To ask teachers/school workers...

[twosmallones]

...whether the benefits of working term time only are worth it?
I work in a sales job 4 days a week as I have 2 pre-school age children. I commute 90 minutes each way 2 days per week and do 2 days per week at home, so the kids are in nursery 4 full days.
I have been considering various routes into teaching but I am feeling that leaving them in nursery 5 days a week, with no flexibility, is a lot. I obviously have to balance this with the fact I will get more time off during the year to spend with them however.
Has anyone else retrained as a teacher/TA etc post children and felt that it was a good option for them and their family?
Thanks in advance.

I think a more flexible, professional office job that pays decently with the option to buy extra holiday and work from home occasionally is you need to would be much better than working term-time only as a teacher.

I took a term time only office job when DD started school.

The inflexibility during term time I would have been tricky had my employer not been very family friendly (Surestart centre!).

After about 18 months I had the opportunity to work one day a week in the holidays (DH is also tto so no child care issues) so I now work school hours 4 days a week TT & one full day a week in the hols which means I get circa 100 hours a year holiday allowance I can take any time.

It's an absolute Godsend as I'd never get any time 'home alone' otherwise which would drive me crackers!

For me as a mother of 4 with a husband who works away most if the wk, often in the US and no living family whatsoever, it's hard.

But it's far from the most family unfriendly job there is. I imagine the mothers and fathers in our military facing deployment to war torn regions would argue the toss on that one.

I think rollonthesummer has it, the job itself is not flexible, you are still dependent on others and it can work tolerably.

DH and I work full time but childcare always worked because he was senior enough to say when he'd be in the office and could do drop-offs while I did pick-ups. All childcare was very close to home. With the exception of a year, I worked in schools close to home. Significantly I left that job after a year, with no job to go to: the combination of a very hard school and very long commutes did my head in, so bear this in mind.

As soon as DD was in school we had au pairs. Again the school was literally round the corner. By some amazing coincidence, I never missed an assembly of DD's, I was always free and my schools let me go.

We had so much going for us, only one child, yet the job was demanding, starting again as soon as DD was in bed. And this was before the lunatic paperwork demands of the present-day UK school systems.

So the theoretical flexibility is still dependent on a host of other contingencies.

Holidays are brill, though.

It is family friendly if one parent can be flexible. I do 2 days so can often go to sports day and so on. I do a couple of evenings working and occasionally go in in my day off eg. Parents eve. Dh is full time so only has holidays off. He does a couple of evenings work at home - he gets stuff done at school and leaves it there. We had done 5+ years before having kids though.

It works for my family, because my husband works school hours - he drops the kids off at school and then picks them up, and does all the associated organising. Plus most of the housework during term time. I then pick up the slack in the holidays which means we don't have to worry about childcare (have two children at primary school). If it wasn't for my husband cutting his hours, plus helpful grandparents when children were smaller, I wouldn't have been able to make it work.

However - during term time I am not much use as a wife or a mother, to be honest. I also know as a teacher's daughter that competing with the marking for attention can be hard on children.

I'll add another voice. My parents were both teachers. Mum in my school, Dad elsewhere.

I remember spending lots of holiday time with them, and most Sundays. Which is good.
I also remember
being sent to a neighbour when I was ill
going to school at 8.00 every day and leaving at 5 because we went in and went home with mum
never having my parents sitting in the audience - dad could never get to stuff and mum was always backstage.

I wanted to be in my own bed with my mum looking after me, just once
I wanted to run out of the gate with all my friends, to be met by someone with a hug and a packet of sweets and to go home and watch TV
I wanted someone to be looking out just for me, who wasn't surrounded by all the other kids telling her what they'd done too

I didn't mind so much about going in on my holidays to help set a classroom up as I got to use the electric pencil sharpener!

It's hardly a deprived childhood but I did resent it sometimes. I spent lots and lots of extra time at school, and I never felt particularly special in plays etc.

Dh and I share time off for dc illnesses - most teaching jobs will include an amount of time for caring for dependants/emergencies. Have never had to leave a sick child with anyone other than its father or me. But they get sent to school if still walking.

I'm a teacher with 2 young children. 3 years and 10 months. I'm really enjoying the summer holidays off with them. So in that respect it is family friendly.

I'm in school from 7 - 5 each day usually and I wouldn't be able to manage without a nanny. I'm not going to get drawn into the secondary/primary marking argument as it's disrespectful but I work in Primary and it is pretty full on.

I work in the same school as my oldest son and it's great. Even to catch a glimpse of him is lovely!

Re the primary/secondary/different subject workload...

I trained as a dual subject secondary teacher, but spent quite a lot of time in primaries on the way to doing that.

They're all different, but I've never come out of a day at a different level or from a subject and thought, yeah this is easy.

I am a full time secondary teacher with no additional responsibilities in my job. I arrive at work just over an hour before my children (7 and 4) who are brought to the same school by their dad. At the end of the day they are collected by our part-time nanny who takes them to swimming, football, ballet, etc. and gives them their afternoon snack. I leave school an hour to an hour and a half after the children and have to work at home in the evenings and on Sundays too (not all day unless it's exam. marking or report writing time).

I cannot attend the children's drama or music performances unless they are during a free period or breaktime. If they are ill, my husband or the nanny has to collect them and stay home with them. I can never attend their parents' evenings as they are at the same time as my own (so my husband attends instead). I have to go away for a week and a long weekend once a year and also come home late from trips and go on evening or weekend outings a couple of times per year.

On the up side, we pay greatly reduced fees for them to attend this - mostly good - school where they are very happy. (However, the uniforms, books, lunches, etc. are eye-wateringly expensive. Also I am loath to question anything or make a complaint as I don't want to rock the boat. I could send them to a local state school and be a "normal" parent, though).

I used to work in finance for a long time. I worked long hours and had to travel avriad regularly, however, my salary was much, much higher and I could often work from home and also be flexible with times e.g. to take my son to a doctor's appointment. But holidays were shorter and I prefer teaching.

Try doing a job where working school holidays is compulsory. Very difficult.

But that's not what the OP wants/ needs to know, so what's your point, larant?

Unless it's your job, in which case, what's your point?

Have you thought about teaching at a sixth form or FE college maybe part time you don't always need a teaching qualification but can work towards it and whilst it's part time you would probably earn more than an admin or TA.

Er no. FE colleges teach at least 9am to 5pm, many also have evening classes. Plus the training you can do whilst teaching is 2 years long either a full day a week, or the one I did 1pm until 9pm, plus assignments, research etc.

For part of my course I was also teaching a evening class so two nights a week I finished at 9pm having started at 8am.

YY to what sashh said about FE. Unless things have changed radically, the "working towards" a teaching qualification is for engineers, astrophysicists, etc., not core subjects such as languages/maths, English, etc.

And yes, classes run 9-5 with an evening class 6-8 or 6-9 as standard.

TA here, I earn under £10 an hour.

I like the holidays and they make up for the poor pay, as someone up thread says; it's not just being a 'helper' in the class. I take a group every day and teach phonics, literacy , write observations for learning journeys and run the class during PPA.

I get in early to do prep but ensure I leave at 4, no matter what. I do like the job but the pay irks me

I am a secondary HOD, and can assure you it isn't all doom and gloom! I have many free evenings and weekends!

I trained as a TA ,mostly to fit in with my kids. I was lucky enough to work at their school while they were there.

I love my job. But

The downside is I can only do 28 paid hours a week (Even though I'm there early, and finish after children go home)

There is no longer anything to aspire to. HLTA was abolished.

Jobs for level 2 TA are usually not permanent any more ( I'm lucky , mine is!). The are advertised at £16231 pa pro rata. In reality that means £100004 actual pay.

We are stuck in pay freezes and the government's 1%.

We do almost everything the teachers do, except for the data crunching and some planning.

Having said that. I love my job!!!!

I went back to work as a TA when dd was in Y3.
It fit well with family life; my Grandparents did school drop off and pick up but aside from that I was home for the evenings, weekends and holidays.
As dd got older I started to feel more ambitious and unsatisfied with the poor pay. I still didn't fancy teaching due to the huge amount of working at home. I got a job as a Behaviour Support Worker, then another as Learning Mentor which was slightly better paid and more responsibility.

Dd is 15 now and I am the Pastoral Support Manager at a large inner city secondary school. I am responsible for CP, attendance and behaviour. I do work some days in the holidays (CP meetings, parental engagement days) but the pay is 3 times that of my original TA wage.

I do bring work home but it is minimal.
Non teaching roles like mine are far more common than they used to be, particularly in inner city schools. Many of our Head of Years are not teachers and earn around 28k.

Something to think about if you don't fancy the teacher workload and are interested in the Pastoral aspect of education.

I absolutely have the answer to this - teach in an independent school. Better yet, teach a practical subject.

It's massively family friendly. I'm a single parent of 3 children and can't think of much else I could do that would enable me to cope.

• My children can be at the same school as me from 2 months old to 13 years old.
• They can come in as early and stay as late as I need them to.
• If they're ill (but not too ill) they can spend the day in sick bay and I don't have to take time off.
• I see a good percentage of the stuff they do
• We have hugely long holidays
• I get massively reduced fees and also subsidised housing (I'm also a boarding house tutor)
• I teach Performing Arts and English so only have 50% of the marking many teachers do.
• I don't have to do endless tick box exercises, pointless paperwork and comply with crazy government initiatives.

It's brilliant.

manicinsomniac Your school sounds amazing. I work in an independent school too and unfortunately don't benefit from the same perks that you do. It sounds that you have really fallen on your feet.

Happy36-what's it like in your independent school?

Yes, I have Happy , I know I'm lucky. Also, I suppose the one good thing about ending up pregnant as a 19 year old student is that you can plan your life around the reality of becoming a single parent rather than having to cope with it when it suddenly happens!