I want to live in a rural village and be a primary school teacher

[MrsCremuel]

Or something of that ilk? I have a DH, baby and toddler and want to overhaul our lives. I’ve never really done anything drastic in life, mainly because family (parents etc) circs but I’ve always hankered after a different sort of life.

I hate the southeast. So busy and over priced. I desperately want to live somewhere rural. DH could take redundancy, sell a flat he owns and we could live mortgage free. I’m planning on retraining anyway so could get a job so could do anywhere. We recently had 6 weeks off together with the new baby and it was bliss. After wfh stops DH will be back to being out of the house from 7.30-7.30 4 days a week with one day wfh. I don’t want to go back to that, it’s been so good for our toddler and me to have him around more!

Anyone done something drastic to overhaul their lives? Am I being a whimsical fool?

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

I grew up in a proper, chocolate box-pretty rural village and attended a quaint old red brick schoolhouse. The headteacher was very progressive, lots of guitar playing and singalongs etc. He was clearly in his dream job and put a lot of work into it. Still didn't stop him getting absolutely shafted by Ofsted and then having a breakdown. This was over 20 years ago so I hate to think what the job's like now.

Sadly, all the guitar playing and singalongs would be out nowadays. My friends still teaching are timetabled to the minute and everything has to have a defined 'objective'. Being happy doesn't count as an objective.

@Gwenhwyfar - I wouldn't say it was a big town. It's a very average coastal town which has only had a cinema for the last 7 or 8 years

Live in the city, or a town and visit the countryside on the weekend. Or live in a suburban village at the edge of a town rather than a rural village, then you get the best of both worlds.

@MrsCremuel

I would really avoid becoming a primary school teacher. I've just left teaching after 10 years because it was destroying me.

The first few years are the hardest - the training year, the NQT, and then NQT+1 - honestly, I don't know how I survived it. The exhaustion and stress were unbelievable. I barely managed to get through with my sanity and health intact - I don't know how I would have done it with kids. I would never have seen them.

Then it becomes easier in terms of planning, but the marking never ends, the paperwork never ends, the bullshit demands of your SLT never end, and eventually what pushes you out is never the children but all the other crap that there's nothing you can do about. You can stop caring and do the bare minimum, but that's really not the point of being a teacher. I loved the kids and I loved my subject (I was secondary) but slowly all of my creativity got drained from me as I was forced to prioritise everything but the kids, and jump through so many hurdles to get approval to do anything outside of the box with them. Everything is about exam results and league tables. Everything is about how you're meeting this target and that target and what interventions you're doing with X kids in X category etc. Children are treated like statistics. It's not the cosy idyll you think it is.

I left in July and I've never been happier. I think I would have had a nervous breakdown if I'd stayed any longer. I'd become a shadow of myself.

Totally support the moving to a more rural location - but not to teach.

Lots of negativity on this thread. Yes there’s no guarantee of a community. Yes your kids may hate it. Yes teaching is hard (lots of jobs are hard).
I grew up rurally, I loved it as a teenager. We have moved back to a small village (450 people), there is a great community (and community politics too of course). We walk almost everyday even at this time of year and when it rains.

I crave community.

Don't assume that the rural life will give you that!

It depends on where you go but many places have been shafted for community because of second homes.
Other places have become little more than week dormitories where people commute long distances and get back late and then 'have no time' to put back and get involved in the community.
Other places are very insular and set therefore making it difficult to become part of the community as an outsider.

Without a lot going on, it can be hard to make those connections you want as the opportunities to do so are more limited than in cities.

What you want is more time with the kids, less communiting and community. Not necessarily to be a primary school teacher.

I have to ask, how much you've sort out and tried to get those things where you are now. Before going off on pipe dream that isn't realistic focus on the things you want - and why you can't get them where you are - which involves trying to make some of those changes before moving.

If you can't do them in the city, ask yourself seriously why you think you'll be able to do them in a rural area.

I get the impression you think that villages are friendly places, where everyone works locally 9 - 5 and there's 101 clubs and interest groups every week. I suspect you may find a difference with reality.

[quote StevieNicksscarf]@Gwenhwyfar - I wouldn't say it was a big town. It's a very average coastal town which has only had a cinema for the last 7 or 8 years[/quote]
Maybe there's a revival in cinemas. 50 years ago every small town had a cinema then I suppose they became less popular as everyone had a TV and you had to go to a bigger town, but maybe they're coming back.
I grew up 10 miles away from a cinema (in the medium sized towns and by medium sized I mean for Wales, so about 20k people). The small town (10k people) near by didn't have a cinema (though it used to).
When I lived in the 'rural village' as opposed to the semi-rural described above, I would probably have been 20 to 30 miles away from a cinema.

Me and dh moved to rural village 4 years ago, love it! Dh has never lived totally but always wanted to (he's from epsom) he's like a different person! He's so happy and relaxed. I feel similar and the community is great. So I think if it is calling to you and you have the means to do it, go for it.
I haven't been a teacher but have a friend who has recently retrained into that profession as a second career and it is so well suited to her character that she is very happy indeed, she came from a high pressure job in banking so isn't overly daunted by the challenging aspects of it, but does relish the task and loves the kids, even the difficult ones.
Horses for courses I think.
If you have a hankering, explore it properly and make a plan. 😊

I would consider living within 20 minutes or so of a cathedral city, like Canterbury, York, Norwich, Exeter. This is your chance to travel around and see what you like. In particular, do visit the villages and get chatting to people. I find village communities vary a lot - some are welcoming and lovely, some cliquey and judgemental! Fwiw I think East Anglia can be great for community. I used to live in North Norfolk and found it extremely welcoming.

@Gwenhwyfar

"Rural where you're ten minutes from the supermarket and 15 from the city centre, much less so."

Eh? 15 minutes from the city centre is still in the city! Very urban.

"Obviously, real country types will say the second one isn't really rural, but it might suit you."

Well, you would still be in the actual city, not even suburban. Even a smallish city like Chester, you would still be in Chester itself if you drove 15 minutes away from the city centre!

Not where I am. I live 8 miles from York and I can be in the city centre in 15 minutes. However, the village I live in has no shop or pub, just one street, all the houses back onto farmland.

As I said, real country types wouldn't say it's rural, but for me it's perfect.

A lot of people are saying look for TA jobs or work in a school office, but I think you’d be lucky to find one of those roles. Our local school advertised for a part time receptionist with term time school hours and were overwhelmed by applications. They ended up giving the role to a mum who was heavily involved in the PTA and has a lot of extended family members with kids at the school, so the head knew the family well. But it gets a bit like that round here.

I did just this in 2019 OP. I'd just got divorced, was sick to the back teeth of the south east and upped sticks to a beautiful village in Somerset and downsized drastically to a much bigger house
I'm NHS but all professions are short of staff here, teaching, NHS the lot.
I've just never been happier and the people are so warm and friendly. I've made loads of friends.
Life is too short just do it.

@Gwenhwyfar - As I said it depends on your definition of rural. We have no mains services but are 8 miles from medium sized town. I still consider that to be rural and to my mind rural doesn't automatically equal isolated. I certainly know that when DD did rural vs urban in Geography recently we fell firmly in the first category.

I think whether you like rural living (or not) is very personality dependent.

We live rurally and I absolutely love it, but both of us have hobbies that involve us being outdoors for hours on end, neither of us are particularly interested in shopping and going to nice restaurants or the theatre, but it's not everyone.

For example, we're 40 minutes from the nearest town, which means 40 minutes from things like the cinema, swimming pools, McDonald's, chain restaurants and shops etc.

Obviously those things may not matter to you, but will it bother your children as they get older?

There's plenty of "outdoorsy" things to do here - local kids ride horses, fish, hike, take the dogs out, spend all day out on their bikes, go to the beach year-round etc which is great for some, but not so great for others. As I said, it's really personality dependent.

I love it but it did take some adjusting. I used to live in a town with everything on my doorstep - cinema, swimming, bowling, coffee shops, clothes shops...it's a big change.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

I did just this in 2019 OP. I'd just got divorced, was sick to the back teeth of the south east and upped sticks to a beautiful village in Somerset and downsized drastically to a much bigger house I'm NHS but all professions are short of staff here, teaching, NHS the lot. I've just never been happier and the people are so warm and friendly. I've made loads of friends. Life is too short just do it.

Sounds lovely.

Am I being a whimsical fool?

You will be if you don't do your research and only think of the positives.

Otherwise - I don't think so. It just depends on what kind of life would suit all of your needs and personalities.

One of the things to keep in mind is if you move to a touristy rural area, you will live in an area with an ageing population and more houses than average will be empty because they are second homes (so fewer permanent residents to socialise with on top of an already low population count).

It sounds to me like you could be in danger of idealising that kind of life in the country as being stress free, the sort of thing you read in a certain type of escapist fiction books you read on holiday.

If you and your family are more on the extroverted end and like a lot of urban stimulation (shops, cinemas, museum) then you need to stay within 30 mins of a city I think. Otherwise, you might find that your kids get very bored, frustrated and that you feel isolated and far aware from everything. Expect to drive your kids to a lot of places when they're growing up. Yes there are transport links in the countryside but they might be once an hour, once every two hours or won't go to a lot of villages. If they go to towns, it might take absolutely forever due to having to get connections or stopping all the time. That will affect them as teenagers. They might benefit being in the country in other ways, but it's something to keep in mind.

We did this (thankfully rented). Glad we did. We lasted a year and moved out. No sense of community as everyone in village drove into the nearest town (Oxford) for work and shops. Main road through the village cut it in half. Local pub was full of weird locals, neighbour next door was a freak who did drugs and played house music til 3am. Husband had to run 2 miles to local village when we ran out of milk. And I was very very lonely with a newborn baby despite me being outgoing and joining any club going. It wasn’t for us. Ironically we live in a cub de sac now (swore I never would after growing up in one) and best sense of community ever, street parties, lovely neighbours/friends, can walk to shops/playground/school/town and kids can go out by themselves with friends

I think it sounds like a great idea. Why not.

Ha! I'm a TA at a primary school in a very affluent village in SE England. I've got two kids with such enormous behavioural issues that they're on opposite, reduced timetables, and a third about to be put in the same. At least half a dozen of the remaining 20 are poorly behaved much of the time. At any given moment I hear 'Pussyhole!' 'Wasteman!' 'Bumbaclart!' being either whispered or shouted across the room; trays being banged; pen lids whistled through; maths resources thrown about; sellotape put in hair. Nearly a third of the parents didn't pitch up to parents eve or attempt a Teams call.

Careful what you wish for.

Small country schools need teachers and it's a nice job to have

I was grateful that I had a decade of experience before I had to teach three age groups in one class, deal with SEND issues and being in charge of 1/3 of the curriculum on my own.

If money isn’t an issue then maybe look to be a teaching assistant. I work in a nursery school and am out the door at 3.30. I’m doing my qualifications whilst working and have a lovely work/life balance. The pay is terrible for the job I do but then I love my job!

There are plenty jobs avalable in some rural locations.
I live near Edinburgh- loads of job opportunities in IT, Biotch, Finance etc, many innovation parks etc dotted around the city in quite rural locations.
You don't have to travel far outside the city for house prices to drop dramatically and lots of lovely little villages all around the area.

I live in a semi rural area, a quiet safe village, and can be into the heart of the city in 20 minutes- so teens certainly don't suffer!

Village, not 'rural village' unless you're happy to be labelled the naive townie when you arrive.

"For example, we're 40 minutes from the nearest town, which means 40 minutes from things like the cinema, swimming pools, McDonald's, chain restaurants and shops etc.

Obviously those things may not matter to you, but will it bother your children as they get older?"

This is a good point. 40 minutes by car might be two hours or just impossible by public transport.

I think it sounds like a lovely idea! I work in a rural village school as a TA & really enjoy it. The Teachers do too but definitely have to deal with longer hours and more stress so if money's not a big issue then maybe you could start as a TA & get your level 3 NVQ and HLTA qualifications before training as a teacher later on? It would also be good to look for rural villages that are not too far from decent towns/cities and have good transport links, as my girls are teenagers now & like the fact they can get to livelier areas without too much trouble.