To want to be a teacher?

[ilovelyelyes]

Close family and friends seem to think I am because of the pressures and "low" pay etc.

Is it really that bad? If you are a teacher, do you like your job?

I'm a SAHM in the day time to two toddlers and work evenings in a low paid, soul destroying job.

I want to quit my evening job and do an open university degree, followed by my PGCE.

Do schools ever allow work experience or shadowing in this instance? I have a DBS certificate.

I'd appreciate any info on this one!

Right now, I love my job. Ask me again in two weeks!

Results day yesterday for me was one of those days that made it worth it. It was amazing.

There are days though when I would rather quit and go and live in a cave but I like it on the hole.

If you want to do it go for it.

Experience can depend hugely on the school you are in, the SLT and your subject but kids are kids at the end of the day. The support you get can make or break someone.

Whole

Both my parents were teachers and loved it but I do remember that they worked very hard in evenings and usually on Sundays too. It's a vocation not just a job and you can't just leave it "at the office" is what I would say.

Out of my tutor group if 24 only 3 are still teaching 9 years on. I made it 8 years, some only lasted 1. The average for my class was 3.5 years . I still work in education and love being in schools teaching destroyed my mental health and family life.

Teaching isn’t family friendly, even allowing for the holidays.

I work 4 days per week with a young family & I'm permanently shattered & always end up doing school work on my 'day off'. It's frustrating, sad & incredibly tough at times BUT it's also amazing & inspirational - there are small moments that make everything else worth it - usually on a daily basis. On the other days, there's always wine & my colleagues/friends to offload to!! It's definitely a vocation & not 'just a job' - no matter how many times ignorant people will tell you that it's 'babysitting' & short days with 'loads of holiday' etc - ignore them - they're twats!! Go for it if you have a strong support network around you. Schools will be falling over themselves to have an enthusiastic, free, DBS checked volunteer - you won't have any problem getting experience!! Good luck!! X

Training and doing your first couple of years with young children would be very hard IMO. I find it a full-on job after doing it for 15 years and the first couple of years definitely required a lot more time and hard-work. I would wait until your children were a bit older.

As for shadowing, most schools that I have worked in are happy for people to come in and volunteer for a few days, although they will probably give you some jobs like hearing children read or helping with displays.

Go for it. 27 years in here and still love ( most of) it. It's no easy ride but nothing like working with young people and watching them grow and develop is a privilege. Good luck.

I wouldn’t. The education system needs root and branch reform.

What qualifications do you have?

I adore my job (I teach Year 3 - secondary and EYFS teachers are heroes IMO) and wouldn’t change it for the world. I work full time with a 9mo DD, who is cared for four days a week by the in laws and one day a week nursery, I am experienced but it is HARD work with a little person at home. It’s a case of get as much done at school as possible, collect DD (luckily ILs give her all three meals), bring her home, shovel down dinner made by DH, play and put DD to bed and then do three hours of laptop work. I rarely work weekends though, unless it’s report or data time.

I think a lot depends on the school. My final placement was in a very unsupportive school which almost put me off, but my NQT and subsequent years were in a lovely village school where we all work as a team.

I’m at the top of the pay scale and due to apply for UPS soon, but do find it a struggle financially. DH is self employed and earns similar to me but banks are wary of lending him too much more due to SE, so we’re stuck in a flat until we can save enough to upgrade to a house. This is in a very desirable Sussex village though - friends who live in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire etc who are on the same pay point as me are comfortable.

Good luck, whatever you decide!

Why not do a degree in a subject you love which is also a taught subject in school and see how you feel after that? You can then do a pgce if you still want to do one. And I would highly recommend trying to get some work experience in different types of school. Use any contact you can. In the right school with the right leadership team, it can be amazing. But you need to draw on every scrap of resilience, perserverence and tenacity you can, all the time.

You’d need an enhance

It's got its points for sure but you need to be mentally and physically tough, ideally have a supportive partner and once qualified, be extremely strategic about where you work. I enjoy a life of the mind and teaching is one of the few jobs where you can actually think about ideas. But you need to be able to go on learning yourself (you basically have to train yourself) and have patience to put up with a lot of admin nonsense. Also to be hard enough hearted that you can bear hardly seeing your own children during term time.

The holidays are good, although you will have some work to do in them. Pay varies a great deal but those with any aspirations to management can progress quickly due to lack of competition...

I left teaching 3 1/2 years ago due to relocating. I LOVED my job, but looking back I'd got close to cracking. I was UPS3 and SLT, two kids, worked full time plus at least half a day a weekends and evenings. Now I volunteer in my kids school and it's great. I will go back at some point, but would probably try to drop down to bog standard class teacher to avoid a large amount of stress.

Do volunteer in a school for a few days. We often had people come in for a week before applying or starting teaching courses, and if we knew that's what they were doing we'd make sure that they got experience across the school.

I made a career change into teaching and found established teachers to be very supportive, at least in my subject area (physics). I was able to shadow teachers in two schools before I applied for my PGCE, but arranging this was a bit hit-and-miss. I contacted teachers in my subject directly using contact details on school websites or by meeting people at conferences etc. The actual teachers I spoke to were encouraging but in several cases I think the schools' leaders were unenthusiastic about having extra bodies around. It is probably no coincidence that the schools I was able to get into were both regarded as excellent so their SLTs were confident about people coming in to see how they did things.

Make no mistake: teaching is incredibly hard work. I had previously worked 40-50 and occasionally 60 hour weeks in another profession , but termtime in teaching is far more all-consuming than that ever was. The best description I heard from another teacher was that each half term was like a tunnel you disappeared into, and didn't emerge from until the next school holiday.

Many teachers deal with the workload and enjoy the job, at least when they're in the classroom. I found it was too much for me, not because of the amount of work but because I struggled with managing pupils' behaviour.

Ultimately, teaching is a Marmite kind of job. You can't know what it is like without trying it, and you will either love it or hate it.

If you find you hate it, be assured that there are other roles where experience in the classroom is valuable. Have an escape plan, and don't be too proud or too ground down to use it if you need to! If you've stood in front of class 9T after lunch on a Friday, no corporate presentation will ever hold any fear. There are employers that recognise this - it's the idea behind Teach First.

Sorry, hit the wrong button- an enhanced DBS.

Why not try looking for a TA job, or volunteering in a school. That’s always useful if you’re aiming for a PGCE.

Pros and cons like any job. Immensely stressful at times. Poor work/life balance. Lots of paperwork no one actually looks at. Long holidays but a downside they’re fixed so you can’t take time off to go to your DC’s harvest festivals, Christmas concert etc and there’s work you have to do in them. Can be very rewarding but certainly not with cash. My 21 year old son will soon earn as much as me after doing an apprenticeship. It’s certainly not the job I signed up for years ago and I don’t think I’d take the same path again.

If people only did the jobs that brought good money and prestige society would be screwed. We need people who are motivated to teach/nurse/police etc.

I used to work in a huge London comprehensive school (back office, very specialised, very little pupil contact) and remember a conversation with a young teacher when I said ‘God, I couldn’t do what you do for a million pounds, the noise, the stress, the mess!’ He looked at me in surprise and said something like ‘I couldn’t be stuck in an office on my own all day like you - at least with the kids I have a laugh sometimes!’

Go for it OP. You might hate it, but you might love it as much as that young teacher did.

Definitely volunteer to help in a school. It wil definitely be an eye opener and help you decide.

I did my PGCE when youngest was in reception. It is possible (especially if you have family around who can help). What I would suggest you consider is what jobs are like in your chosen subject / age group in your local area. Where I live, it is actually difficult to get into primary teaching... if you have to do supply prepare for low wages and no guarantees for work.

I don't want to be negative, I do enjoy it, but financially I would have been better off staying as I was (and I know lots of others in the same boat).

I did my pgce when dd was 1 and I was pregnant with ds. Iv been a sahp for 2 years now and due to start my nqt in January, I'm dreading it but kind of feel that iv got into so much debt with my pgce I have to see it through. The work load is never ending.

I am starting my second year of my primary education studies degree with the open university. I plan to do my pgce after and become a teacher. I started work as a TA in a primary school last year. It's giving me loads of insight into teaching and I love my role. It means I can do a job I enjoy while I study. I have 3 primary aged kids and manage to fit it all in fine. You just need to be organised! Maybe try volunteering in a school and see what you think before committing to uni. If you enjoy it, go for it!

It's very hard at first, the longer you do it the easier the workload is. Personally I now have a nice balance with part time hours, good holidays and fairly good pay as I've been doing it a while. It fits my lifestyle for now and the holidays will definitely work in my favour when my kids are in school. I enjoy the actual teaching part but dislike the stuff that surrounds it, like parents evenings, endless data collection, lack of SLT support etc

My mum was a teacher, and she loved it but she'd also be working most nights up until about 9-10pm on paperwork, planning etc. The primary school my children went to gave the teachers one day off per week to do their paper work, but that is really rare. My mum also spent days at the school during holidays preparing (alongside inset days) and was expected to stay once per week until 9pm to host bingo for the locals to raise money (I don't think that happens anymore lol). I spent a lot of time at that school whilst I was in school (she was a single mum)