Quitting career to do PGCE?

[DisneyLady1]

Hi Mumsnetters,

I'm at a crossroads, and unsure what to do. Thought I'd post on here to see if anyone has any nuggets of advice!

I've been lucky to get a place on a PGCE course teaching English at high school level, starting in a few months. It's something I've always dreamed of doing, but was advised by other teachers I know to do something different (at least initially).

After having DC1 I now feel is a good time to take the plunge, as I'm not getting any younger!! There is never a good time to do something like this (I find) and I am lucky to have savings to fall back on for the year of study.

I do have some worries though!

Worry one: Is PGCE compatible with a child in nursery? I would hate to get through the year and feel as if I'd missed out on his development and like an absent mother. I know some people unfortunately don't have any options when it comes to this, but my current job have kindly agreed to let me work part time. I've heard horror stories about the PGCE but understand that people maybe only share them on here if they've gone through a bad experience. I do work in a high pressure business and have done for 15 years, so I am excellent at prioritising and doing just enough to get by.

Worry two: Is teaching as hard as people say it is? I read horrendous accounts on here, but my friends and family who are high school teachers all say it's not actually that bad, and they don't seem to be working all evenings/weekends/holidays like I hear some people do. What's the truth? I loved my experiences teaching, but work experience can only show you so much as you don't have the accountability/targets etc that real full time teachers would.

Worry three: I'll be quitting a solid and stable career with a decent salary for the unknown. I like my current job, it is satisfying... but I just don't feel as if it has much meaning to me. I think that's why it is low stress, because it doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things! I'd like to do something that matters to me, but I know this will bring other stresses too, and my salary will be cut by more than 60% to do this.

So it's a question of following my passion and the unknown vs. sticking with a stable, yet perhaps less exciting career.

Thanks for reading my rant and any advice you might offer!

Honestly I think this is a terrible idea. I was a teacher (and friends with lots of teachers)- I only know two who are still in the job. I developed mental health problems due to the workload/ridiculous, constantly-changing standards and had a full-on breakdown in my fifth year. And I didn't have kids. My colleagues with children were absolutely frazzled.

Never minded the behaviour management and loved the actual teaching. It was the rest of it that was so awful.

I'd be particularly wary of English because of the marking. Some schools have more sensible marking policies but they're by no means universal!

Have a bin lined with a plastic bag nearby whilst teaching . If you're lucky and have another adult in the room supporting a child , you can race outside the classroom door be sick in the bin ... dispose of it in nearest toilet , rinse mouth and return to class .
If you're really lucky and have a cupboard in the classroom be sick in there !

So we just all leave and our kids are taught by AI robots? Is that the plan?

Thanks everyone, so much, for your candid messages. It is really very disappointing to hear how tough things are right now for many teachers.

In my current job, certainly in my early years, the hours were horrendous but the people around me were amazing at least and we all pulled through together as we moved up the ranks. What strikes me about some of these comments is that you can't even rely on having a good team around you sometimes to get through those really bad times (depending on the school). I'm so surprised to hear about bad mentors etc. What's the point in being horrible to other staff when it'll just increase workload if they leave?! That is genuinely frightening.

I suppose my question has been answered after all by your comments. I guess you don't know what you've got til it's gone. Really gutted to say this though, but also don't want to risk so much when my DC is still so young. One poster suggested moving into it when DC 1 and potential DC 2 are older, which is something I will consider. Perhaps then the government will have changed (we can only hope!) In the meantime, will try and get some more experiences in the classroom to be better informed when the time comes.

Thanks all, so much,for your help!

What a rude joker you are. How dare you? Yes parents do value English
Have you ever tried teaching pshe or a language? You just sound like someone overpromoted. I've worked in education for a long time teaching 13 years and if you can't tell that by my posts I think you are the problem. Jeez!

Thing is op you won't get much help if you get a HoD like that. I've been in charge of mentors and hopefully you'll get someone who makes time to support you as they should. Just observing good teachers you'll learn so much.
Probably not from someone who goes into work on Saturday though. Unless it's for a trip etc

Also I find parents are helpful but it us all about relationships. Go in threatening their child etc it won't go well. Ask to help support them support their child to do well, develop resilience etc and you'll get them on side. Often pastoral staff and mental health leads or hoys are better at this and sometimes all communication must go through one person. Mostly because some teachers have no idea why the parents get offended. 🙄

@Boomboom22 I can understand your point, and agree that approaching a scenario with empathy is so important, and trying to see what the other person sees/working with them together.

I think I am good at doing this... but (big but!) I can also see how gruelling that would be when you are exhausted and under pressure.

Someone said upthread there isn't much behaviour management in sixth form. I haven't found that to be the case. There are an awful lot of students on A-level courses who probably shouldn't be, these days.

I teach an essay subject (not English). I work three days a week and spend the other two marking and planning (not all of both days but I often spend a chunk of the weekend on it too). I do 40 hours a week for 60% pay. More in autumn, less in summer.

The advice to save and pay down debt before entering teaching is good.

Teaching is also hard on the non teaching partner in term time.

See if your work will let you take a one year sabbatical? Worth a shot?

So sorry to hear about your experience @DameEdna1 , that sounds really really tough :(

Good point @Phineyj , my DH works away a lot, so I'd be the sole parent fairly frequently.

If your DH works away a lot then it would be an absolute nightmare to do a PGCE with a young child. It's hard enough without children. But to juggle childcare, uni, teaching, planning, prep and all the other million and 1 things that come along with a PGCE and being a parent it would be almost impossible on your own.

The thing is, it really can make a difference to be in a supportive school with great colleagues and senior team (I am)...but teaching is actually quite lonely. You don't get to see your colleagues that much. In the corridor occasionally, and at meetings, bur not that much during the day, especially in a school which has a very short lunch break where you are basically working or weeing through the whole of it (many secondary schools). Your main colleagues are the students and sometimes you might have an LSA in a lesson for a brief few seconds of adult interaction.

If your husband works away you'll need a lot of childcare. Maybe a live in nanny?

I teach in a secondary school and honestly if I could go back in time I’d make a different career choice. I’m a bit stuck as I have an SEN child and need the holidays, and can’t afford the pay cut to do a non teaching school job. If I had two neurotypical children and didn’t need the holidays I think I’d have left by now as many of my colleagues have done.

I love the teaching part with the kids. I can tolerate the marking. Pay is okay as I’m experienced (though could do with a pay rise). But the admin, lack of work life balance (I hate that it dominates my evenings in term time), pressure, behaviour issues, lack of SEN support, lack of money for resources etc has really ground me down.

If you really want to do a PGCE I honestly would recommend waiting until your children are older. I mentor trainees and the training year is incredibly full on. I know someone who did it recently with primary age children and she was fabulous but so so frazzled. I think it’s hard to fit around kids. I struggle to juggle my work with my kids stuff and I’m only part time. I hate that I miss lots of sports days, special assemblies etc and wish I had a work from home job that’s flexible like my husband - he never misses anything.

@anatasia me neither. I really wish I had had a proper look at other things available to me, as much as I hate to admit it, with more earning potential and more flexibility.

Can I just ask how you would only get three weeks a year off because you're part time?

You'll accrue less holiday than a full timer but will need to take off less time to get a week off.

If you work 5 hours a day 5 days a week, for example, you would accrue fewer days off.

Part timers don't accrue days though, they accrue hours. There can be a little difference depending on days off and Bank Holidays but the equivalent time off should be accrued.

So if you only work 19 hours, you only need to accrue 19 hours for a week off.

It will be unless the government do something. You know how the farmers can’t get people to pick the fruit so it’s rotting? That’s what will happen to the state education system. But if you want to martyr yourself on the altar of low pay, poor conditions, disintegrating school buildings and shitty behaviour from parents, ‘because we do it for the children’ then go right ahead. Make sure you are married to someone who can pay the mortgage, though.

Wow. So teachers are being vilified by the media and general public for striking and now being vilified for their colleagues for not leaving.

I am seeing lots of martyrdom on this thread. People going in unpaid on a Saturday and saying if you aren't working 60 hours weeks you aren't doing it right. I do neither of these things but am accused of martyring myself just because I'm sticking it out.

My honest opinion, teaching full time is not compatible with family life. PGCE/teacher training is also inflexible and a struggle. It is a very, very bad time to be a teacher in the UK, staff and child mental health and working conditions at rock bottom. The education system is broken and so poorly funded - think classes of children who you are unable to support due to them not speaking English, having SEN and no funding to help them, behavioural issues, home life trauma, ridiculous paperwork, changing goal posts from government, inspections, book scrutiny, unmanageable workload and zero work-life balance, I could go on...

In a world where there are so many flexible/WFH jobs if you were my friend or family member my advice would be don’t do it. Not to be a kill joy, but I wish someone would have given me this advice. Goodluck OP.

Also OP have a little look at the Facebook page ‘Life after teaching exit the classroom and thrive’, it’s got tends of thousands of members (sadly) and paints a pretty clear but accurate picture of teaching in the current system. It’s a bit bleak, but good preparation for some of the issues you might face.

My husband is an English teacher, he loves his job and never would do any other career in his life which I admire and for me he is the sweetest man and all kids adore him