I would love to move schools, have a change from the classroom after 20+ years, maybe go into management/SENCO? I can't do this for 23 more years! But I'm not young as so many school leaders are now, plus I'm expensive! Am I stuck? I've taught all primary, state and independent, coordinator posts, head of year, but nothing more ambitious than that. Also part time for years when dc's were younger. Where are all the teachers of my age?! Any advice? I know I should be really positive about my experience and 'sell myself' on an application form, but I don't feel confident. Really silly, as I know I do a good job for the kids.
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toomuchicecream ·
08/03/2015 07:35
I'm your age - a year older actually! I know a fair few teachers our sort of age too - most of whom either worked part time when their children were younger, or trained when they were older (I've been teaching 10 years).
I'm starting work after Easter as Assistant Head - the new Deputy of the school is a couple of years older than me. So there definitely are leadership jobs out there for people our age. In fact, depending on where you are in the country, you may well find schools falling over themselves to appoint you. Round here, there are so many positions available you could take your pick! Having said that, I don't know how much UPS3 earns as I've been stuck on M6 due to changing schools at the wrong time (Leadership scale now though 
) so I don't know if you'd have to go sideways for a year or too before getting onto the Leadership scale and starting to go up again.
What training have you done recently? Could you do NPQML/NPQSL? Or some specialist SEN courses (NASEN has free stuff on line I think)? Would you consider being an AST? Or how abut a subject specific course like MaST for Maths? What impact are you currently having at a whole school level? What could you take on now that you could talk about at interview?
I don't think it's unusual at all for women to tread water for a while in their careers while their children are small, then be ready to move on up once the children are older. But I think you need to decide the area you would like to go in (ie SEN/subject specialist-adviser/Deputy Head) and then work out the experience you need to get now to get you there. With all that experience in your past, I think you just need to show some current whole school impact in your chosen area and you'll be there!
Is there someone you can talk things over with in RL? About 3 years ago I was unsuccessful in an application for DH. Helpfully, the Vice Chair of Governors had a daughter who had been friend with my son at pre-school. I had a very, very useful de-brief with her a few weeks after where she told me what the successful candidate had that I didn't. I used that conversation to work out the gaps in my experience I needed to fill and have spent the last 3 years doing it. Good luck - teaching needs people like us with plenty of experience!
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