Teachers of P&B

[JMDP]

I can only really give you my perspective from the angle of teaching primary in England, but did change career in mid twenties.

First of all, I utterly love my job. Kids are a right laugh and there is nothing better than developing a bond with your class and watching them grow, develop and progress over the year.

Sometimes the workload gets you down, but every single day is interesting and little moments here and there can be absolute gold.

In terms of days off - find a school that's right for you. Given the workload you put in, if you're valued and have a decent boss they will be flexible - I've been lucky in this respect.

If you genuinely want something fulfilling, then go for it. There are times but you'll be frustrated, but - after a spell questioning things a couple of months back - I wouldn't give it up for anything.

In terms of changing career - I found it easy. I had a good job in communications that was well paid but didn't enjoy it.

Also if you're good, you'll progress quick. I was head of year in a couple of years, then a key stage and prob be assistant head in next year or so.

The only drawback in Scotland might be pay. When I looked at coming home, I was surprised to see how low the ceiling was for senior leaders - the assistant head in my smallish primary is on far more than than a head of a large primary in Scotland, even allowing for cost of living.

TL:DR - there are drawbacks but it's a great career that makes a difference.

[Ayrshire-SFC]

I'm going to be doing higher English as an evening class this year of my politics degree to do a PGDE in modern studies.

Question is do they now look for you to do volunteering in a class to strengthen the UCAS application?

[The_Kincardine]

22 minutes ago, JMDP said:

TL:DR - there are drawbacks but it's a great career that makes a difference.

Not at all.  That was an excellent post.  Thank you.

[pandarilla]

I'm going to be doing higher English as an evening class this year of my politics degree to do a PGDE in modern studies.

Question is do they now look for you to do volunteering in a class to strengthen the UCAS application?

You need something anyway (although it depends on your subject).

A wee stint of shadowing in a secondary school is always helpful. Hopefully you've got a contact somewhere.

Youth work is also always good to back up an application. Summer clubs and stuff like that.

[mizfit]

I wanted to teach history at school but lost all interest about 5th year and flunked into a trade.

How easy do people think it would be to turn that into being a C&D teacher? I'd imagine I would need teaching qualifications, but what about highers? Or would "life experience" be adequate for the course?

[mizfit]

Having a drink problem and smelling of BO is quite often a good start.

For Perth high that meant you were either an RE or Music teacher.

[Miguel Sanchez]

7 minutes ago, mizfit said:

I wanted to teach history at school but lost all interest about 5th year and flunked into a trade.

How easy do people think it would be to turn that into being a C&D teacher? I'd imagine I would need teaching qualifications, but what about highers? Or would "life experience" be adequate for the course?

My graphics teacher in 6th year studied architecture at university before changing, or leaving before he finished and going into teaching. It was some time ago so I don't remember exactly but I know that was his background.

Big Morton fan, too.

[Raidernation]

I gave up a career in engineering to do my PGCE (as it was) in Maths in 1999-00) Mainly because I'd always wanted ti try teaching but also because I was totally fucked off with my job at the time. I have to say it was the best decision I ever made career-wise, from the first time I flew solo as a student teacher I loved it!

Taught in various schools across Scotland, even the last 5 as a principal teacher and it was only at my final school in Scotland I would say the workload was onerous. Maybe coming from an average of 60-70 hour weeks, 50,000 miles/year driving put it in perspective but I always found if I did my marking and prep at school I was always out by 5pm, sometimes earlier (helped that I was always in around an hour before the start of school so I got free reign of the photocopier, used to early mornings from jobs in industry). 95% of the kids are great. Yes, you get the ones leaving at 16 that give up trying in 3rd year, but I always found ways to work with them (in fact a couple of my references highlighted how good I was with the "foundation" class kids in S3/4). There were very few genuinely bad kids (even the ones I taught from Pilton/Drylaw or Sandilands/Tillydrone) certainly the good heavily outweighed the bad and I'd hope it hasn't changed so much since I fucked off to the US in 2010.

I found the 6 weeks summer hols too long and was usually eager to get back, remember you should get paid in 12 monthly amounts so you still get paid over the holiday periods (again very different to the US) assuming you're on a permanent contract. Pay wasn't bad at all (I had the benefit of starting at point 6 on the old 10 point scale due to "experience") and from what I see it's still seems ok (32K at the top of the classroom scale?). As a PT obviously I got more, but you do work for it!

Hated teaching over here, just found the whole high school set up so alien, seemingly counter-productive to me, and the kids at the schools in Chicago where I taught were just like the worst you see in those "uplifting" school films like "Dangerous Minds" or the like. Actually in many cases worse! I had kids in and out of jail, missing school cos they's been shot (one, memorably a double knee-capping), coming in high, bringing guns to school.......I could write a book as the cliché goes. All this for $55K, not worth it. (I now have a hassle free job, closer to home (no more I55 for me) 5 day week 8:30 to 5 and I don't have to take anything home with me, a small drop in pay but well worth it)

Teaching is a great job if you get "into" it, you'll probably be able to tell as you do your teaching practice in schools. I'd say GO FOR IT, if you have another qualification/career you can go back to then you have that as a safety-net.

Best of luck!

 

EDIT: pm me if you want more details as I also had several student teachers and a few probationers

Edited July 19, 2017 by Raidernation

[sparky88]

8 hours ago, Ayrshire-SFC said:

I'm going to be doing higher English as an evening class this year of my politics degree to do a PGDE in modern studies.

Question is do they now look for you to do volunteering in a class to strengthen the UCAS application?

I've got a politics degree and have thought about teaching modern studies with a pgde, do you not need to have done other subjects other than politics to be able to teach modern studies?

[pandarilla]

I've got a politics degree and have thought about teaching modern studies with a pgde, do you not need to have done other subjects other than politics to be able to teach modern studies?

No politics will do.

I might be confusing you with someone else but are your politics not bat shit mental?

[The Mantis]

14 hours ago, Tartantony said:

I did the PGDE when I finished Uni at 23. I was planning on teaching secondary maths. My reasons for going that route at the time were that i wanted to make a difference to kids and have hunners of holidays.

I realised about half way through my first placement that it was a horrible career and that is because 90% of your colleagues are utter c***s. The absolute worst human beings the planet has to offer. The politics of inter department hatred and who can suck management's cocks the most was just not for me. Actually teaching the kids was excellent and that part of it was highly rewarding so if you can put up with all the other shit then go for it.

I finished my 3 placements then quit before I was dragged into it for life.

Really have to disagree. The only politics I could see were from PT level up as they were all fighting their corner for resources. The deputes tended to be ambitious c***s though and pretty robotic. The class teachers were sound as a pound and we had a great staff football team, a mixed hockey team, our maths dept which was large had some great nights out. In fact unlike other jobs you didn't see enough of your colleagues as you only got a chance at break time. 

In contrast I had a summer in a large insurance office and everybody there seemed to be an arselicker and our section head was a pure c**t. I also had 4 years as a rep in the motor trade and met loads of c***s although my customers were mainly sound garage traders. Shallowness was my overriding impression of the guys in my company whereas teachers were more political and compassionate. Really don't know why you're singling out this subset of society tbh unless I'm being whooshed.

[RH33]

I've one module left with open uni and I'll have my BA and my plan is to apply for the pgde in primary Ed. I was on the BEd course many yrs ago but life and that. Kids school has said they'll give me some work experience and I'm also doing a level 1 maths module as a stand alone with the Ou this yr as a refresher. 

I couldn't teach secondary level though.

[KnightswoodBear]

Am I the only person that posts on here that isn't a teacher?

[sugna]

7 minutes ago, Rowan said:

I've one module left with open uni and I'll have my BA and my plan is to apply for the pgde in primary Ed. I was on the BEd course many yrs ago but life and that. Kids school has said they'll give me some work experience and I'm also doing a level 1 maths module as a stand alone with the Ou this yr as a refresher. 

I couldn't teach secondary level though.

The maths requirement for primary teaching is interesting. Maths seems to be a subject where pretty smart people convince themselves at an early stage that they have no capacity, and so they turn their back on it, perform more poorly in exams, and convince themselves they were right about their ability.

I've done some tutoring of friends' children who were struggling with maths, as well as some supplementary undergraduate tutoring (informally). I've seen several cases where mathsphobic people found that they were actually pretty able, after getting over the hurdles of re-learning the basics and setting aside the idea that they couldn't understand the subject. I can't separate the effect of the lack of basics from the lack of confidence, but they may well be linked in any case.

This year, however, I came across an indirect case of tutoring: a friend was tutoring another friend's son to prepare him for his application to train as a primary school teacher. The tutoring friend is pretty able in English, but very rusty in maths (and only educated to school level in maths). However, she did all of the direct tutoring for the youngster, with me going through the math material with her in advance. Sounds like a very circuitous system, but the idea was that he would have a single consistent tutor.

So, with a "can't do maths" pupil, and a "doesn't know much maths" tutor, and a "doesn't see pupil" tutor-tutor, we went through the Nat 5 Maths syllabus. From what I recall, the lad scored 100% for both of his first 2 Unit assessments. Given all of the things that would appear to weigh against those sort of marks, I have to conclude that he had completely switched-off when learning school maths first time around. This leads me to wonder whether someone who has learned maths remedially in that way might be a better teacher of maths at primary level, because he'll have seen it from the side of someone who lacks confidence in the subject.

[AyrshireTon]

16 hours ago, Tartantony said:

I finished my 3 placements then quit before I was dragged into it for life.

I was in Port Glasgow High doing a year's supply as a result of a roll increase (a high number of leavers deciding not to leave) and a guy I was at Uni with turns up as a Physics student. Met him a year or two later and asked where he was teaching. Turned out his 3 placements were in the 3 roughest schools in Inverclyde and he bailed once it was over.

[alsy]

15 hours ago, Tartantony said:

I did the PGDE when I finished Uni at 23. I was planning on teaching secondary maths. My reasons for going that route at the time were that i wanted to make a difference to kids and have hunners of holidays.

I realised about half way through my first placement that it was a horrible career and that is because 90% of your colleagues are utter c***s. The absolute worst human beings the planet has to offer. The politics of inter department hatred and who can suck management's cocks the most was just not for me. Actually teaching the kids was excellent and that part of it was highly rewarding so if you can put up with all the other shit then go for it.

I finished my 3 placements then quit before I was dragged into it for life.

You probably got unlucky. In my first placement, in West Dunbartonshire, the PT was literally on the verge of a nervous breakdown (which apparently happened at the end of that year, leading to her retiring) and was given to flying into irrational rages, but the other members of the department recognised this and were really supportive and reassuring to me and the guy I was on placement with, which we needed as it was a fairly intimidating environment for a first placement. My probationary year and first proper full-time job were in a school in Glasgow which, I saw in a recent article, has the most deprived catchment area in Scotland. As such, there were a lot of kids there for whom school was the least of their worries, and either a necessary evil, or a place to go and work out their frustrations, or, in the saddest cases, a refuge. As a middle-class shitebag from Inverness, it was a totally new world for me, and probably for six months I wasn't sure if I'd made the right career choice, but what convinced me that I had were my colleagues. The staff, in a department of 10, were, without exception, brilliant: incredibly kind and patient with me and with the kids, completely realistic about the challenges and limitations that the school, staff and pupils were dealing with, and still enthusiastic and creative in ways that rubbed off on a surprisingly high number of kids. 

Obviously there loads of difficult aspects to working in a school like that - limited resources, a very high absence rate, some language and communication issues as there were a lot of refugees from central Africa coming into the area around then, kids who, no matter what approach you took, just automatically saw you as the enemy, occasional fights in the classroom, a few kids kids with the beginnings of drug problems - but the cliche about 'making a difference' often did feel like it was true. Senior management were also pretty approachable, supportive and realistic, which obviously helped - I've got friends who have worked in schools where the senior management team is apparently more concerned with public image than with supporting colleagues, and tries to lay disciplinary and attainment issues entirely at the feet of departments, which increases the stress on them.

At the time I was there I felt like I'd have been happy to stay there my whole career, but due to a falling roll the school had to make surpluses after I'd been there a couple of years, and as last in, I had to go. I was told I was going to be placed in a school five minutes from where I live, where most of the neighbours' kids and other local kids go, which obviously I didn't fancy. I suppose I might have been able to request somewhere else, but I wasn't really sure how it worked, so I just started applying to any schools with vacancies within an hour's travelling distance and ended up in a place at entirely the opposite end of the social and academic spectrum from my previous job. In a lot of ways it is more rewarding professionally - the quality of pupils' work is generally much better and more enjoyable to read and correct, exam passes and grades are much higher, homework tends to get done - but parental expectations and pressure can be completely unrealistic and unreasonable. I've been there ten years now and have managed to develop an okay reputation, so I don't suffer from this too badly, but I've seen colleagues really worn down by it, and the worst thing is that parents talk to each other and, it sometimes seems, conspire against particular teachers. The senior management team generally deals OK with this sort of thing, but every complaint or demand still has to be taken seriously and communicated to the member of staff in question, and it can be really demoralising and can change their whole attitude to the job.

In a place like my current school, the marking and preparation load, certainly for my subject (English), is pretty heavy - a fair amount of work over the weekends, and 12-hour days are pretty common during the November-April, when course work and then exam preparation are at their most intense. I accept that I'll have to do some work, either marking or preparation, most days of the Christmas and Easter holidays, and during Easter I do encourage pupils to send me work, which I mark and return to them by email. A lot of schools are now apparently doing something called 'Easter school' - revision classes staffed by members of departments - but thankfully we haven't gone down that route yet. The summer holidays, though, are fucking brilliant: yesterday morning I cycled 20 miles and played 9 holes of golf and then in the afternoon I sat outside drinking beer before heading off to the the Stirling game, knowing I could be as hungover I liked today, and in fact any day in the past three or next four weeks. People tell me I'm a lucky b*****d, and they're right. However, if (in response to the OP) I asked for a long weekend during term time to attend a wedding, I suspect it would go down very badly - I wouldn't even try. 

Also in response to the OP, CfE is, imho, largely an exercise in box-ticking and results manipulation. The recent changes to the English exams, like the compulsory Scottish text and the increased value attached to the Writing Portfolio, have made it easier for more pupils to gain higher marks, but they also place greater limitations on what we can teach, they arguably reward exam technique more than natural ability and enthusiasm for the subject, and they are also potentially open to corruption. I suppose it depends what you want from an education system, though. I just try and get my enthusiasm for the subject across anyway, and it's an absolute nap that the course, and the exams, will be completely overhauled at least twice more before I retire.

On the whole I'm pretty happy with the career, and I have a far better quality of life now than I did when I was working in a bookshop for 10k a year, so i'd probably say go for it. And yeah, I know: ^^^tl;dr.                       

[ayrmad]

1 hour ago, sugna said:

The maths requirement for primary teaching is interesting. Maths seems to be a subject where pretty smart people convince themselves at an early stage that they have no capacity, and so they turn their back on it, perform more poorly in exams, and convince themselves they were right about their ability.

I've done some tutoring of friends' children who were struggling with maths, as well as some supplementary undergraduate tutoring (informally). I've seen several cases where mathsphobic people found that they were actually pretty able, after getting over the hurdles of re-learning the basics and setting aside the idea that they couldn't understand the subject. I can't separate the effect of the lack of basics from the lack of confidence, but they may well be linked in any case.

This year, however, I came across an indirect case of tutoring: a friend was tutoring another friend's son to prepare him for his application to train as a primary school teacher. The tutoring friend is pretty able in English, but very rusty in maths (and only educated to school level in maths). However, she did all of the direct tutoring for the youngster, with me going through the math material with her in advance. Sounds like a very circuitous system, but the idea was that he would have a single consistent tutor.

So, with a "can't do maths" pupil, and a "doesn't know much maths" tutor, and a "doesn't see pupil" tutor-tutor, we went through the Nat 5 Maths syllabus. From what I recall, the lad scored 100% for both of his first 2 Unit assessments. Given all of the things that would appear to weigh against those sort of marks, I have to conclude that he had completely switched-off when learning school maths first time around. This leads me to wonder whether someone who has learned maths remedially in that way might be a better teacher of maths at primary level, because he'll have seen it from the side of someone who lacks confidence in the subject.

You should send that to Sturgeon, most of the country think they're shit with figures, I think they've just had some shit teachers.

[AyrshireTon]

1 hour ago, sugna said:

The maths requirement for primary teaching is interesting. Maths seems to be a subject where pretty smart people convince themselves at an early stage that they have no capacity, and so they turn their back on it, perform more poorly in exams, and convince themselves they were right about their ability.

I've done some tutoring of friends' children who were struggling with maths, as well as some supplementary undergraduate tutoring (informally). I've seen several cases where mathsphobic people found that they were actually pretty able, after getting over the hurdles of re-learning the basics and setting aside the idea that they couldn't understand the subject. I can't separate the effect of the lack of basics from the lack of confidence, but they may well be linked in any case.

This year, however, I came across an indirect case of tutoring: a friend was tutoring another friend's son to prepare him for his application to train as a primary school teacher. The tutoring friend is pretty able in English, but very rusty in maths (and only educated to school level in maths). However, she did all of the direct tutoring for the youngster, with me going through the math material with her in advance. Sounds like a very circuitous system, but the idea was that he would have a single consistent tutor.

So, with a "can't do maths" pupil, and a "doesn't know much maths" tutor, and a "doesn't see pupil" tutor-tutor, we went through the Nat 5 Maths syllabus. From what I recall, the lad scored 100% for both of his first 2 Unit assessments. Given all of the things that would appear to weigh against those sort of marks, I have to conclude that he had completely switched-off when learning school maths first time around. This leads me to wonder whether someone who has learned maths remedially in that way might be a better teacher of maths at primary level, because he'll have seen it from the side of someone who lacks confidence in the subject.

My former PT and I feel strongly that Primary teaching should require Higher Maths as well as Higher English. Your last sentence is interesting and I have to say I agree with you. I've seen too many people educated to very high levels at University go into teaching and have real trouble comprehending why pupils could possibly find their subject difficult.

[Boostin' Kev]

Are there really primary school teachers that don't have a pass in Higher Maths and English?

Edited July 19, 2017 by Boostin' Kev

[DigOutYourSoul]

6 minutes ago, Boostin' Kev said:

Are their really primary school teachers that don't have a pass in Higher Maths and English?

I would say yes. I know some primary teachers who use they're, their and there interchangeably in texts. One of them has a complete lack of understanding over the use of apostrophes and commas. 

A couple of people I know who have gone into primary teaching would be much better with younger kids than with older, more able, kids. 

My girlfriend is a secondary teacher and she has said several time that it worries her when she speaks to some primary teachers that they seem to lack basic knowledge of maths, English and geography. I understand this is purely anecdotal evidence but I can see it being the same across the country.