@SWeeks123
We did this - moved from south london to Wiltshire. Now in a little village with a pub and a school, and three other children of my sons age all in the village.
Might not be loads of paid activities for the children to do, but there will be summer jobs at the farm, and hanging out on the hills and dog walking and playing in the amazing village park.
Me and my husband both work full time, and the best part of covid has been me moving to home based and being able to walk my son to school each day. I rejoice in it - the playground chat, the meeting other parents, saying hello to the children in his class, seeing the costumes for children in need…
And I keep looking at teaching and would love to do it as the flex is there for holiday time child care - any teachers out there, please think first before shouting about the time you work. I get 25 days holiday per year to spend with my family, the rest of the time I have to pay for holiday time childrens clubs, so it’s a huge cost, and I would love to spend more time with my son, but can’t. Teaching is a way I could.
It’s a great adventure and has been every bit as picture postcard as I imagined. The thing I miss about london is the night life - drinks after work, cheap theatre tickets for that night, comedy and music for when you feel like it… but with a child, all that has to be booked in advance anyway, so not terribly different to booking a night in Bath or Bristol.
But you're not listening to what we're saying.
TEACHING DOES NOT GIVE YOU MORE TIME TO SPEND WITH YOUR CHILDREN.
Yes maybe you'll be around more during the holidays so won't have to pay for childcare. But you don't get the same holidays as your kids - you'll lose at least two weeks of the summer for inset days and classroom tidying/moving etc. You'll also need to spend a lot of time during the holidays getting ahead for the next term. You don't down tools on the last day of term and then get to spend six blissful weeks cavorting around.
And what you gain in holidays you'll lose during the week. You won't get evenings or weekends with your kids during term time.
I know you want to believe that you'd be different and it'd all work out fine for you and you'd be better organised than the rest of us etc (all the arguments I hear from people when I try to dissuade them), but trust me, you won't.
Read my earlier posts. You have no time during the day at school to do anything other than teach. So all the prep for the following day and all the marking from that day's teaching has to be done after the kids go home, which means you're taking it home with you to do. Unlike in an office job, you can't just say 'oh well, what doesn't get done doesn't get done', or 'I'll do it tomorrow', because you can't not have something to teach the kids in front of you the next day. It is relentless. There is always something that needs planning or marking. Primary school teachers get one or two hours a week in planning time scheduled into their timetables. That's it. And even then you're likely to get taken for cover or interrupted to sort out a crisis anyway, so you can forget managing to get anything done at school.
Teaching is a lovely thing to do. It really is. But the workload as things currently stand in schools is unmanageable around a family life. If you want to see and spend time with your children then don't become a teacher. You will spend more time with and thinking about other people's children than your own. That is the reality. You can ignore it if you like and go ahead and try it for yourself but at least please do go in with your eyes open.