How awful is being a teacher?

[Rogerborg]

Mrs Borg has just sprung it on me that she's considering doing primary school teacher training in Scotchland.

Background: she's academically qualified out the wazoo, has managed to raise two kids with all their limbs intact, and does PTA stuff at the local Nice School for Nice Kids.

Her father was a teacher back in The Day. An art teacher, which was a warning sign that with hindsight I shouldn't have ignored.

My view is that it's a piss-poorly paid job where they mug you off ruthlessly for extra unpaid hours and expect you to be an ersatz social worker / Goodthink Police; that she won't get a job anywhere locally; and that if she does then it'll be in some sink-estate-adjacent semi-borstal where it'll only take one classfull of precocious OCD ferals and their hatchet faced Ah-ken-mah-rights mothers to make her realise what an awful mistake the whole idea is.

But that's just my sunny upbeat view on it. The reality might be far worse. Can anyone shed any light on recent reality?
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[nowhere.elysium]

Both of my parents are (well, was in the case of my mum, she's now retired) teachers, and if their commentary on it is anything to go by, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Bureaucracy trounces education at this stage, so unless she's very fond of jumping through regulatory hoops and making sure that all her paperwork is filed in triplicate, I'd personally suggest doing something else.
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[Polarbear]

My wife is exams officer in a secondary school. She says she enjoys it but the stress sometimes really gets to her and she isn't dealing directly with the kids on a day to day basis.

Maybe the kids are better behaved at primary school level but there are some at her school that should be in jail rather than the classroom.
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[waffles]

I teach in a secondary school. I have 45 hours of contact time per fortnight and five hours of PPA time (protected free lessons, for marking and planning). Each hour lesson takes roughly two hours to prep for with actually writing the lesson and planning the outcomes for high/middle/low achievers plus getting books and homework marked. This is done in my own time in the evenings or weekends so I have to plan my weekends in advance if I want the whole thing off. Same goes for holidays. A week off is spent entirely prepping for the next term, two weeks means I get a few days off and the summer is the only time where I get a couple of weeks to myself. Forget going away on holiday cheaply but then again you don't have enough money to afford that anymore so it doesn't matter.

Depending on the school you are required to do statutory duties which would be things like standing outside at break time to make sure they don't kill each other or stand at the school gate to remove gum, make sure uniform looks good, phones away and so on. I imagine in a primary there would be less emphasis on that?

My school has recently demanded that all members of staff provide one day a week of after school clubs for an hour a time and this is directed time so you don't get a choice. Again primaries are good at offering breakfast clubs and after school activities but there is no money for outside staffing so these are sometimes left to existing teachers and support staff.

I frequently get asked to do tasks that I have already done or things that involve printing out a copy of something that already exists on the school IT system but I have to have a copy to prove that I have read it. I drown in useless paperwork and a lot of it is stuff that will apparently impact on the quality of my teaching. I detest work emails with a passion as you just repeat things again and again and it still doesn't get sorted. Petty calls from parents (my child is being bullied outside of school by text - what are you going to do about it, that's your job) waste additional prescious time that I can't spare. Recently we have gained back time as classes leave for their exams and were told this gained time wouldn't be taken for cover, the few I have gained back have already been taken. So much for rarely covering absent staff.

It can be an incredibly satisfying and enjoyable job and the days when you go home having succeeded are the best ones. On the other hand when you have a bad day it tends to stick with you for a while. Friends will also take the piss about "all that holiday time you get off!" and not appreciate that while you aren't at the school you are still working at home.

If Mrs Borg is really keen she should contact some local primaries and see if she can get some experience. Even volunteering to be someone who they read to will give her a taster of what it will be like.

Uh, does that help?
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[Baffler186]

My sister has been a primary school teacher for 15 years. She's worked her way to the top (well, deputy head) so there is a good career path if you're serious about it.

However, teaching is definitely a life choice and not a job. The shit teachers might get away with doing 8-4 every day with minimal impact on their home life, but they soon come unstuck. Any decent teacher will be doing 2 or 3 hours of work each night, and likely a full day at the weekend. If you have any planned absence then you have to work damn hard to plan a lesson for the supply teacher.

SATs, Ofsted inspections (not sure if the same in Scotland?) are a chaotic and stressful affair, even worse if the school is below par to start with.

As Waffles has said, there is the expectation that your wife will run an after school club, be on duty at lunch times, take little shits on school trips (usually a whole week toward the end of term). private and protected lunch times are a thing of the past.

However, a good Head Teacher makes all the difference, so it does depend on that as well.

My sister's biggest gripes are 1) the Head teacher (who is shit). 2) School inspections and targets (caused by point 1)), and a combination of Facebook Mums and know-it-all middle-class fuckwhit parents who complain to the governers about the classroom because it has a Bible on the shelf but no Qu'raan.

In short, it can be rewarding and well paid in the long run, but it is a tough slog and not a career path that everyone succeeds in unless they are 100% dedicated.
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[P.]

[Rogerborg]

Thanks all (and those to come).

My concern is that Mrs Borg is dedicated but is also a worrier and not massively confident. I expect she'll pour all her time and energy into it and still fret that it's not enough, while being lumped with every bit of extra-curricular tosh that's going.

I'm supposed to be supportive, but I honestly think that the best support I can give on this is a short, sharp intervention.

I predict tears before bedtime, and I don't think Mrs B will be too happy either.
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[Baffler186]

[BTTD]

[TbirdX]

I don't know about teaching, but I can tell you that the school I went to was full of kids...and almost everyone of them was a right cunt...including me.

Wouldn't wish it on anyone.
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[DrSnoosnoo]

My Missus is academically qualified - PhD in Chemistry - was very proud that she had chosen to do the School Centred Initial Teacher Training with a local academy trust (thingy).

She was driven, focussed and wanted it done right. This meant that for all of that initial training year, I barely saw her. We just lived in the same house. She worked evenings, weekends etc. I thought, yeah, she's learning, has assignments etc to complete it'll be better when she's finished this training.

Then she started the work. It didn't change, it got worse. She would get home, open her bag and the folders were out. She would sit with tears in her eyes on some occasions because of the shit. While teaching a full day, she was also expected to keep up with all of the emails in the day, which meant working lunches and evenings.

She would spend easily 2 hours planning each 50 minute lesson. It would take her a couple of hours to mark books for one of her classes while providing the correct amount of feedback and personalised questions for further study.

Her mum, who has taught forever, is too an Art Teacher. She is riding the storm for another couple of years until she reaches retirement.

Sir Borg, if you do not want to see Lady Borg for extended periods, not be able to wake up on a Saturday, notice it's sunny, and just get in the car, teaching is the way forward.

If you want a happy wife and a relationship, tell her to get any job whatsoever. Any. Job.

My wife LOVES finishing work and being able to leave work there. One of the biggest things that got to me about the school she worked at, they obviously expect planning to occur outside of school hours, but EXPECTED her to use her own laptop. When hers died, she had to cram using mine, while I was typing my thesis.

People who say, "it's all holidays, it gets better the longer you've been there", haven't taught or live with teachers. Mother in law says the job is horrible, totally different to what it was.

It sounds bad to say it but I would actively encourage people away from teaching. Teachers, now, are every job under the sun. At secondary level, there were children at missus ex-school that couldn't read or write, some couldn't use knives and forks correctly!
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[DrSnoosnoo]

[Rogerborg]

[stinkwheel]

I presume she realises that she will be attempting to teach a fair proportion of kids who :

a) Don't want to learn.

and

b) Don't want to be there.

And will behave accordingly.

I enjoy teaching people, we get a lot of students and it's very rewarding BUT, they are people who want to learn what I have to teach them. I have no tolerance for teaching people who don't want to learn.

Worse, some kids are too fucking smart for their own good and constantly act out. I was one of those kids, a teachers nightmare because I'd answer back with rational arguments they didn't have the mental space to counter from a 10 year old. Tell her to imagine what it would be like having a young version of you in her class.
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[LustyLew]

My o/h is a primary school teacher.

He currently works in a primary school in a deprived area of South London.

The 'Management Team' (because they are so out of touch with teaching they don't deserve the title) are more concerned with OFSED reports, SATs and 'streaming' than children actually getting an education for life.

I sometimes get the lucky task of marking a stack of 30 maths books. Glad I don't mark the English. Allegedly if a child is writing a story, poor spelling is not marked down as spelling is only marked in spelling tests?!

If a child acts up, if the teachers fault. If a child is lagging behind their peers, it's the teachers fault. Expect parents to be so disinterested in their childs education that they should be neutered.

It's a shambles. But hey, it may be better in Scotland!
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Like a Yorkie - I'm not for the girls

[Matt B]

It was something I always wanted to do. When we moved back to the UK about 15 years ago and I ended up back in an office I took the plunge - secondary school.

Waffles has hit the nail on the head and written pretty much exactly what I would have said. I lasted 3 years including the year I spent training before I decided it was time to walk away. Coming to it later in life was definitely not an advantage in some respects. The fact that I had an opinion and would not kowtow did not go down well with the senior management team.

Amongst other things that drove me away were the fact that I got a bollocking for leaving at 3pm, my argument was that I can mark and plan better at home without interruptions, not good enough for them. The final straw was when I was dragged in front of the head for expressing a negative opinion on a staff feedback form after some whole school event. Very poor attempt at scare tactics. Told them if they didn't want an honest opinion they shouldn't ask, and resigned on the spot.

It's long hours, stress and poor money working for people who have been promoted to management because they can't teach. I wish I had spent some time as a TA in schools before taking the plunge. You have to really want to do it and I think it's harder when you get older. Around half of the people on my teacher training course have left the profession now, the only ones that have stuck it are those that came straight from Uni.
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[Pie-Roe]

[Rogerborg]

[CBFcarl]

The mrs is a TA, spent over a year doing a placement whilst she did her courses, and then got a job in an academy. At the time, I was considering having a career change, training up to be a Teacher. The mrs then explained that a) I maybe don't have the patience to be a teacher and would be more likely to try and crack one of the smartarses, b) would go mental with the amount of politics and bureaucracy and c) would earn less than I do now, with more work.

She has the option (and they keep asking her) to do the courses to be a fully fledged teacher, and she keeps declining. As it is, she doesn't earn a lot of money, but she enjoys being able to leave at 3pm. She also gets frustrated, but like I say, she gets to leave and not spend her entire evening putting together teaching plans for lessons.

Run! Run away!

Or.... get Mrs Borg to get a placement as a teaching assistant to get a lie of the land....
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Polarbear wrote: They are all old now. Probably had more abuse that a Rotherham schoolgirl.
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[waffles]

[Joncrete Cungle]

Don't do it! All the teachers I know do nowt but moan about the job, the paperwork, the head, the pupils, the parents and the inspections. A Teaching Assistant I know recently told the school to shove their job where the sun don't shine after being lumbered with a fully feral gyppo kid that shat / pissed its self daily, ran WILD round the school bit, kicked, spat, swore at and screamed at all and sundry. Would have been better suited to life in the chimp enclosure at the zoo, along with the adults responsible for its creation.

[Silver_Fox]

Mother darling dearest is an English teacher at a Secondary school. Don't do it.
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[dydey90]

I have a friend who's a primary school teacher. Straight out of uni, he's doing well with it, but I think this is mostly because he's extremely confident and outgoing. I don't think I'd manage as well, somebody started a shouting match with me at work the other day and I won by many points, mostly by continuing when a big bad manager came round the corner. I would not make it through a parents evening.
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[CHR15]

my mum was a primary school teacher till she retired last year.

[Nobby the Bastard]