I made a name for myself as a teacher, I worked hard and got specific mentions in an HMIE report on a school I worked in positively praising my pedagogy. It doesn’t mean anything. I now work in a nursery with the title of being a teacher but my salary is lower than a probationer now.
I took the job as a level of security while I work to get a mortgage, and now currently on maternity leave because I had to get my life started. I’m nearly 30 and wondering why I went to uni because I seem to have taken more steps backwards than forwards.
It pains me to see the teachers who hate the job or can’t be bothered to do it well taking up permanent contracts when there are so many amazing teachers that don’t have a contract at all. That being said, there are still a lot of great teachers with contracts, it just hurts to see the ones that have no care for the job.
This is answer 192 of the 269 written answers that teachers let us quote anonymously in the Scottish Teacher Employment Survey 2026. It answers the survey’s last question: what do the people who make decisions about teacher employment need to know?
We have corrected spelling, added paragraph breaks and removed details that could identify anyone. Words in square brackets are ours.