Overworked teachers

When I started teaching you went into school on the day before the start of school just to get organised but by the time I finished there was a long list of the dates when the school was open- spreading all through the holiday. It is very difficult to see a friend who is still teaching in the holidays because she spends so much of it in school. And yet still people trot out ' but think of the long holidays' - they have no idea!
You can never get to see your own child on sport's day or anything in the school day or take them to the orthodontist etc because you can't have time off.
My son and wife can go off camping if they get a nice weekend. They are not teachers! Teachers never get a weekend- one day of it is school work - every evening is school work.
I used to do supply work for a young teacher who amazed me with her organisation, everything was left just so - sadly I then covered for her because she was off with stress!

Deedaa ?

I worked in a school for 30 years as a TA and senior meal supervisor. The early years were lovely but as Blair and his education education took hold and then the conservatives taking over it became stressful and the enjoyment wasn't there head teachers came and went and all with different agendas, so I was glad to retire. My friend still works at the school but she is not happy, she has a few years before she retires yet.
She was saying To me the year 6th do not know how to use scissors. Can't believe that because that is something we did in the early years, learning to cut, use a pencil properly, drawing, painting, nothing is done like that anymore.

Some of it is such a silly waste of time. Being told what colour pens to mark with instead of picking up whatever is handy, doing written marking for infants who can't read it, telling a child something and then writing down that you told them!

I'd forgotten about the pen colour thing. Don't use red to correct things because of it's negative context.

Oh yes Suddenly there was a run on green pens. Red was completely abandoned!

Interesting about the coloured pens - I never used a red pen unless it was to draw a smiley face so it stood out - I did all correcting with a pencil - I always thought it must be so disheartening for a young child to spend ages labouring over a piece of work just to see it covered with red ink!
As they got a bit older I gave a max of three spelling corrections of words I thought they should know how to spell because of that particular child's frequent use of the word.

All the old chestnuts! I used to get into school before 7am. Perform for 5hrs a day, work through lunch, attend mindless, admin-generating meetings, go home (evenings/weekends) and look for resources to inspire 25 bottom set 16yr olds and my other 100 pupils. I was given 3 hrs a week for marking, assessments, admin, lesson plans (sometime they take 30mins per lesson) etc. A 50yr old came up to me at a course I was helping to run on a Saturday, he said he thought he'd always worked hard in business, he had no idea what exhaustion was until he started his 2nd career. Teachers have responsibility for your grandchildren's futures. Oh and I had a tutor group of 30 to mentor and emotionally support. If you haven't tried doing it, don't knock it.

Just wondering if teachers here could tell me what happens on "teacher training days" ? as there were never these days when i or my children were at school.x

Briefly we call them Inset days jacksmum which signifies in-service training. There are five Inset days in the academic year and schools can choose when. We use them to brush up on our skills, sometimes inviting specialists to come and lecture and advise. I think they were introduced alongside the National Curriculum in the late 1980s.

If it's so bloody wonderful being a teacher - with those alleged fabulous, carefree holidays and fantastic pay - why is there more and more difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers? Surely, if it's that cushy, many people would be clamouring to become teachers and would definitely not want to leave.

I have not been a children's teacher but, much later in my working life, I re-trained to be an adult literacy teacher. I enjoyed it immensely BUT the amount of work I had to do outside the classroom was, for me, unsustainable. There were termly schdules of work, individual learning plans, plans for each teaching session, plus preparation for tests, marking homework, etc. etc. And I was working with the most lovely students who were really motivated and respectful. How much more difficult it must be doing all this preparation at the same time as keeping an eye on students who might be having difficulties with bullying in school or at home and who might, as a result, be disruptive or unmotivated in class.

Although I enjoyed the work very much and felt appreciated and respected by the students, in the end I returned to my previous work as a legal secretary because I was exhausted (and significantly out of pocket).

Ah yes, inset days. Occasionally we actually learnt from them, often they were a waste of time, too often.
Also heads did things like getting people in to teach us First Aid (good and necessary) and using funds to have the sessions in a hotel instead of the school hall (why?!). The same head would come back from headteachers' weekend courses and tell her cronies what a marvellous time she'd had and how other guests had complained to management in the early hours about the noise they were making. Impressive, not!

Teacher Training Days started off as Baker Days (affectionately know as B Days!) then INSET (In Service Training). So much was changing with the introduction of the National Curriculum, SATs, Literacy Hours, news Maths Curriculum (2000) etc. And everything still continues to change to this day so more and more training in these new government 'initiatives' and 'directives' is essential.

They certainly weren't Jolies as Elrel's appear to have been, but full-on serious training lead by those of us who had responsibility for specialist areas, mine being Maths, Science and Music.

And the days were taken from school holidays. By that I mean the children still had the same amount of holiday time, but not the teachers.

I don't think that a lot of people are aware that teachers lost holiday to have the training day- they are more inclined to think they are extra holiday.

That's right Leticia and why I mentioned it. Neither did they make a huge fuss but accepted the need for on-going training.

My son works for IBM which means he needs to keep at the forefront of technological developments. His training takes place inside his working week and he gets to go all over the world to access this.

I think that other jobs have training during their working day. No one has mentioned teachers and the twighlight training sessions that they are obliged to attend.

What worries me more than anything, is that it's our grandchildren that these stressed-out teachers are trying to teach. That isn't doing much for the quality of teaching no matter how hard they try to carry on as usual.

I'm thinking the same is true in the NHS.

I listened to a Party Political Broadcast by Theresa May last night. It gave a whole new meaning to insincerity and politico-speak.

Couldn't agree more anya.Very depressing.

I know politicians are an easy target and some are decent and hopefully informed. Imo however some politicians have interfered and ruined many aspects of education for pupils and teachers. They're still doing it. Where are those wise people who could advise policy makers are they there or are they ignored?

I bumped into a young woman who was at school with my children today. She is now aged 31 and 5 years into her teaching career (one year off for mat leave, so 6 years post qualification). She has an 18 month old child and after mat leave was lucky in being able to negotiate a job share, she does two days a week. She said she works 4 days for 2 days pay. She is seriously thinking of resigning and going back as a TA, so she can keep her hand into teaching whilst her toddler is young but without the current levels of responsibility and stress.
I think the average for young teachers to remain in the job they love and trained hard to qualify in - is 5 years.
Something is badly wrong and I can't believe its that all young teachers expect an easy life.

The young teacher that is leaving has done 6 years I think. She is a very hardworking woman, and a dedicated teacher. I am pretty shocked that she has decided to at least partly leave. I thought she was going to be in it for the duration. Everyone seems to understand her reasoning though. What a waste.

I taught in primary schools for 40 years. Saw huge changes over that time. Most of the time I loved my job but the paper work just became too much.I l retired 5 years ago and now do the odd day supply. The teachers all look exhausted most of the time. Stressed and unhappy. They love the kids and love teaching but spend too much time dealing with constant low level bad behaviour.
When I'm in school I need to check what colour pen to use! Pink for marking and feedback, purple for up levelling, green for peer marking!! The teachers are expected to comment on each child's work saying what went well (WWW) and then (EBI) even better if. A set of literacy books can take 2 to 3 hrs to mark.
No regrets for leaving. Typing this from my hotel balcony in Barbados!!

Look on Mumsnet to see what school life is like now, for teachers and children.
Constant recording of every moment of every child, food police dictating what's in the lunch box, stupid strict rules like blazers on sweltering hot days, demands that children attend for 98% time and threats if they miss school because of illness, Offsted watching every teacher and statistic like Big Brother, homework from Reception on, SATS tests dominating a whole year because the school (not the children) needs results.
Tick box obsession, no fun.
If I had children now (labelled "students" from age 4) I'd home educate them, as increasing numbers are doing.