Hi Kass,

Yeah teaching is definately not a job you can just switch off from at the end of the day. Atleast it's good that you could go 0.6 (even if it's spread over 5 days). Perhaps next year or the year after (whenever you are wanting to go back) you could ask the timetabler if there was anyway they could spread it just over 4 days instead or if over 5 days make sure it is times which will allow you to not have to have bub in care too much (solid chunks of time rather than an hour off here and an hour off there etc). The problem with primary teaching is that it's very rare to find any part-time jobs as they don't like kids to have two classroom teachers. My daughter had 2 female teachers who job-shared as her classroom teachers for grade 5 anda 6 (the same 2 both years). They seemed to work really well together and my daughter really thrived under their care. Obviously it must have taken a bit of work between them to make sure they knew what each had said to the students (what was expected etc) but there never seemd to be any problem or confusion and they set high standards for the kids which my daughter really excelled with.

If I was teaching with a young child again I would definately look at how I could make the most of any time between classes to do as much of the preparation and marking at school so that when you are home you can commit fully to enjoying that time with your child... but of course you still always think about your kids at school and worry about how to best support them.

A job outside of teaching when your kids are little would definately be alot less stressful. Thats part of the reason I haven't worked as a traditional primary teacher for many years. I went back into library work (but in schools) - a lot less stress (but the trade-off was also less money). I then did TAFE teaching which I loved as you can have a completely different relationship with your students (more like co-workers) and as it was 15 hours per week of paid time (so around 25 hours a week work) it was much more managable.

Maybe when you are on maternity leave it will be a good chance to look into what other options for work you have.

Best wishes
Lori
DD - 14
Bub due 28th Aug

You're right about part time being difficult. I was looking at going part time this year because I was finding full time work and ivf was becoming too much to maintain. I'm a high school teacher and although work was happy to sign me off as a 0.6 load, the timetable wasn't so flexible (I'm the only teacher for my subject area) and I was looking at going in 5 days a week anyway.

I'm assuming I'll have the same issue going back so my choice will be to stick with full time, change schools (and probably have the same issue), or change career. TBH I think with a young child I'd prefer a job that I can switch off from at the end of the day, and teaching isn't it.