Very disorganised and clueless about employee satisfaction, motivation, and retention.
The working environment for a kindergarten teacher very much depends on the centre's principal and the existing teachers. If they are veterans, you're in good hands. If not (which is not uncommon with the high turnover rates), then you would have to survive on your own as everybody else has their own problems to deal with. There isn't much mentoring / coaching available unless you seek it out and manage to find someone to help you along. Because kindergartens have 2 sessions - morning and afternoon, and each session having 18 to 20 children, you might have to spend time after your last dismissal (after 5.30pm?) to prepare for the next day. Apart from Nursery children, K1 and K2 classes may not have an assistant teacher around. So you need to be able to have solid classroom management skills if you got 20 children under your care. Because the central curriculum isn't perfect, there may need to be alterations to it. and every alteration needs to be recorded in a lesson plan, weekly plan, scheme of work, term plan. So, if you are good in creating and drafting out plans, its a breeze for you. If not, this is a pain point for many existing and new teachers alike. Teachers are required to participate in community events after work hours like festivals and celebrations, and most of the time, prepping the children for some show for the public. Unless you love performance art, this puts an additional strain on your part. When term starts, there is a rush to things to be done. Its hard (but not impossible) to cater for differentiated learning, because the goal of the organisation is for quantity teaching, not quality teaching.
