Teachers and workloads

It's not like the heyday of the 80's where teachers could rule with fear, pop out (or in) for a tab when they wanted, then have a relativity luxurious retirement.
 


mcq10 said:
We had four train to teach graduates start with us in September.

Three have quit before the end of the year due to workload.

The other is going to finish but says she doesn’t want to teach.
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Sounds awfully similar: ours just couldn’t comprehend that when you first start, it’s a huge, never ending round of plan-teach-mark. And that’s not taking in to account behaviour or lack of it in most schools.
 
The Cookie Monster said:
The workload is absolutely shocking and the resources provided are shite. Nowhere near the easy career people claim, maybe it was in the past but not now.
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(Some) People see the holidays and don’t understand the rest. They’re convinced it is a ridiculously great deal, yet they don’t apply. Funny that. I wonder if that is the real reason behind the bitterness....? That they know they can’t do it.
 
Kent_Mackem said:
(Some) People see the holidays and don’t understand the rest. They’re convinced it is a ridiculously great deal, yet they don’t apply. Funny that. I wonder if that is the real reason behind the bitterness....? That they know they can’t do it.
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Maybe if the hours they actually did including marking, organising and filling out paperwork were transparent then people would have a better understanding of the situation.
 
The government have got it completely wrong with regards to recruitment for starters. They’re offering insane bursaries to train, with some subjects handing out between 25-30k tax free, with virtually no legal obligations to repay if you either don’t go into the profession or leave shortly after. Naturally it’s seen as easy money by some recent graduates, and they can take the year, save the cash and do something else if they wish to do so. I know fine well some universities (Russell Group might I add) are also accepting graduates with very loosely related degrees onto PGCE courses so some don’t even have a passion for the subject they’re teaching (sociology grads doing geography - hello 25k bursary!).

All this means is that a lot, not all of course as there are some excellent N and RQTs, of people go into the career half hearted and with a fairly non committal attitude to the career. And when the workload is tough (heavy focus on assessment, Ofsted, progress, and data) with challenges either in the classroom or with demanding senior management and / or parents, then it’s very appealing to choose a different career path.

More has to be done to make the profession more attractive to stay in long term rather that just train.

pillars of hercules said:
Maybe if the hours they actually did including marking, organising and filling out paperwork were transparent then people would have a better understanding of the situation.
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What do you mean by transparent and how would you go about making it more transparent out of interest?
 
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The Cookie Monster said:
The workload is absolutely shocking and the resources provided are shite. Nowhere near the easy career people claim, maybe it was in the past but not now.
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Is the workload shocking when spread out over the year, or is it just condensed into too small a space?

Teaching time works out as around 24 hours per week excluding not contact work. Maybe kids get too much time off?
 
Says it all when they have to get trained how to restrain kids properly mind, the wife came back with some lovely bite marks on her a few times

One wrong move and you hurt the kid you’ll be fucked
 
pillars of hercules said:
Maybe if the hours they actually did including marking, organising and filling out paperwork were transparent then people would have a better understanding of the situation.
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I’ve done two training courses last week in my so called holidays.

My school went on strike last year, workload issues being one of them along with failure to tackle the shit behaviour. Things are the worst I’ve known in my 14 years of teaching.
 
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