gets the right answer, another kid goes, my parents say I can be anything when I grow up, I’m going to be a particle 🤣) and I do really like my “new” career, in fact much more so than my previous research one.
Agree with pp that the most irritating thing is not being trusted in terms of ppa, meetings etc, my department head will string shit out ( and admit to it) to get to 5pm as “ that is when the meeting ends! “ wtf
It is bloody hard work tomorrow i have duty 8:30-8:50, tutor time 8:50-9, teach all six periods with a lunchtime club, Tuesday i have meeting 8:40-8:50: tutor time, break time duty, teach all six periods, lunch time catch up session and then 25 mins before a 3 hour parents eve, but you are never more than 8 weeks away from at least a weeks holiday 😀

It surely isn't that surprising that training providers are bigging up all the positives of the profession and not drawing attention to all the bad things, that's what their job is to do as they will no doubt have targets to hit and they want to get any many people to apply. If they didn't, it would be like a car salesperson selling you a car and actively pointing out all the negatives which will put you off buying it.

The government's own figures recently showed that teachers are now more likely to drop out after their first year in the classroom than at any time since 1997. Stats like that are not going to be for no reason.

Or targets not to hit, more to the point...

I was a full time class teacher for six years and it made me so unhappy. I switched to part time ppa and enjoyed it again but left when I had twins as it wasn’t going to work financially/logistically for us. I liked working with the children, it was the sheer volume of work which was just too much.

I was impressed with all the funding & support available and can see there is a huge effort to recruit new teachers

Unfortunately the funding, support and effort seems to drop off as soon as you're qualified.

I qualified in 2013 and was actually lucky as I was in a supportive school, had a good mentor and a head of department with realistic expectations and shared schemes of work. I still gave up after 5 years because it was incompatible with my family life. But if I hadn't had kids I would have stayed.

In my class of around 30 trainee teachers I think about 6 are still teaching. We were the group who had big bursaries (maths and physics)... plenty of people did the training, got the £20k and then quit. Throwing money at trainees doesnt make good teachers or solve the day to day issues in school.

Because you carefully plan a lesson and then spend the hour doing crowd control with two or three highly disruptive students who wreck the learning for everyone else. Because you are constantly monitored. because the paperwork is crazy. Because the hours during term time are 10-12 a day. Because some pupils take pride in bullying teachers and there's no support, as teacher authority has been eroded in favour of pupils' rights to the point where there's no effective discipline for out of control pupils.

That's what keeps me away. I adore teaching. But I won't tolerate the shit that goes with it. I teach Adult Ed part-time now with quiet, well-behaved, hard-working students who are so keen to be there. They listen in class, do all their prep and homework and are so appreciative. I love every minute of it.

Don't discount teaching OP. I became a teacher in my thirties and it's the best thing I ever did. Yes there are downsides but every day I get to teach what I love and do something I believe in. I was so miserable in my old job and now, cheesy as it sounds, I have a purpose, and that has done wonders for my mental health. Yes it is stressful and I work way longer hours than I did before, bit no way would I go back to my old job.

Out of interest, what did you do before? This fascinates me!

@suk44 well yes, that's why i posted here, for some actual real experiences from teachers at the coal face.

Thanks for the insight @rosieposy4 I am certainly looking at a SCITT training year rather than full time study. I don't want to go back to sitting in lectures/tutorials when I have been the one giving them.

I really appreciate your input regarding leaving academia and your experience of teaching. I just can't see myself getting into tenure after 10 years of being a great post-doc but without being able to achieve the golden triad of getting teaching experience with grant applications with high impact publications in all my posts, it's like I could do one but not all at the same time.
Your days do sound full on, but structured enough to navigate your way through. I worked as a medical writer and the days were long, but unplanned and you were expected to drop your plans to go home if a request came in from a client. That to me was stressful.

I did a proper OGCE back in the day at a RG university. Please don't undervalue that end of things. Pedagogy in itself is worth studying and (as Teacher Tapp showed yesterday) lots of training providers and schools are not very good at this.

Also, in school based training , I am not sure how much time you get to really reflect, workshop and discuss. Both routes are only as good as the place that delivers them

But, then, I liked my PGCE as I felt it was another academic qualification and not just 'on the job training', I suppose. And I liked being a student for another year! I was only 20, mind..

@eithneblue I have been thinking along the same lines as you suggested - that working in other careers before teaching gives people a different perspective.
11 hours a day sounds like a lot, but at the moment I am commuting an hour either side of my full time job, so my day adds up to 11 hours at the moment. I would hope to reduce my commute and do work after doing bed time with my child.
And I hear everyone about being tired at this point in the year.
I work full time, I commute on average 2 hours a day (going up to 3hrs a day when it rains/trains get delayed etc), have a 9-month old baby who wakes up 3 times a night on average and I haven't had a holiday since August.... so at least teachers have had half term?
I don't deny teachers work hard and it sounds stressful, but nothing too far removed from my life already.

PGCE! Spellchecker thinks OGCE is a thing...

I think the PGCE Element is important.

School based routes are only as good as the schools and mentors available.

Whilst some PGCEs still promote a more progressive, narrow pedagogy there's finally some movement in that respect.

What happens in quite a lot of school routes is that trainees are trained in the model of the school with their systems and ideas of what good teaching is, observations are about being in a set model and they can lack the proper reflection and academic understanding. That's what I find when we take second placements from one provider and we get trainees 6 months in who can't prepare a lesson because in their last school they taught off pre-prepared PowerPoints and they can't explain why they have done things. Sometimes I think other schools dislike having some of our trainees for second placement because we are big on reflection, coplanning, guided reflection tasks, observations of experienced staff, wider reading etc. Some schools don't want new staff who think for themselves, but we do.

well yes, that's why i posted here, for some actual real experiences from teachers at the coal face.

Well here's a few articles that focus on why teachers are leaving in big numbers, and contain interviews and quotes from teachers themselves describing the reasons that lead to them leaving, which I think sum up a lot of issues I and many teachers I know have encountered.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/education-45377897/why-we-quit-teaching

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/may/13/teacher-burnout-shortages-recruitment-problems-budget-cuts

www.buzzfeed.com/matthewchampion/why-teachers-are-quitting

I am the opposite of pp: I have done both academia and secondary school teaching. Hated the latter, love the former! It goes to show everyone is different! I find academia so much less stressful and so much more stimulating.

PGCEs are only any good if the universities actually teach them how to teach.

is there a huge exodus of unhappy/burnt out teachers that requires a constant recruitment drive to bring new teachers in?
Yes. Compared to university teaching there’s a lot of bad behaviour, a lot of disinterested students who don’t want to be there, and an excessive amount of admin and paperwork. The hours are ridiculous even compared to a PhD or research job. My friend and I both did it after we finished PhDs and failed to get university lecturer jobs, and we both quit after the first year.

how are you held responsible for your students' grades and outcomes? What are the repercussions of your class don't get desirable grades?
As others have said, you’ll be bullied excessively supervised and micromanaged and made to do even more paperwork to ensure you don’t fail to achieve the required results again. My pupils weren’t allowed to fail to achieve the required grades - I was unofficially instructed to falsify paperwork and fiddle numbers to get the required grades. If coursework wasn’t submitted I had to sign a note admitting I “lost” it. If it was late I falsified the dates. If it was difficult I gave the answers to be copied and then pretended I hadn’t.

Of course the teacher the previous year did the same, so often students come into your class with ridiculously high grades that are already inflated beyond their actual ability, and you’re expected to improve upon that! It erodes your professional integrity and it’s stressful to worry about things that are beyond your control. It’s your fault if a student fails, even if it’s because they played truant, or took drugs, or refused to work, or were ill, etc.

That’s before you consider the psychological impact of being called names, whispered about, having things thrown at you, being attacked, being threatened - and the aggressor is entitled to an education so you’ll still have to face them every day even after they’ve threatened to murder you and you’re afraid of them.

I lasted four years @DragonOnFire. It made me poorly long term- I'm convinced it causes the autoimmune condition I now suffer with and for which I have to take medication for life. Luckily, I ended on a high and retrained and now have the best job. Don't do it. There's a reason for all the incentives- it's because it's a tough, thankless job (the adults are worse than the kids) and there's very little you get back vs what you put in. That's my experience anyway.

illeana, that is a huge list of malpractice and des not happen in any schools I know of!

I have to agree Illeana that that just doesn’t happen in the majority of schools. We’re expected to work miracles with children with 60% attendance but if I faked my data, I’d be told to leave.

I'm agreeing with other posters on that list of Illeana.
I'm aware of schools taking a few liberties on internal assessments (e.g coursework / KS2 Writing samples) but not to the level you document, and what you're outlining, though I'm sure it will go on, is not like anything I've seen or heard in schools.

I think it's always worth remembering that the loudest voices on careers or topics tend to be negative. That's not to say there's not a huge amount of pressure in teaching or to downplay some very real issues, but it can be a good job.

Getting a good school helps and I think being good at drawing your own boundaries to look after yourself is key. The job could easily take over your life, so there is a personal responsibility I think to safeguard against that, including being willing to move schools if the opportunity exists.