| Mid-life career jump into teaching... 13:40 - Apr 22 with 1588 views | NeedhamChris |
I'm considering the jump into the profession - I've been working in the university sector for nearly a decade now but it feels like a sector that's lost its moral compass (students as consumers, all about the £££'s, bums on seats etc).
However, it's a pretty significant drop of income, which we can work with. In the pros column are; no more London commutes, works for childcare pick up and drop off, more local life, training year itself is good financially, seems rewarding and still has a social purpose and get to use degree for it's subject rather than just a tick-box.
Cons; doesn't sound easy by any means, low pay initially (although hoping extensive management experience will help me down the line here), social inequality, and starting from the bottom again.
Is there anyone in the profession (or connected to) that has any insight on what it's like at the moment that might add to the above?
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 13:43 - Apr 22 with 1537 views | Illinoisblue |
You’ll want to chat with Mullet. He’s a teacher |  |
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 13:51 - Apr 22 with 1485 views | BondiBlue |
I'll be honest, i don't love it. But the grass is always greener. It's probably ok in the grand scheme of things.
Think about why you're doing it. If you love hanging out with kids, go for it - you'll almost certainly be excellent. If you're doing it for the perks and convenience, think long and hard. That's why i did it and i'm not sure i'm doing a great job. | |
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 14:37 - Apr 22 with 1376 views | RegencyBlue |
My son is a teacher and has been for about ten years.
In between acting as a social worker, child psychologist, police officer, therapist, councillor and general dogsbody he occasionally manages to teach! In addition the amount of unpaid preparatory work he does at home is crazy.
Personally I wouldn’t touch the job with a barge pole but that’s just me. All I would say is make very sure you know what you are getting into before you commit. |  | | |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 14:38 - Apr 22 with 1356 views | DarkBrandon |
I did that. Jumped into secondary science teaching when I was in my early 30s. I lasted less than a year. |  | | |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 14:51 - Apr 22 with 1300 views | cbower |
30 years in and been main scale > HoD > HoF > Assistant Head and now part-time back on Main Scale again. The job is intense for the 39 weeks per year, really intense. As above, the 'social worker' dimension has increased exponentially in the last 15 years. Like a football manager is advised to choose your chairman, choose your school. Exam factories are all very well and results are important, but a school with a good, caring, inclusive and nurturing ethos trumps one that just thinks about grades every day of the week for me. |  |
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 14:56 - Apr 22 with 1266 views | _clive_baker_ |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 13:43 - Apr 22 by Illinoisblue |
You’ll want to chat with Mullet. He’s a teacher |
Sounds like he needs to mullet over? |  | | |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 15:05 - Apr 22 with 1230 views | ITFC_84 |
I’m a primary school teacher of 15 years.
Happy for you to PM me.
A little head’s up - I’ll be telling you to run a mile! Profession has changed massively over the past decade (certainly for the worse). Behaviour, Ofsted, parents, lack of funding, covid all contributing to teachers leaving in droves. | | | |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 15:15 - Apr 22 with 1178 views | Westcountryblue |
Best jobs are overseas in international schools.
You'll be on fantastic package, have your accomodation and utilities paid for, save over 2k a month and you'll teach fantastic kids. Keep it independent and keep it international. I'd never return to teach in the UK. | | | |
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 15:27 - Apr 22 with 1104 views | Kentish_Tractor |
Not a teacher myself but a good friend of mine is.
I'll try to sum up some of the pros and cons she's told me about the profession (for reference she taught at secondary level and then into college):
Pros
It's rewarding work shaping the future generation.
Working with children can be fun as they are often unpredictable and no 2 days are exactly the same. Depending on the school you teach at and the area, most kids are generally well-behaved and can be a pleasure to teach.
More holiday than most jobs
Shorter working day than most jobs
Cons
Children these days are generally over-protected little sh-1ts and you get little to no authority these days and little protection. Some (granted the minority) can be really nasty pieces of work. Parents can be just as bad. And class sizes these days are larger than they were. A lot depends on the school/area.
Long hours - it requires a lot of unpaid overtime marking and prepping lessons.
Pressure - As earlier posters have said, there is a huge amount of pressure on teachers these days to deliver grades / ofstead results. And it's underfunded as everything else is by the government these days.
For what it's worth, my friend has just left the profession citing mental health issues. It seems many teachers are doing the same. She is now off to Europe to teach English as a foreign language instead. Says a lot really.
My mum was a teacher and enjoyed the work - but that was 20 years ago. Things have changed A LOT since then. It's not what it was.
Granted we need teachers and school are crying out for them - we cannot succeed as a society without them. BUT it takes a certain character. If you're thick skinned enough and can cope well with pressure (and you want longer holidays and more time off with your own kids) then it might be for you. But after watching my friend struggle for the last couple of years I really wouldn't recommend it personally. | |
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 15:30 - Apr 22 with 1089 views | BessacarrBlue |
Felt the need to add to this, I've been in schools 20+ years, most of them in Suffolk. Now in a Senior role and still enjoy every day. Find the right school, where the priorities are the students and supporting staff. It's a great job, other posters are right, it is intense, but it comes with real reward and 13 weeks holiday isnt a bad thing either! | | | |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 15:36 - Apr 22 with 1055 views | squiz |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 14:37 - Apr 22 by RegencyBlue |
My son is a teacher and has been for about ten years.
In between acting as a social worker, child psychologist, police officer, therapist, councillor and general dogsbody he occasionally manages to teach! In addition the amount of unpaid preparatory work he does at home is crazy.
Personally I wouldn’t touch the job with a barge pole but that’s just me. All I would say is make very sure you know what you are getting into before you commit. |
My partner is a teacher and I would echo this exactly. |  | | |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 15:42 - Apr 22 with 1017 views | hype313 |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 15:36 - Apr 22 by squiz |
My partner is a teacher and I would echo this exactly. |
Yep, my sister and Mother are teachers (Mother recently retired) and both have said in the early years it was a good, inspiring job, the past 15 years has been awful and if they had a choice they would walk away.
Seems the theme for a lot of people these days. |  |
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 16:03 - Apr 22 with 905 views | DistantBlue |
I've been teaching in the Netherlands for close on 25 years. There are differences to the UK system, but many of the points others have mentioned I would certainly support.
There are undoubtedly very rewarding parts, and if you love the subject you teach it will certainly help. Admin, marking, preparation and out of hours activities that come with all teaching jobs are significant factors. It's a holiday week week here at the moment, and yes, I'm marking my way through it.
In the Dutch system it is relatively easy to work parttime, in the UK that isn't quite as easy, but to be honest I'm not sure that anyone can actually manage a fulltime teaching job, here at least, it means it either eats you up, or you have to cut too many corners off to actually be good at the job......either that or you spend your whole weekend proving you can do the job.
All points considered, I do enjoy the job, especially the pupils (and I do teach in a very run of the mill sort of town and school). The banter and fun in the classroom is the best bit.
If you do make the jump, be warned, the 18 months or so are the tougest bit! [Post edited 22 Apr 16:05]
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 16:11 - Apr 22 with 858 views | NeedhamChris |
Thanks all, that's all very interesting and broadly what I expected.
As a follow-up, I wondered how prominent the use of technology is for helping or hindering with some of those additional administrative tasks? I use a fair bit of ChatGPT at the moment just for creating initial templates or conducting some admin tasks - but a lot of the non-teaching side sounds very manual.
Thanks again though, all very interesting to read. My gut is to try the training year given it's financially beneficial to do so (once maintenance, bursary and grants all accounted for), with a fall-back of returning to what I do now. Lots to ponder though. | |
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 16:25 - Apr 22 with 820 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 15:05 - Apr 22 by ITFC_84 |
I’m a primary school teacher of 15 years.
Happy for you to PM me.
A little head’s up - I’ll be telling you to run a mile! Profession has changed massively over the past decade (certainly for the worse). Behaviour, Ofsted, parents, lack of funding, covid all contributing to teachers leaving in droves. |
Just on the flip side to that, the political landscape contributing to that is likely to change soon, so it’s probably as good a time as ever to enter the profession (or certainly better than at any time in the last 15 years). Not that there won’t still be significant challenges of course, but at least you won’t have Michael Gove screwing things up.
It strikes me that it has to be the perfect fit for someone. Some teachers I know can deal with all the crap from the rewards of working with the kids. It wouldn’t be for me and I take my hat off to anyone who does it. Good teachers transform lives, as we’re very much being reminded of now our eldest is going through his final year of GCSEs.
(And how many exams do they need these days! He’s got 23 left and that’s after a raft of them last summer, some before Xmas and a couple in Jan, plus about another 8 pieces of assessed work or in-class exam condition essays. It’s nuts!). |  |
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 16:35 - Apr 22 with 788 views | Bigalhunter |
You’ll need to change your username to Needham mark it Chris….
I’ll get my gilet. |  | | |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 16:41 - Apr 22 with 761 views | LeistonBlue |
I’m a teacher, feel free to DM more than happy to help |  | | |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 16:50 - Apr 22 with 721 views | Churchman |
| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 14:37 - Apr 22 by RegencyBlue |
My son is a teacher and has been for about ten years.
In between acting as a social worker, child psychologist, police officer, therapist, councillor and general dogsbody he occasionally manages to teach! In addition the amount of unpaid preparatory work he does at home is crazy.
Personally I wouldn’t touch the job with a barge pole but that’s just me. All I would say is make very sure you know what you are getting into before you commit. |
Mrs C was a teacher - Juniors then Reception/infants.
It’s very much a vocation. She loved the job, but it was hard. It is everything your second paragraph described. She had no desire to be a deputy head etc - she just loved teaching. People don’t see the work that goes into being one, a lot of it outside school hours.
Politics, Ofsted, interference, reports etc - all the non teaching stuff took its toll. She went on to do part time/Supply teaching and left the profession early, as soon as finances allowed. She’d had enough.
Personally, I’d wind up being arrested for GBH/murder of some of the children and more likely their parents. I’m entirely unsuitable in every way for a job like that and those that do shape the future generation have my full, unreserved admiration.
In terms of changing careers, if you want to and can manage out the finance side, go for it. I did and never regretted it. You get one chance in life and work takes a good chunk of your time so if there’s something you want to do, do it.. [Post edited 22 Apr 17:03]
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| Mid-life career jump into teaching... on 16:59 - Apr 22 with 678 views | Clapham_Junction |
From my sister's experience, a lot of whether you enjoy it depends on the quality of the headteacher - a bad one can make the place a misery to work at .
Echo the stuff about being a social worker. The stories about neglected/hungry kids was a bit of a shock given she taught in Bury. |  | | |
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