Are there any happy teachers out there ???

Listing to BBC LONDON on the wireless this morning, main topic is teachers strike. And here we are outside so&so school talking to a teacher on strike. I’m all up for strikes etc though honestly this teacher spoke so much carp about how bad it is being a teacher – she actually said it is the hardest job in the world 60hrs a week etc etc.

I don’t disagree it’s a hard job, however most jobs come with their own stresses. Toxic work environments I bet are high up on the list.

I could think of far worse jobs with less holidays etc.

Are there any happy teachers ???

There may be far worse jobs out there, but maybe we should aim for life not to be a constant race to the bottom? If they have grievances, they are entitled to air them.

I’m sure there are some happy teachers, but it is a very tough job. If everybody focussed on making things better (in all walks of life), the world would be a better place

Well done for mentioning holidays in your opening statement,here’s a gold star,now go and sit in the corner and have a think about what you have written.

Being married to a teacher and knowing a fair few of her colleagues, I’d say not very many happy ones out there! Not in secondary education at least.

A mate of mine recently retrained as a teacher, fancying a change of career and wanted to do something positive where he could make a difference with the benefit of his substantial industry experience on his subject. He studied, qualified and got a job in teaching.

He lasted less than a year. He said that he absolutely loved the actual teaching – the bit in the classroom with the kids doing what you’d think it is that teachers are meant to be doing

But, by his account, and I’ve absolutely no reason to doubt him, every other aspect of the job is an absolute ****ing nightmare.

Absolutely zero guidance – just thrown in at the deep end to get on with it, zero support of any type, an absurd workload with constantly changing demands and generally a ridiculously stressful environment

There’s no doubt its a tough job at times, but I also imagine it’s very rewarding also. Personally I couldn’t do it as I have enough of a time dealing with my 3 kids, let alone a class full of the little buggers.

Obviously it varies from area to area and school to school, where we live it’s all little primary schools, many of them academy funded, not totally by local government with less than 150 kids across all 7 years (inc. reception) and relatively small secondary schools, there’s also a fair few private schools from reception to 6th form, but that’s relatively wealthy semi-rural England for you. There are without a doubt far far tougher jobs, with worse conditions and working environments.

But the thing is, while people do have the right to complain, protest and strike about work related grievances and whatever decline, underfunding, over-working they face, but is there not the option to leave and seek alternative employment if it’s really that bad?

It’s not a great job, as we’re experiencing a 50% drop in intake for PGCE – nobody want’s to be a teacher (other than those who see it as a vocation) – there won’t be enough teachers very soon.

I’d be unhappy in my job if I’d only seen consistent underinvestment, downgrading if the service and degradation of working conditions. In fact thats the main reason I left a very well paid middle management job 7 years ago (not a public service job). I’m on a smaller wage but much happier now.

It’s not just about wages.

Our daughter had nqt’s, as in first year out of training, teachers for 5 of her 6 years at primary school – & only one of those 5 is still teaching, all other left after a year.

My partner retrained and lasted a year. She was micro managed and continually assessed in a way that led to a complete loss of confidence, she should have been signed off but didn’t want to go to the GP and appear weak or create extra work for her colleagues. She thought the holidays would help with our own kids, less childcare, holiday clubs, grandparents etc but she spent so much of her weekends and holidays catching up or preparing ahead that she was spending less time with our kids. Due to regional differences they weren’t even on holiday at the same time for Easter. So she left. She is now a volunteer coordinator funded by the council. She doesn’t have to work the same hours but it’s no less stressful, she’s working with some of the most vulnerable members of society and they are now looking at massive funding cuts from said council. It’s a shit state of affairs and the sooner these criminals,charlatans and liars are kicked out of government the better.

The whole education system could do with a complete shake up moving away from testing what you remember/have revised and more about preparing people for life and work. Further education is where people go who want the academic route. Teachers job would then just be coaching and working with pupils rather than all the syllabus and testing stuff that requires lots of their additional time.

Being married to a teacher and knowing a fair few of her colleagues, I’d say not very many happy ones out there! Not in secondary education at least.

+1 My wife is also an unhappy, burned out and stressed teacher.

but is there not the option to leave and seek alternative employment if it’s really that bad?

Yes, of course there is. Same argument is made about nurses and is why both professions are haemorrhaging staff, leaving massive staff shortages and barely functioning infrastructures.

There’s far more to this than just individuals wanting more money for themselves – it’s about people trying to protect entire nationwide organisations that the country depends on.

The government have an established an ‘education’ system that cares little for anything other than producing satisfactory statistics regarding exam results

Its like the tractor production numbers in the Soviet Union

Its just a production line. I doubt many people went into the profession wanting to work on a production line

Are there any happy teachers ???

Good question. It’s a question that can be answered through empirical research. Bigger question is, what do you do once you know the answer?

For example, if there really aren’t any happy teachers, that would mean that normal people find the job to be impossible. Surely it would make sense to find out why and improve the things that are making them unhappy. That doesn’t necessarily mean salaries, but it will probably mean spending some money to address problems. If some teachers are happy and some are unhappy, the same thing applies – find out why some are unhappy and decide whether it’s better to spend the money to address the problems or to just replace them with new teachers. If most teachers are happy and only a few are unhappy, it would make sense to see if there is a systematic pattern to the job satisfaction. If it is a systemic problem, then spend some money to fix the systemic issues (because, if you don’t, the teachers you draft in to replace the unhappy ones will also become unhappy and you’ll have to replace them too.) If it’s not systemic, just a minority of teachers who can’t handle the job, then pay them to be retrained for a different career.

Whatever the case, you need to look at the causes of the unhappiness and be willing to spend money to fix the problems. Just adopting an attitude that they should just shut up and suffer it out will not lead to good policy making.

My sister has just quit UK teaching after a couple of decades to work in a pub. As others have noted she loved teaching but the management and admin poisoned her existance.

Madame is a teacher in France and a happy teacher. We both walked out of UK teaching mid class, mid week, mid term. 🙂 Felt a bit strange at the time but within a month we’d found jobs in Nancy France and were working fewer hours for more money for a likeable respectful boss.

Absolutely zero guidance – just thrown in at the deep end to get on with it, zero support of any type, an absurd workload with constantly changing demands and generally a ridiculously stressful environment

with lawyered-up, provocative and plain nasty management.

but the management and admin poisoned her existance.

This seems to be the common theme from all the pissed-off professions.

Have we tied professions in knots with too much arse-covering red-tape?

In work today as my union not striking so can’t write much. I love teaching. But and it’s a big one…I got a number of promotions and was earning more in the past until it all became too much and I had a moment of clarity and decided to just be a teacher. I have 15+ years experience and am pretty good at it but I will not volunteer for more pay and more responsibility. No way. Most of the teachers I am still in touch who I trained with have left the job (or the country). The cuts to schools budget have vastly increased my workload over the time I have been teaching. I used to work very long hours as a new teacher….doing it now would be 240 000x worse.

Last year the government target for Physics teachers was missed, as it always is but this year they recruited 17% of there target…and most of them won’t last 3 years. I used to have interviews with 10 other teachers in for 1 post when I started. Now we are lucky if anyone applies for a science job.

Improved conditions and more pay are the only ways out of the hole.

Oh and last week the gov refused to publish the list they have of schools with buildings at risk of falling down on top of kids and teachers

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/29/tell-us-which-schools-could-collapse-labour-will-force-ministers-to-reveal-data

with lawyered-up, provocative and plain nasty management.

That certainly appeared to be the case, from my mates experience. But he’d also throw in ‘completely incompetent’.

or to just replace them with new teachers

Major flaw in this plan

I was a teacher/tutor in FE until 2016, and had to leave it as it was killing me.
Constant ridiculous target setting, the view that if any students leave it was the tutor’s fault (these are 16-year-olds who don’t know what they want to do for their job/career, they’d try the course for a month or two and then quit when they realised they’d be expected to attend and work).
When they were absent we’d have to spend every available break in the day chasing them up to find out why.
Lunchtime meetings arranged when you were chasing said absentees.
Evening meetings with the parents of errant students to try to get them to toe the line.
Students turning up with no equipment or PPE (mine was a trade-based course)
Students turning up stoned; you can’t allow them into the class or workshop, but can’t send them home if they’re under 18, so what do you do with them?…
Agency staff having to be relied on to front classes and then contacting us 15 minutes before they’re due to start to say they weren’t coming after all, meaning anybody who was on prep time had to then cover the class.
Then being bo##ocked when you hadn’t prepped your own classes appropriately.
The absolute ‘slave-to-the-data’ policy, meaning it doesn’t matter what you have to do, just make sure you keep ’em and get ’em through.
Regular class observations by people who had not one clue as to the nature of our students or the problems we faced with them.
A ‘bums-on-seats’ policy to recruitment, meaning that we’d have far too many completely unsuitable students, many of whom were frankly unemployable at their stage in life, who we’d still have to get through.
Evening and weekend recruitment events with no time off in lieu and no choice.
Constantly be threatened that your department would be closed if you didn’t increase your numbers and pass rates year on year.
Senior managers being terrified of Ofsted.
No leadership.
Wages far below what a half-decent tradesperson could earn on the tools.
I could go on, but you get the picture.

I lasted 15 years, which was way more than most of my peers, and worked with many bloody good people who were systematically broken by the system. Very few people stay in that job for very long, and we wonder why FE is in a state of disrepair.

So, I can’t tell you about schools, but to teach in FE is to stick your head in the meat grinder.

Won’t someone think of the parents?….

As in, being one more element of the problem that teachers are supposed to manage / deal with / placate…

Parents evenings must be a nightmare.

Major flaw in this plan

Hey, if Putin can dredge up 300,000 new soldiers in three weeks, surely the U.K. and find a few thousand new teachers. There are millions of unemployed people, right? Just draft them in. Most of them have probably been to school when they were kids so they’ll know how it’s supposed to work, with the added bonus of some street smarts to pass on to the kids.

Another factor that caused my sister much grief was the school becoming an academy. That meant that in addition to the lawyered-up, provocative, completely incompetant plain nasty management. There were volunteer **** to contend with.

Any **** can become a trustee or governor:

There are no specific qualifications or requirements for the role – every governing board needs a balance and diversity of knowledge, skills and experience. You don’t need to be a parent or to have a background in education.

To be eligible to volunteer, you need:

the time to contribute (altogether, you can expect to spend 10-20 days each year on governance duties, with some meetings and visits taking place during the working day)
to be aged 18 or over
not to be disqualified under the relevant rules and procedures

but the main qualities required are knowing the right ****, being a complete and utter **** yourself – and obviously, hating teachers.

No apologies to any trustees or governors who might post on this forum.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/924673/Academies_governance_role_descriptors.pdf

And don’t mention OFSTED ! Pressure pressure. Government policies have ruined teaching.

Being married to a teacher and knowing a fair few of her colleagues, I’d say not very many happy ones out there! Not in secondary education at least.

Solidarity! 🙂 Same here, only soon to be an ex-teacher after 17 years.

But, by his account, and I’ve absolutely no reason to doubt him, every other aspect of the job is an absolute ****ing nightmare.

Absolutely zero guidance – just thrown in at the deep end to get on with it, zero support of any type, an absurd workload with constantly changing demands and generally a ridiculously stressful environment

100% this. And also…

Another factor that caused my sister much grief was the school becoming an academy. That meant that in addition to the lawyered-up, provocative, completely incompetant plain nasty management. There were volunteer **** to contend with.

… strongly this. As far as I can work out, the academy system is a level of management inserted by the government over and above the schools themselves that’s run by… well, anyone, can absolutely dictate how their schools should be run with no requirement to demonstrate the knowledge and rxperience required, whose key motivation is to turn a profit. Schools are on their financial arses, TAs running lessons, absolute pigswill served in canteens, no support for any extra curricular activities, and academy chairs driving around in ’22 plate German SUVs in sharp suits.*

* Based, to be fair, on a sample of two.

I could think of far worse jobs with less holidays etc.

Look at the retention figures before making a judgement. They are shocking.

https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/5061/comparative_analysis_of_teacher_attrition_rates_in_england_wales-report_ntlm.pdf

About 6/10 teachers last over five years. Ignoring the recruitment challenge, the vessel is leaking despite the taps being on. And that’s not forgetting STEM graduates voting to go elsewhere.

A mate of mine recently retrained as a teacher,

Two of mine did the same after early retirement, both in STEM. Neither laster longer than 12 months for the same reasons. They didn’t need the stress, but loved the classroom contact. These are people with 70 years of industry experience, one at Executive level.

Won’t someone think of the parents?….

As in, being one more element of the problem that teachers are supposed to manage / deal with / placate…

Parents evenings must be a nightmare.

The mother of the most disruptive child in my partner’s class was very tight with the head. Every week she’d be complaining about something and the head would side with her and give no support or help to my partner.

Question, with a pretty rigid national curriculum and a reducing variety of exam boards, why on earth are nearly all lessons custom prepped rather than delivered to a nationally standard lesson plan (which yes, could include options for learning style and range of ability)?

I’m a happy teacher! I love my job. 6 years in after being a solicitor for 10 years. There are lots of happy teachers out there – we just don’t make as much noise/don’t make as many headlines! Don’t get me wrong – there are frustrations as there are with any job and retention and recruitment are common issues across the profession but there is positivity to be found too!

Not specific to teachers, but what we have here is a population with first world expectations being run within a third world economy.

Question, with a pretty rigid national curriculum and a reducing variety of exam boards, why on earth are nearly all lessons custom prepped rather than delivered to a nationally standard lesson plan (which yes, could include options for learning style and range of ability)

Sounds great in practice, but there are many, many factors that need to be taken into account…

Class size, room layout, teacher experience, streamed or mixed ability class, equipment (or lack of), available facilities (IT, laptops/tablets, interactive whiteboards, etc.), behaviour, SEN, ILPs and EHCPs, TA support, the weather, room temperature, distractions outside the classroom, have they eaten breakfast…I could write more!

I love the actual teaching (most of the time), but massive class sizes, unrealistic expectations of grades, OFSTED pressure, lack of support in class, etc. means that I’m leaving secondary education at the end of this term after 14 years.

being run within a third world economy.

Eh?

Eh?

No money, no investment, high taxation, government corruption etc its not difficult to understand.

MrsG has been a teacher since leaving Uni. She’s done standard teacher / HoD and now works part-time teaching 6th formers. I’ve seen her massively stressed in the past and many of her fellow teachers seem unhappy/stressed. Going part-time has been a saviour for her, I don’t think she’d still be a full time teacher. I’ve also had friends got into teaching as a later career and not last long in the jobs. You really have to love the teaching part to put up with all the BS and last as a long term career.

I’ve met quite a few early retirement teachers who seem happy enough

Ex-primary teacher here. I retrained by the Graduate Training Program back in the early 2000s. Loved working with the kids, but everything else killed me, being the only male teacher I was given a problem class, and basically moved up the school with them, and criticised for the worst kids innthe school not ‘achieving’, after 5 years I was finished due to ill health. They didn’t wait to see what was wrong before I was finished (ended up being tagged as CFS/ME), as they wanted me replaced before the next term.

No money, no investment, high taxation, government corruption etc its not difficult to understand.

Comparing us to a third world economy is both pathetic and stupid, not to mention slightly offensive.

I’ll not bother to react to you propensity to argue & insult. But you know we are the lowest level of economic growth (actually we are in decline) in the whole world right? We’ve no appropriately sized military to defend us, healthcare, education, Fire, Police and many other public services are underfunded due to a corrupt and incompetent government. You know Russia is doing better than we are?

Or is there another cause of your reason for striking – a teacher yourself – can educate me as to?

But you know we are the lowest level of economic growth (actually we are in decline) in the whole world right?

I know you weren’t talking to me but I didn’t know that.

And don’t mention OFSTED ! Pressure pressure. Government policies have ruined teaching.

You can mention them today in this context, as they’re on strike too. 😁