Teachers totally unable to do their jobs properly

My experience as a Scottish secondary school teacher of English was that I went into the profession knowing I would have a heavy marking workload. It was manageable in the 90s. It was thought that newer technology would make reporting easier however that was not the case. As well as termly reports to parents which had to be in depth, we also had to assess pupils levels in a range of skills every month; predict abilities, share them with pupils and senior management; justify why we said they weren't achieving the same in English as in pe or maths or art etc. Every week there was onerous paperwork to do, on top of marking and preparation. Senior management couldn't understand the stress we were working under and how long it takes to mark a Higher English essay because they all taught practical subjects which assessed performance and none of them taught classes of more than 15, often smaller, while we had 30 in a higher class and 30 in a National 5 class. I had no time at school to mark. It was all done at home. Then pupils could send work to me by email. Frequently I had pupils send me essays online at night who were furious that it wasn't marked by the next day. And the demands by pastoral staff were endless. Reports on how individual pupils were performing/behaving, university appraisals with predictions, references etc. I loved teaching. But everything else became a drudge and took away from my preparation and marking time.

Two daughters teaching and completely run off their feet. Some work to be done most evenings and preparation at the weekends.

One of my daughter’s joined the growing number of excellent young teachers who left 8 years post qualified. She had her 2nd child and decided leaving home at 7am, returning at 6, then planning/marking from 8 till whenever didn’t meet her children’s needs, or hers.

Our elder DGD is in the same situation. She has 32 year 6 pupils at a high achieving school. She is single. She spends every evening, weekend and school holiday working. Completely unacceptable and unrealistic.

I know my DD often works in her own time. My sister gave up teaching as she was so fed up having to work in the evenings and weekends.

That fits well with my experience.

Outdated school books meant I spent an hour or so at the photocopier every single day of the week, and quite often two hours an evening preparing lessons in what was supposed to be my free time.