Calling fellow teachers. Please help. Feeling desperate

[MimiCaeger]

Feeling broken and desperate

I’m wondering if anyone has had any luck at all securing a first teaching post after some time out in between the degree/pgce and the NQT year.

I got my QTS in September 2018 I was 60:40 mixed secondary and primary, and had planned to go onto supply to increase my confidence, as some ill health during the first part of my training left me feeling a bit out of my depth. (I only had a couple of weeks off but I did a pgce and the first bit was really intense)

However my partner was made redundant from his job after injury and I had to be the main earner.

I have been working in social care since then, and despite taking all my a/l to do half days in a school each week for a term, and to attend Teachers CPD I just feel like I’m falling further and further away.

I can’t get a TA job or do supply as I can’t afford to pay my bills as it is and I get top ups from UC and if I “deliberately worsen my financial situation” I will get universal credit sanctions.

Jobs don’t come up often near me, and I’m quite rural, so it’s limiting. But I have been applying for jobs since June and the response is always “you’d be better with more experience”. But, how can I get this?!

I work in the day, and do sleep ins at the weekend, I visit schools on my lunch breaks and volunteer with children in care, a youth club and young offenders. But I can’t quit my main job, or I’m homeless and bust.

Is there anything I could do, to help me get a teaching job at this point. Or any mentoring schemes or groups that I could join so I can stay in the loop and keep up to date with things. I feel like if I don’t secure anything this year I will be so far behind that I won’t ever be able to teach. 🙁💔

Thanks so much x

Supply is difficult to do full-time if you live rurally. I did it and had to travel very long distances and even then it wasn't anything like full-time until I got a long-term sick cover. I wouldn't go for that if I were you unless it were the only option.

Make sure your CV and covering letter are properly tailored for each application. If you're applying for secondary, highlight your academic skills and that you could teach up to A Level.

Secondaries are normally reluctant to have cross-curricular teachers, so even though you can offer a couple of subjects you'll only actually teach one. For example, my first degree was joint honours in two subjects but I've never been able to teach them together, it doesn't work for timetablers. So when you write your CV and covering letter, highlight all the relevant experience for that particular subject.

To be honest, volunteering experience outside of a school setting won't be worth much. I would save yourself for anything you can do within schools. However, you've got to make the best of what you've got so make sure you're selling the good points of the social care and other things you've done.

Hand on heart I think if you’re serious about a teaching career I would look to move. Better now than when your partner has a new job and you’re more restricted.

The fact is, you’re kind of ‘inbetween’ in that you’re not subject specialist enough for secondary or focused enough on primary. So you need to be in an area where there are teacher shortages to get a look in.

You mention being in social housing at the moment but aspiring to having more options. Teaching is your passport to that, not low paid work that you’re not really enjoying which relies on benefits top ups. If you want to own your own home in future the sooner you get a permanent contract at a teachers salary the better. I understand it’s a wrench - I’m in education and moved from London to Gloucestershire on getting my PGCE, away from all family but precisely to get on the housing ladder.

It’s the best long term answer. You’re too wrapped up at the moment on Worrying about needing your benefits

Thanks @GreenTulips yes I’ve been doing that.
I think maybe it’s that my experiences are just too broad and vague!

Hi @reefedsail trained and placed in Somerset but actually live in Devon. Here there are only primary and secondary here which again I think is my problem with not having suitable skills for either school.

Definitely would consider SEND and have done some work in a send setting and a pru.
Very few teachers in these provisions though and they’ve been there donkeys. 😓😩

I've taught 8 years full time since qualifying but I had some awful personal circumstances this year which made me reevaluate things. I was burnt out and needed a change of scene desperately but didn't have the time to find and apply for a new job on top of full time teaching and being a single mum.

I took a massive risk and handed in my notice in October so I could leave at Christmas with no job to go to. I also thought I couldn't survive on supply. However after talking to some friends I found out the supply agencies do guaranteed pay schemes where you get paid for 4 days even if they can't find you work for 4 days a week.

I signed up with an agency and just before Christmas they contacted me with an amazing job for the next two terms with no extra responsibilities.

My advice would be sign up with a supply agency, you can always just do one or two days a week alongside something else to keep a regular wage and get the experience you need.

Honestly I totally get the need to move, but I don’t know how I would do it.
I’m not “wrapped up in needing my benefits” I’m living in abject poverty.
I live without enough money to pay my bills and food every month, so scraping together a deposit, money for a removal van, isn’t possible.
I can’t afford the dentist even though I’ve had toothache for six months.
This isn’t the life I wanted at all. Prior to my training I had a good job, and we had our own home.
I’m not having a go I’m really not, but if you can magically tell me how I do it I will.
But realistically I can’t up sticks both financially and mentally. the support I get with my partners MH is something that I couldn’t replicate hundreds of miles away from home. He can’t sleep some nights, he has terrors and flashbacks on a daily basis.
The only option I’ve got for moving at this point is to stay with my sister and come home at weekends.

Hi tswiftscat thanks so much - I will take a look.
I tried to go pt at work they said all or nothing. 😥 I’ll see if any GPS about

Where can you get to within about an hour or so? Could you drive to Bristol or Swindon maybe ,Reading .I would have thought those areas would be better for employment .My Cousin worked in Swindon as a teacher .Devon and Somerset may be more popular or possibly have less children /Schools I dont know. Would you be able to maybe live with your Sister during weekly term time do you think ? Maybe for a year or so then look for somewhere nearer home.Good luck it seems a shame that a newly qualified teacher is struggling to get work! Also completely out of the box here, but read an article about teachers working in Belgium, UAE etc very good pay and conditions .

Sorry I missed the bit about DH ,so obviously working abroad will be difficult! You say you have had toothache for months .Band 2 is a flat fee of £62.10 at an NHS Dentist. for fillings /extractions /Root Canal work .Can you not ask a relative /friend to lend you some cash ? Dont leave it as it will get painful for you .I think it is a bad situation ,that so many people need Dental care urgently and cant afford to pay especially when you are a Professional !

You can have my secondary geography job if you want. I want out. Teaching has become a toxic career, full of back stabbers within a 'if your face fits' climate.
Sorry I realise this is not helpful nor constructive, but do you really want to teach? On my eleventh year therefore too old to retrain, but if anyone offered me another solution I'd be out in a heartbeat.
West Country is always hard to find a job as well, when I did my pgce and nqt there, they called it 'dead man's shoes' as in the only way to get a permanent job was if someone retired or died.

Thanks Dottie I wasn’t going for the woe is me stuff and I will use my Christmas money from my nana for the dentists so it will be ok. It’s just a context thing when given the “you’re too wrapped up in needing other benefits” comment.

I can definitely go and stay with sister in the week. And I have looked again on tes and there’s deffo more send coming up so everything crossed :)

Anything here?

www.acemat.uk/the-trust/employment-vacancies/

@justanothergrumblebum I think I do. But I wonder if every career can end like that. My mother retrained at 42 qualifying in her second profession at 45, and felt much the same.

Yes, dead mans shoes is heard a lot down in these parts.

I hope you find something that makes you happy!
Have you looked at doing the mental health in schools / EMHP training?
Possibly a viable change?

@reefedsail
Thank you so much. 😍 yes! Thank you again

Looks like the new school in Tiverton need lots of people.

@MimiCaeger thanks for your positive reply to my negative post!

I guess I could, but as a single parent, my options are limited. I am basically being bullied out of my current job, it remains to be seen if I still have a job when the term starts long and boring story. Shame as I actually love the kids I teach and the teaching side of things, it's the 'adults' that I work with that are impossible and horrible, oh and the unachievable deadlines for data, random lesson observations, when my results are actually one of the best in the schools (!) and not seeing my own child... either way, I would have to retrain, surely.
Out of interest, what did your mum do and what did she retrain into?

Sorry, I've massively derailed your thread. To go back to it, I reckon you need to move. Or spread your catchement area wider if that's possible?

@MimiCaeger I’m an English specialist (going for HoD myself this year, 🤞🏻). Would you like to send me your covering letter, CV and statement of application to have a look at? Just to see if anything can be tweaked?

Weirdly enough I just typed in 'retraining' to google, and it came up with the prediction 'retraining from teaching' so I shall be doing some research once dd is in bed!

I also get the weird degree thing - I also have an odd one but it looks like your ITT provider has screwed you over with no KS4/5 experience. It might be tricky.

I totally recommend focusing in on SEND if you have an interest in that area. It is still a much better sector to work in- teachers still have more autonomy and are allowed to make sensible decisions about what is best for each individual child. I'm 20 years in and really love it. I couldn't work in mainstream.

As I say, it's an expanding market and there will be jobs. Consider the independent residential schools as well- you could start on care team and move to education team when a vacancy arose.

justanothergrumblebum

I felt exactly like this a few years ago with similar people it sounds like. I looked into so many things but decided to give teaching in a totally different school a try and I like my job again. Good luck-it’s such a horrible position to be in!

Thanks @TildaTurnip. Circumstances mean that I screwed if I get sacked, where I live, I've been left with the baby and the dog and it's tricky trying to sort out convenient care for both of them.
My school has massively changed since I went on mat leave, it's seriously a place that I don't want to be anymore, the newbies seem to think that they should have my job (HOD) and just don't want me there. It's awful.

There must be maternity leave/long term sick roles, especially for Maths. Even in the West Country. I had not realised that it was difficult to get a teaching role there, but people are still sick and have babies!

Ok you can't teach GCSE necessarily but schools have 3 other year groups to cover and are more likely to take a chance on someone for a temp role.

I'd look seriously at the Birmingham option and staying at your sister's place during the week.
Get a year under your belt - it will go fast! And be knackering.
Save as much as you can during that year and look at trying to move (Bristol?)

www.eteach.com/job/teacher-of-maths-1081795

Thank you all so so much.

You’re brilliant.