Getting tired of teaching? / Thinking of a change

Newbie20

I’m just wondering is anyone else giving consideration to leaving teaching at some stage in the coming years? I find myself hating teaching the Junior Cycle now, I still like teaching Leaving Cert for the most part.

But with change inevitable in the Leaving Cert (not against change but I am when i know it will be more of the rubbish that was brought in for junior Cycle) I really don’t know if I’ll be able to enjoy teaching at that stage? Anyone else worried about the way it’s going? And has anybody switched from teaching and been happy with the move?

RealJohn

Definitely considering it. I’d love to know if anyone has any information or advice on the possibility of taking increments with you into another state job.

French Toast

Just turned 28. In my 4th year of teaching and often think about leaving if I'm honest.

The industry I would potentially swap to is very uncertain at the moment (as are many sectors thanks to Covid, Brexit, inflation in the cost of supples/fuel etc.) and the mortgage has to be paid, so I'll be sticking put for the foreseeable future.

Teaching is enjoyable for the most part and the perks - sociable hours, holidays, security - outweigh the negatives more often than not.

2011abc

Mortgage at 28 !Fair play!

HazeDoll

I'm on the way out too. I have twenty years left before I can think about retirement but I can't face another 20 years of teaching.

I have a loose plan to get out, but at the moment I'm trying to manage things so that I'm able to last this year. Every morning I feel this awful gloom settling when I drive through the school gate. This is new, I used to like the job. The increase in special needs students in mainstream classes and the endless pointless arse-covering admin are bad enough, but we're under new management and I have no interest in sticking around to see how much worse she can make things.

My most vivid fantasies are of the building being engulfed in fire, swept away in a tsunami or sliding into a massive hole in the ground.

I used to enjoy it, and my job was a big part of my identity. When you start to hate the job you have to do some serious thinking about who you are and what's left of you when the job is gone.

Alex86Eire

I think sometimes of leaving too but have no idea what I'd transfer to. Anyone know where you could find information on alternative careers? My subjects are the sciences and maths.

I'm in my 8th year teaching and have gotten very lucky with CIDs and all that but I always find myself doing hours of work in the evenings and at weekends. It just drains me out. I'd love a 9 - 5 where I wouldn't have to think about work after 5pm and my weekends would be mine but I wonder with my personality if I'd just end up working too much there too.

gaiscioch

"Teaching is enjoyable for the most part and the perks - sociable hours, holidays, security - outweigh the negatives more often than not."

Play this forward. The holidays are the huge carrot, especially in early career when they can be comparable to salaries your former classmates earn in other sectors. However, by mid-career when people in those other sectors have passed you out, make no mistake you're paying for those holidays. You're only paid for the time you work - 183 or 167 days depending on whether you're primary or secondary - even if that payment is spread out across all 12 months. "Paid holidays" is a misnomer.

By career end, somebody who did a similar degree to you has earned far more than you on your teaching salary. Not only that, but due to being paid more they often have gradually built up a sizeable investment and pension fund by retirement. I'm paying into a private Zurich AVC to top up my teacher's pension, and I'm shocked at how much it has accumulated since I began in 2016. If I could afford to put even €5000 more per annum into it it would be very comforting. Similarly, my house value in Dublin has risen by more since 2017 than the money I've earned from my labour in the same period. In short, having the spare bit of salary to put in investments of some sort from an earlier point in your career could give your life far greater perks than the school holidays (which many of us end up working during in order to scrape the money together to put into that AVC and itss tax benefits, for instance!).

A student was telling me today how his dad was a history teacher until he made a career change into law, qualified as barrister and hasn't looked back. I admit I was envious that I didn't have the courage to do something similar. So, while grass may be greener on the other side, many, many people do leave teaching and successfully build careers in other areas. Some of the "professional fees" charged by people who started their careers in similar degrees to the average teacher are shocking, and when you have to pay them (cash in hand) on your (after-tax) teacher's salary it, for me anyway, generated a very sobering reflection on all this "follow your heart" bollocksology dished out to students. Follow your heart - if there's decent money in it. Yours, cynically.

dory

I'm hoping to go on secondment next year. I'm top of a panel and the next job from that panel is meant to start in Sept 2022. I'm 50/50 about whether I'll go back after that, or whether I'll look for something else. At the moment I'm leaning towards something else. I need a career guidance person to tell me where else I could go though. I'd also like to know if we can take our years worked into the civil service and not start on Point 1 there. One job I looked at had a €20k pay cut if I had to start on point 1.

HazeDoll

I know this is a very negative outlook but I've had a look at some of the secondment options available to me but they all just looked like admissions of failure*. (As well as that I'm not ideally placed, geographically speaking, to apply for many of them.) Also, there's always the grim possibility that you could invest a few years and then find yourself back in school carpark some some September trying to catch up on a million changes in a job you didn't like. After only five years of absence you might as well be starting in a new school, with all everything that entails and none of the optimism.

*Everything I have seen of people who have gone on secondment has convinced me these are the teachers nobody wanted. Developing a stupid new junior cycle, inspecting actual teachers, faffing around with the SEC and the teaching council... These are all teachers who couldn't hack the classroom. I still like the classroom, it's everything else that has killed the job for me.

RealJohn

I only know (or have known) three teachers who went on secondment, so it’s hardly an adequate sample size, but neither school (there were only two schools involved) wanted to get rid of the teachers in question.

gaiscioch

.

RealJohn

I’m guessing you got a few people asking you for details of how to apply for that job, gaiscioch. 😂

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118281282#Comment_118281282

It is not valid to simultaneously hold the position that teachers holidays are not paid and then directly compare your total annual income from teaching to annual income from a 12-month job. If you want to have the position that you don't get paid holidays then you have to compare your salary with a pro-rated salary. Either the holidays are part of the job, or they aren't.

The reverse of this would be the (equally invalid) assertion that a 38k teachers salary is the same thing as 52k engineers salary plus the teachers also get holidays. (that would be double counting the "holidays" as part of the job, whereas your angle doesn't count them at all). (I'm just picking 38 and 52 for display purposes)

I'm not complaining about the holidays or hours/days/weeks worked. You're either get paid equivalent of 38k salary per year in a job that has a few months paid holidays, or you are getting paid equivalent of 52k salary per year, but the job only goes for 38 weeks of the year. Either of those viewpoints is consistent.

Either way, 38k is landing in your bank account total. When comparing with other roles though you have to normalise the figures/conditions to compare them.

Again, I am not saying anything negative or bad about teachers or "holidays". I'm not a teacher but I consider them part and parcel of the job and part of what you sign up for and what you do and get in return. That is just my opinion. Your may differ.

wingnut

I am in this very position. I am teaching over a decade. With increments and allowances my pay is quite decent. I feel I have lost my spark in teaching and am just going to the motions. My work environment is good I am just getting a bit withered dealing with teenagers day in and day out and between this and having kids at home I am a bit exhausted. I could never see myself still in the classroom in my 50's and 60's from the outset.

A good opportunity has arisen at third level with similar pay but obviously not the same holidays. In some ways the job is a bit more flexible as there is some scope to work from home / flexitime etc. I am finding the decision tough. Love to hear from people who made the jump. Things I am concerned about:

Cons:

1. Missing the great holidays of teaching especially with my own children.
2. Sorting out pension, income continuance when leaving.
3. Am I just going to a slump and will I miss it.

Pro:

1. Working with adults.
2. Work is interesting but not as demanding.
3. Opportunity for further study advancement.

noplacehere

Finding it very very tough now. School is not pleasant and it isn't just covid. Everyone (probably worldwide) is grumpier. There is so much covering yourself needed as the first question being asked is not what happened, its what did you do to prevent this etc. Its all on us. You are responsible for the students at home and the students in school. There's no subs available so woe betide you miss some time. Those students are down teaching and its all on you. A student is out? You upload all the work. Student comes back with none done because he didn't understand can you reteach it? Or make videos for them? Or go through it with them? Like when? Honestly, there aren't enough hours

Like others the junior cycle is seriously adding to the stress level, the anxiety of never knowing if you have done enough or if you've interpreted the learning outcomes the way the SEC will. It's seriously affecting me, particularly this year with the third years so far behind anyways. We currently have a sample paper and no marking scheme and thats it.

If the leaving cert goes this way I will likely leave. I don't think I can cope with the lack of clarity. Maybe its the maths teacher in me but I am happy to change my teaching methods but this "teach whatever you like from these vague outcomes but your students still have to sit an exam which could have any interpretation of them on it"? Yeah no I can't be doing that.

I don't know what I'd do but anything but that. The holidays aren't worth it.

Treppen

Ya the 'cover your ass' has gone a bit nuts. You have to email everyone and anyone 'just for the record' as the fingers are very quickly being pointed... especially with the pushing down of management chain.

At this stage nobody is responsible for helping a student because of delegation.

Do you know about the upcoming webinar on the upcoming JC Music and 'what to expect on the paper'. Maybe it's over.

noplacehere

I logged on this evening but I’d accidentally double booked myself on the conducting for junior cycle (brilliant webinar) so I was trying to scan the slides as I conducted on the other one! We’ll get sent a copy so I’ll go through it. It is being run by educate.ie though so it’s still it guaranteed to be the SEC interpretation of the learning outcomes

Newbie20

Just an update, I changed school and am actually enjoying things a lot more now. I’m still very wary of this new Leaving Cert and the CBA’s kill me but I think I’ve found a solution to that, not give them much attention at all. As for the current 4th years doing Leaving Cert papers next year but teachers having zero information, what a joke the department are.

Anyway the new school has given me a freshness needed but I wonder if I’ll be back in the same boat after a few years. Hopefully not.

French Toast

Fair play Newbie20. Great update to a thread.