Should I train to be a teacher or move for a £60K paid job?

[Arthurlager]

I have a dilemma and would welcome opinions.

I am 39, have 3 DC, 11, 9, 6. I have a place on a teacher training course in September. It will mean no income for a year then a starting salary of £21K. And fab holidays of course. Things are already very tight financially. Just to keep my options open I have applied for, and got through to the last stage for, a job paying a starting salary of £60K, final salary pension, bonus scheme etc.

If I am offered the job, it would mean moving house to a part of the country I have always liked, moving schools etc, something I have never done before. But of course it is F/T so I would need a childminder or nanny as we have no family there.

So...what would you choose?

Good god don't go into teaching.

I taught in FE for 6 years and it nearly destroyed me and my family.

I was teaching a vocational subject which has been my lifelong passion.

The pressure is unbelievable. The things you get asked to do within a certain time period are impossible.

Nobody trusts your judgment. Nobody respects you.

Another "take it". I personally am not at the hating teaching stage quite yet, despite having done it for a long time. I am genuinely physically exhausted though, and would say a majority of colleagues would get out now. Whoever mentioned micromanaging is right.

I think weekend raised some relevant points. Although OP is experienced in this area of work, the shift from self employed to full time and the lack of flexibility isn't insignificant and all needs to figure in the decision. I've made a similar sort of move fairly recently and although on balance it works, there have been issues and I wasn't factoring in loss of family support.

Reading the thread I'd be inclined to go for the 60K job but everything needs to be considered in the mix.

At the risk of being repetitive, another teacher here saying go for the other job. 17 years in, 2 children, and I am on my knees. I love the actual teaching bit, I love the kids I teach who come from such a wide variety of backgrounds, I love the fact that I have helped some of them through troubled times but I am utterly exhausted on a daily basis. I did 5 years of 4 days a week after the DCs, I just about managed but full time is nearly killing me. DH takes the children at 7.30, I arrive at school for 7.40 and leave at 4.45 to collect them. This year, I have been ill about once every 3 weeks, but struggle on in, have spent each of the holidays ill, and so have still fallen behind. I'm in a good though not high achieving school, with a HT who is committed to supporting family time etc, though in a dept where I am the only one with children.

Y the other job if you are offered it.

I seriously looked at retraining and did some work experience. My view - looked like a really worthwhile career but twice the work for less than half the pay. Another vote for the £60K!

I'm a teacher, I also love teaching but am beconing demoralized with the job. My colleagues are fantastic but management pressure is horrendous. My problem is that results can't get any better if the kids can't be fussed to work harder. Too many kids are switched off and world settle for a c rather than work hard for their target of an a. You just can't physically make them then you get all the blame!

If I got paid about 15thousand more then I would be satisfied, as I would be willing to put up with the hard work for 40 thou! As it is I will never see that amount of money!

It really is shit, isn't it?
And it didn't used to be like this, and it doesn't need to be like this. But no one above the chalkface is listening.

Also its really really hard to get a teaching job, plus English would automatically give you loads more pressure as a core subject!

So what has changed? Nc? Gove?

The micromanagement, the lack of respect or trust that you can do the job and the constant improvements and initiatives without anything ever being dropped or reduced to make time within the curriculum. The level of paperwork, from planning to assessment.
The constant vocalisation that nothing is ever good enough. The observations with a checklist of over 40 points to be met at an outstanding level...

The NC was the start of it IMO...that was twent years ago.

What it did was make education a political football and took the emphasis away from children. Each new education minister has to make their mark

Gove is just the hideous culmination of that. His wanton desire to reform, policy reform by headline newspaper and total lack of any sense of reality are breath taking.

Not Gove really, things have been increasingly bad over the last dozen years.
He's just a symptom, not a cause.

When I decided to quit the PGCE I wondered why anyone with a degree would choose the hell of what is being a teacher. Teachers are treated horrendously by management and colleagues. I have never seen such awfulness in the 20 years I have worked. Maybe it was just the school I was at, but reading these threads and those on TES, I suspect most schools are the same. I had never felt so stressed and unhappy about working. One thing I noticed was that all the teachers in the school suffered from extreme paranoia and for good reason too. It was a nasty, bitchy, undermining place. I think I would have been destroyed by it so I got out PDQ.
I think it is a true vocation.

So what was pre-NC? Apologies for ignorance.

But why should it be a vocation? I agree that people should want to teach and genuinely want to work with children. But vocation implies underpaid and unappreciated.
And is this all the way through, or particularly bad at secondary?

I would become a teacher! I love my job, and it is tough, but my school are lovely and supportive and flexible for the most part. I do a lot of work in the evenings, but with children the age yours are, you will be able to do some in the holidays a bit too.

Having family around would swing it for me tbh, yes I could earn loads more doing something else (maths graduate) but I don't want to. It is tough, but in the right school can be great.

I'm primary SPB.

The irony is it sounds like the education system needs huge reform!

DH went into teaching science at 40. He's aged 10 years in 3, is a bad-tempered stress head and the only time he relaxes is 2 weeks into the summer holidays. He spends every other holiday/ half term juggling catching upon school work with looking after DC.

I'd like him to leave as I think he gets shat on by the SMT, the government, the parents who turn up to parents evening with clip boards and bitch on mn about how the teachers only care about their league tables, the kids who don't give a flying fuck about their GCSEs and the general public who think teachers whinge too much.

I'd like to have our decent income back, flexibility about when we can take holidays but most of all I'd like my happy, optimistic DH back as I haven't seen him in a long time.

There are lots of teachers who go into the profession every year and I'm sure they all think it's anti-propaganda and that it'll be different for them. But OP you do need to be realistic about your expectations of being a teacher and listen to what everyone says on this thread. I'd take the other job. Not because it pays £60k, but I think it will be better for you and your family.

I teach on a PGCE course (just the remotest possibility it's the one you've got a place on!) after years of secondary English teaching which I loved. I have to add my agreement, though, to those saying that teaching is a vocation and that if you have doubts go for the 60k! It definitely does get easier over time and eventually you'll see some of those holidays, but the PGCE & NQT years are really tough, and you'll be spending half term & holidays on assignments (for PGCE), planning & resources, marking... Also, unless you're doing post-16 it won't just be literature you'll be teaching but language too!

As for what has changed in teaching, I think the 'target' culture has been very damaging. All students at all ages now have 'targets' often based on prior attainment across all subjects (so KS2 attainment in maths contributes to ks3 target for English etc) as well as social factors based on postcode. At high statistical levels - eg across a few hundred pupils- the 'lumps & bumps' in this sort of prediction even out, but on an individual level targets are often woefully off- too low often as much as too high, especially given the shite that is SATs. The culture now is that, as a teacher it is your responsibility to get the students their target grade, not the students'. I remember hearing a y10 pupil say, on getting their KS3 English result, "Well I won't worry cos it's not my result, it's Mrs X's really..." Nightmare. Add to that Gove's insanely narrow 1950s idea of education...

The National Curriculum came in during the late eighties.

Before that, Government oversaw education but exam boards (associated with Universities) and educationalists 'ran' education. HMI inspected school but it was a collaborative process (from memory) rather than a judgmental process.

The Goverment brought in the NC to gain control over something they disapproved of idea logically. However, the upshot is to turn Education into a cheap point scoring exercise that has led us to where we are now.

That's my opinion anyway..

What unstoppable said about targets too... We are too driven by market forces...education doesn't work like that

Oh and it's a vocation because of the emotional energy & commitment needed to work all day with large groups of young people (and their parents!) and is completely knackering. But it can be bloody wonderful too- there aren't many jobs where kids/teenagers come & tell you that they actually love you .

Teach. It's fantastic. But don't do it for the money.

I do a couple of waitressing shifts to supplement my falling wages and increased pension contributions.

So, teach, but get another job too.

Oh - and I work in the holidays too.

Hope that helps.

It's sad to read about so many unhappy teachers :(
I would go into teaching at the drop of a hat. Yes, there are long hours but with a job earning 60k a year you are not going to be walking out of the office at 5pm and you'll be doing the long hours for 46 weeks of the year. Teaching is a tough job but it's for 39 weeks of the year and is very rewarding.
Go for the teaching, and I hope you love it as much as I love my job. I've worked in education for 13 years and would never choose to leave it.