Not everyone cares about promotion

Jo I don’t think they would turn anyone away at the moment, especially an experienced teacher of English!

I went up and then I went down

And then I went up and up again and then I went down.

And then I went further down.

And then I went here, there and everywhere.

The Grand Old Duke of York has nothing on me?

FannyCornforth

Jo I don’t think they would turn anyone away at the moment, especially an experienced teacher of English!

I literally get 10 + emails a day, directly from agents looking for English teachers.

If the pandemic ever dies down, I might go back. But I won't do full-time again. For some reason, British education insists on full-time teachers. If only they broadened their horizons a bit to include things like job sharing, they would find it easier to recruit. Very few people at middle age plus are willing to work a 70+ hour week. I think it'd kill me now.

My husband took a 25% pay cut a few years ago. He's far happier in his current job and says "the headaches have gone."
Ironically his current job is probably the same level, but with a completely different management structure and company ethos.

Jo I had the perfect (for me) teaching job. I trained as primary, but got a job in secondary teaching Reading to KS3 children.
I asked to go part time (3 full days) and they let me!
Unfortunately I have had to retire at 49 due to ill health.
Bummer, eh

Definitely agree.

I had three completely separate careers, and in each of them I worked hard to be very good at my level but never hankered after management. Apart from never, Ever wanting the responsibility, as far as I could see Management meant never doing the bit of the job that held meaning for me again, and I wouldn't have given that up.

I think happiness and enjoyment are the most important things in any job. People find their own level, and I see no point in striving for promotion if it brings no pleasure.

I never cared one iota about promotion and wasn't even ambitious, but the top jobs kind of just found me without searching. I loved them. In today's world, however, I would not naively accept promotion without asking for a lot of extras, (more holiday, BUPA, travel costs etc) because they are definitely there for the taking and remove some stresses at least.

I was grateful they allowed me to reduce my contract by 10% when I was post cancer. I was still 5 days a week, but had a couple more free lessons.

In recent years I have turned down a promotion and moved to a 4 day week. The older I got the more I realised the importance of community and family.

I find many of the above posts sad; promotion brings extra responsibility but it also brings more knowledge, experience and much more involvement at decision -making level, plus job satisfaction. Making a difference, you could say.
Also sadly, in my opinion, a great many people underestimate their ability.

I agree eazybee and I also think people underestimate the stress that comes in non management roles. I was a manager for a long time and yes it was stressful but I am not a manager at the moment and there are still different types of stress.

I had a teaching colleague who once said she had come to the conclusion that there were two types of teachers - those who were career teachers and those who made teaching a career. The two are very different beings. I loved being in the classroom and seeing the joy on little faces when they achieved something they had found difficult to do.
I once worked for a head who really missed the classroom and timetabled herself in to get some of that time back. She knew the children and listened to staff and was the best head I ever worked for.

eazybee, this is very true 'a great many people underestimate their ability'

There have been jobs I have turned down or not applied for many jobs because I doubted my ability to do them. BUT surely better that than the many ambitious people I've known who have been promoted above the level of their ability and do a s**t job. I've worked for many of them. They make the lives of other people miserable.

I had an American colleague who chased and was accepted for a head of department job in an overseas British school. Despite knowing nothing AT . ALL. about GCSEs. In charge of a department teaching solely British qualifications. She refused to come to the standardisation meetings (where student work is marked and the staff make sure all of their teaching and marking is in line with the exam board) the department had the year before her promotion took effect even though she knew the year after she would be responsible for them.

Her first year in the job, she assumed that students could either answer Section A or Section B on the exam paper and told her students this. WRONG. They had to answer both. Consquently, her class only did half an exam paper.

Far outside her level of expertise and made worse by her refusal to learn or take advice from experienced colleagues.

FannyCornforth

Jo I had the perfect (for me) teaching job. I trained as primary, but got a job in secondary teaching Reading to KS3 children.
I asked to go part time (3 full days) and they let me!
Unfortunately I have had to retire at 49 due to ill health.
Bummer, eh

I also trained as a Primary School teacher but always worked teaching children with learning difficulties in a Secondary School and loved my job. I worked my way up to be SENCO and Deputy Head but after 15 years, got fed up with the stress and long hours.

I then decided to return to live near Manchester where I grew up and looked for a job without so many responsibilities ( I was also responsible for child protection, looked after children, the Hearing Impaired unit and whole school behaviour!). I found the ideal job as second in department and the school were happy to pay my enhanced pay on Upper Scale as they needed my SENCO expertise to train teachers on the new SEN Act. At age 54, I was not sure I would find a new job!

After four years in my new school, I was finding my workload of manager and teacher getting too much so asked to go down to three days a week and drop the teaching - the head teacher agreed and my last three years before retirement were fantastic , a challenging but interesting job and time for myself as well. It was a gently introduction to retirement at age 60.

My two adult children have been working from home during the pandemic and neither of them plan to go back to the office full time, they enjoy the flexibility and lack of a long commute.

eazybee

I find many of the above posts sad; promotion brings extra responsibility but it also brings more knowledge, experience and much more involvement at decision -making level, plus job satisfaction. Making a difference, you could say.
Also sadly, in my opinion, a great many people underestimate their ability.

Why is it sad to decide that you personally would prefer to prioritise your family life, community involvement or some outside passion over another promotion at work?

I meant to add that I'm not necessarily saying that people should stay at an entry level grade all their working life, but that a lot of people decide at a certain stage that they're happy at that level and it allows them time and head space for other things that give them satisfaction and a sense of fukfllingbtheir talents, making a difference , contributing to their community.

I left the workplace many years ago and became self-employed,
never regretted it. No promotions would ever have equalled
the satisfaction.

rockgran

I agree - as a teacher I just wanted to be a good classroom practitioner not a less than good manager. I enjoyed being good at the job I was doing.

Absolutely me too…. Not a very modern expression but I was a really good Indian not Chief ,! (??). In fact my HOD referred to me once as his his fig leaf …I covered up his embarrassing errors…

GagaJo

I had an American colleague who chased and was accepted for a head of department job in an overseas British school. Despite knowing nothing AT . ALL. about GCSEs. In charge of a department teaching solely British qualifications. She refused to come to the standardisation meetings (where student work is marked and the staff make sure all of their teaching and marking is in line with the exam board) the department had the year before her promotion took effect even though she knew the year after she would be responsible for them.

Her first year in the job, she assumed that students could either answer Section A or Section B on the exam paper and told her students this. WRONG. They had to answer both. Consquently, her class only did half an exam paper.

Far outside her level of expertise and made worse by her refusal to learn or take advice from experienced colleagues.

I would be interested to know what the consequences of that debacle were?

I taught English for a long number of years. I was good at my job and was given extra responsibility but no extra money. That didn't bother me as I loved my job. I did a secondment which added to my skills and applied for a promoted post on my return to school. I loved that too. I worked with my HOD who was terrific. When he left to go elsewhere, I applied for his job. I did it temporarily for four months at the hardest time of the session. I was responsible for the timetable, for dealing with SQA folios, for managing difficult staff and for discipline. I found parts of the job really stressful and other parts enjoyable. I didn't ultimately get the job but I realised that my personal life was more important. I felt obliged to apply for other promoted posts but my heart wasn't in it. My new HOD was a nice person but a hopeless boss and was and still is, very lazy. I'm so glad I then went to four days a week. My choice. Was I ambitious? I don't know. I was always in the right place at the right time. But I wasn't hungry for promotion.

eazybee

I find many of the above posts sad; promotion brings extra responsibility but it also brings more knowledge, experience and much more involvement at decision -making level, plus job satisfaction. Making a difference, you could say.
Also sadly, in my opinion, a great many people underestimate their ability.

You find it sad that some people don't want promotion?

Surely, we're not all cut out to be leaders or high-flyers anyway?

As another poster pointed out - we're only here for a short time on this earth and if WFH gives people a little more time with family instead of being stuck in traffic - or even just time to relax - and allows them to organise their life in a way that suits them - happy to forego promotion for that reason... what's sad about that?

And it is possible to have job satisfaction at a lower level also - especially if you're doing a job you enjoy.

The 'go-getters' will continue to 'go get', and good luck to them too if that's what will fulfil them.

Is it not really about what makes you content?

It's all about finding a balance, isn't it? If some people are chasing promotion for the sake of it, is that really making them happy? There's nothing wrong with being ambitious and wanting to progress up the career ladder, but you also need to ask whether you're working to live, or living for work? As someone once said, there's no point in killing yourself for a job when your position would have been replaced before you were cold in the ground.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

You find it sad that some people don't want promotion?

Surely, we're not all cut out to be leaders or high-flyers anyway?

Not everyone has driving ambition, eazybee
In fact, it's quite refreshing to realise that some people are happy in their rôles as long as their finances permit.
Or perhaps, juggling a job home duties, children, perhaps elderly parents too is enough to cope with without taking on more duties at work which might involve travel too.