What is The Easiest Grade to Teach in 2025?

Kindergarten Pros

Kindergarten teachers often have an extra set of hands, such as an Early Childhood Educator to help them. It makes a difference having another adult around.

Depending on where you live, the kindergarten program is usually very play-based, so there is a lot of time for the kids to play outside (and less planning for you)

When it comes to planning and take-home work, its relatively easy.

Kindergarten Cons

Since kindergarten is their first year of school, there are students coming in with needs that aren’t yet diagnosed.

It wouldn’t be common to have a few students in your class who aren’t potty trained yet. (Although, as a teacher it is not usually your responsibility to do any toileting. There is usually an early childhood specialist in the room to help with that.)

If you’re teaching full day kindergarten, it can be a long day for a 4-5 year old child. They’re prone to tantrums.

If you have any challenging students or difficult parents, there aren’t any previous teachers you can ask for advice

Pros of Grades 1-3

Students aged 6-8 are still in the ‘little’ kid phase, but old enough to do most things on their own.

They still ‘love’ and look up to their teacher at this age. You may get many hugs

The content that you need to teach is relatively easy across all subjects – math, science, music. There may be a few things you need to review, but its all pretty simple.

You can engage the kids through games, songs, crafts and art

If you struggle with classroom management, they are often motivated by very small rewards, like stickers or being first in line, etc. (I don’t recommend always resorting to rewards, it helps to know that it doesn’t take much to motivate them.)

Cons of Grades 1-3

There aren’t really any specific downsides to teaching the early grades, other than that they are still very young. Some things that may seem easy to you (such as cutting paper, rules of games, using glue or tape) are things that they’re still learning. Be prepared to walk them through all steps, even ones that may seem obvious.

Teaching young people how to read is both rewarding and challenging. You need to have an interest in teaching basic literacy, as it can be tedious and a bit frustrating if it’s not something you’re passionate about.

Since they are new to ‘grade school’ and being seriously assessed on reading (plus, with them being too young to communicate everything clearly themselves,) here is a lot of parent communication in these early grades

Kids in grades 4-6 still have a lot of ‘little kid’ in them, but are much more independent than a kindergartener or Grade 1-3 student.

Although they’re getting older (and kids grow up too fast these days), they still tend to naturally respect their teachers at this age

The younger ones (grade 4s, who are around 9 years old) still enjoy songs and some childish games, but it starts to fade as they get older

The learning material at grade levels 4-6 is starting to get pretty interesting, even for an adult. I enjoyed the challenge of teaching science and social studies that I hadn’t learned from a long time, and got to review it for teaching it to these age groups

Grade 6 (around age 11) is when earning their respect will start to become a bit harder.

Some of them may be starting to bring phones to school at this age. (The earliest I’ve seen is grade 4, but I wouldn’t be totally surprised if there were a few in earlier grades that have them.) This turns into something you may need to police, make rules around and manage. Even if they don’t bring a phone, their addiction to them is real

Pros

They’re very independent and can do most things on their own. Sometimes they even teach me new things. I’ve had many students in this age group fix tech issues in the classroom.

They can handle large volumes of work (such as, writing essays, doing elaborate science or art projects) so there is some downtime during the day while they’re working – of course you still need to be supervising.

You can joke around with sarcasm with these age group; they get it!

Their learning material is .You may to assess how comfortable you are with teaching math to this age group.

I find it very rewarding to teach kids who are in their last year of graduating from elementary (or middle) school. Graduations are very special where I live, and its rewarding to take part in the ceremony with their parents – one of the best parts of being a teacher, in my opinion

Cons

Ages 12 and 13 are very unique ages. They’re not little kids, but not adults yet, so it takes a certain kind of person to earn respect from this age group; as they very much want to impress their peers and save face. They’re the worst for ‘attitude.’ I recommend really fine-tuning your classroom management skills if you’re going to be teaching pre-teens; starting with reading some books on the topic

The respectful students will be kind to you regardless, but the kids with behaviour problems will outright take it out on you.

They are likely all talking about you behind your back, even the nice ones. You have to earn their respect, but at the same time, not worry too much about what they think.

By the age of 12 or 13, many of the students are likely bigger and taller than you are. (This isn’t a con per se, unless there’s any issues with aggression or violence.)

You may start to encounter a lot of cheating at these grades – not that it can’t happen in earlier grades. But as the students get older and more tech-savvy, some of them may start using Chat GBT to do their homework, which is something you’ll have to police and check up on

You may start to see problems at this age with students using AI to generate their assignments. Some teacher AI tools can check for AI-generated content (as well as help you with many other tasks)

Pros of teaching early high school grades

Almost any teacher I’ve talked to who has taught both high school and elementary school says that high school is much easier. There’s less instruction time, and less planning because you’re not teaching as many subjects.

Starting from high school, you are usually teaching a subject that you specialize in (and usually, need qualifications for.) It is rewarding being able to teach the subject that was your favourite as a kid and pass on that passion and knowledge to the next generation of young people.

Cons of teaching early high school grades

Grade 9s are not as mature as the later high school grades, and I find that the ‘attitude’ factor from grades 7-8 is still applicable in grade 9, and some in grade 10. So, you’ll need to be a confidant teacher they can respect.

Classroom management is both easier and harder. You don’t have the same amount of time with them to build rapport, so its harder to build relationships. On the other hand, you may be able to ask disruptive students to leave the class in high school (which is much harder to do in younger grades when you’re responsible for supervising them.) However, double check on this as it can vary by region.

Depending on where you live, early high school may not yet be ‘streamed’ in terms of academic, and applied levels. So in grade 9 math for example, you’ll have a multitude of math levels that you need to accommodate. Some kids will be performing at a grade 9 level, some will be above, but many might be far below grade level. (These grades used to be streamed where I live, but were recently de-streamed.)

Pros of teaching late high school grades

I have found that there is a huge maturity jump between the two early high school grades to the late high school grades.

There is less parent communication at the late high school grade levels, as the kids become more responsible, are in classes that they want to be in, and communicate and advocate for themselves.

Similar to any high school level grade, you often get to teach a subject that you’re an expert in and (hopefully) enjoy it enough to inspire others.

Most kids still coming to school regularly at these levels want to be there, and are thinking ahead to their futures; post-secondary and careers.

Cons of teaching late high school grades

There is a lot at stake for a lot of these students, as they need certain grades to get into the post-secondary institutions of their choice. You will need to have good documentation, be organized and make sure you’re marking fairly. You may be challenged more than in other grades, simply because they need certain marks.

Depending on the subject, there may be a lot of markings. If you’re teaching English for example, you may have to mark essays that are thousands of words long.