Why?
Struggling to find a new career, I decided to put my CV out there. Indeed, Reed, CV Library, you name it, I signed up. Finding a job that suited me was becoming difficult and draining and I was hoping maybe a recruiter would call me up with something new and exciting that I hadn’t heard of before. The reality was, I had 40 calls a day from various recruiters begging me to go back into teaching. I tried to be polite because these people were just trying to do their job, and they were desperate. However, I was getting really agitated with the number of calls I was getting a day, especially when I had specified online that I was looking for something outside education.
It was November when I got this particular call asking if I’d consider doing some supply. I originally said no, but the poor bloke on the phone stopped me in my tracks. “I know you want to leave teaching but please hear me out, I’m desperate.” I’d recently received my rota for my temporary job at Legoland, and I didn’t have as many shifts as I’d hoped. With Christmas approaching, I was a bit worried about money, so I decided it would be worth hearing this guy out.
It’s a Private all girls school…
Hmm
Behaviour is perfect…
Ok that’s good
It’s just until Christmas…
One month? I guess I could cope with that
Lessons are planned, all you have to do is deliver them…
That sounds easy enough
We’ll pay you £230 per day…
Yep ok I can do it for that!
The Verdict
I can see how this job would really suit some people. If you want an easy life and a decent wage, supply at a nice private school where you get free lunch and the children are perfect little darlings, is ideal. I did minimal hours - just teaching, no more and no less. No planning, no extra curricular, no marking, and almost double my previous salary? Sounds nice, right? I HATED it. I hated it so much, I dreaded going to this school. It felt like the longest 3.5 weeks of my life.
The people were nice, but painfully dull. I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just the school I came from before was incredibly sociable. I’m talking staff weekends away, year 7 residential trips that were more wild for the staff than the kids, and Christmas parties that were the sort of events where the Headmaster would steal your phone and drunk text your boyfriend, everyone is somehow covered in glitter and people are getting off in the smokers area. At this school, the Head of Drama tried to convince me that staff were fun because on the last day of term, sometimes, they go for a drink at the local pub.
The school was made up of robots. The girls all wanted to be surgeons, played 20 musical instruments, sang like angels and exclusively ate vegetables. You could miss break time if you weren’t careful, because there was no noise. You didn’t have bustling corridors, children weren’t running around outside, no squeals of joy or sounds of laughter. To this day I’m not sure what happened to the children at break time - they just… vanished.
The staff were robots too. They get into work super early and work through their break and then run clubs during their lunch and then do after school activities and they do it all with a smile on their faces, and you ask how they are and they’re great! And they don’t drink tea or coffee because there’s no time to go all the way to the staff room when you’re so busy helping children to learn and grow. There were a small group of teachers who went to the staff room during their breaks, called “the staff room club”. The Head of Drama scoffed as he told me, “honestly, I’m not sure how they ever get any work done!”
I was bored when I was teaching, and I was bored when I wasn’t. During my frees I had nothing to do. The dream, right? I could catch up on some life admin? Do some Christmas shopping online? Oh no! The Head of Drama wasted no time in explaining that the IT department would closely monitor everything you did on the WiFi and if you did ANYTHING that wasn’t considered work, the police would come knocking at your door. Everything was blocked anyway. At least I had data on my phone. Oh wait, no, there was no signal at all anywhere in the whole school. It was mind numbing.
I know I sound ungrateful. Being paid to be bored can’t be so bad? But I was really miserable. I had no one to talk to. I was working 7 days a week because I was at the school during the week and Legoland at the weekends, so I was tired. At least before, I had the people around me to keep me going, here I had no one. I was clock watching in my lessons and when I wasn’t teaching, I was sat in a room by myself with no one to talk to and no WiFi and nothing to do. I eventually took in a book, but there was only so much reading I could do before I was falling asleep. With so little to do, my motivation was low. Getting out of my chair to go and teach a lesson became an effort. Smiling became exhausting. Lying to the staff at lunch when they asked if I was enjoy it, when they clearly thought this school must be so much better than any other school I’d ever worked in, was unbearable.
To Conclude
It’s fair to say I didn’t join the staff at the pub for their hour of Christmas Craziness at the end of the term. I ran out of there as fast as I could and I never looked back.
This was my experience. I am sure supply teaching could be very different depending on the school and the department and the length of time you’re there. I am glad I had this opportunity because there was a small part of me that wondered if a private school with decent pay and well behaved children would be better, and now I can confidently say it just wasn’t for me. I am grateful that I was able to pay my bills and buy Christmas presents with the money I earned during this time. I am grateful that I got free lunch. I am grateful that people were polite and kind. I am grateful that it’s over and I never have to do it again.
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