“I could never teach primary kids!”
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve said those words over my 16-year teaching career in secondary schools. And yet, I decided recently to reignite my passion for education by taking a role working with both secondary and primary school children.
Having had a child of my own gave me some perspective on the demands of younger children, but to say that the shift to covering both sectors was a shock to the system would be a gross understatement.
There has always been a level of rivalry between primary and secondary teachers: around dinner tables and in Facebook groups, they spar about whose job is hardest.
I’ve always held a healthy respect for primary school staff, especially how they deal with the needier pupils - the thought of a child launching in for a cuddle used to bring me out in a cold sweat.
But if I’m truthful, I thought that there would be new things to learn about the way to interact with primary kids, but I didn’t really think that the day-to-day teaching would be as gruelling or the curriculum content so challenging.
In secondary education, there is no doubt that you must be highly specialised - possessing a deep knowledge of your subject is essential.
In primary, on the other hand, you have to be a generalist, knowing about many areas. In fact, from what I can tell, you’re meant to know a little about, well, everything.
Is either job easier, though? Perhaps it’s about how we frame it - the language we use to describe both sectors. If you choose to be disparaging, is a secondary teacher just a one-trick pony and a primary teacher a jack-of-all-trades?
Then there’s assessment. Being a secondary specialist, you should thoroughly know the “experiences and outcomes” of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence. Primary staff, meanwhile, must be comfortable with benchmarks across all curriculum areas.
Imagine for a moment the report writing in both sectors. Let’s be honest, how often have you sat down to write one of the 200 reports for your S1 students after a half-term and thought, “what will I say here for Lucy, whom I’ve only seen seven times?”
I’m not sure that trying to conjure up what to say about a six-year-old’s religious and moral education ability is any easier, but at least you’re more likely to be clear about who that child is.
It’s true that in primary you get to know your class inside out, because every day is spent with the same children. Classes can be excitingly small, under 20 even, which is a luxury rarely afforded in high school.
However, the thought of spending all day with certain classes has given me heart palpitations. Knowing in such depth and detail each child’s background, quirks, needs and likes certainly strengthens the relationship, but I’ve definitely found the teenage student’s interest in you as a person works in your favour for behaviour management. Secondary children want to be entertained; primary want you to sit back while they entertain you. Believe me, both have their challenges.
Any primary staff I’ve spoken to have said that the reason they don’t think that they could teach secondary is because of behaviour. While it’s true that the behaviour in high school can be more extreme, it’s also the case that teenagers have the capacity to rationalise and reflect upon their own behaviour more easily.
It’s unsurprising that the jolting transition between secondary and primary school can exacerbate troubling behaviours, and as children get bigger and stronger, undoubtedly poor choices can become quite scary.
However, in a primary setting, any extreme behaviour can be relentless. There is no one else to talk to or share the responsibility with. There aren’t science, maths and PE teachers all having the same problem with the same child; you’re a lone ranger. Consequences are also more limited and discipline for younger children can often be viewed as unfair, particularly by parents.
Primary children, however, have a natural propensity to learn. They are switched on to life and excited by the ideas and challenges in front of them. I’d say this tends to dwindle in the teenage years. What I have found quite interesting is the intense parent and student pressure around achieving the desired results at high school, with the stakes appearing monumentally high.
However, the stakes in primary education are arguably higher. If, for example, at secondary school you don’t achieve your Higher maths qualification and don’t get into your first choice of university, it’s devastating at the time. If, however, you do not manage to learn to read successfully in primary, you may never be able to access the world around you to the level that you need.
I used to think that Higher students and S1s (four years younger, at 11 or 12) were worlds apart, but on entering primary school, I realised that P1s and P7s are practically a different species.
But whether you’re a primary or a secondary teacher, you work very hard. You are dealing with an emotional load, a cognitive load, a physical role, and you can’t rest for a minute - but you are in a game with huge rewards too.
Whether it’s as a secondary teacher giving a child the best instruction in your subject so they can thrive at university, or a primary teacher bestowing the gift of reading, you are achieving great things every single day.
I know from first-hand experience now, though, that neither is particularly easy. But while primary and secondary teaching both bring huge challenges, they also offer profound rewards for pupils and teachers alike.
Sam Tassiker is a literacy attainment teacher in Scotland, who works in 10 schools across both the primary and secondary sectors
