Career as Teacher

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any advice from the more experienced ones on how we can manage the stress level and workload? BT here.

First, you need to ask yourself if being a teacher is a career, job or passion.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

First, you need to ask yourself if being a teacher is a career, job or passion.

If you forget to treat it like a job (and believe that passion alone will carry you all the way through), you will not last the long haul. The system will constantly try to gaslight you into this, so be on your guard. First and foremost, take care of yourself. Remember the story of the Giving Tree.

[enjayell]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any advice from the more experienced ones on how we can manage the stress level and workload? BT here.

Hi! It's normal in first few couples years to be figuring out a balance! There's so much NIE doesn't prepare you for. Here's some advice from a fellow young teacher.

1) T&L is bread and butter for a BT. It's your main KRA. It's ok to focus mainly on that when in BTship.
2) For non-T&L work, contribute where you can. Explore your interests. Find areas which are based on your strengths - work that energises you and that you will look forward to doing. Be your own advocate and share with relevant KPs where you think you can best value-add and impact the school.
3) Learn to set expectations and chart your path with your RO. Set boundaries (first with yourself, then with others) on what you are willing to do / not do. Be familiar with your KRAs and KPIs. Consider joining STU, they have good professional development sharing session, tips and advice.
4) For performance, you'll come to learn that impact > effort. More effort doesn't always pay off. It's the impact which others see. For T&L, self-directed learning is the way to go for impact>effort.
5) Surround yourself with at least 1 or 2 positive colleagues and avoid the toxic ones. Here's a good article: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/marigolds/
6) Celebrate the little things. e.g. put up the cards from your students to give yourself a reason to wake up.
7) It's ok to not know everything. Experience teachers had decades to figure things out and are still struggling in some areas. Focus on what you can improve instead of what has went wrong. There's a long road ahead and there's still plenty you can try.
8) If your school environment is bad and you're hanging on a thread, there's always option to change school at the 2 year mark. The school environment really makes or breaks the teacher experience.
9) It's okay to prioritise your health, family and friends over your work.

Feel free to private message if you need more tips

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any advice from the more experienced ones on how we can manage the stress level and workload? BT here.

Set boundaries.
Let ur colleagues know how much crap is on ur plate alr

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any advice from the more experienced ones on how we can manage the stress level and workload? BT here.

If you are gunning for leadership track, just have to live with it. The workload will keep increasing as you progress.

If you just plan to be a HOT, don't give 100% during your BT years. The reward for being efficient is usually in the form of more work.

By burning your free time after school and on weekends to compete your assigned tasks, it's only a matter of time before you are taken for granted.

And one day when you no longer have as much time to spare after working hours, people will think that you are skiving.

TLDR: Don't give your 100%, reserve some spare capacity.

Act blur live long. Its the civil service anyway!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

In the past (pre-2015) it would take around 10 years of service for the average teacher because it was possible for graduates to hit GEO1A3 (GEO5 equivalent) within 5-6 years.

Today, it's hard to say. Promotions have slowed down dramatically and merit increments have also been shaved thin. A good number of average performing ~10 YOE teachers who joined in the early 2010s are still stuck at GEO4 and still have a long way to go before they can smell the ceiling. Even those who were newly promoted to GEO5 are still sitting around the high 6k to low 7k region, with some way to go before they reach the ceiling (increments get smaller the closer you are to the ceiling, too). tl;dr an estimate for the average teacher will be around 15 years..

This is why people say those working in civil service are out of touch with the working world. A person with 10 yrs of working experience earning low 7k is nothing to be sniffed at.
A person earning slightly more than 100k annually is in the top 20 percentile of income earners in Singapore. And please let's not compare workload, every job has their stress points. Plus, peolpeople can point to how teachers enjoy June and Dec holidays, which even if you take away meetings and lesson prep is still quite substantial.

Any idea when is the connect payout is going to be?

Amount and letter is not on the portal as well

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This is why people say those working in civil service are out of touch with the working world. A person with 10 yrs of working experience earning low 7k is nothing to be sniffed at.
A person earning slightly more than 100k annually is in the top 20 percentile of income earners in Singapore. And please let's not compare workload, every job has their stress points. Plus, peolpeople can point to how teachers enjoy June and Dec holidays, which even if you take away meetings and lesson prep is still quite substantial.

Nah, I commented several tens of pages ago about moving to educational consulting. I left as a fresh GEO5 subject head and got a 25% pay increase (or +35% if only comparing gross monthly) with a similar level of responsibility. In fact I have to manage fewer people, and managing upwards is also so much easier here as well because it's not so hierarchical. I can jump two or three levels of management to move projects along without getting f**ed by the chain of command, who completely trust me and each other that we all have the same goals in mind. I don't have to rank/curve-grade my direct reports for their performance appraisals. Oh, I can also contribute inputs that have some weight in my direct supervisor's performance appraisal.

Even if we consider the lower salary as a trade-off for job security (which many of us can understand and accept), everything else just shows that the civil service is still in the freaking stone age.

Out of touch my arse, you just don't know where the real opportunities are. No transferrable skills? Rubbish - more like no skill in marketing oneself.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any idea when is the connect payout is going to be?

Amount and letter is not on the portal as well

Could be as late as week 4 of December, like last year. Don't worry la, you will definitely get it. What's the rush?