Teacher in need of new career, help please.

whitewing

In any fulltime career position, you will be working just as hard as in teaching.

In any fulltime lower level position, you will be working hard and may dealing with an 'is this it'?

In a self employment situation, you will be working very hard for very little to start with, but you may have more flexibility to fit in the family stuff. If you work from home, you won't have travel time which can free up a lot of time, but family may not view it as 'work'.

I actually don't know anybody who doesn't work hard.

If you go part time you may be viewed as a great employee but you may not get promotion opportunites.

Maybe you could do supply teaching while you work on restructuring your work-life balance. Maybe you could get a renewed zest for teaching if you get the opportunity to re-evaluate. Perhaps, have a monthly counselling session for a year while you seek to discover what you want out of your life. Shaping a child's future is hugely important and enriching and it may be difficult to find that level of satisfaction elsewhere.

I guess I am thinking maybe it is not the job that is wrong for you, just the way you are aprroaching it. Which is pretty much what others are saying too.

Mistral001

Mary

Have you tried looking for some other job inside education, like at a university. Not lecturing, but maybe a research assistant or university library/administration.

I know a lot of teachers and they all to seem to find it hard to get out if they try. Even the ones with the good degrees find it hard. The teachers who went straight from school to teacher-training college all seem to be more content with their work than the ones who did good degrees followed by a teaching qualification. Maybe you need to contact a few more teachers in your position, ie. good degrees with teacher qualifications working in, or used to work in primary schools.

Hammyman

dazza.mk wrote: »

(I'm not a teacher) but I'd have to pity your brother's students, assuming he spent 1 minute marking each (non coursework) piece of work he gives out then it would be over 8 hours solid marking. Given that you've pretty much stated that he doesn't even do that obviously his students must leave his classroom with a very poor grasp of the subject as I can't see how he can spend the time to correct their mistakes?

If you think secondary school teachers spend every single period in every single day teaching, you are being misled.

Hammyman

whitewing wrote: »

I actually don't know anybody who doesn't work hard.

<looks out of window at council workmen....>

Hammyman

t0rt0ise wrote: »

I should add that by saving up like mad I'm now able to work part time so my own balance is better.

For many, that is the only viable option. As you said, pretty much any fulltime job is going to take up 40% of a week from when you leave home till when you get back. With sleep ideally taking up another 33%, that leaves only 27% for social time out of which you need to eat and take care of personal duties such as showering.

Sadly, financially most people are not in a position where they can afford to move to part time unless they're a couple both working P/T and not up to their eyeballs in debt.

whitewing

Hammyman wrote: »

<looks out of window at council workmen....>

They're actually undercover cops on a major sting!

dazza.mk

Hammyman wrote: »

If you think secondary school teachers spend every single period in every single day teaching, you are being misled.

Lets see 500 students (from above) assume a class of 30 = 16.66 classes, assume he has each class twice a week = 33 hours teaching time a week.

How does he fit in the PPA time to do all the marking in school hours? , particularly as inevitably given that he has sooooooooo much time free in school that he will be under pressure from the leadership team to cover some classes where teacher's are sick rather than pay for expensive supply teachers?

Given the above assumption your brother should have a guaranteed minimum 3.3 hours PPA time, I'm sure the other teachers who have read this thread would be interested to know how he wangles so much more?

Not commenting on general teachers conditions, but the way you paint it your brother is a real slacker!

smileylondongal

OP, is it education itself that puts you off or your actual school? in other words, is it what you're doing currently that's making you feel this way or would you like to stay in education or do something else?

I think that's so key to us properly being able to help you.

Foggster

dazza.mk wrote: »

Lets see 500 students (from above) assume a class of 30 = 16.66 classes, assume he has each class twice a week = 33 hours teaching time a week.

How does he fit in the PPA time to do all the marking in school hours? , particularly as inevitably given that he has sooooooooo much time free in school that he will be under pressure from the leadership team to cover some classes where teacher's are sick rather than pay for expensive supply teachers?

Given the above assumption your brother should have a guaranteed minimum 3.3 hours PPA time, I'm sure the other teachers who have read this thread would be interested to know how he wangles so much more?

Not commenting on general teachers conditions, but the way you paint it your brother is a real slacker!

I know this is not relevant to the OPs question but I feel I must point out that no Head/SLT would direct a teacher to cover. It is called "Rarely Cover" and there are not many schools who go up against this T&C. A good strong union rep in the school would kick a few backsides if their members were asked to cover anymore than a handful of lessons in a year. That is why we employ Cover Supervisors.

I am also aware of the massive reduction in "admin" that came about with "remodelling the workforce" and teachers are left with (or should be) with "teaching" admin which to be fair they should be. I personally cant see how you can teach and not record the progress of your children, or predict their grades etc.

I am not sticking up for either side here but the new T&Cs of teachers are very very good, they have an excellent career progression structure and have ample time in which to plan, prepare etc. Some of course struggle but that isnt down to the job in my very humble opinion.

Gleeful

Hammyman your comments are disgusting and you clearly have no idea what it's like to be a teacher, despite claiming you do.

I'm currently taking a break from teaching, may or may not return. I now earn exactly half of what I did as a teacher, but I am much happier.