teacher training with young children

[grannyinapram]

is it possible?
I have a 0,2,6 and 7 year old.

Possible yes - hard work - yes but childcare would be my thought? My friend did it last year with a 7, 4 , and 1.5 yr old, and gave birth just as she qualified as a NQT.

can you afford nursery for the two youngest?

My advice, with 3 kids and in the middle of it, is to wait until they're all in ft school. It. Is. Mental.

I've mentored a few people who have done this and they did find it incredibly tough.
I'd suggest if you're able to do it part time over a couple of years, do that.
I'd also talk seriously with your partner, if you have one, about how they will have to take a large amount of childcare responsibilities.
If you are a single parent, I'd suggest you wait until your little ones are a bit older.

Honestly, I cannot see how unless you have decent childcare and family back up for it too. And someone in the evenings when you’ll need to work. I find it hard with two 5 and under and I’ve taught for 16 years.

Yes. Very much so. Check out the MTPT project on Twitter/Facebook. Think they have a website too. Ask them advice and they’ll offer support.

P.S wait until the pandemic is over!

Yes, I did it with 3 kids under 8. However I think that you need to really have the drive to be a teacher and have a supportive partner/friend network. It’s hard work for the NQT year too but that will depend on what school you work at.
Obviously at this time it’s difficult to get experience in schools but if you don’t have any this would be the first thing I would suggest that you do to make sure that your expectations are going to meet the reality of the job.
Good luck with whatever you decide.

I am qualified as a TA and have a little bit of experience in a school as a TA. But not really as I did the course online at open study college. But I found working online at home on my own really difficult. There was no to and fro and when I emailed the teacher with a question they mostly wouldn't answer it which was very frustrating, or answered with a link to a website which was infuriating!
None of the information went in.

I have not finished my Alevels but I've been a sahm for 8 years now and I am so bored and just feel stuck in life. very resentful of my partner who's career is progressing well whereas mine has still not even begun.

realistically no, I can't afford the childcare and I don't have family to help but I can't sit here day after day watching my life pass. I am actually crying typing this out.

I want to be a secondary school English teacher / history teacher.
I have GCSEs...
where would you begin? I have to start at college. so boom- help me please! I need the drive. I actually feel like I have ruined my life having children so young and putting my life on hold.

You so haven't ruined your life!! I'm training to be a primary teacher at the moment- it is full on! However, it sounds like you are a long way off.

If you want to teach you need a degree :) if you want to teach secondary, the best route is to get a degree in the subject you want to teach, for example history. This will take 3 years. You then need to apply for a PGCE in history, or a SCITT course which offers QTS.

You mention you dont have a-levels, which means as a minum you will need to do an access course to get into the uni course.

You are looking at about 4/5 years of studying BEFORE you start your teacher training, so your newborn will be 5 when you start!

You wouldn’t be doing teacher training with children those ages though, would you? They will be much older by the time you are doing teacher training. You need A levels and a degree first, which you can do at your own pace.

Pick A levels and get planning!

My sister-in-law did teacher training with 2 under 5s. It was hard and she relied heavily on family for support, but she did it. She did the 4 year course so it was a long old slog but it is doable.

Hi
It is possible- but will be very tough without much support.
Also-if you decide to go ahead; you should probably train in English, rather than History; as it is a core subject, compulsory from 11-16 and therefore many more annual vacancies than History.

I did mine with 1 2 year old. It was a terrible year. I used to drop her off early in the morning, pick her up, take her home, feed her and put her to bed then work until midnight then also work a full day at the weekend too.

Like someone above said, you need to really have the drive to be a teacher. To me, the time away from her wasn't worth it and I didn't apply for teaching jobs.

I did teacher training as a 21 year old with no dependents and found it tough and all consuming. Then NQT year was hard going... then most of the 20 years since!

You might not even like it. Use your TA quality to get into schools and see. You also have a few years of graft to do before you even think about teacher training with only GCSE quals so plenty time for the children to grow up

Think about the logistics of the job itself as well.

I leave home at 7.30, get to work at 7.45/7.50 and I’m not the first in. I leave work at 5.30/6. What is your childcare plan for when you are at work?

Teacher training is intense, but depending which route you take it could be doable. When I trained as a teacher, I saw a lot of good people drop out of PGCE due to childcare issues.
The OU does a PGCE which might work for you? Are you a single parent? That would make a huge difference to whether I thought it was doable. Can you financially support yourself and your children without your usual income, and with additional expenses e.g. travel to placements? Do you drive (you really need to outside London to train as a teacher, they'll put you up to 70 miles away on placement)?
FWIW I'm applying for nursing right now with a young baby and will have to live away for long periods as there's nothing available near us. So I don't think retraining in a career that suits you is a bad thing, just make sure you have the support as universities (especially teacher training ones) are shockingly inflexible.

A non-PGCE based route might suit you best, where you literally just work full-time in a school (they were called Schools Direct when SIL did it) on a lower salary but finish with QTS and you can teach, without having to do the PGCE.

Would you be able to work as a TA to start with, to build your experience and figure out what next step to take with your own education/training?

If you've qualified as a TA, I'd work as a TA for a while OP. It's not as much cash but career progression is possible and it's an increasingly complex role in terms of your responsibility and accountability (it is in my mat anyway) and with scope for whole class responsibility if you do an HLTA qualification. It's going to take you 5 years to be able to qualify as a teacher and, by then, you could have been doing an amazing and fulfilling TA job and be really experienced at it. Good luck with whatever you choose, I hope it works out for you.

I’ve applied for teacher training this September.

There are part-time courses available where you complete your training over 2 years rather than 1. I’ve opted for this as I have two school-age children. The Part-time courses are 3 days a week so I’m hoping Ill be able to fit in a lot of the ‘extra’ stuff on the other 2 days whilst my kids are at school. A couple of close friends are teachers who have both said the full-time teacher training is pretty hardcore and consumes your evenings and whole weekends, I know this is something that would only be doable for me once my own are bit older and less dependent.

How old are you? I had my eldest at 20, did an Open Uni degree and will be 31 by the time I complete teacher training. A good ten years older than a lot of friends were when they graduated, but I’m not planning anymore children so can just crack on with work and make up for the lost time that way. It’s tough but you’ve definitely not ruined your life

You need a degree, OP. Focus on that first. Are you part-way through your A levels? If not, look at access courses. The traditional route is to complete your degree (usually 3 yrs full time) and then do a postgraduate qualification. Once you have done two years of higher ed you might be eligible for the Registered Teacher Programme which is aimed at entrants to the profession who don’t yet have a degree. You would need to be working in a school for this, however.

So:

A levels or access course
Degree
Postgrad

It will be tough but you can do it. Please feel free to PM me if you would like; I have a lot of experience supporting secondary trainees.

You’ll need a degree first, so wouldn’t be starting the teacher training until your youngest was almost ready for primary school. That might be easier (easier not easy!)

Maybe start by applying to study English and/or history at degree level then go from there?

From your OP, I assumed you meant, whilst the dc were that age.

If you haven't yet completed your A Levels, then you are a little way off any teacher training. If you are doing secondary, then I presume you would do a subject degree first, then Post grad teaching qualification ?

That makes quite a difference.

However Teacher training is incredibly demanding with a lot of pressure and long hours. this is the case if you are 18/19 after A-levels or 21/22 after a degree, and only have yourself to look after. Doing those hours whilst being a parent to 4 sounds hugely challenging to me. Not going to say impossible, but certainly not something many people would have the energy for.

How much will it cost you to study for 6 years ? I’d add up all the figures before I’m be committing to anything tbh .
At a minimum £9 k x 6 is £54 k which you’ll have to pay back . Is it worth it ?

OP, why do you want to be a teacher?