Let's talk about Teachers!

Another teacher here! English, secondary.Retired early last year to help with a son in law with brain cancer...I did not celebrate a retirement from my school as it was all in the beginning of the pandemic.

As a retired teacher, I had the same thought as Hetty58 but decided to take peak. What lovely stories/lives there are to read. Haven't read them all but will do so.

I was a very shy, nervous child who failed 11 plus and left school in 1966 aged 16. I loved school, particularly maths but fell to pieces at the thought of any formal exams. First job was as a typist. Mum and Dad so proud of me when I got an office job. They'd sent me for private typing lessons. Mum was shop assistant and Dad a welder and we lived on a council estate. I combined my love of maths with secretarial work and moved on to become a financial secretary/book keeper.

As my children progressed through primary I got very involved with their school work. So at the age of 28 I started adult evening classes and studied for a Maths O level. After a few years I had 4 O levels and 2 A levels. This was whilst working. One lecturer asked if I'd thought of teaching.

1982: I enrolled for a B.Ed (Hons) at and four years later with a 2.1, I started teaching (primary). During those four years I did temping work during holidays as an income.

My 20 year career culminated in a deputy headship in a very large city school. I chose to work in schools in socially deprived areas and loved it.

My love of teaching spread into supporting other teachers. One very rewarding, successful year I had (secondment) was as a consultant supporting schools in special measures. An other year, (again a secondment) was supporting with IT.

After retirement, I was asked by two friends (Headteachers) if I would do some temporary supply. I then became involved with the new 1:1 tuition and voluntary work teaching 50+ how to use their laptops.

I finally took full time retirement from teaching 6 years ago at the age of 65.

I've no wish to teach again but do wish I could have started teaching at an earlier age.

Sloegin , Riverwalk started a similar thread yesterday - 'Let's talk about Nurses'

I also suspect lots of nurses on GN. If my grammar school was anything to go by we mostly ended up going to teacher training college, nursing, civil service, the bank, the odd more adventurous to art college,physiotherapy, radiography. Possible only the top 3% to university. That's just how it was in a small town Northern Irish grammar school for those of us leavers in 1960s.

Another retired teacher here. I taught science in a secondary school, specialising in physics at GCSE and A level.
When I left school I decided I would never to be a teacher. I did a physics degree, then went in to medical physics. I took a career break when the children were little, then took a term-time only job as a science technician once they started school.
At that time there was a shortage of physics teachers and the government were offering bursaries to mature graduates to train as teachers. I watched teachers teach and decided I wanted to do it.
I taught for 20 years, retiring at 60 when the school became an academy and the pressures became too much.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Not quite sure what point you are trying to make there Maggieanne.?

Mine is one of them! ?

haha, yes I do, but check the posts on here, you'll see what I mean!

Maggieanne, I hope you have your tin hat on!

Erm, where I worked,one of our senior members of staff and I had bets on how long it would take a client to tell her they were a teacher. Usually in the first three sentences, yet I don't know of any other person that had to tell us they were a cleaner, a politician, a surgeon or even bother to tell us what they did for a living, only teachers. Usually because they needed to explain they couldn't leave the classroom to take calls, as if other people could swan about leaving whatever they were doing at the drop of a hat, imagine a surgeon, halfway through surgery saying " I really must answer this call from my solicitor". Just look at the posts on Gransnet, somewhere in their comments "as a teacher" will appear. (waiting for the ensuing furore.)

I am still working as a private piano, violin and viola teacher. I am also an accompanist. Since March l have been working entirely online and privately but have taught peripatetically in a variety of schools and assisted with music in a special school. I have pupils of all ages and abilities, including one boy who is outstanding and others that are very good and three autistic pupils; one of whom went to a special school.

Primary teacher here! But only for 8/9 years, had children, retrained, moved to do admin for a project and became project officer which involved giving talks so teaching experience stood me in good stead.

Ooops posted too soon!
The course leader pointed out to the more mature students that we had no computer skills . So we all enrolled in an IT course at the local college - and I found I was rather good at it, passing the basic modules with flying colours and staying on to do the advanced course.
I went back into class teaching and got promoted to ICT co-ordinator. I quite enjoyed being the oldest (by some way) and the only female when I went to ICT co-ordinators meetings.
I worked for 10 years at that inner-city school until the whole staff was made redundant and then had to apply for their jobs (two schools were amalgamated) under a new head. Several older members of staff were made redundant. Many of the support staff were offered their old job, working with the same children, but on much reduced pay - most of them couldn't afford to do that. I survived the first cull, but was made redundant two years later.
I was quite ill for the next year with anxiety and depression, but didn't want to let that be the end of my career, so got a part-time job at a small village school until I retired at 58.
To bridge the gap until my pension arrived and my husband retired I got a job as a Special Needs Teaching Assistant and did that for 5 years.

I started teaching in a First School in North Warwickshire in 1974, not long after my prebationary year I became the Arts and Crafts co-ordinator. I taught there for 10 years until I started a family.
After staying at home with my two daughters until the youngest started school, I went on a KITT course ( Keep in Touch with Teaching)

I was a Special Needs Teaching Assistant, until the child I worked with went to high school. Now I am the filing department for an accountancy firm.

It was 1980 when I started my first teaching job in an inner city middle school (remember them?). Such a shock to the system. Very soon afterwards I got married, had a family and did some supply teaching while the children were small. Never really thought I'd have what you might call a "real career" in teaching. Then in 2002 I decided to retrain as a dyslexia specialist. It was the best thing I ever did. For 18 years I have helped students of all ages - from 6 to 86 - improve their literacy skills on a one to one basis. I have met some really lovely people, had some tremendous successes, but also heard heart breaking stories from people for whom conventional schooling failed. I have continued to work well into my sixties and, were it not for this latest lockdown, I would be back in school working with the National Tutoring Programme.

In 1958 I chose to do two years at a teacher training college instead of three at university. At 20 I was teaching juniors in Camberwell, South East London. A flat mate had 50 nine year olds in her North London class. A school friend went to Cambridge, got her degree, then tried teaching infants in inner city Birmingham. She still says that was the hardest year of her life! By 26 I was deputy head, then acting head, of a Midlands infant school. For a couple of years after that I worked in a bookshop and, later, a care home.
By 40 I was working in comprehensive schools. Back in primary I taught junior classes then English Second Language groups, until, at 60, I worked part time for a few years before I went on supply. At the time the oldest supply teacher was in his 90s! I also volunteered to run a weekly drama afternoon at my GD’s junior school.
Five years ago I became a performance poet and even spent a happy though exhausting day in school writing poems with enthusiastic infant classes.
When I went into self isolation last March I reluctantly left Coram Beanstalk. For over two years I had so much enjoyed volunteering for this excellent organisation supporting individual Year 1 pupil one to one.
I’ve always enjoyed teaching and am sad to no longer be likely to have opportunities to work in schools. Obviously I saw a lot of changes and increased paperwork and tick boxes. Some, four year trained, younger teachers were shocked that I had no degree. One also asked me when I was retiring!
I think it was Ted Wragg who said the National Curriculum had stifled the joyful spontaneity of the junior school. Ofsted seemed to me to change teaching from a co-operative profession to a competitive one about 20 years ago.
Luckily there are still great teachers who, in spite of exhaustion, still care about their pupils and ignite sparks of enthusiasm!

This is a great thread, I've enjoyed reading it, thank you.

I was never a teacher but I think I and my generation benefitted from the fact that there were fewer career opportunities for clever women 50 - 60 years ago and so the teachers we got were of a very high standard. I recall my Science teacher and my Latin teacher who were superbly educated and highly intelligent. In later years they would probably have migrated towards industry or universities. The Latin teacher died at a good age just last year and we all reminisced about her on Facebook

Not wishing to do down the teachers of today, I hope nobody thinks that.

I currently work as a TA in an infant school. I've just notched up 20 years there and enjoyed every minute including the events of the last year!
I took my NNEB at the tender age of 18. I've been very lucky as I've worked with children all my working life from a nanny to a Preschool supervisor and to my current school.
I have other responsibilities in school as a First Aid lead, Senior MSA and a master at Phonic intervention groups but most of all a very very good listener , have endless patience and a lover of cake!!

This thread has made me realise I must be one of the much younger members of GN. Most of you could have taught me at primary school!?. We always used to say, it didn’t matter what church we went to, they were predominantly teachers. Very interesting reading. Perhaps we could do a thread on nurses, which I was until I had my children.

I didn't start my working life as a teacher but as a clerk for the coal board and worked there for 10 years. It wasn't the most exciting job in the world, but they paid for day release at college, which boosted my qualifications and it was relatively secure until we all know what happened in the 1980's. I used that uncertainty to re-evaluate what I wanted to do, joined a temping agency for a year doing various office roles then decided to go to college then university to obtain a degree and teaching qualification. I taught for almost 20 years. Then one day, decided enough was enough due to all the hoops one had to jump through, changing directives and being told how to do my job by youngsters climbing the greasy pole to senior positions way before they had acquired adequate experience of the "chalk face", so left full time teaching. I ended my teaching career with a spell of Supply teaching, which I did enjoy for the most part, but then decided to leave once and for all a few years ago.
Would I go back to help during Covid if asked? No, definitely not, it's an exhausting job and I've no longer got the energy to give it what it deserves, nor, probably, the patience I once had.

I was a TA for 30 years until I retired in 2007. I was also a senior meal supervisor. I worked with a senco teacher in later years but it was mostly at first in classes. I started before planning was introduced and we had some/great times teaching the children. No stress for the teachers and us, and the children enjoyed the lessons.

I am a retired early years teacher. I loved my job but had to give up due to illness.I was art co-ordinator and as I played the piano, music was very much in demand for concerts, hymn practice and choir for the junior children. I love being with children and am so lucky to have had 3 children of my own and 5 grandchildren .
I don’t miss the National Curriculum and all the endless paperwork .

I have been teaching since 1978. Got married in the year I qualified as a primary teacher,I have been working as a supply teacher for past few years,I joined this site about 2 years ago when I was given the news I was going to be a Grandma, I was itching to share my news and get tips on how to deal with potential pit falls as well as enjoy competitons and read posts.I don't get the eletist comment. like others on here I think that we share common interests that the site promotes. I don't ususally share what job I do when I get into conversation with people I don't know (pre covid) It was usually because I didnt want to go into explaining my work didnt start at 9am and end at 3,30pm and that although I was doing something I loved I worked hard at it.As a supply teacher I don't mention it much either because then it appears that I'm not a real teacher in some eyes!So yes I do like to readother peoples posts and in common with everyone else I have children and a Grandchild and I am of a certain age-I guess!