Work unsustainable (teacher) and I’m not sure what to do

[feb190225]

I work as a teacher, three days a week, and have two children aged 4 and 1 and a half. I’ve been back at work properly since the beginning of this academic year and I’m really struggling with the inflexibility of the job - I know it isn’t unique to teaching.

I am trying to work out what option is best. Leave and come back to it in a few years - but surely things won’t have improved when my children are at primary school? Look for another role - but what, and what about school holidays? Just feeling a bit lost and fed up.

What do you teach

Definitely tutoring

I have to say whilst the school I work in has some issues, there's nothing like this, and time off for dependents etc is totally accepted.

I'd consider looking for a different school if you can! I'd also maybe raise this with your union rep as this could be indirect discrimination.

That said, does your children's father ever take time off with them if they are ill? If it falls on one of your work days it should ideally be 50:50 as to who is taking the time off?

If your DH is away all week and won't help with the kids and you do tutoring and look after your children, you're going to be pulling a double shift. He continues to do a single shift and no childcare.

Not to mention that tutoring is likely to be over the witching hours and bedtime for small children.

You have both a job problem and a DH problem. I have a heavy travel job and since I've had kids I've had to adjust this and do fewer, shorter trips. It would have been very easy for me to say I couldn't, but you know what? I've had to make changes with new responsibilities and suck up the career impact. Your DH needs to do the same. It's not fair to make this your problem to solve.

I'd be very worried with a DH who thinks the kids are not his problem that you get left high and dry financially if you break up.

If you’re so close to leaving anyway could you go over your managers head? To the head? Someone higher up in the MAT?

You legally have a right to time off for dependents. If you just left for the doctors appointment after telling everyone that you need to tell that you have to leave at x time but without arranging your own cover what would actually happen?

Tbh it sounds discriminatory too. Women have won cases where they’ve been pushed out of their jobs because their employer was unreasonably difficult in allowing them time off for dependants. It’s a problem that predominantly impacts women.

https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants

If you work 3 days a week term time only this seems very flexible? You'd struggle to get term time only in non teaching roles

I work in a school (First school) in a non-teaching role. I was talking to a supply teacher just before Christmas, who was in temporarily at my school. She previously worked at the local secondary school, and decided full-time teaching was no longer for her. I got the impression she worked for an agency. She tells them the dates/times she's available, and they work around that to give her jobs that fit in. From what I understand, teachers are in demand, so I don't think you'll have an issue picking up work.

I'd go down the childminder / tutor route. Quit my job to be a childminder and had a really lovely 10 years at home with my DC. loads of ex teachers childmind & I think you even get a higher rate of pay from local authorities (if you take funded children). I would avoid taking school age, keep your hours relatively short to start with and DEFINITELY keep one day free to have a proper clear up and spend some quality time with your own kids without others vyi8ng for your attention.

Build a side hustle tutoring and you can do as much or as little as you want. PM if you want to ask anything

@feb190225 I had exactly this problem.
I had no one to do childcare, DH was overseas a lot and no family around and at the time very few childminders or nurseries.

I went into further ed. I'd worked as a secondary age teacher - English.

I started doing an evening class when my kids were young but was mainly a SAHM till they were both in nursery (youngest was 3.)

This may be something worth looking into. I worked initially 2 mornings a week- 10-12, then 4 mornings.

I didn't have much marking or pastoral work as I worked in adult basic skills. There was lesson prep of course.

I took a massive pay hit compared to teaching in a school but I supplemented it with tutoring and some supply as when it suited me in my local school.

You can get fractional 0.4/ 0.5 posts in further ed.

Also 40 minutes away is no time at all. We had the call to pick DD up from school the other week and DH and I were both in the city centre, about an hour away. That's normal for most working parents.

He can definitely come back 40 minutes. Make sure he's first on the call list for nursery.

Couldn't think of anything worse than childminding in your circumstances. You already have two small children of your own. Nightmare. Still it does seem to suit some folk so that's just my opinion. I would maybe take a break of a year or so. And do private tutoring. But you would still have a childcare problem.

Have you ever worked in a school?

I have many friends outside teaching and the grass is greener. School holidays is the only reason I still do this shitty job that requires do do an additional 100% once Im done with teaching at school but this time at home marking, prepping, replying to millionsof emails, doing paperwork, planning trips etc.

Take a career brake register as a childminder - good pay and you can be there for your children.

Secondary school English teacher here 👋🏼

I’d say it’s definitely a school problem - when my eldest was tiny I worked in a place similar, and had no emergency support and hubby was away with military. When she got chicken pox they were awful about any time off and I had to take it unpaid. I left at the end of the year.
My current school are completely different. Whenever I have had a sick child, nothing but support and understanding. It makes such a difference!

Leave! A longer commute for a better environment will absolutely be worth it.

Right here with you. I’ve had my first child and am due to go back in March. Dreading it. Feel like throwing in the towel but seems stupid to drop a job where I don’t have to worry about childcare in the holidays in the future. Also probably just sad about leaving the mat leave bubble.

It doesn’t help that teaching is quite maligned as a profession nowadays. According to some of the stuff I see on here, we personally hound families who go on term time holidays because we’re evil fun sponges and we have no sympathy for their financial woes. Oh and also the unions apparently shut the schools down in lockdown and showed that education isn’t important after all. Going in every day, teaching online, teaching the key workers’ kids in person and getting covid 3 times before there was a vaccine was presumably a fever dream. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The children are lovely and I’m working towards a SENCo qualification. Those are the positives for me. Is there any way you could do an NPQ to upskill with a view to moving into something more managementy?

I am a teacher and so is DH, our children are both similar ages. We do have parents to help with childcare but they are not round the corner so if the kids are ill we generally do have to take days off. I have had 3 days off so far this academic year and so has DH. Noone at work has ever said anything about this. The things that help are:

1. Both relatively senior so do have quite a lot of non contact time, generally juggle between us to miss the least lessons possible.
2. My line manager has small children and understands, as does the head.
3. Independent school so as long as we set meaningful cover, are good teachers and the parents are not complaining no one would say anything. Also if you set cover the kids actually do it, so with older ones an hour doing some work followed by you going through it with them can actually be an ok way of teaching the content. I also ruthlessly prioritize not missing any lessons to do other things - inset, observations etc. I just say no.

It depends how much your kids are unwell though. I did have a friend who basically had to leave her job because she was barely in and her partner couldn't take time off. The only thing I would be unsympathetic about as your line manager would be if you had a partner who never took any time off because they thought their job was more important (if they were regularly abroad or the prime minister or something I obviously wouldn't think this). We do a lot of internal department cover though for stuff like GCSE lessons so one person's absence does affect everyone else. This is a big problem with teaching - you don't just pick up the work when you come back, someone else has to do it.

I agree it's very hard looking to move to a part time job. Must other things you could do would be easier with small children (other than the holidays) and I've thought about it a lot but I do like my job and the kids won't be little forever. If your line manager is awful that can really ruin your work life (in teaching as in any job I guess). I'm guessing your manager doesn't have children
...

This is a childcare issue, not a teaching issue. It affects all employed people.

What flexibility do you think you'll have as a childminder if one of your children is admitted to hospital via a&e after an accident/respiratory infection.

If yiur child gets chicken pox, who will look after them out of yiur house because yiur client parents won't want their children there?

You are doing the difficult years. It gets better. If yiu continue working you just have to ride it out. At least it's confined to 39 weeks rather than 45 which is what others have to circumnavigate.

I gave up work for seven years BTW

Definitely look into tutoring, we paid for my eldest to have maths tuition as he fell behind, and my maths is no where near good enough to try and help, she was amazing and caught him up and gave him strategies to be able to solve various problems which boosted his confidence, he is now in the top half of his class and o know she is just a phone call away should he start to struggle again.
She is really busy especially with years 5-8, she does late afternoons 4pm -6pm, I paid around £35 for a 40 min sessions once a week, she usually does hour slots but she squeezed us in.

Plenty of childminder's work TTO (usually ex teachers and they often end up caring for teacher's children!) and you can take time off but as you're self-employed you won't be paid for it - ditto sick days which I rarely took - just make sure you give parents LOTS of warning. Literally never had any issues with time off most parents would coordinate their holidays with mine so it meant they didn't have to pay whilst they weren't using the service.

It's absolutely not for everyone but I loved it -started with just one child whilst mine were little then as they started school added a 2nd and then 3rd. Rates are now c.£9ph round me so x 3 children is really very decent pay to also be there for your own child. I never missed a school play or sports day - the mindees absolutely loved my DC and going into their school & seeing them was always a real highlight.

It sounds to me as though you'd prefer to be a SAHM at the moment so I'd say go for it. I gave up teaching for a few years when mine were little and for those years we were very short of money but I made it work. I didn't do tutoring or childminding - I just focused on being a Mum. Later on I went back to teaching and eventually became a headteacher (retired now).

You'll never get these years back and if you can be ruthless about cutting costs, you might find you can manage it. Good luck! 💐

I work agency for this reason. I set my availability and only accept work when I want it. I'm a teaching assistant but I know teachers can do the same. Only downside is no holiday pay.

The downside with tutoring, as a parent, is that your children need you at precisely the same time that your pupils need tutoring!

I tutored for many years but didn't start properly until my own children were aged 9/10 and could sit quietly at home when they came back from school.

It's very difficult having small children in the house if you are trying to focus on tutoring.

The ideal way is to go to the pupil's house after school and have your partner look after your own children, or tutor in the evening (with older pupils) from 6pm.

I know some teachers now tutor online. I never did this as it wasn't a thing (I'm now semi retired.) But again, how you do that without your children interrupting is unclear.

This is a childcare issue, not a teaching issue. It affects all employed people.

But it's harder for teachers because there are 30 kids with no teacher and the school has to pay for supply or use another teacher's 'free' time'.

The difference is that some jobs can be done remotely from home if your child is unwell. Or the work you should be doing just sits in your in-tray (or your email.)

Your school is the problem

I'm head of faculty and don't have this issue when my kids are sick. Having to arrange your own cover and do more than you missed 'in exchange' is ridiculous - but that speaks volume about the misery of the department as well tbh. I'd never be asked but I'd cover that for someone to take their child to the doctor

I assume you've looked at the policies re dependents and emergency leave and they're adhering to them?

It shouldn't be a 'risk' to let them know your looking for a job - what do you think they're going to do to you? If it's bullying behaviour then document everything.