I love the act of teaching, of sharing my knowledge with students and watching for the aha! moment. I chose to retrain as a teacher not for the money. I had a passion for science and maths and I wished to spend my days sharing that with the next generations.
I also believed that teaching was one of the few professions that was “family friendly”. I was wrong. So very wrong.
Last October my husband and I welcomed our first child into our family. As a full-time permanent employee I was given 14 weeks paid maternity leave. So far, so good.
I also took another four weeks unpaid so as to work around the flow of school terms. Nothing unusual here.
When March rolled around I started to think about getting ready to head back to work and what I could do to make the transition as smooth as possible.
This is where the “fun” began.
As an educator, we do a lot of additional work outside of our contracted hours. According to my contract of employment my official hours are seven hours each day, five days a week. Yeah, right!
To be a good teacher, you need to be organised. You need to know what topics students are learning. You need to know who your students are, what special adjustments and support might be required due to social, emotional, physical and/or cultural influences of the 30+ kids in each of your 6 classes. You need to have extension ideas in mind for students who race ahead and a dozen different ways to explain the one concept as students, like all people, learn differently.
Likewise, returning to work in the middle of a school year, you will also have parents upset at the disruption to their child’s timetable. And you’ll have students who might take a while to re-adjust to someone new.
Listen: Rebecca Judd shares her maternity leave plan, including what worked and what didn't, on our pregnancy podcast Hello Bump. Post continues after audio.
Top Comments
I was discriminated against from the moment i told the company i was pregnant. Being the only female senior member of staff and having been there under 2 years, they felt i didnt have the right to be pregnant. Eventually made redundant 2 months before mat leave was due to start. Its unfortunate that we havent progressed as far as we would have thought! Its all nice and well to have books of 'women in leadership' on your coffee table but in practice, clearly we just arent there yet.. its the equivalent of greenwashing - companies will meet bare minimums to not be called out for overt sexist and discriminatory behaviour in public but women still are not supported to have a career and a family. Its not until youre in this position that you become aware of how far away we are from the dream of support and the "you can have it all" that we tell ourselves and other women so often. Keep fighting for those rights ladies, we will get there, one stance, one battle, one changed mindset at a time.
A nanny would cost more than a teacher earns. Teaching should be a great job. But, it is such a badly managed, poor culture workplace. It is seriously back in the dark ages - in terms of what is expected from a teacher - and they really do not want empowered, creative educators. Their system kills that in teachers (and in students). Badly need reform - and not by giving teachers more work and schools less resources, and as for turning out 40,000 graduates a year, that is part of the issue.