If you had your time over, would you still be a teacher?

[finn1020]

One of my teens is considering training as a teacher, potentially primary. For those of you who are teachers, if you had your time over, would you still choose it as your profession?

What are the biggest pros and cons? How easy is it to gain employment, and do you feel it pays ok with the potential for career progression etc?

Not in the state sector I wouldn’t. I look back and wonder how close my mental health was to breaking point.

Guaranteed weekends
This was not my experience at all in state primary. Half a day at the weekend was what I usually had work free.

@TildaTurnip I think things are very different in the secondary sector. I don't know of any secondary teachers in my school who report working those hours.

My secondary friends seem to-one (English) has been marking papers for days and still has planning etc to do. Maybe less so in Summer 2 though.

Good Lordy English based teachers! Where are your unions?! What is your work load agreement?! I love my primary job in Scotland and never (bar parents night) work past 5pm. Nor do 95% of teachers I know in my school and 5 I've previously worked in. I hate to think that paperwork is destroying the love for the profession down south. I also do t work weekends apart from finding resources off my own back for fun experiments, 'topic' or art activities (for which my heady would tell me off for)

And I do believe you having one friend who works down south but is the main difference the formal assessment and bring results oriented? I can't see a difference bar that.

I have a scottish secondary teacher friend who seems just as stressed by workload as I was. Maybe its different stresses different schools/sector.

I teach (secondary, MFL) in Scotland and for many of the reasons listed by others (pay scales, higher paid staff being bullied out etc) I would never work in England but I love teaching and woukd recommend any young graduate to come and train here.

Pros
Fun, varied job
Opportunity to engage intellectually with pedagogy
Freedom to plan and teach how you like
Teens are hilarious
Great colleagues
opportunites for progression (i'm 26, teach full tme and earn 44k)
Decent pay (we just got a 10% pay rise)
Free weekends (for me at least)
Meaningful job

Cons
Not all staffs are great, hated my last school.
MFL teaching can be disheartening (I hate French! Why do we even have to learn French?)
Behaviour (I work in a very mixed catchment andnI have cried in the loos a few times this year)
Workload (the school day is insane - you often cannot eat or wee)

I would say primary is a whole different ball game. My DM is a primary teacher and I can sed her insane workload (though she is a total perfrctionist). I genuinely think primary teachers should be paid more than us and have lower contact hours. Primary teachers in Scotland get a half a day of protected non-contact time and I think it should be a full day to allow for planning, marking and all the mad shite they end up having to do

Teachers in England get the protected half day for planning too (in my kids primary school head of year gets almost a full day, but they may pop in and see their class.)

I am not a teacher but have seen it up close and think it is a very stressful demanding profession. English teachers marking everything evening until late. Spending weekends lesson planning. Or doing extra curricular activities with kids if private schools. Then spending a large chunk of the ‘holidays’ in bed with flu/ exhaustion. It’s no life .

I'm not being goady but I have been teaching 30+ years in Primary and have always had my weekends/ holidays free of work. I never take work home during the week either. I leave at 5pm and that's it. Maybe I've just been lucky.

Not sure I would start out as a teacher in today's climate, but 30+ years ago we had an absolute blast (primary, England). It was pre- National Curriculum and there was more money sloshing around. Was still paid much less than my friends in other sectors but really enjoyed my work.
I'm still lucky in that I'm part-time and in a school where the Head is fully committed to staff welfare. Paperwork is at a minimum and we are allowed time off for things like family issues and special events.
I am appalled at the state of affairs in schools like the one Northernknickers reports. It's just not necessary and directly contributes to the teacher retention crisis.

I'm mixed on this question. I do like the job because it's the only job I've ever done where I don't get bored.

BUT the workloads are silly and I hate having a job where I have to bring work home. It pervades my whole life and makes me really stressed. If I'm at home, I just want to spend time with my family.

I'm not being goady but I have been teaching 30+ years in Primary and have always had my weekends/ holidays free of work. I never take work home during the week either. I leave at 5pm and that's it. Maybe I've just been lucky.

That sounds fab! I’ve done 22 years but my experience is very different, sadly! What’s your school like?

@TheSquitz!! Yes me too, I love my job. I am home by half 3/4 o’clock every day. I don’t take work home with me, our school is locked all summer and I have never missed a break either.

fedup21 It's a one form entry Catholic Primary. Marking/planning policies are sensible, we have weekly staff meetings but yhey rarely last longer than 40 minutes. Book trawls etc are done as a mideration exercise by all staff and are supportive. Having said that, we have a new Head starting in January so it all might change!

Yes me too, I love my job. I am home by half 3/4 o’clock every day. I don’t take work home with me

How?! I need to know!

No primary school where I am finished before half three so that’d mean leaving with the children. When do you do planning and marking? Subject leadership stuff and meetings? Class prep and resources etc? Data and other paperwork?

No

@TildaTurnip because school finishes at 2.40 🙌

@TildaTurnip.
Marking-we don’t do it in crazy depth! (Daily planning is on a third of an A4 page (vertically) a lot of our curriculum is workbook based!
Marking- in class!
Subject leadership- don’t have any
Meetings- once a month after school
Data and other paperwork- we have a SET (special education team) who do all of the benchmarking/testing and entering the results into our system.Other paperwork (a form of planning)I sort/tweek between 2:40 and 3o clock!!

How can you mark in class? You’re supposed to be teaching?!

I often mark in class, especially for A Level and GCSE - I often mark the essays of underachieving students so they get face to face feedback.

@SunsetBoulevard3 like this...
They are doing the assigned page of work and I walk around marking the questions as they go on. Or they finish the page, so they put their hand up and I come over and mark it. By marking I mean ticking the correct ones and discussing the incorrect ones. If it’s something like a literacy comprehension etc then we mark it as a whole class (discuss the answers) or they put their hand up and I will correct it myself and give verbal feedback
Weekly spelling tests- peer marked or if we are busy I will take them up and mark them straight after school along with any other work that I didn’t manage to see in class.

I used to mark in class all the time. Back when we were allowed to give them an extended written task and they were expected to - shock horror - get on and do it.

It was a sensible use of time. GCSE groups used to particularly like it if I was marking their coursework, as I would put a tally on the board of the grades as I went along (top set only, before anyone accuses me of cruelty, I was putting up a tally of A*, A and B).

All that sort of thing is gone. You're expected to be 'performing' all the time, and the kids don't get more than five minutes to concentrate on working without getting interrupted by some poor bugger bollocking on at the front or reading over their shoulder "live marking".