To consider quitting my job and training to be a teacher?

[magicmummy1]

I have a good job. Earn just over £50,000. Excellent pension arrangements & other benefits. Generous annual leave allowance. Flexible hours. Reasonable boss. Nice office. Short commute. Opportunities for training & career development. Lots of autonomy in my role. Heavy workload but not excessive.

I know I'm lucky in many ways, but I don't find my job remotely rewarding. I also struggle to cope with the high stress levels in my current job, not because of the amount of work that needs to be done, but rather because of the nature of it iyswim.

I secretly harbour a desire to re-train as a primary school teacher. In fact, I have been thinking about this for years, but the desire has become stronger since dd started school about 18 months ago. Apart from the general attractions of working with young children, I am fascinated by the way in which teachers plan lessons and develop the curriculum. I realise that teaching is bloody hard work and can be very stressful. I know too that teachers work long hours and that the long holidays etc are a bit of a myth. None of this puts me off.

Whenever I have considered this previously, I have usually ended up dismissing the idea, not least because of the drop in pay that I'd have to accept. I'm the main breadwinner in our family, and we can't really rely on DH's (limited) income as he has financial commitments to his extended family overseas. He knows how I feel about my current job, but I have never said that I would seriously consider quitting. I think he would be anxious if I told him this, though I think he'd try to be supportive.

Please be honest. Am I crazy to even consider this? (I'm 38 by the way).

Good God, if you want a job with less stress, then a primary teacher is one of the last things you should think of. The reality is:

never feeling as though you have finished your work;
always feeling as though you are being monitored and evaluated and being found wanting;
being continually frustrated by the fact that the brilliant lessons you have planned have been spoiled by bad behaviour;
spending 90% of your time on 5% of the children;
being gossiped about and found wanting by the school gate mafia no matter what you do;
Being expected to act as social worker and parent to children as well as teach them;
Endless, endless record keeping and assessment;
Being expected to miraculously make children of below average ability into average and above average ability somehow;

I could go on and on and on.

I left teaching.

QuintessentialShadows

"Can I just ask you guys, as there seem to be a good few teachers on this thread. Will a BA Ancient World Degree and an MA Classics come in handy in teaching at all these days?"

you will still need to do a PGCE ontop of that and then your years induction before you are a qualified teacher.

Humanities teachers should be on the increase due to the new English Bacclaureate

Firstly before you do anything go and volunteer in a school for a minimum of a week. Shadow a teacher and see if its really for you. The number of people who get onto the PGCE and GTP courses and then drop out is horrendous. So do your homework.

I took the GTP route which I would thoroughly recommend as you are thrown in the deep end and you either sink or swim! That is exactly how it will be when you are teaching in your NQT year so you will easily be able to see if its for you!

You have to try and I would say go for it! Good luck. Do log onto the TES website and 'speak' to some of the trainees as well as those who are applying you get lots of helpful hints and tips there.

I seriously, seriously suggest that you spend a week or two workshadowing a classroom teacher before you start.

I used to mentor PGCE students and have seen so many motivated, bright students wilt under the pressure. These were not straight out of university students, but typically ones who had worked in the city (we were near Canary Wharf) and thought they understood the concept of work stress.

My oldest friend, someone I lived with for many years workshadowed me before she went on the GPT prgramme. She had lived with me, knew my hours and how much work I did at home. I suspect she secretly thought I simply wans't particularly efficient at work (those mental speech marks over the "long hours" hah!) She dropped out half way through the GTP program and confessed to me a couple of years later that she really shouldn't have started in the first place. It was the experience in the classroom and the sheer level of paperwork that shocked her. I think she thought I had shown her the worst classes to put her off, where in fact she had done the workshadowing during the run up to exams when things were quite quiet and relatively low stress.

It's also worth trying to do some work shadowing in a less than salubrious school in a less than salubrious area. If, as I suspect, you are inspired by a brilliant teacher in a brilliant school, it's worth bearing in mind that you may not get a job in a brilliant school and it's worth having a look at the reality at the other end of the spectrum. You may find you love it just as much, but some of the scales may fall from your eyes.

Whatever you do choose to do, good luck. I'm not trying to dissuade you, far from it. In my experience the teachers who have had a work life outside education are often the ones who don't perpetuate the sometimes shocking internal school politics and have a sense of proportion about the whole thing. But don't go into it unless your eyes are very firmly wide open.