Teaching A level - can I request not to?

[Cranberryclementine]

I’m teaching A level for the first time in a long time this year, and I’m really not enjoying it at all. I’m finding it very stressful!

Can I ask for someone else to take over next year? I’m new to the school.

In my school that was be absolutely fine, unless you'd been employed specifically for that.
What aren't you enjoying about it?

I don’t know what I’m doing! The students are lovely but I don’t have any confidence i am teaching them well. It’s also a shared class so that makes it difficult with planning and so on.

What's your subject? How is the class split?
I teach two a level subjects and they're split differently but each teacher has our own "bit" so we don't have to faff about sharing planning or anything. That helps!

At our school, you wouldn't be allowed to request to only teach what you find easy. The exam years load is spread fairly, all teachers hired should be capable of teaching a level. If you aren't capable of doing your job, do some cpd or get a job you are able to do.

There's no need to be so rude!

Do you have any reason to feel you are letting your students down rather than low confidence? The only way to build confidence is to keep doing it.

All Alevel teaching is split at my school so 3 lessons a piece each, but we do separate topics so no shared planning except to make sure we have the whole spec covered.

It is totally normal to feel like this the first year teaching A level. Push on through and you will feel much more confident next year. I’m sure you are doing a better job than you think. Fake beingconfident in front if the pupils and don’t let them know how you feel. I regularly feel nervous before teaching my A level class in case they ask questions I can’t answer and I have lots of experience. I have chatted to collegues about it and they feel the same! You can request a year off it but it doesn't look great so I would say fake it till you make it. You are obviously very conscientious and that makes you doubt yourself.

You can request a year off it but it doesn't look great so I would say fake it till you make it.
Why doesn't it "look great"? I have several colleagues who don't want to teach A level. No one thinks less of them for that. I don't want to teach y7, which is why I have three A level groups and no y7

Some of my dept don't teach A-level and don't want to and the rest of us love it because it means more A-level teaching for us.

I think it depends. In my school we share A Level around and in a lot of our departments we’d really need anyone we employed to be able to do sixth form teaching. Every science teacher does A level, all of the history teachers do and all of the geography teachers do. In maths there’s more flexibility with just 3-4 people needed to cover A level and we can also afford for a few English teachers not to do key stage 5. However, in some departments it just wouldn’t work to take people out of Key Stage 5. Whether it will be a problem will totally depend on the context of your school and department.

Yeah - I don’t want to talk myself out of a job of course! I just feel at sea a bit with it and it makes me all anxious and worried.

I know exactly how you feel, I'm in the same boat. But they way I think about it is, I used to feel like this about KS4, and I got experience, and now it's fine. Teaching A Level will be fine in a couple of years too, and it will pay off in terms of job opportunities in the future. Everything is difficult the first time you do it, and I know it's not particularly pleasant or enjoyable now, but it's progressive and it'll be OK.

*progression, not progressive.

Teaching A-level isn't for everyone and I don't think there is any shame in that. It does take time to get to grips with though - can you seek support from a colleague either at your school or another one?

All that said, if a member of my team said they didn't want to teach A-level, it wouldn't be a problem at all.

I have a fantastic teacher on my team and last year, I asked her did she want to teach A-level. She said she would if it was timetabled but would prefer not to. So, I didn't give it to her. I certainly don't think less of her because of it.

It’s very normal to feel this way. I’m in my second year teaching a new subject at A level. Still all fresh content as I have brought them through from Y12 to Y13 - so the y13 curriculum is new to me.
I have managed to find the most incredible teacher on YouTube who does video lessons for every element of the course and teaches referring to a text book which I have. So basically I watch his lessons and take notes, then make my own PowerPoint using my notes from the video lesson and the text book.
It really works and I am slightly in love with this YouTube teacher . I fully recommend you starting an educational YouTube love affair of your very own

I’m in a similar boat although I have a job interview soon where I have to teach an a level group on a subject I’ve not taught before! Out of interest what do you do if they ask a question and you don’t know the answer?

What subject do you teach @likeafishneedsabike?

@Raspberrysins it doesn’t bother me massively when this happens. ‘Oooh that’s an interesting one’ - then when they are working independently research the answer and come back to them. Sometimes i have to think about it and email the group after the lesson if I don’t think my answer cut it in the lesson. Not really an option in an interview lesson but IMHO it’s fine to say you are not totally sure and would have to look into that further.
Interestingly, mine don’t like to put me on the spot and test my knowledge that much. Maybe they think that I’m old and must therefore be wise. It used to happen much more when I was a teacher in my 20s.

It depends on your head of department. I’m a head of dept and if you requested not to teach A-Level I’d probably try to accommodate that. However, I’d expect you to be able to teach it in future so maybe start doing some CPD, moderation, lesson observations etc. this year.

I know some subjects are a bit different - not all Maths teachers can teach Further Maths for example - but in my subject everyone should be able to teach to KS5.