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 was in the same position as you. I was a TA in a large secondary for about a year, and I have a scientific degree. BUT, I opted for primary because:

1. Teenagers can be troublesome and frankly, they scared me! Some of the stories about how teachers had been treated, accused of etc was awful. I was a young woman at the time and I had heard teenage boys saying, ‘you got the fit TA today? I’d do her!’… absolutely sickening and I ran a mile.

1. You never really get to know the kids in a secondary to the extent you can in a primary

1. Friendlier, nurturing more relaxed community feel

1. Young kids are hilarious.

1. You have your own classroom, which you are fully in control of, and aren’t sent from pillar to post.

I love my job, and for me, I made the right decision. I teach upper KS2, so I don’t have any toileting issues to deal with!

Also, I remember being TA in secondary English, and in one day, the same teacher delivered the same lesson FIVE times. It was Groundhog Day! So so boring to regurgitate the same plan over and over and over.

If you join a three form entry primary, you won’t have to plan everything yourself. I only plan one subject as the rest is split between the whole team. I can do all my planing in about 2 hours a week and the books are all marked live in the lesson time. I work 8:30-3:30 every day, except one day for staff meeting which finishes at 5.

If you have an A level in Chemistry you can teach GCSE, so you'd be very attractive to a school. I'd say the pharmacology side of medicine counts for more than just the A level. Years 7-9 tend to do general science anyway so you'd be covering it all!

I am, at the mo, doing my QTS (secondary)
Brutal!
Behaviour / Pastoral takes up ALOT of my time (including my 'break'!)

Further Ed isn't paid as well.

Look, all the hours are rough- but if you've been a doctor then you'll have done the same if not worse. The problems come from the emotional investment- both in your students, and in navigating challenging classes. I am only now starting to be able to leave my students and their issues at school. Plus the many, many social interactions you have every day- sometimes simultaneously! It's that which is exhausting.

I suspect the biggest difference you'll get in teaching is between easy and hard schools, not ages. I am currently teaching in a well- run school with middle class students. Oh. My. God. I cannot believe the difference. It's a complete revelation to me. It is by quite some way the easiest environment I have ever been in. Wow. I've been teaching for almost twenty years and I've never come across this.

OP what about higher education - teaching medical students?

@DogsAndGin

Also, I remember being TA in secondary English, and in one day, the same teacher delivered the same lesson FIVE times. It was Groundhog Day! So so boring to regurgitate the same plan over and over and over.

If you join a three form entry primary, you won’t have to plan everything yourself. I only plan one subject as the rest is split between the whole team. I can do all my planing in about 2 hours a week and the books are all marked live in the lesson time. I work 8:30-3:30 every day, except one day for staff meeting which finishes at 5.

I can't imagine how this happened. The school was doing something weird. I can imagine it might happen in one of the humanities subjects, but in English you don't usually have enough classes. That would suggest the teacher had five classes all in the same year group? I would die. You'd go insane. Plus, the main way of differentiating in English is by text- so were the students all the same ability level too? Super weird.

Sadly, as an English teacher of almost 20 years I've only ever taught the same lesson twice with the GCSE texts. Everything changes.....

(I'm not doubting you, by the way, I just can't work out the logistics).

My advice is not to do either.

Teaching is brutal and toxic at the moment.

I have friends who work in primary and I work in secondary. I am quite lucky as I am a core ks3 subject but optional ks4. Personally my work hours are great. Most days I do 8.30-3.45. I work in a good school with good SLT who basically treat you like normal people and understand work-life balance. I do all my planning, marking and extras in my frees. Sometimes i have some extras to do so will work some extra hours at home in the week but it is quite rare. Those who do core subjects such as English maths and science are much much busier than me. Once you have taught a few years you have all the resources you need and will only require the odd changes/updates. The first few years are the worst when you have NO lesson resources i worked many more hours at first. Now i have mostly everything i need and mainly use my PPA time to mark. The core subject teachers have much more marking which needs doing more regularly.

I do think teaching is a good career, I have a great relationship with the pupils, they make me laugh daily. I enjoy my job. But I do think this boils down to the right subject at the right school. I also think the pay is OK considering the hours I personally work. It would not be worth it if I was working my evenings, weekends and holidays. So can imagine part time is even less. When you say you are a doctor I would certainly look into various other roles before making the move to teaching, I can imagine it's much better paid working part time hours and with the cost of living going up I wouldnt be jumping into teaching just yet. Our wages have been frozen this year so will be interesting to see what happens next year!

In my area, chemistry and physics teachers are like gold dust! Biology is much more popular so there are less jobs available. Happy to answer any questions if you have any!

Teachers are paid for 32.5 hours per week and work on average 55 for secondary and 60 for primary. Hardest part is the pointlessness of a lot of that work and that you can’t spare more time for the things which would make a difference.

@Curioushorse I've taught the same RS lesson 5 times! Interestingly, the third time is perfection and it's downhill from there!

Biology teachers are pretty common.
Chemistry teachers are available.
Physics teachers are rare.

@ChairCareOh

If you’re looking for a career change because you want a less stressful job then I think teaching is a terrible idea.

With a degree in medicine you have a lot of other options.

I agree. What about lab or research work? Financially too it surely would be a huge drop.

But if it's really what you want -

I personally think workload will depend on the school largely rather than just primary or secondary. Much will depend on the culture/SLT

I'm PT in a secondary school - when I was job hunting recently there were many pt primary roles but hardly any secondary. Im lucky my school is flexible and willing to spilt classes - some secondaries can be awkward about PT due to timetabling constraints. I noticed lots of primaries willing to do job shares.

Also yes it's really stressful, hard work and long hours - but it's so very rewarding. Working with young people is a real privilege. Having said all that I think as you are a doctor you've got so many options I would think long and hard. Very hard.

Taught the same lesson five times in a day? That's not possible. You can't tweak

a lesson you gave to the 6th form and make it accessible to your 1st - 5th forms. I think you may have misunderstood what was going on.

@DogsAndGin

Also, I remember being TA in secondary English, and in one day, the same teacher delivered the same lesson FIVE times. It was Groundhog Day! So so boring to regurgitate the same plan over and over and over.

If you join a three form entry primary, you won’t have to plan everything yourself. I only plan one subject as the rest is split between the whole team. I can do all my planing in about 2 hours a week and the books are all marked live in the lesson time. I work 8:30-3:30 every day, except one day for staff meeting which finishes at 5.

I worked in a three form primary school where the head wouldn't let you share planning. You had to agree objectives then everyone had to do their own planning. Madness and a great example of some controlling personalities that go into teaching.

Sounds like you just need to decide what age range you prefer. They both have their pros and cons. Try to find a well run school - a head/SLT with hobbies and families of their own is always a good sign. It's finding somewhere where management don't expect work to be your whole life and behaviour management is good.

It is possible to have taught the same lesson ×5... just would be a very odd timetable! I often end up teaching the sme lesson twice in a day to 2 different y8 classes.

How about moving more towards Medical Education?

Medical education does seem like an option worth looking into a bit more definitely. In the past I’d thought maybe I wasn’t a senior enough doctor to make the shift, but perhaps it would be feasible.

I think part of the problem with medical careers is that the training you’re given all feels quite niche, so it’s tricky to think what other careers you be eligible for. There is always the possibility of googling ‘other careers for doctors’, and the same list of 10 options comes up each time which don’t seem that applicable / interesting to me. I tried speaking to a careers advisor a couple of years ago, but unfortunately she just kept telling me what a great area medicine is. Agreed- it is great for many ppl, but surely if someone wants to make a move the role of a careers advisor should be to advise on options?! I should probably look into an alternative advisor to find out more about my options.

With further education does that tend to involve teaching in a 6th form college, or adults having further education courses?

Thanks again

If interested, PM me and i can send you a link to a great group of people who are developing medical educators they run regular networking events.

I can't comment on being a teacher but I have an acquaintance who is wanting to retrain as a science teacher and they told me recently that the bursary for biology PGCE has been massively reduced compared to physics & chemistry, there must be a surplus of biology teachers at the moment.

For medicine - medical education is extremely popular at the moment so lots of competition, you have to start somewhere and make yourself stand out from the crowd of people who are "interested in teaching" so are there any opportunities to volunteer for teaching - FYs, medical students etc? I've found if you start to offer to help and it goes well, you get positive feedback on the evaluations etc, people remember you and will approach you again. Is there local training to be an examiner for med school exams - OSCEs examining etc? Any opportunity/funding to do a PGMedCert in medical education for example?
Re: specialties - it may get a bit easier with juggling hours and rotas as you become more senior but the balance between family commitments & work is always a problem even after exams/consultant post. If you're in a very acute specialty is there anything you could move sideways into that would be less intense? Without having to go back to the beginning in training of course...
Is there any provision for life coaching sessions through your employer? I know my Trust had a big push recently to train up some staff in coaching and if you have a situation with a couple of definite options you're considering, that sounds like a good one for talking it through with a coach

Thanks everyone, your ideas and reassurances are helpful! And great to hear that ppl think a medical degree would look good on a CV for a non-medical career. It’s good to hear as I think leaving medicine can really hit your self-esteem pretty hard!

Have a good evening everyone.

@Reflux101

OP, what did you end up doing in the end?