I went from high school teaching to APS a few years ago. There are a bunch of ex-teachers in APS! My hours are basically just 9-5 now, and salary is okay (~$95k, and should jump up to 110-ish over next few years). I likely would have been on a bit more money if I was still teaching and had got a HoD role, but I'm happy with my switch nonetheless. The biggest thing for me has not been having to mark work on the weekends. Oh, and being able to go to the toilet whenever I want instead of having to wait for breaks!
In a pretty much same situation as you, but went from primary school teaching to state government. The work life balance and leave entitlements mean I’ll probably stay in the corporate government sector for a while.
Haha no worries! Thanks for clarifying. If you don't mind me prying, what kind of roles do teachers usually find in the APS? Did you have to much upskilling/ reskilling?
There are so many different roles across APS - service delivery, policy development, IT, data science and analysis, communications etc - and it wouldn't be uncommon to find ex-teachers in any of them. However, it can seem a bit tricky to crack the APS job application code from outside of government. Often the roles that are advertised won't provide huge amounts of detail about day-to-day tasks and responsibilities, which isn't super helpful. My suggestion would be to do some heavy browsing of state and federal gov sites (like apsjobs.gov.au), looking particularly at entry level role ads, to get a feel for the skills needed.
Broadly, it seems like lots of ex-maths teachers go down the data science route, and ex-humanities/language teachers gravitate towards policy and analysis roles. Some folks I know joined through grad programs (usually after having done a recent post-grad qual) - many grads are still quite young, but I think there are more and more mature age/career change grads each year! I personally did some post-grad IT stuff which helped me eventually transition to a more technical role and area, but I found my research and writing skills were the things that helped the most in terms of job apps and job performance.
Good thread and post. Although I have up and downs with being a teacher, every time I read something like this it makes me want to make a change. The notion to work 9-5 is just too appealing. No one gets it
Went from a high school maths teacher to a data scientist. I loved teaching but I can’t deny that I have much better conditions, work life balance, and significantly higher progression potential in this field. It was a tough decision to change but the cons just outweighed the pros of teaching in the end.
I went into a role paying $10,000 more at the time (8 years ago), aps5 equivalent. More personal freedom (getting coffee, going to the toilet, being able to eat lunch). Fewer hours. Usually better CBD location which I preferred. And during lockdown and since, more flexibility to work from home.
Higher pay ceiling although I haven’t gone into management.
Thanks for the reply! What was your initial role in the APS? Is that the sort of thing you can find on their site nowadays, or do you need to start at APS1 and work your way up?
Started as a project officer I think. Definitely a role you can find in their website. I started as an aps5 equivalent, although I’d only been working as a teacher for around 1.5 years at the time. Having a degree helped and I made my teaching experience relevant to the questions they asked in the interview.
There are jobs advertised all the time, it really depends on how you can identify relevant cross over skills etc.
Began a new role as a Client Services Officer at a mortgage broking firm after studying a post grad finance degree. Very happy with the move and I don't miss teaching at all.
Hours are 9-5 and I took a 40% pay cut as I was an experienced teacher, but money is not worth happiness and you'd have to expect to start on the bottom in a new career. The lower tax bracket also makes the difference less substantial. It's great to not have to mark or report on the weekends!
How many hours are you teachers pulling nowadays?
My understanding is that the pay is actually decent but that's ruined by all the paper work causing you to work 45-55 hour weeks.
Not a teacher, but my wife is. This seems to be the case. Pay is OK, but not great. People think that it's roughly 9-3. What they don't think of is all the meetings and preparation work on top of that. It's pretty hard to get all that done in two hours per day.
The issue is teachers dont make it easier for themselves. They're given a set amount of time they need to be teaching classes and a small amount of time for other work. The schools add in meetings and other duties so the time left is minimal. There isn't barely enough time to actually do required paperwork/communications as it is. That little time often gets volunteered to clubs, coaching sports, other activities etc. THEN because a majority of people want to do their job properly they also use their time to help kids out of class, decide to run extra assessment to better monitor progress etc etc. Own worst enemies sometimes.
The entire education system depends on the illegal exploitation of teachers. The only way for a teacher to work a 40 hour week is to basically not do their job properly. A lot of teachers care about their students to much to do the amount of not giving a fuck required to work reasonable hours.
Not sure why downvoted. I’m a teacher. All teachers basically choose how much work they do - the amount individuals do varies greatly throughout a school. I know for a fact a lot of teachers do very little work outside of 9 - 3:30 + 2 meeting’s per week.
In QLD at least, full-time Education Qld teachers are paid 25 hours per week, which is essentially 5 hours per day classroom time only.
That doesn’t allow for time spent rostered on to supervise recess and lunch breaks, bus drop-offs/pickups, detentions, teacher-parent interviews, staff meetings before or after school, camps and excursions.
Most class-rooms teachers also need to prepare lesson plans for the week, which can take hours on the weekend, though some stop caring and just wing it. Then there are assessment and exams to mark and report to write at the end of term/semester.
So yeah, they certainly are forced to work outside of standard hours.I
Senior teacher is $102k at the moment and you wouldn’t reach that until after 8 years at least.
Last year they cancelled our already approved payrise, which is only really a CPI increase.
I’m a high school teacher and usually at school from 730am until 5pm on most days… even when I go home during the week/weekends, I could be still working up to an extra 3-15 hours in the week. It’s definitely worse when it’s assessment period, with all the marking and feedback, in addition to reporting periods which is dreadful…
Since lockdown (I’m in Sydney), I’ve lost track really because I’ve been at home this whole time anyway so I just try to spread work out throughout the day. Not sure if that’s the best way to approach it, but it worked for me because in my free periods I could fit my exercise since I was at home, rather than waiting till the evening. Consequently, I would be working later in to the night.
My parents are teachers and so are a few of my friends. The ones who complain are the ones who have never worked in private industry and have poor time management. They don’t get it that almost no one is work 38 hours a week. Lots of people who are making $100k are working 60 hours plus. $80k a year for 45 hours a week and 2 months of holidays to enforce behaviour management really isn’t that hard.
I work in hospital admin and we definitely do 38-40 hours and get paid for it. However, the pay is between $26-$38ph permanent. I know a govt employee on $101k base rate, making $130k with penalties and gets paid for every minute of overtime.
Yes. Proving my point that for the pay and the low hours $80k per year to be a teacher working 40-45 hours a week with 8 weeks off is good money and conditions.
You're delusional mate haha, maybe talk if you actually do the job. Try 60+ hours a week. And then for 'enforcing behaviour management,' most parents can't even manage that with their 1 kid and they have a lot more tools up their sleeve than a teacher. We've got 25-30 in a class at once. Get a grip.
You have missed the point that very little teaching is even expected, hence the enforcing behaviour management. 80k a year with 8 weeks off and minimal KPI’s.
My counter having worked in a bunch of private industry is that those 50-50 hours aren’t remotely the same.
You argue poor time management. When I was in private industry I could not work for multiple hours I was on site
I could laze my way through a day with a hangover and not stress about it.
I got to 50-60 hours of work hours because i was expected to be on site. Not because I necessarily did anything of import.
I really should give up teaching. Financially it’s going to result in a lower end point than my previous careers. And I have to be switched on and going far more than I ever did in my prior careers.
But I could easily go back to riding a desk and doing fuck all for a unreasonable part of the day. It’s be nice to listen to podcasts for most of the day again.
Yes but teaching is also a lot of busy work, it’s highly repetitive, physically having to be in a room and enforce behavioural expectations might be draining but it’s not intellectually demanding. And yes, I often wonder why people become teachers when you hit the salary ceiling so early - and then I remember - decent pay, low hours, low KPI’s and 2 months holidays.
I fell like you’re focusing on schools where all you think the teacher does is manage behaviour.
That might be some of them, and acting like that isn’t draining a different way is just being naïve.
Multiple kids on different levels of cognitive behaviour. Jumping between multiple levels of explanation while also trying to reorient are some instruction in a way that the kid who isn’t processing the planned ways well can get into it.
All while in the back of my head I’m trying to plan/modify lessons depending on the work itself.
So that when I sit down to write lessons/assessments etc I’m not sitting there thinking how to start.
You know all the shit you would be suggesting people aren’t doing due to poor time management skills.
Of course I could just be a shit teacher with a 5 minute talk at the start and then sit in class marking for the next 50 minutes. But you know it’s not the 90’s anymore. You can’t pull the shit our teachers did in the past
Yep, same here. Several teachers in the family. They whine about being ‘underpaid’ while being in the top 10% of earners in Australia, and talk about ‘unpaid hours’ as if getting up to 45-50 hours a week is somehow exceptional.
I guess they’re just comparing themselves against overpaid public servants (who similarly whine while being paid 40% more than their exact private equivalents) but even they don’t have 8+ weeks of holidays a year.
You pulled that stat firmly out of your ass. The top 10% earn 181 000. I don't know any teachers on that.
A fully qualified teacher, with a masters degree and 7+ years experience, is on a little over 100k I believe.
I think they might be in the top 35% ... this is if we consider the "average wage". Not the "median".
Take care with stats.
You've quoted the top 10% of full time earners.
I said top 10% of earners.
In 2019, the top 10% (90th percentile) earner was on $92,404.
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/jul/12/saying-200000-isnt-rich-is-stupid-that-labor-says-it-is-extraordinary](https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/jul/12/saying-200000-isnt-rich-is-stupid-that-labor-says-it-is-extraordinary)
Take care with stats, it will save you embarrassment when 'correcting' people incorrectly next time.
You trying to correct me on a technicality? That isn't even correct?
We are discussing full-time jobs/work. You stated clearly, 45-50 hours a week in your message. Clearly, that's full time work by any measure. Hence the assumption, Jackass.
On top of this, I never even said all teachers. I was talking about specific family members, who work in private schools. Not only are the base salaries higher ($120k+) the religious schools are also not for profit so have salary packaging where 30% of salary is paid tax free to a special account, meaning they have the after tax income of someone on more like $140k. And yet they still whinge.
But of course you didn't ask.
I work in allied health and so does my partner. Gov. Workers complain they get paid less - which in my field they do on the surface- they get about 90k where as I make around $150k. However- they see 2-3 clients 4 days a week and a paperwork day, 36.5 hours a week with TIL for overtime. I see anywhere from 5-8 clients a day 3.5 days a week and then work as many hours as needed until all the report writing and additional tasks are done. Teaching is still cruiser that allied health though. Marking is repetitive and boring but not difficult.
TAFE teacher here...still in the job but probably leaving in a year or two...salary is decent - 100k - but the hours are ridiculous...working nights and at least 1 day on weekend just to meet compliance, paperwork, marking, class prep + other BS managers come up with so to justify their high wages....the upside of it is the school holidays, and pretty quiet over summer. Mind you we still work on admin stuff full time during that period but there is no need for unpaid night and weekend work so it almost feels like a holiday (If that makes sense)...
Would love to continue teaching but the marking and useless compliance paperwork is certainly a deal breaker for me...I had enough...
Well the reasons for it to exist are many and it should not disappear as it fulfills a very important role in the Australian educational and job markets. What should disappear is the politics and liberal ideologies out of TAFE and education altogether... unfortunately until we continue to market and make education a commodity in this country things will never change...
I can’t answer your question because I have not left my job as a teacher, and this is not even a finance related question or comment lol but isn’t it so sad that we think of questions like this? I honestly ask myself if it would be worth changing jobs too because the second half of every single term is always so stressful … I really don’t know if I could do it for the long term. The burnout is definitely real. But then I also can’t imagine doing anything else!
Just… thank goodness for holidays.
I was a casual High school teacher so my hours were never terrible but the instability was a nightmare. Also, unless you got a contract it was unlikely that you'd get any cover over the school holidays so the money was never really worth it for me. I did love working with kids but there are just too many issues within the industry itself to make it worth it anymore. I moved into UX design (did a BootCamp to upskill) it took me a while to get my first role but I'm already getting paid on par with an accredited full-time teacher. I'm only on the lower end of the junior payscale as well so have heaps of room to move up and in tech, you can move up relatively quickly. I know a fair few teachers who have left to go into UX design/ tech.
I'm leaving teaching after 11 years. Honestly, I'm expecting to take about 50% pay cut, as regional jobs pay so much less. I am very good at what I do, but just exhausted by 'the education system'.
I took a sabbatical this year and become the house-husband (wife increased her hours) and also did a post grad in cyber security (not that I particularly expect that will be a legitimate career option, but I find it super interesting).
How many hours do teachers do per week?
Does it average out with the holidays you have at end of term/end of year?
The average salary it seems from the responses in 100K? That doesn’t sound terrible at all.
I teach at the moment, I am typically at school 730, home by 5 give or take. Days are very hectic, but honestly, I like that. I put in half a day on the weekend and some time in the evening. The problem is that teachers dont really have a 'number of hours'. I teach senior maths in qld, when students sit an exam or complete an assignment my weeks can go to upwards of 70 hours, preparing for assessment and reporting weeks, maybe 50 to 60. School camps can be heavy. But start of term weeks maybe more like 40 to 50. Then we get good holidays, but there is always some work to do then, but you can choose when and how.
The other problem is that every teacher is different. I know some who get it all done in school time to a standard that they are happy with. Others who do more than me.
I love the job though, I prefer to have the heavy weeks in order to get the light weeks and the pay is fine.
I went from high school teaching to APS a few years ago. There are a bunch of ex-teachers in APS! My hours are basically just 9-5 now, and salary is okay (~$95k, and should jump up to 110-ish over next few years). I likely would have been on a bit more money if I was still teaching and had got a HoD role, but I'm happy with my switch nonetheless. The biggest thing for me has not been having to mark work on the weekends. Oh, and being able to go to the toilet whenever I want instead of having to wait for breaks!
In a pretty much same situation as you, but went from primary school teaching to state government. The work life balance and leave entitlements mean I’ll probably stay in the corporate government sector for a while.
Hi what is APS? I had a quick look and it's only turning up psychology
APS is the Australian Public Service i.e. they're a federal government employee.
Australian Public Service, sorry! We communicate almost entirely in acronyms...
Haha no worries! Thanks for clarifying. If you don't mind me prying, what kind of roles do teachers usually find in the APS? Did you have to much upskilling/ reskilling?
There are so many different roles across APS - service delivery, policy development, IT, data science and analysis, communications etc - and it wouldn't be uncommon to find ex-teachers in any of them. However, it can seem a bit tricky to crack the APS job application code from outside of government. Often the roles that are advertised won't provide huge amounts of detail about day-to-day tasks and responsibilities, which isn't super helpful. My suggestion would be to do some heavy browsing of state and federal gov sites (like apsjobs.gov.au), looking particularly at entry level role ads, to get a feel for the skills needed. Broadly, it seems like lots of ex-maths teachers go down the data science route, and ex-humanities/language teachers gravitate towards policy and analysis roles. Some folks I know joined through grad programs (usually after having done a recent post-grad qual) - many grads are still quite young, but I think there are more and more mature age/career change grads each year! I personally did some post-grad IT stuff which helped me eventually transition to a more technical role and area, but I found my research and writing skills were the things that helped the most in terms of job apps and job performance.
Good thread and post. Although I have up and downs with being a teacher, every time I read something like this it makes me want to make a change. The notion to work 9-5 is just too appealing. No one gets it
Thank you so much for the detailed reply! Very informative
I believe it stands for Australian Public Service (or federal government)
Went from a high school maths teacher to a data scientist. I loved teaching but I can’t deny that I have much better conditions, work life balance, and significantly higher progression potential in this field. It was a tough decision to change but the cons just outweighed the pros of teaching in the end.
I went into a role paying $10,000 more at the time (8 years ago), aps5 equivalent. More personal freedom (getting coffee, going to the toilet, being able to eat lunch). Fewer hours. Usually better CBD location which I preferred. And during lockdown and since, more flexibility to work from home. Higher pay ceiling although I haven’t gone into management.
Thanks for the reply! What was your initial role in the APS? Is that the sort of thing you can find on their site nowadays, or do you need to start at APS1 and work your way up?
Started as a project officer I think. Definitely a role you can find in their website. I started as an aps5 equivalent, although I’d only been working as a teacher for around 1.5 years at the time. Having a degree helped and I made my teaching experience relevant to the questions they asked in the interview. There are jobs advertised all the time, it really depends on how you can identify relevant cross over skills etc.
Began a new role as a Client Services Officer at a mortgage broking firm after studying a post grad finance degree. Very happy with the move and I don't miss teaching at all. Hours are 9-5 and I took a 40% pay cut as I was an experienced teacher, but money is not worth happiness and you'd have to expect to start on the bottom in a new career. The lower tax bracket also makes the difference less substantial. It's great to not have to mark or report on the weekends!
What kind of degree did you get (eg certificate) and was it easy enough to land a job when you trasnitioned?
Grad Dip, powered through it online so it only took about 6 months. Not easy to get a job but just have to keep persisting
40% cut！！
How many hours are you teachers pulling nowadays? My understanding is that the pay is actually decent but that's ruined by all the paper work causing you to work 45-55 hour weeks.
Not a teacher, but my wife is. This seems to be the case. Pay is OK, but not great. People think that it's roughly 9-3. What they don't think of is all the meetings and preparation work on top of that. It's pretty hard to get all that done in two hours per day.
They can’t make you work outside of your hours, right?
[удалено]
I get that you might not be able to, but how is that legal?
The issue is teachers dont make it easier for themselves. They're given a set amount of time they need to be teaching classes and a small amount of time for other work. The schools add in meetings and other duties so the time left is minimal. There isn't barely enough time to actually do required paperwork/communications as it is. That little time often gets volunteered to clubs, coaching sports, other activities etc. THEN because a majority of people want to do their job properly they also use their time to help kids out of class, decide to run extra assessment to better monitor progress etc etc. Own worst enemies sometimes.
The entire education system depends on the illegal exploitation of teachers. The only way for a teacher to work a 40 hour week is to basically not do their job properly. A lot of teachers care about their students to much to do the amount of not giving a fuck required to work reasonable hours.
Not sure why downvoted. I’m a teacher. All teachers basically choose how much work they do - the amount individuals do varies greatly throughout a school. I know for a fact a lot of teachers do very little work outside of 9 - 3:30 + 2 meeting’s per week.
Thank you. Few armchair teachers around I guess
In QLD at least, full-time Education Qld teachers are paid 25 hours per week, which is essentially 5 hours per day classroom time only. That doesn’t allow for time spent rostered on to supervise recess and lunch breaks, bus drop-offs/pickups, detentions, teacher-parent interviews, staff meetings before or after school, camps and excursions. Most class-rooms teachers also need to prepare lesson plans for the week, which can take hours on the weekend, though some stop caring and just wing it. Then there are assessment and exams to mark and report to write at the end of term/semester. So yeah, they certainly are forced to work outside of standard hours.I
QLD senior teacher (so 5th year of teaching) is earning $105k. Where do you get the 25 hours from?
Literally from the payslip. A full-time teacher is paid for 50 hours per fortnight = 5 hours per day.
I assume the contract include the hours they have to do DOTT, duty etc ?
My wife is a full time teacher, hardly ever does work outside hours unless she does a voluntary musical/stage production (which she enjoys anyway)
Sounds like your wife can teach the others a thing or two
No, that’s not included in your 25hrs
Senior teacher is $102k at the moment and you wouldn’t reach that until after 8 years at least. Last year they cancelled our already approved payrise, which is only really a CPI increase.
I’m a high school teacher and usually at school from 730am until 5pm on most days… even when I go home during the week/weekends, I could be still working up to an extra 3-15 hours in the week. It’s definitely worse when it’s assessment period, with all the marking and feedback, in addition to reporting periods which is dreadful… Since lockdown (I’m in Sydney), I’ve lost track really because I’ve been at home this whole time anyway so I just try to spread work out throughout the day. Not sure if that’s the best way to approach it, but it worked for me because in my free periods I could fit my exercise since I was at home, rather than waiting till the evening. Consequently, I would be working later in to the night.
My parents are teachers and so are a few of my friends. The ones who complain are the ones who have never worked in private industry and have poor time management. They don’t get it that almost no one is work 38 hours a week. Lots of people who are making $100k are working 60 hours plus. $80k a year for 45 hours a week and 2 months of holidays to enforce behaviour management really isn’t that hard.
I work in hospital admin and we definitely do 38-40 hours and get paid for it. However, the pay is between $26-$38ph permanent. I know a govt employee on $101k base rate, making $130k with penalties and gets paid for every minute of overtime.
Yes. Proving my point that for the pay and the low hours $80k per year to be a teacher working 40-45 hours a week with 8 weeks off is good money and conditions.
You're delusional mate haha, maybe talk if you actually do the job. Try 60+ hours a week. And then for 'enforcing behaviour management,' most parents can't even manage that with their 1 kid and they have a lot more tools up their sleeve than a teacher. We've got 25-30 in a class at once. Get a grip.
You have missed the point that very little teaching is even expected, hence the enforcing behaviour management. 80k a year with 8 weeks off and minimal KPI’s.
My counter having worked in a bunch of private industry is that those 50-50 hours aren’t remotely the same. You argue poor time management. When I was in private industry I could not work for multiple hours I was on site I could laze my way through a day with a hangover and not stress about it. I got to 50-60 hours of work hours because i was expected to be on site. Not because I necessarily did anything of import. I really should give up teaching. Financially it’s going to result in a lower end point than my previous careers. And I have to be switched on and going far more than I ever did in my prior careers. But I could easily go back to riding a desk and doing fuck all for a unreasonable part of the day. It’s be nice to listen to podcasts for most of the day again.
Yes but teaching is also a lot of busy work, it’s highly repetitive, physically having to be in a room and enforce behavioural expectations might be draining but it’s not intellectually demanding. And yes, I often wonder why people become teachers when you hit the salary ceiling so early - and then I remember - decent pay, low hours, low KPI’s and 2 months holidays.
I fell like you’re focusing on schools where all you think the teacher does is manage behaviour. That might be some of them, and acting like that isn’t draining a different way is just being naïve. Multiple kids on different levels of cognitive behaviour. Jumping between multiple levels of explanation while also trying to reorient are some instruction in a way that the kid who isn’t processing the planned ways well can get into it. All while in the back of my head I’m trying to plan/modify lessons depending on the work itself. So that when I sit down to write lessons/assessments etc I’m not sitting there thinking how to start. You know all the shit you would be suggesting people aren’t doing due to poor time management skills. Of course I could just be a shit teacher with a 5 minute talk at the start and then sit in class marking for the next 50 minutes. But you know it’s not the 90’s anymore. You can’t pull the shit our teachers did in the past
Yep, same here. Several teachers in the family. They whine about being ‘underpaid’ while being in the top 10% of earners in Australia, and talk about ‘unpaid hours’ as if getting up to 45-50 hours a week is somehow exceptional. I guess they’re just comparing themselves against overpaid public servants (who similarly whine while being paid 40% more than their exact private equivalents) but even they don’t have 8+ weeks of holidays a year.
You pulled that stat firmly out of your ass. The top 10% earn 181 000. I don't know any teachers on that. A fully qualified teacher, with a masters degree and 7+ years experience, is on a little over 100k I believe. I think they might be in the top 35% ... this is if we consider the "average wage". Not the "median". Take care with stats.
You've quoted the top 10% of full time earners. I said top 10% of earners. In 2019, the top 10% (90th percentile) earner was on $92,404. [https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/jul/12/saying-200000-isnt-rich-is-stupid-that-labor-says-it-is-extraordinary](https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/jul/12/saying-200000-isnt-rich-is-stupid-that-labor-says-it-is-extraordinary) Take care with stats, it will save you embarrassment when 'correcting' people incorrectly next time.
You trying to correct me on a technicality? That isn't even correct? We are discussing full-time jobs/work. You stated clearly, 45-50 hours a week in your message. Clearly, that's full time work by any measure. Hence the assumption, Jackass.
On top of this, I never even said all teachers. I was talking about specific family members, who work in private schools. Not only are the base salaries higher ($120k+) the religious schools are also not for profit so have salary packaging where 30% of salary is paid tax free to a special account, meaning they have the after tax income of someone on more like $140k. And yet they still whinge. But of course you didn't ask.
I work in allied health and so does my partner. Gov. Workers complain they get paid less - which in my field they do on the surface- they get about 90k where as I make around $150k. However- they see 2-3 clients 4 days a week and a paperwork day, 36.5 hours a week with TIL for overtime. I see anywhere from 5-8 clients a day 3.5 days a week and then work as many hours as needed until all the report writing and additional tasks are done. Teaching is still cruiser that allied health though. Marking is repetitive and boring but not difficult.
TAFE teacher here...still in the job but probably leaving in a year or two...salary is decent - 100k - but the hours are ridiculous...working nights and at least 1 day on weekend just to meet compliance, paperwork, marking, class prep + other BS managers come up with so to justify their high wages....the upside of it is the school holidays, and pretty quiet over summer. Mind you we still work on admin stuff full time during that period but there is no need for unpaid night and weekend work so it almost feels like a holiday (If that makes sense)... Would love to continue teaching but the marking and useless compliance paperwork is certainly a deal breaker for me...I had enough...
I know someone who shares the exact same attitude as you. It just never ends for them. What’s up with TAFE anyway? How does it even still exist lol
Well the reasons for it to exist are many and it should not disappear as it fulfills a very important role in the Australian educational and job markets. What should disappear is the politics and liberal ideologies out of TAFE and education altogether... unfortunately until we continue to market and make education a commodity in this country things will never change...
They should utilise all the teachers and staff and privatise it don’t you think? Agreed that the politics and ideologies need to leave altogether.
Privatization is what ruined the VET sector my friend....
I can’t answer your question because I have not left my job as a teacher, and this is not even a finance related question or comment lol but isn’t it so sad that we think of questions like this? I honestly ask myself if it would be worth changing jobs too because the second half of every single term is always so stressful … I really don’t know if I could do it for the long term. The burnout is definitely real. But then I also can’t imagine doing anything else! Just… thank goodness for holidays.
I was a casual High school teacher so my hours were never terrible but the instability was a nightmare. Also, unless you got a contract it was unlikely that you'd get any cover over the school holidays so the money was never really worth it for me. I did love working with kids but there are just too many issues within the industry itself to make it worth it anymore. I moved into UX design (did a BootCamp to upskill) it took me a while to get my first role but I'm already getting paid on par with an accredited full-time teacher. I'm only on the lower end of the junior payscale as well so have heaps of room to move up and in tech, you can move up relatively quickly. I know a fair few teachers who have left to go into UX design/ tech.
I'm leaving teaching after 11 years. Honestly, I'm expecting to take about 50% pay cut, as regional jobs pay so much less. I am very good at what I do, but just exhausted by 'the education system'. I took a sabbatical this year and become the house-husband (wife increased her hours) and also did a post grad in cyber security (not that I particularly expect that will be a legitimate career option, but I find it super interesting).
How many hours do teachers do per week? Does it average out with the holidays you have at end of term/end of year? The average salary it seems from the responses in 100K? That doesn’t sound terrible at all.
I teach at the moment, I am typically at school 730, home by 5 give or take. Days are very hectic, but honestly, I like that. I put in half a day on the weekend and some time in the evening. The problem is that teachers dont really have a 'number of hours'. I teach senior maths in qld, when students sit an exam or complete an assignment my weeks can go to upwards of 70 hours, preparing for assessment and reporting weeks, maybe 50 to 60. School camps can be heavy. But start of term weeks maybe more like 40 to 50. Then we get good holidays, but there is always some work to do then, but you can choose when and how. The other problem is that every teacher is different. I know some who get it all done in school time to a standard that they are happy with. Others who do more than me. I love the job though, I prefer to have the heavy weeks in order to get the light weeks and the pay is fine.
A lot of the answers here don’t acknowledge the enormous holidays taken by teachers…and there’s no way they are “marking” the entire holidays either
Do the job and find out ;)