Career as Teacher

I just got offered recently and would be starting my UT stint soon.

I have a few questions and was wondering if anyone can give any advice

1) What are the expectations and responsibilities of an UT? (Can be anything like how often do we teach, CCA responsibilities etc)

2) What are some things that you wish you could have done better or not done when you look back?

3) I am currently tutoring some students and I am debating whether to drop them as I do not want to over-commit to my tutees. If you know or have heard of anyone's experiences, do lmk!

Thank you from a junior looking forward to join the teaching fraternity ^_^

Have a great day ahead and its the school holidays!!! [/QUOTE]

Welcome to the fraternity! Like someone mentioned above, it does vary from school to school. For my school, UTs are also attached to CTs for their CS1 and 2m but they may follow other teachers for exposure to other levels/streams. Whether you get to take on the classes depends on the CTs. I know of some who are given the class to teach, and others who are given specific lessons/topics to teach.

In my school, UTs were given responsibilities in the department, committees and CCAs too, though more task rather than planning based. It's through that you may be doing much more than some of your peers if you are given these responsibilities. But do see them as opportunities to gain some exposure to the inner workings of schools, as these are just some of the things you are expected to do as a teacher in the future.

Do work hard and learn as much as you can. It's a valuable period to rake up a lot of experience that you can use for your practicum and as a beginning teacher in the future. But i would also advise you not to burn yourself out too. Use this period to consider whether the career is for you (if you have not already signed a bond), talk to colleagues outside your department, young and old to find out how it's like. And remember, one school experience is not definitive of all school experiences.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Why did u give up a higher salary appointment?

There is a sweet spot. Once you ascend into the SEO grades, the additional work and responsibilities are disproportionately large compared to the salary increase.

From observation, coasting at GEO5 probably affords the highest remuneration per unit of work done… 😂 but should still try to do enough to avoid getting into the C-/D trench…

Originally Posted by Unregistered

There is a sweet spot. Once you ascend into the SEO grades, the additional work and responsibilities are disproportionately large compared to the salary increase.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

From observation, coasting at GEO5 probably affords the highest remuneration per unit of work done… 😂 but should still try to do enough to avoid getting into the C-/D trench…

Am currently a GEO4 in my sixth year of service, barely surviving with cca, form teacher (dealing with student issues and parents) and committee duties, with adhoc projects from IP and non-IP being arrowed at me. Somehow I see that Seo grade officers are offloaded from cca, form Teachership, teaching classes, and they just focus on their one portfolio. Is seo level actually more focussed and “less likely to get arrowed all over the place”, therefore not as hard as it seems? Just wondering.

I have been hearing alot about how KPs and those in the SEO grades have alot more administrative duties to fulfil ie. writing reports, SEM etc. Can an experienced KP enlighten us on what are some examples of these extra admin duties that a normal classroom teacher is not familiar with?

There's actually nothing much to ask. Once u get into seo grades, you just become less a teacher, but more an administrator which, for me, is not the reason why I joined teaching.

Interestingly, if I continue to pursue teaching track and become an ST, I also can't stand to imagine me doing lame ass PD sessions.

Hi, i just cleared my SH interview this year.
Promoted to GEO5 in Apr.
So as of next yr im officially SH.
So do I get an responsibility allowance at the end of the year?
If yes, what is it? Is it true that if Im in GEO 5 - i will not get it?
Heard once in this forum that it is given to only those who are in GEO 4?
Ok, i could be wrong.
Please enlighten.
Thk u so much

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi, i just cleared my SH interview this year.
Promoted to GEO5 in Apr.
So as of next yr im officially SH.
So do I get an responsibility allowance at the end of the year?
If yes, what is it? Is it true that if Im in GEO 5 - i will not get it?
Heard once in this forum that it is given to only those who are in GEO 4?
Ok, i could be wrong.
Please enlighten.
Thk u so much

The responsibility allowance is given as long as you are not yet SEO 1. But it is not much for GEO 5, less than $2,000 on an annual basis.
.

Wish to have a discussion here as I often heard from my teacher friends that teachers should just teach, and not dealing with all the non-teaching work.
I feel it bewildering why teachers have this misconception that teachers shouldn't be dealing with admin/non-teaching work. Other professional roles like police, firefighters, lawyers, doctors, and engineers all have their fair share of non-core tasks, and I don't hear any of them complaining about the "extra" work.
It's even more absurd hearing some teachers complaining about taking a CCA.
Shouldn't teachers go into the teaching career knowing that they have to perform both the teaching and non-teaching tasks, and not expecting anything less?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Wish to have a discussion here as I often heard from my teacher friends that teachers should just teach, and not dealing with all the non-teaching work.
I feel it bewildering why teachers have this misconception that teachers shouldn't be dealing with admin/non-teaching work. Other professional roles like police, firefighters, lawyers, doctors, and engineers all have their fair share of non-core tasks, and I don't hear any of them complaining about the "extra" work.
It's even more absurd hearing some teachers complaining about taking a CCA.
Shouldn't teachers go into the teaching career knowing that they have to perform both the teaching and non-teaching tasks, and not expecting anything less?

During the normal school term, teachers generally work about 60-70 hours a week. Work consists of teaching in a classroom (averaging 15-18 hours depending on subgrade), lesson planning & preparing resources (this takes up time), Remedial lessons (takes up about 3 hours a week), CCA (norm CCA time of about 3 hours a week - excludes CCA planning), marking (this takes up a lot of time for EL compo/humanities marking, but usually more than 5 hours a week), IP dept work that may involve preparing and editing level worksheets, organising level meetings, preparing level online lessons, organising sch events (e.g. EL, Maths, Humanities, MTL dept, etc), NON-IP dept work that may involve organising sch events or sch-based activities (e.g. CCE, ICT dept, etc) (event planning can take up A LOT of time), ALP/LLP/PD research work, parent engagement, nominating students for awards, updating student results, student remarks/student testimonials, occasional reflections on teaching, setting of exam papers, examining students for oral/marking of cohort-wide exams, classroom decorations, checking in with students on their well-being, other recess duties, etc.

I believe the complaining by teachers stems from the overwhelming amount of work that teachers need to do on a weekly basis. By the way, almost all teachers do work on weekends too...and I believe what I listed above is just what a normal teacher does. Middle managers (Level head, subject head, HOD) definitely do much more than what is listed above. Its true that teaching only accounts for 25%-30% of the work. The other 70% goes to the admin listed above and the list is non-exhaustive.

Hope this enlightens you and makes you better appreciate the amount of work that the teachers put in for the good of Singapore.