Teaching career change advice please- primary or secondary

[Reflux101]

Hi everyone,

I’m thinking of having a career change into teaching. I have worked as a TA for over a year before ( secondary) and in a nursery school, so feel I have some idea of what is involved. I understand that teachers do have quite a bit of work outside of the school day.

I think I could either do primary, or secondary with a science specialism ( according to my educational qualifications etc). I just wondered if anyone has any thoughts on which is relatively less brutal from a life- work balance perspective?! Appreciate that might be a tricky question as I guess most ppl only work in one or the other.

In particular I’d be grateful for any insights into whether it is easier to get a part time role in primary or secondary science? I have a child with some long term health problems, and I think the opportunity to work part time would be important!

Thanks in advance everyone.

I would opt for primary.

Thanks Upinaballoon. Can I ask why you’d go for primary? Thanks

In my experience, primary teachers will tell you their job is harder and secondary teachers will tell you the same! Both are brutal and I don't know how any teacher gets any sort of work life balance. Those I know that are parents (including me when I was teaching secondary) basically live for the holidays; accept that you're going to be a rubbish mum/wife/friend during term time and then try to make up for it in the school holidays. I left teaching because I couldn't get any sort of balance and I was sick of feeling like I was shit at everything.

In reality I think you just have to work out which you'd enjoy more. Which age ranges to do you prefer?

In secondary I've seen PT work being done relatively easily (not with responsibility though) through timetabling. In primary I've seen it done through jobshare.

Thanks Spudjulia, can I ask whether you were working FT or PT before you left? And how many hours a week ( outside of 9-5 on your working days), it was? It does seem like a tough option, I don’t think I’d attempt it until my children were both school age.

How does it work with making someone PT through timetabling in secondary? You mentioned it wasn’t generally done responsibly?

If you train in secondary chemistry or physics you'll be very sought after and therefore more likely to be able to ask for part time hours etc.

In secondary you teach certain classes so for example 7b, 8g and 11f. They timetable those classes to take place on the days you work so you are not needed on the other days .

To earn more money you can take on responsibility such as head of biology or whatever. This is hard to do part time because part of your responsibility will be dealing with naughty kids taken out of other lessons, mentoring new teachers, attending dull meetings about data etc

You'll need to get QTS. I think you might change your mind very rapidly once you start that and get an idea of what's involved.

With the greatest of respect, having worked as a TA, you have a slight inkling of what's involved but I still think you'd be shocked.

I would also question your reasons as to why you'd like to go into teaching.

But seeing as how you asked. I work primary. My mum works secondary. Her day is a lot easier than mine. Later start, earlier finish. Able to walk out at 4pm no issues and just take the work home. In primary if you walk about before 5.30 it will be highly frowned upon (in the schools I've worked in which is quite a lot as the last few years I"ve done supply) and you need to be in about 7.30/8am at the latest to set up for the day. No need to do this for secondary you can breeze in at 8.30.

Science is in demand for secondary so you'd be better off doing that imo. How qualified are you?

I’m a primary teacher. Love my job but it was incredibly stressful so I reduced my hours to part time.
In Scotland we have teachers who specialise in science but with primary it’s more of a teach the whole curriculum and not a specific science role. In all the schools I’ve taught in, they’ve had a science/ stem lead teacher but it’s someone who has experience and an interest in this area who attends courses and then feeds back tk staff. They are someone who I could go to for advice on planning and observe some lessons. If it’s more of a science role you’re going for then I’d say secondary might be better for you.
Both will be stressful in different ways but equally as rewarding!

Def secondary. I trained key stage 2/3 and have worked in both.

Thanks again everyone for your replies. It seems like secondary is getting the majority vote at the moment. And I guess that also has the advantage of being able to get bursaries to train in certain subjects for.

In terms of my qualifications, I have A levels in Biology and Chemistry and a Medical Degree. So I think I would look to specialise in Biology. I don’t know if Biology is a sought after enough subject to give me any ability to negotiate a part time role?

I’m currently working as a hospital doctor. It does have its advantages. Like the days are v rarely boring, and sometimes you can really make a difference to patients. But for me the issue is that the bad days are just so bad… like the fear of making a mistake snd the really catastrophic consequences that could have. I think that’s a realistic fear too rather than just something I am anxious about, but perhaps different personality types deal with it differently and it bothers me a lot. Plus the night shifts, weekends etc. Rotas ( of on call shifts) come out with only a few weeks notice, so you can’t really plan anything like holidays. I’m just thinking about it really - will think about it for a good long time to avoid making rash decisions, but helpful to hear from ppl about different career options.

Thanks guys

@Reflux101

Thanks Spudjulia, can I ask whether you were working FT or PT before you left? And how many hours a week ( outside of 9-5 on your working days), it was? It does seem like a tough option, I don’t think I’d attempt it until my children were both school age.

How does it work with making someone PT through timetabling in secondary? You mentioned it wasn’t generally done responsibly?

As @KindergartenKop says - you can take on extra responsibility (which should be with extra pay) for something like head of dept, head of year. It's rare for people with responsibility to be able to go PT. But as a main scale teacher with no extra responsibility, you could be timetabled only on 4 days a week, for example, or only from p2.

I gradually withdrew from teaching. I was SLT, then went to SLT on 4 days (I was very lucky and this fit in with what school wanted at that time, so I was able to keep my whole school responsibilities). Then I dropped to 2.5 days and dropped all responsibilities (other than teaching my classes obviously). And then left entirely! I found that even with half a time table (2.5 days) I was working more than 5. It was so inflexible and relentless.

Although, having read that you're currently a doctor, you probably know all about working all hours! I'm guessing you already know a thing or two about the difficult choices between your family and your students (patients)? The guilt of staying home with your sick child because you know there's a class not getting quite enough with a cover teacher, or the opposite, dragging your child to nursery/family member when you really know they should be cuddled up with their mum, because you've got an exam class to teach.

As an ex secondary school teacher married to a primary deputy head primary is much harder in terms of work life balance - I know a lot of teachers and the primary ones do so much more work at home. Behaviour management initially appears harder in secondary as hormonal teenagers can be intimidating and generally behaviour standards are lower - as in most classes will test you out in a way that I don't think primary will but a challenging primary school kid or class will be harder to reason with and you will have them day in day out. I had a really rough year ten class for example of mainly very challenging 'boys' but I could still reason with them at a certain point which you can't do with an off the wall 7 year old. Secondary you can build up a 'bank'of work that you can use again with a few changes whereas primary is ever changing and you have to teach everything plus you'll be responsible for all pastoral side as well. Whereas in secondary a child's school experience had lots of teachers involved
I think primary is probably a nicer job day to day - primary schools are nicer environments and the behaviour is likely to be generally better, assemblies, being with the same kids all the time so getting to know them but you will be doing hours of work outside of the school day/ my dh gets to school for 715am and is rarely home before 6pm then does a couple of hours work every evening and all day Sunday .

I've never worked in secondary but I can tell you now primary is hard work. Far too much is expected of you.

I'm not sure I'd go in to teaching right now. You need to wait until there has been a Labour government for a good few years. I'm a primary teacher on my way out.

I think @LethargeMarg has made a good summary.

However it seems a very unusual route to go from being a Dr to a teacher. Have you not thought about cutting your hours (and therefore stress) as a doctor. How far are you into your specialism as a doctor? There are so many roles that Drs can do of course - would a change of direction within the medical world not make more sense?

Thanks for more experiences, and summaries of what’s involved. It is helpful. You have convinced me that the hours are pretty bad, and would only really be workable if you were prepared to work part time ( and able to get that job potentially by teaching a sought after subject in a secondary school), but despite apparently working part time and being paid to do that actually pretty much doing a full working week. That’s certainly something to have a think about, and consider other potential career options too.

I think medicine is probably a bit like teaching, in that it can sometimes look more attractive from the outside than it is for those who work in it! It does have good points, and I’d be sorry to leave having invested so much to get to the point I’m now at- the exams ( which continue well after med school are a nightmare). But I think clinical medicine isn’t for everyone… the cost of mistakes is a hard thing to live with. Plus it is really a nightmare with children. For example if you’re meant to work until 5 but there’s an emergency ( unpredictable occurring at the last minute), you could easily find yourself there for several hours after your finish time, with no warning and then starting a v lengthy commute home. Jobs move every 6 months until you are very senior and can be spread across a number of counties… a good fit for some ppl potentially, but I’m having doubts. It feels like it may be unmanageable to me alongside having a child with chronic health problems. But I will mull it over! And I am not under the illusion that teaching would be easy- I’m sure the high rate of ppl leaving within 5 years happens for good reasons. So thank you for the insights, they’re helpful. I’m also considering a shift across into allied health professions. I’m a few years into specialty training, I don’t believe the alternative specialities would be significantly easier- I think many of them actually have worse training pathways !

Can I get a consensus view of whether biology is a sufficiently sought after subject to have a reasonable likelihood of being able to negotiate part time hours? Thanks again, I do appreciate it.

I'm not sure how much demand there is for biology teachers. Have a look at the TES jobs section and refine by area.

Have you looked into SCITT courses at schools near you? It's a paid route into teaching run by schools.

Biology is definitely the easiest science to recruit for.

Have you looked at college teaching?
Fewer behaviour problems.
Lectures are really easy to construct with the curriculum you’re given.

I love being a primary teacher. I love teaching a bit of everything - history, music, art, PE… I find it genuinely interesting. I think the reality is that a well-run primary is better than a badly-run secondary and vice versa.

I had quite a good work life balance as a secondary classroom teacher on 0.8. On my day off I did all of my planning but never worked in the evening or at the weekend. If you want to be a science teacher go for chemistry. Chemistry teachers are so hard to find and you will pretty much be able to name your price. Even better if you could do some biology on the side.

@LethargeMarg

Most secondary schools teachers have a tutor group so have a pastoral responsibility for 30 kids. I wouldn’t say I’ve got a bank of work I can reuse as what suits my top set defo doesn’t suit set 6, it’s pretty much a totally different lesson plan.

Marking in secondary is huge, I teach 60 kids gcse and 36 a level, even those 4 classes alone doing one easy a week is about 5 hours of marking!

How higher level of education would I need in Chemistry to have that as my specialty? I have a ( strong) A level, and I suppose prescribing snd pharmacology at medical school relate back to chemistry.

Further education is a good thought- I should look more into that option.

For what it’s worth, Teachers out there, I think it’s definitely a complement that a number of ppl consider it as a career change option. Sincerest form of flattery is imitation and all that! You get a fair number of ppl coming into medicine later too- with Graduate Entry Medicine, which is definitely becoming more popular. But it is very valuable getting a real level of insight into the sector before committing, the hours in teaching do seem worse than I had imagined.

You can do a (funded) subject knowledge enhancement course before your ITT to become a chemistry teacher. It's what I'd do in your shoes (not only for the bursary...)

www.gov.uk/guidance/subject-knowledge-enhancement-an-introduction

I agree with secondary. There is the exam stress but having a specialism makes planning and marking a little easier in my experience. In Primary you will plan, teach and mark all subjects (maybe 1 or 2 less to incorporate ppa). In secondary you will plan, deliver and mark for one subject and sometimes get to deliver the same (tweaked by ability) to more than one class. Pastoral is tricky on both settings being a form teacher takes up a lot of time no matter what year group you have.