Career change, mad to or mad not to?

My dh is actually in marketing. His working day ends at 4.30pm. He can work from home. My dc are in a school in a different town to where I teach. Our feb and oct half-terms do not match. I have tried to move schools but i am considered too old expensive. Trainees get the jobs instead.

I feel like he is approaching this entirely the wrong way, he’s locked straight into a potential solution to a problem with total tunnel vision. This isn’t actually about you being a teacher. Break it down. This is about:

1. Him not liking his career
2. Wanting geographical flexibility for where your family lives

You becoming a teacher is such a weirdly specific ‘solution’ that only creates other problems, the biggest being that you are very likely to be miserable being a teacher if it’s not something you want to do!

Anyway it sounds like you both need to chat through what the actual issues are and start problem solving together. If you don’t want to be a teacher I suggest you take it off the table from the get go. There are other options for both of you, it’s not teacher or bust.

Teaching is not family friendly, so unless your DH can step up to take on more child care, don’t.

It isn’t 8-4 with marking in the evening. It’s 7/7.30 to 5 with marking and planning in the evening. Mostly. There will be those who say they don’t do that, but the majority do.

Your husband really has no idea how it is.

Teaching is not just a practical skill you can learn! In some ways, your whole life needs to lead up to the point where you are ready to do it, and it will not only enrich the lives of those you teach, but enrich your life too. It isn't simply an alternative to working in a supermarket, being a parking attendant or driving a van.

I don't think either of you have a clue about teaching if you think it will give you greater flexibility! There is nothing flexible about teaching. You must be in school 1265 hours over the course of a year, some of those hours are to accommodate Parents Evenings, which you will have no influence over the timing of. If it falls on your child's birthday, that's tough, you'll just have to have the party on a different day.
It is a fallacy that teachers start their day just before the children and leave the school just after them. There is at least one mandatory evening meeting weekly, often more than one, especially in secondary education. There are 5 days per year when teachers have to be in school when the children don't, which could mean up to 10 extra days when you need childcare, if you don't work in the same school that your children attend.

Every evening and lots of weekends are spend, planning, preparing and marking work.

I think it would be useful for you and your DH to spend some time with teachers to find out more about the working life of a teacher - you might find it easier to approach a retired teacher, they have some leisure time!

As the spouse of a career changer into teaching my life has had to change a lot to accommodate it.

It's a really demanding job with no flexibility whatsoever. It's not family friendly. We don't often go out during the week as there's planning, marking, meetings. It was a lot worse during training. For 2 years I did pretty much everything round the house.

I may have been a lot less supportive of this change if I had realised what was coming.

However DH works for a MAT and he asked to be started in the middle of the band because of his previous experience. He's now on UPS and HoD 6 years after starting training. If you do go ahead, I would look into a SCITT programme.

Have I read this right OP. You are quite content with ur job. U earn well, u have a career in marketing.

ur OH hates his job and is not content. So he’s looked around and thought what can I change in order to make me feel
better. And rather than focussing on his job, his career, his life hes decided to dramatically change ur life instead.

and u do have a career - in marketing - so rather than upskilling in an area of marketing he’s suggesting u absolutely tear up ur own career.

For what?

OP this is weird. Fine have a conversation with your OP about what they want and thier hopes. But you do you.

and tell him to have some respect for your job and your career.

Well you say no on the basis that your own career satisfaction is important and you don’t solely exist to facilitate the existence of other people. That your husband has ended up in a job he hates is a him problem and for him to resolve.

Please, unless you really want to teach, don't do it. It's full on and you never switch off. 10 hr days often plus parents evenings and other events.
If this is about being around in school holidays, then get him to admit that fact and make alternative plans for the kids. Reality is 2 weeks being exhausted, 2 weeks holiday, 2 weeks winding up to go back. Time over every weekend doing marking and prep, writing reports and doing admin.
Teaching is the best job but it can also be the worst if it's not what you envisaged/difficult students/not taking time off when ill because it's harder to sort lessons than simply go in and teach.

You’re in the UK at the moment, in London? And have a flexible well paid marketing job.

Your DH does a job he hates, but is well paid and wants to leave the UK.

How would you being a teacher help this?

which subject would you teach? Unless it’s one of the core subjects, you will find there aren’t that many jobs around the country and abroad. The requirements to teach in other countries are sometimes higher than the uk, too.

What would you teach? Are you proficient in that subject? Do you have the skills needed for teaching? You can't just 'train in a nice grammar', you will be placed in a school.or schools.
To pass the training year and the two ECT years, you need to demonstrate that you are proficient in your subject, able to plan sequences of lessons, contribute to the school beyond your lessons, apply marking policies, understand SEN needs, keep up with current pedagogy, build relationships etc etc etc. You can't just get by on 'my husband thought this was a good idea'.

Your DH will regret this suggestion when you’re super stressed, earning less than you are now and don’t have the flexibility of wfh when you have young children.

I have more more SEN than ever before in every single class now and I have not had a TA / LSA in years.

I work 8 til 4 as a teacher to accommodate school run/after school club. I then cannot work again until my kids are in bed. So I'm regularly up til 11pm working. I also work Sunday afternoons. The holidays are great, yes, but if I knew what teaching would be like 16 years ago when I trained now (changed so much) I wouldn't. I'm now wage trapped.

Also being in the classroom is exhausting. There is a current crisis of funding and attendance. These put huge pressure on staff.

Honestly don't do it. You will be stressed to the eyeballs for the first five years minimum. Your husband is wrong to pressure you into this. Your current job sounds more flexible.

@New2Mumming honestly, unless you really have a desire to teach (and you clearly don't) you probably wouldn't even survive the training. So you'd end up with no job and probably have to repay the bursary.
Your husband is deluded.

“Thanks all. Im not against it, but no I don't particularly want to as I like my current job enough.”

OP, this screams don’t do it! Teaching really isn’t for everyone, and you’re never away from it - you may get the school holidays, but you really need them! If you have what sounds like an easy job that is reasonably paid and you enjoy, then stick with it.

Why does he want you to train as a teacher? Wouldn’t you be better off to find a different marketing role (now or further down the track) that would either offer better progression so you can increase your salary, and/or offers flexibility? I’m in a senior marketing role myself, reasonably well paid, the company I work for offers both hybrid and flexible working as well as the ability to take additional unpaid leave.

How are your crowd control skills? Have you any experience in holding the attention of a disengaged/disenfranchised/distracted group? And maintaining that attention for an hour plus, whilst also diffusing any distractions AND managing to get them to engage with your content?

If you’re entertaining this then it would be wise to do some shadowing in local secondary schools, not just nearby grammars, get a range of experience of different schools. Would your husband be supportive of you using annual leave for this?

Your husband is weirdly fixated on this, I think you need to get to the bones of what his actual issue is and resolve together.

I can see what your husband gets out of this, but his gain is all at a cost to you and that's not the way marriage works. He doesn't get to decide your career, but if the current set up isn't working for your family then you're right things need to change. You need to sit down together and decide how you want the future to look and then how you're going to afford it. It can't just be you changing for a career you don't want and him being able to do what he fancies though and forcing through his priorities. He's not the family boss.

If you like your current job and it pays better, you will really regret it. Teaching is incredibly tough at the beginning. Going into the classroom when you are just starting out is a baptism of fire. The children test you by subtly, or not so subtly, pushing you to see how you react. Every single class will do that. Some will do it to see how you react to bad behaviour, some to see what your subject knowledge is like and how well you know the curriculum and some because they are just bored by school and your lesson. You will then have feedback on how you can improve and have to do loads of work in the evenings and weekends. Most people are not very good at teaching when they start out so it doesn't feel very good.

1 in 4 teachers leave the profession in the first 3 years.

When I trained, you had to have spent two weeks in school before you were accepted on any training course. I don't know if this is still the case but it is a good idea.

You do realise that his issues including his neurosis and dissatisfaction with the job are entirely his to solve? Why are you the one feeling bad for him?
There are plenty of other options available. You can move to Wales and buy a fixer-upper for 30k if you really wanted to. I don't know what it is that your husband wants to do but he better find a way to do it without relying on you being the one making a change.

This is such a bizarre suggestion from your DH - retrain in a notoriously stressful career that you have absolutely no interest in and which pays less than your current job?

Why doesn’t he go off and retrain as a dentist, or a human rights lawyer, or a structural engineer?