Career as Teacher

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any idea when the responsibility allowance comes in? Will it be with PB or end year bonus? Considering if I should take up appointment.

$3000 for a full year for GEO4
$1300 for GEO5

You will get a letter from your school with the details after you have cleared the SH interview.

It will be in your March payroll.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It will be in your March payroll.

This is correct. It used to be in Dec; but that's no longer the case.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Actually, I think it boils down to individual. To be honest, you can balance your workload if you work smart. If you have to sacrifice your health like sleeping only 5 hours a day and work over the weekend, then I think you have not learnt how to work smart. You can be an effective and efficient worker. Don’t always equate hard work = good work.

I beg to differ. It very much depend on sch culture too, and whether it is pri/sec/jc. If your sch/SLs advocate a working culture where everyone works till late to meet targets, it is pointless no matter how smart you work. Working hard is very much ingrained in our SG culture to say the least, sad to say.

For you to make such a passing remark, I can safely assume it is either you are not in teaching or you are in teaching but are very focused on targets but do not do more or anything extra for your students. It is often seen in teaching that the ones who chase targets are the efficient and effective workers, but the hard workers are actually the ones who put in more effort for their students and they are the ones that truly make a difference in their students' lives.

Just two cents worth from an ex teacher. After leaving teaching I am so much happier in my new job. It’s not just the tasks which the earlier poster mentioned. It’s just a general sense that in school, principal and their SMC power players are king, and they take everything very personally. While they think they are always right, doing a noble job, etc etc, they go and perpetuate issues stemming from their own bias and personal vendetta. This is the problem. After 20 years of being in an environment where they think they are always right, even the most normal person will become a judgmental and egoistic leader.

Quite a number of ppl from my PGDE batch have since left, and we are all much happier for it. Speaking of turnover, the turnover is super high at my ex school, reflecting the lousy leadership, but unfortunately MOE will never factor this into their assessment and these lousy leaders will go from school to school every 5 years and making other teachers’ lives miserable.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Just two cents worth from an ex teacher. After leaving teaching I am so much happier in my new job. It’s not just the tasks which the earlier poster mentioned. It’s just a general sense that in school, principal and their SMC power players are king, and they take everything very personally. While they think they are always right, doing a noble job, etc etc, they go and perpetuate issues stemming from their own bias and personal vendetta. This is the problem. After 20 years of being in an environment where they think they are always right, even the most normal person will become a judgmental and egoistic leader.

Quite a number of ppl from my PGDE batch have since left, and we are all much happier for it. Speaking of turnover, the turnover is super high at my ex school, reflecting the lousy leadership, but unfortunately MOE will never factor this into their assessment and these lousy leaders will go from school to school every 5 years and making other teachers’ lives miserable.

It's the way senior management are appraised. Actually, it's the way we are all appraised. It's "only" a C grade if you do your job well but only stay within your jobscope. Whether you are a principal who only just makes the cut, or whether you are a damned good manager, if you don't do extra crap and chut different pattern every year in the name of innovation, you are still a C grader.

That's why a lot of career driven MM and SM every year will try to chut all sorts of different, very flashy but practically worthless, pattern.. just to look like they are innovative and groundbreaking. Because the system recognises that just focusing on doing your core job damn well is still not enough.

because doing your core job well is already reflected in your payroll

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Just two cents worth from an ex teacher. After leaving teaching I am so much happier in my new job. It’s not just the tasks which the earlier poster mentioned. It’s just a general sense that in school, principal and their SMC power players are king, and they take everything very personally. While they think they are always right, doing a noble job, etc etc, they go and perpetuate issues stemming from their own bias and personal vendetta. This is the problem. After 20 years of being in an environment where they think they are always right, even the most normal person will become a judgmental and egoistic leader.

Quite a number of ppl from my PGDE batch have since left, and we are all much happier for it. Speaking of turnover, the turnover is super high at my ex school, reflecting the lousy leadership, but unfortunately MOE will never factor this into their assessment and these lousy leaders will go from school to school every 5 years and making other teachers’ lives miserable.

Did you get into stat board or another civil service? Many ex teachers who resigned ended up being tutors, tuition centre teachers ans are notnjappy..

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I beg to differ. It very much depend on sch culture too, and whether it is pri/sec/jc. If your sch/SLs advocate a working culture where everyone works till late to meet targets, it is pointless no matter how smart you work. Working hard is very much ingrained in our SG culture to say the least, sad to say.

For you to make such a passing remark, I can safely assume it is either you are not in teaching or you are in teaching but are very focused on targets but do not do more or anything extra for your students. It is often seen in teaching that the ones who chase targets are the efficient and effective workers, but the hard workers are actually the ones who put in more effort for their students and they are the ones that truly make a difference in their students' lives.

Doing more for students does not mean you have to put in more an hours. E.g. I have seen many teachers conducting 1:1 consultation with students, thinking that this will help students. However, how many students can you save by doing this? Why not think of better ways to help a bigger group? You can still make impact on students without having to compromise your own mental well-being. Also, it’s precisely many people cannot work against the ‘norm’ and thus they feel burnt out.

Put urself in the shoes of a parent whose child is struggling. Everyone has limited bandwidth - not just no of hours, but length of term time.
An hour into something else means an hour or more of coaching a kid in need of help.

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?