One of the hardest jobs ever (Secondary School Teacher)

Member Name: meumeu77

Product:	Secondary School Teacher
Date:	27/12/08 (126 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good pay, long holidays

Disadvantages: Poor behaviour, lack of support (depending on headteacher)

Well, I'm afraid I am going to write a more negative review than the previous 2.

Becoming a teacher has always been something I wanted to do from as far as I can remember.

Because I love languages I thought it made sense to become a languages teacher. In a secondary school.

After working a bit in translation I went back to uni to do a PGCE (post graduate certificate in education).
That alone was extremely hard and demanding. I'd often go to bed at 12am/1am to finish planning lessons and making impressive resources to impress my mentors in order to pass.

It worked.

Then I found a job fairly easily in a decent school. Teaching is very time-consuming. I would get to work for 7.30am and not leave before 5.30pm (school ended at 2.30pm) and I would still have marking and more planning/resource making to do at home in the evening. Some days I couldn't face it or was too tired.
I never managed to fully enjoy my free time at weekends and on holiday as I always had marking and planning on my mind.

Yes, as a teacher you do get a great deal of holidays but if you're a conscientious teacher, chances are you will spend half of your free time working.

I ended up having virtually no social life and only my teacher friends could understand what I was going through.

I changed school to move back up North and ended up in an average school. The behaviour was shocking, the discipline nearly non-existent. It's as if the senior team had given up on school rules.

When you're in such a school and you're a young woman, you've got no chance.
On top of the heavy workload, I ended up chasing up pupils who failed to attend detentions (nearly all of them).
The senior team didn't care enough. I could have hit my head against a wall, they wouldn't have done anything.

As you may have gathered, I am no longer a teacher.

When I was, I was grateful for the good pay and the holidays but after 5 years of teaching, I was going down a dangerous road called depression and decided it was time for me to quit.

I now earn less but I feel more in control and I've got my self-respect back.

Only go into (secondary school) teaching if you have nerves of steel.

I really admire those of you who can stick at it.

Summary: Only do it if you're as tough as nails