Secondary Thinking about becoming a teacher

[Jack Richards]

Got another ongoing position after having conduct issues raised (resulting in a written warning).

Looking forward to a fresh start. Downside is that I am on a probation period of 12months again...

Stressing out

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Got another ongoing position after having conduct issues raised (resulting in a written warning).

Looking forward to a fresh start. Downside is that I am on a probation period of 12months again...

Stressing out

Good luck

 

[Jack Richards]

Good luck

Cheers mate. Bigger school again and new facilities. Kinda daunting seeing the double story portables.

 

[Gibbke]

I'm a music teacher, and relocated 1700km here with a family to be exactly that...that was the deal, I'm THE music teacher, and that's what I've always been...

Until now. A new Hod has joined the staff, but as a boss of middle school and not as a boss of Arts or Music. I still have my old Hod for that. However, as she took the promotion, I can assume they said "Music teacher? No problem, we'll just split it between you and him". Noone ever asked if Gibbke was ok with this, and teeth were gritted when early this year, when I called a meeting to say "I want it all back", they said "gee, you should have told us" last year...

So this year is a grind, f###ing horrible with the non-music load I've been given. Hoping the current rain tonight goes deluge and Friday is wiped out...we have flood days here, and I'm wishing day to day for any excuse not to go to work, it's that bad...! When they put out the preferences for next year, though...I'll be emphatic and they'll know Gibbo "told us" before we get into 2024...!

For what it's worth, anyway...they can do what they want, I guess. But in an area of high turnover and transience, where they offer grads permanency if they'll do the contract, I'm an experienced senior specialist teacher who wants to be there and isn't leaving due to custody and age...I only want one thing...

So part two of the story...

Got to the end of 2023, and was well and truly over that school. It was very clear, with a couple of dominant STEM-pushing anti-arts hods that admin loved, that music and the arts was doomed to be a filler with no support. Added to that, my ex-wife was adamant our daughter should do Y7 in a private school, and I was blown away by the interview, to the point I asked the principal for a job there! The irony was that it was for English and History, the two subjects I got shunted into...eyes wide open though, so I thought, and my kid is the most important thing, so I quit my old school and joined Catholic Ed for 2024...

First term no prob. I discovered quickly that everyone who ever said "yeah, the kids are way easier at a private school" has no clue what they're on about! The entitlement and manners...my old schools were way rougher, but I've never looked at classes in over thirty years doing this job and thought "I actually hate some of these kids" until this year! The real problem though was the P&C, and long story short, after a T2 where things went pear shaped, at the end of T3 I quit! They pick their targets and they control the school, making the principal dance...all it took was a single Friday arvo class where the kids got rowdy, and a couple of complaints from parents based upon that. Next thing, I'm an agenda item on the next P&C meeting - "what's to be done with this teacher" - and, driven by parents I never met, I copped a fair bit of scrutiny from the principal, all of it guilty until proven innocent. The final straw was Aug 31, the SFD...I was shown an email sent to the principal by a parent I've never met of one of my most disengaged kids, who blamed me for the class environment I spent most days trying to lessen his negative influence on...little c...the words "possible termination" were written in a follow up to me by the principal, and at that point I've mentally told these people to go f themselves...forwarded the email to my wife, and she told me to quit...all of this had happened by 8:30 that morning...

A couple of these parents are primary teachers from the campus over the road, with a rep for being utterly shit people and with a lot of undue influence over the entire school organisation, which I call The Beast! I'm the third teacher to quit this year, and several long term staff actually apologised to me during the last week when they found out I was going, dismayed at what they said was a spiralling culture at the school that's been doing this crap for at least a decade. If you're not part of the clique, you're screwed once they have you in their sights. I've never been a union member, and if I was I'm convinced I could have caused real problems for these people...not many do though, and I know I just wanted out...

So term 4...my wife said to take the rest of the year off, but I was more concerned with our bank balance than any sense of trauma, so I went looking for work. Took the opportunity for the first time in two decades to look elsewhere...nearly became a train driver! But instead, there's one more school left in this district, and I did some supply...one day in the high school, and a few weeks in the Diverse Learning Centre! Kids with disabilities making them completely dysfunctional in a mainstream class, and most non-verbal. They have real trouble hanging onto staff, and I had a blanket term booking for TRS...something which just doesn't normally happen, but there I was, turning up every day and pretty much standing around while the teacher aides, who'd built up motherly rapport with the kids, did the real work...you need someone in there with a teaching degree, and that was me...I would have been working harder on some days if I had that degree stuck to a lollipop sign and just stood there like traffic control! Other days were harder...one kid reacted badly to me directing him to not crush another kid's skull, and we had a lockdown while he destroyed the classroom...! But throughout, an insanely good wage...I make more doing nine days a fortnight doing this than the full ten at the old schools, and there's no prep or homework...!

I've been told this school will need a new music teacher in 2026, and they take it way more seriously than last year's high school, so I've told the principal and Hod of Arts I'm definitely interested. Just have to get through 2025, and I'll know more on Day 8 next year, when they do their staffing stocktake. It's been a wild ride, and my kid is still at that Catholic school...she's better off there as a kid...it's the teachers they treat like shit. So next year, I'll see how long I can last in the DLC if I don't get an interim position, which I may or may not take depending on either my mood or whether Qld Rail has some better gigs available...!

 

[raskolnikov]

So part two of the story...

Got to the end of 2023, and was well and truly over that school. It was very clear, with a couple of dominant STEM-pushing anti-arts hods that admin loved, that music and the arts was doomed to be a filler with no support. Added to that, my ex-wife was adamant our daughter should do Y7 in a private school, and I was blown away by the interview, to the point I asked the principal for a job there! The irony was that it was for English and History, the two subjects I got shunted into...eyes wide open though, so I thought, and my kid is the most important thing, so I quit my old school and joined Catholic Ed for 2024...

First term no prob. I discovered quickly that everyone who ever said "yeah, the kids are way easier at a private school" has no clue what they're on about! The entitlement and manners...my old schools were way rougher, but I've never looked at classes in over thirty years doing this job and thought "I actually hate some of these kids" until this year! The real problem though was the P&C, and long story short, after a T2 where things went pear shaped, at the end of T3 I quit! They pick their targets and they control the school, making the principal dance...all it took was a single Friday arvo class where the kids got rowdy, and a couple of complaints from parents based upon that. Next thing, I'm an agenda item on the next P&C meeting - "what's to be done with this teacher" - and, driven by parents I never met, I copped a fair bit of scrutiny from the principal, all of it guilty until proven innocent. The final straw was Aug 31, the SFD...I was shown an email sent to the principal by a parent I've never met of one of my most disengaged kids, who blamed me for the class environment I spent most days trying to lessen his negative influence on...little c...the words "possible termination" were written in a follow up to me by the principal, and at that point I've mentally told these people to go f themselves...forwarded the email to my wife, and she told me to quit...all of this had happened by 8:30 that morning...

A couple of these parents are primary teachers from the campus over the road, with a rep for being utterly shit people and with a lot of undue influence over the entire school organisation, which I call The Beast! I'm the third teacher to quit this year, and several long term staff actually apologised to me during the last week when they found out I was going, dismayed at what they said was a spiralling culture at the school that's been doing this crap for at least a decade. If you're not part of the clique, you're screwed once they have you in their sights. I've never been a union member, and if I was I'm convinced I could have caused real problems for these people...not many do though, and I know I just wanted out...

So term 4...my wife said to take the rest of the year off, but I was more concerned with our bank balance than any sense of trauma, so I went looking for work. Took the opportunity for the first time in two decades to look elsewhere...nearly became a train driver! But instead, there's one more school left in this district, and I did some supply...one day in the high school, and a few weeks in the Diverse Learning Centre! Kids with disabilities making them completely dysfunctional in a mainstream class, and most non-verbal. They have real trouble hanging onto staff, and I had a blanket term booking for TRS...something which just doesn't normally happen, but there I was, turning up every day and pretty much standing around while the teacher aides, who'd built up motherly rapport with the kids, did the real work...you need someone in there with a teaching degree, and that was me...I would have been working harder on some days if I had that degree stuck to a lollipop sign and just stood there like traffic control! Other days were harder...one kid reacted badly to me directing him to not crush another kid's skull, and we had a lockdown while he destroyed the classroom...! But throughout, an insanely good wage...I make more doing nine days a fortnight doing this than the full ten at the old schools, and there's no prep or homework...!

I've been told this school will need a new music teacher in 2026, and they take it way more seriously than last year's high school, so I've told the principal and Hod of Arts I'm definitely interested. Just have to get through 2025, and I'll know more on Day 8 next year, when they do their staffing stocktake. It's been a wild ride, and my kid is still at that Catholic school...she's better off there as a kid...it's the teachers they treat like shit. So next year, I'll see how long I can last in the DLC if I don't get an interim position, which I may or may not take depending on either my mood or whether Qld Rail has some better gigs available...!

Sounds very similar to my 2 years in a privafe school. Never again.

 

[gaskin]

I did a placement when at Uni at one of the top private boys schools in Perth and that put me off ever wanting to work at one. Yeah, the pay is higher but the amount of their spare time the teachers spent in contact with parents when they could be planning or marking, as well as the entitlement of the kids from wealthy families is not worth it.