Any teachers who have left teaching?

Husband moved from schools to FE college. He was happier.

Job stability is not great though with cuts everywhere in the higher education sector.

I joined the civil service in a higher paying role, I’m very busy but very well paid and I work at home 2-3 days per week and not having the daily commute makes a lot of difference. Friends who have left teaching have taken up council jobs on around the 40K mark and another now works for an assessment company on 30K which is less money than teaching but full time WFH. There’s a lot out there. You may need to take a pay cut initially but only you can decide if that’s possible for you and how much work / life balance trumps salary.

I left after 23 years and now love life again and have time and energy to spend with my own children!
I looked on Indeed, LinkedIn, NHS, Civil Service, Charity Jobs and local uni and council pages. Set up a bookmark for each page and check regularly.
You can also use AI as a virtual careers coach. Identify what you like in your current or previous roles and think about where your interests lie. Roles I looked into where Business Improvements, Organisational Development and one- off type roles.
if you sign up for a 30 day free trial with LinkedIn Premium, you can do some of their free courses. I did a yellow belt in Lean Six Sigma which gave me a huge boost in my first role.
Also look at how to write a Skills based CV - first page demonstrates and highlights your skills-data handling, leadership, stakeholder management etc and your teaching career history is almost the last thing people read on the second page. First impressions count!

You can also look into Skills Bootcamps- they are free and give great experience and an interview with a business.

Get ready for the next chapter/module in your career. In the world outside of education, it is seen as being quite normal to have a squiggly work history.
In the company I work in now, we recruit for skills and train people to do the role.

I handed my notice in without any idea of what to do next but spent 6 months planning and applying for roles (decided to leave in Jan and left in Summer). I was very prepared to work in a Supermarket rather than do supply.

Good luck!

Left teaching and became a Project Support Assistant for not much money. However 3 years later am a Project Manager on ~£50k so would recommend.

Following as my partner is in the process of leaving the profession.

I left teaching in Dec 2013, after 16 years of solid classroom teaching. I’d had enough and resigned one day with no plan.

I was unemployed for 8 months, and then started temping which I did for about 9-10 months. I got a temp to perm job with Vodafone in a call centre. My secondary school negotiation experience was very useful at times, bringing people down off the ceiling when they were in arrears and at risk of having their service disconnected.

Then 7 1/2 years in the complaints department of a major food manufacturer. Wording responses to complaints can be a very delicate process at times.

Since last August, I have been working with my local county council. I work on a team that sends out invites on behalf of Social Workers to all professionals and family members for any persons that have a SW - CiC, CP, children with disability, adults in social care. It’s an incredibly busy job but these meetings need to take place and the last thing we want is SW’s sat in front of the computer all day sending out those letters.

Keep an eye on your local council’s job board for any “business support assistant” or similar. It’s not massively well paid, but I am about to start an apprenticeship paid for by my council. The first certificated training I have had in over 10 years.

I was a secondary school teacher for 20 years. I was bloody good at it, but slowly it sucked the life out of me. It sapped all of my energy. For me, it felt a bit like being a stand up comedian - the best bits are when you’re on stage, but you spend the rest of the time preparing, worrying and stressing, imagining every possible scenario and working out how you’ll deal with it. Then sometimes, you get a bad show and it knocks you for six, but you have to get up and go again. Only it’s 7 shows a day, 5 days a week. It’s no way to live your life!

I left and now work as a library assistant. I was lucky - as I only worked part time, I was able to change jobs and up my hours. Obviously you can’t up your hours if you’re already full time. By doing a bit of tutoring I was able to make up 3/4 of my teaching wage. I now work double the hours, for half the money and get 5 weeks holiday, which sounds tough, but my god it’s a breeze! Zero stress. I’m so much happier.

I left teaching in December after 10 years. I got a job as an assistant accountant at a international company - I was a MFL teacher so speak 2 languages fluently which really helped gain me the role - and am now completing accounting exams and will hopefully be a qualified accountant within a few years.

I do some tuition in the evenings to make up the gap in pay (and even tutor some of my former Year 11 students, as they haven't actually managed to replace me with a subject specialist...).

I thought I'd miss some parts of teaching, but I'm almost ashamed to admit I absolutely don't. If anything, I'm angry at myself for working in that job for so long, when I could have been aiming higher, both in terms of salary and work-life balance.

I was a primary school teacher for 31 years. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. But my mental health deteriorated due to the stress and I ended up in hospital. I never went back. Now I'm an antique dealer. I earn a fraction of what I once earned, but it's enough and my work life balance is amazing. My only regret is that I didn't leave sooner.

I left teaching last year after over 10 years. I felt very similar to you - totally undervalued and looking back now, I was completely burnt out, although I didn't realise that at the time. The trigger for me leaving was a management decision to refuse to change the time of a planned observation on compassionate grounds (one of my parents was having major surgery) - it was the last in a long line of incidents/decisions and it was time to go - I couldn't do it anymore.

I was lucky that I had could return to a previous job that pays much the same. I still work in schools but in a different role and have been surprised at how little I miss teaching.

I would second/(third!) the recommendations to join the Exit from Teaching Facebook page and Adventures After Teaching - she has questionnaires on her website to help you work out what kind of job you would be most suited to and could best use your (many!) transferable skills in.

Many of the teachers that I know have left to work in private schools or the charity sector.

I left a 20 year career as a secondary teacher and joined my husband in his gardening business. I’d always been a gardener and had completed my RHS qualifications out of interest. I started helping with the business during school holidays then left teaching and I’m now a gardener full time.

Our household income is around half what it was and we take a week off a year but I don’t miss teaching one bit.

what are your interests? You’ve lots of skills via teaching so I wouldn’t worry about that. Could you work towards an alternative qualification whilst still teaching? Or start to apply for other jobs which interest you?

Good luck. I’m yet to meet anyone who regrets leaving teaching.

OP, you say you feel undervalued, and it’s hard to be positive. Of course you do, we understand. Us on the other side felt then what you feel now. We get it. You’re trying to push the tide back: impossible, yet you feel if you only did this or that, you’d achieve it. It’s not you lovely, it’s the flawed education system . Don’t let them break you. As other posters said, you have transferable skills. Stop flogging a dead horse x

I left after one year. It affected my mental health in the most awful of ways.

Go and work in a university. Not teaching, but in the professional services arm. Universities are fantastic and inspiring places to work and your experience and insight will be highly valued. 💐

This is great advice. I’m now an employer (via the business I left teaching to start) and I totally understand that not everyone is looking for a job with us because they have a complete passion for what we do. An honest account of what aspects of this work appeal to them and what they were ready to leave behind in the last job is fine, together with them being able to convince me they will be a reliable, nice person to work with.

However I would definitely be put off by someone being very bitter or negative about a previous employer so avoid that!! We’ve had several employees who wanted work that was less emotionally draining and/ or work they didn’t need to take home with them, and both of these were absolutely fine to me as reasons.

Yes; i was a SENDCO for 10 years, then became a SEND TA in a secondary school for 2 years.
I left, retrained and I’m now a Podiatrist, with
my own business and I am very very happy. I spend all day with either private patients in their homes or people in care homes/assisted living facilities, fixing the pain in their feet and I honestly have never been happier. It’s amazing.

I know a few ex-teachers who went into Admin and Pastoral roles.

I was surprised to come across a LOT of ex-teachers that had gone into smallholding/farming... because they were so sick of dealing with other people and their problems that animals were deemed to be preferable!

I work in Admissions and a lot of our linked teams are ex teachers. Virtual School is all ex teachers as are the leads for Safeguarding which oversees elective home education and children in employment as well as community education like Supplementary Schools. Other LAs have them working in Fair Access prepping profiles for children who are vulnerable or hard to place.

I think most employers know exactly why people are leaving teaching, but frame it positively so you convey yourself as a pilgrim, not a refugee - I can’t remember where I got that quote from. There are so many transferable skills.

I agree with this recommendation. I left after 26 years and now work as a specialist tutor.

may I ask what you teach, whether there are particular subjects you love, what you studied yourself, any hobbies?

I’m not a teacher, no qualifications to answer in your post at all really, BUT you could turn your skills to so many things! I bet there are many skills you have that you could make a living from. You may benefit from a conversation with a careers coach who specialises in ‘squiggly careers’ and could give you a totally new perspective!