Four of the 8 teachers who left my old school last week were not retiring, nor were they moving to other teaching jobs. No, in the middle of the worst recession for decades, they were leaving safe secure positions to look for other careers.
All four of them had degrees in real subjects from sensible universities. This says more about the dire state of comprehensive teaching than my puny efforts ever could.
13 comments:
I'm sure anyone like me who's read your book has asked themselves the question, "Why do they do it?" No surprise then that teachers should start asking themselves the same question and finding they have no good answer.
its been going on for a while , 4 years ago , out of a science dept of 8 , 6 of us left.
1 for another career involving another 3 years at Uni ( they already had a doctorate in a sensible subject)
2 left for independent schools
2 of us skipped the country entirely.
we were replaced by 6 NQTs. The department didn't have a single physics teacher left ( which is OK because I see no eveidence of any physics in the new curriculum)
Z
and I can usually spell evidence
Z
HI
Maybe without a decent pension* to look forward to, theirs real reason to keep taking the abuse.
* = i know at present Teachers still a final salary pension system, but once the government alters the system once, they will do it again and again - next up - new teachers are on a private personnel pension
AMIGAUSER, I do hope you are not a teacher.
Funnily enough, I think about 6 teachers in our school also left for similar reasons:
Retrain as lawyer
Consultant
Entrepreneur
Go travelling
+2 can't remember
I wonder why this is?
Other half a head of science: told me she was on a course last week (yes - during the hols) and told me she was talking to another teacher. Someone at an academy. Said institution had just hired a new teacher, a fresh graduate. The big news was that this person had been hired on a contract that explicitly stipulated a 40 hour week and 25 days annual holiday. I.e. conditions like a real job, but doing a teacher's job for teacher's pay. A worrying precedent...
Have been off with stress since early June and contemplating next move which may be voluntary redundancy to avoid academy and pension scams.
After 20 years in the classroom I've had enough.
We've just lost 4 to redundancy (falling rolls/budget deficit) and have had a Superhead imposed on us whose first job is to lose 8 more.
True of all public services - in the NHS it has been made clear that the luxury of best quality work is unaffordable - our bosses can only afford for us to do high volumes at low quality, balancing on the edge of risk. This equals same work and with a reduction of hours and a pay cut, or more work for the same pay. This is what is called working harder for less pay, OK in principle, but less safe in practice. Teaching sounds the same. Accept lower standards or leave.
The son of an old friend of mine told me recently that he expects to be threatened at least once a week with a knife. He was recently reprimanded following one such incident for retaining the knife; the parents were at the school (text message) before the lesson had finished wanting him prosecuted for stealing their son's knife. He's now considering his future career, but realises that teaching hasn't really equipped him for much else, and at his age, people with his academic qualifications are well up the career tree in their chosen occupations. But as he says, he would have been safer if he'd joined the Police Force, at least they are allowed to defend themselves!
I have just left after 13 years of teaching with no other job to go to yet. However, I am the happiest and most relaxed I have been in years. I truly could not stand another day as a teacher for numerous reasons.
I've only recently started teaching, (in FE)How the hell do our students get out of secondary school knowing so little? To gain a degree of proficiency in the trade I teach, they need a reasonable grasp of arithmetic and geometry, but do they have it? No! Are they interested? No! Am I losing interest? Yes!!!
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