I want to be a primary school teacher

[IWantToChange]

I was pushed by my parents into going to uni to do something I had no interest in and I did 2 years (hnd but only passed first year so got hnc) when I was younger.

Would I be ineligible for student loans / grants for a degree to become a primary school teacher?

It's something that I'd really love to do but wouldn't be able to afford the uni fees without help!

I have looked at leaving teaching for a job I can leave at 5pm and not have to worry about until 9am the next day; a job where my days off are my days off, all my holidays are paid (and not school closures), overtime is rewarded fairly, I can pee when I want and I can use a day here or there to be present with at my own childs events.
However a job like that means losing the holiday time with my children.

I do enjoy teaching; the physical aspect of teaching. I don't mind my weekly planning. I do care about the meetings; incessant reporting, tracking, monitoring; observed lessons; required cpd; ever changing goal posts; medium and long term plans; budget cuts; the expectation that I will provide an after school club; the unpaid overtime as I cannot do my job in 35 hours; being scrutinised from people because they went to school and can do my job, apparently, and the list goes on.

I've reached the point where I am working 8.30-4.30, with a half hour break all day (I don't have time to take my full lunch, so 15min in the morning and 15min at lunch). I then limit myself at home from when the kids are asleep until I am tired. At the weekend I aim for 2 hours a night planning, when the kids are asleep. If I can't do it in the 50 hours I am regularly pulling, it's not getting done. It's not quite working to rule but as close as I can without my class suffering.

That sounds v sensible sailor.

It is sensible as my family comes first, my job is a job and I refuse to make myself ill over it.
However, SMT/local authorities/government/some parents do not see it that way.

I'm still looking for other work and debating the less holidays issue with myself.

In answer to your actual question, op... I'm in almost the same position as you. I will not be eligible for funding for the first year. Funding for the second will depend on the exact dates I completed for my second year at university previously. I will be eligible for funding for third and fourth year. I will be eligible for a loan and possibly bursary funding too. The university I'm applying to is happy to arrange payment of fees in installments in line with loan payments. However, I am in Scotland and I also have my husband's income so maybe my financial situation overall is different to yours.

Do your homework and get yourself some practical experience before you consider applying. Up here the demand for places is absolutely enormous so if it's the same across the country you need to be as well prepared as possible.

I'm currently a supply teacher. I've just had the week everyone thinks teachers have every week. I worked 8-4 with a half an hour lunch break every day. I relied heavily on twinkl (teacher resource website) and had a broad and balanced curriculum with art, music and 2 sessions of P. E.

On Friday night I put my feet up feeling tired after a full week's work.

It was the easiest full week I've ever done. I only had one full time job to do. I had no interventions to plan, displays to put up, assemblies to write and practice. No data to crunch, no parents to meet, no staff development meeting. No Safeguarding concerns to record, no long term plans to write, no classroom to reorganise, no laminatimg, no stationery orders.....

I've been teaching a decade, from Reception to Year 6, currently KS2 and SLT.

I do mostly enjoy my job but you're only ever a small step away from being made to feel you should leave. There are so many sticks to beat teachers with that all it takes is a HT to decide you're too expensive or you don't fit with the school to make your life a misery. I've seen it happen many times, it is happening at my current school. Two, possibly three, have left or will leave this year due to pressures.

You have to really, really love the job and be able to do a good job without wearing yourself out. I'm lucky, I am in a place where I'm only working about 50 hours a week and managing to prove I'm "worth" keeping on. It's half-term now, I'll pop into school today and again tomorrow: mid-year reports to write and marking to do and planning/resourcing for next half-term. It doesn't end when the bell rings at 3pm.

Please, please, go and volunteer in a local school, ask the teachers honestly, have a look at their to-do lists, check how early they get in and how late they leave. It'll give you the best idea without actually being a teacher. Oh, and remember, the training and first few years are often the hardest, if you're children are that young is maybe wait until they're a bit older or you'll spend the next 5 years hardly seeing them.

I'm going to leave school teaching in about three years, I've spent the last three re-training so I can leave. As much as I love it, I want more to life than being ruled by timetables and piles of marking.

Good luck! :)

I left a successful job in the city to become a primary teacher, full of worthy notions about wanting to make a difference and because I truly love helping young people to learn.
I wish I hadn’t.
My colleagues are wonderful and after a horrendous first school, I now work somewhere with a sympathetic SLT and generally reasonable parents.
However, the expectations and the workload are absolutely crippling. Nothing is ever good enough ( even when it’s “outstanding”!) and we are pushing the children through test after pointless test.
Sorry to sound negative, but I do wish I’d listened to all the people who advised me against it.

I wouldn't recommend it. The working hours are immense and you're subjected to more scrutiny than in almost any other profession. The stress is mad. Some schools have it better, but the ones I've worked at are too intense and expect you to live to work. Every teacher I work with has been in tears at some point this academic year alone. It's not the life you remember your primary teachers having, that's for sure. And if you get a bad headteacher they can make your life hell. In a past school a part time colleague of mine got phoned on a Saturday when she was at the park with her kids, demanding a document be sent over to the head immediately. She went home to send it! I got texted at eleven at night by six head... Oh, the stress. Also, social services are overstretched and can't really do much so the emotional impact on you can be huge and very draining. When you know there's abuse or neglect but nothing can be done... If I could pick my career again, it wouldn't be this. I'd swap my thirteen weeks holiday for two weeks with proper evenings and weekends off any day. Working every Sunday absolutely sucks! Up to you of course, but I wish someone had warned me.

For those that have left and/or retrained, what do you do now?

Having been a classroom teacher and a deputy head in a primary school, I left after having my children. I now do supply and I love it. I've got a few regular schools I work in. I sometimes have to do a bit of planning which I don't mind but usually work is left for me. I've got my weekends back and get to have precious family time 😀

Sooz, would also love to know what you retrained to do! If you don't mind

sailor I'm a student welfare advisor at a university and tutor maths and English to primary students a couple of evenings a week. I love it. I have more money and more time and I don't miss the holidays at all because I much prefer having all my weekends guilt free!

I did my primary pgce.... I never used it and have a lovely debt to show for it so I might not be the best poster for you here, but.... Are you VERY sure? Get some primary work exp asap, across the key stages and the early years. Actually look at teacher to do lists and ask to see their lesson plans- with all the carefully planned differentiation. Remember that you'll be working outside school hours, too. If there are any student teachers in, chat to them. I got a great skill set from my pgce, but I knew I would'nt stick at it and went straight into retail. Have you looked into courses and the admissions process? That sometimes takes people repeated attempts.

Wrt to money, if you already have a bachelors, completed in 3 years, you should be eligible for 1 year funding for a pgce, I think. You may be eligible to get a bursary which can help cover cost of living. Most people don't/can't work on top. What's your back up plan if you fail, hate it, fail your qts tests or don't pass your nqt period? Plenty of people do experience the above. I loved my time in the classroom... but not enough.