To consider retraining as a primary teacher?

[CrumpledCrumpet]

I’m early 40s, have two primary age DC, decent job/career with 50k salary but fed up of my current role. I love being around my DCs primary school and I see the teachers and I think “I want to do what you do”.

I always volunteer to help in the classroom when the opportunity comes up, I love being around the children. I love the school environment. When I was younger I volunteered in schools too - only talking an hour or so here and there though.

I like working under pressure/stress and I work better in situations with lots of feedback / stimulus. I like ‘performing’, delivering presentations etc in my current role. I’m generally patient and calm but enthusiastic.

But…

Everyone seems to be quitting the profession, so I clearly must have a rose-tinted view.

Although I like performing/presenting etc I am a classic introvert and think I might find being ‘always on’ exhausting.

I will obviously get paid less than I do now.

I can’t even get my own kids to listen to me half the time

Is it insane to even consider?

As a primary teacher of 20+ years who wants to leave, I would recommend it to my worst enemy!

We do need new recruits though! Why don’t you take a week’s annual leave and find a school to volunteer in?

@Howshouldibehave

I really need to understand what is so bad about it!

Honestly I think I would love it for a week but it’s clearly not the same as doing it day in day out.

I did this at 38. No regrets. Love my job. BUT the actual teaching is the smallest part of your job. Data, moderation, policies will form a huge huge part of your workload. Inspections are brutal (and I come from a City background). You will do, on average, 10-12 hour days and more on your training year. It doesn’t work round your kids until you get more qualified. You’ll have to be at school 7:30am ish and leave at 5/6 until you’ve learned some shortcuts. Your training years are heavily scrutinised. That said, I love having the holidays at home (granted, working lots of evenings). Pension is fab. I’m here to stay.

I have 3 friends in their 50s who are primary school teachers....they all hate it with a vengeance....they are counting down the days to early retirement ...lilt wasn’t always like this....they used to love their jobs....but times change....they do so many extra hours for no pay .....it’s often like working on minimum wage

It's great that you love presenting but that's such a small part of the job.
Are you prepared to work a 10 hour day then do another 2 hours after the kids are in bed? This is life for many teachers. I teach year 6 and the daily marking is relentless.
Also great that you love feedback but teaching culture is all about what you're doing wrong, what's not good enough, feeling like 'they' are out to get you. It can be incredibly demoralising, especially in the early days.
I'll add that I'm a teacher of 8 years. Nearly gave up but in a good place now. I do love it now but I'm 'trusted' enough to not constantly be observed/scrutinised as the NQTs are atm.
Sorry I don't mean to sound so negative! The holidays are obviously great and pay can ramp up quite quickly subject to performance management (or school budget!)
Obviously every school is different but this is my experience.

And so so much depends on the attitude of your SLT. I’m so lucky with a good, realistic team who have taken measures to cut workload and support teachers. That said, I am mostly without a TA. With wildly differing levels of abilities.

Don't do it

Echo what user 65412. It’s a rough few years at the start. Not family friendly. After that? Lots better but what you see when you see your child’s teacher? He/she will have been preparing that abs now has to mark it, abs give feedback, and prep for the next day. And do data drops. And prep for inset. And hold a parents evening. And get displays ready for a leaning walk etc etc. it’s intense.

I'm a teacher with two ds under 4. I work four days a week. I absolutely love love love my job. I love it. There's a lot of work, but the option to leave most evenings at 3.30 and then pick up work later in the evening if I wish. Everyday is entertaining, feels worthwhile, and I get a chance to be creative and not behind a desk.

It's hard work, but brilliant and I would absolutely recommend it. I work in an outstanding school, they care a lot about staff wellbeing and I think that sort of school is probably hard to come by, but worth trying to find!

I am leaving next week after 17 years. I'm in a Facebook group about teachers leaving, which has hundreds joining every week.

You occasionally hear of a teacher saying their workload isn't that bad, but they are unusual I would say. The workload is insane. The micromanagement is soul-destroying.

I know around 10 or 11 primary school teachers and all but one of them absolutely love their jobs.

Go for it and see what happens.

When you go in as a volunteer, you have your instructions, you do what is needed and then you go home, having enjoyed the classroom environment and being with the children.

It truly is a whole different ball game when you have lessons to plan, marking to do, endless statistics and monitoring results to file, staff meetings, extra training, constant updating on new government directives, dealing with the stress of OfSted visits ...and on and on and on.......

Train as a TA maybe? - still a lot more stressful than being a volunteer, but a lot less than being a classroom teacher.

The actual teaching part-the performance, if you like, is the lovely bit-being with the children, but you are almost counting down the minutes till they go home so you can start your actual ‘job’-the bit that management care about. Having books marked properly (this takes bloody ages and I teach Y1 who can’t read half of it!), assessment, planning (and you’re not planning one lesson, you’re planning for every child in it so it might need such adaptions that it feels like you’re planning 5!), SEN provision, interventions, data analysis, displays, staff meeting, phase meetings, parent meetings/emails/phone calls to respond to, report writing, trips (I love trips, but hate the paperwork that comes with them), assemblies, performances, book scrutinies, performance management, learning walks, observations (you’re only as good as your last one and the more expensive you get, the more academy heads seem to find fault!), and then OFSTED, which can end careers.

Yes the pension is good, but I know very few over 50 who are working full time because of the stress, so a part time pension (still working 35+ hours) will be crap.

@OneWildNightWithJBJ

I am leaving next week after 17 years. I'm in a Facebook group about teachers leaving, which has hundreds joining every week.

You occasionally hear of a teacher saying their workload isn't that bad, but they are unusual I would say. The workload is insane. The micromanagement is soul-destroying.

I’m in that Facebook group!

@CrumpledCrumpet my niece did just what you are considering, very similar scenario re previous career and children, and she loves it.

The workload is insane. The micromanagement is soul-destroying. ....this, definitely this. The government want to know each time a child farts!! - or that is how it seems.

I am a school governor with a "staff welfare" hat as part of my duties. It is a source of constant worry to me - I have no way of decreasing the work overload, nor freeing the staff from the government micro-management.

You need to essentially follow a primary teacher around for a couple of weeks to really find out what it's like.

I've taught for 12 years. I'm currently an SEN teacher and wouldn't return to mainstream again. Mainly around hours and additional duties. You could spend all day planning interventions making books in 3 colours, resourcing lessons, completing risk assessments and talking to children after playtime/lunch issues. Except you have to do all that on top of a teaching day. In mainstream I was lucky to get ten minutes to sit down and eat lunch.

Yes, holidays are nice, but most teachers do use some holiday to mark/plan/tidy classrooms. Some schools have two morning briefings plus a staff meeting every week. Some schools you're expected to run a club.

Plus, depending on where you are, your starting salary could be around £25k. I've been teaching 12 years and my non-London salary, including SEN points, is about £45k. I can't earn any more now unless I go into senior leadership. Those salaries are not beholden to the 1265 hours of directed time teachers have, so holiday meetings could be called. Plus, there's talk of getting rid of or raising the 1265 hours, so if that did happen teachers could be expected to work even more than they do already.

I would strongly advise against it, but you have to make your own decision. Just please don't base it on volunteering for a couple of hours and seeing the teachers having a nice time with their class. That's the best bit of teaching so of course teachers will look like they're enjoying it! But hang around after school and see what else they get up to.

We need more teachers and it sounds like you have the skills for the job and also the passion to help you through the tough bits. You will need emotional resilience too as so many children are in difficult circumstances. If you have a sense of humour, genuinely love working with kids and have the time and energy - go for it!

Two of my friends (husband and wife) were primary teachers until they retired a couple of years ago. Both loved the teaching and did loads of extra curricular activities to enrich the learning experience but by the end they were thoroughly disheartened and ground down by it all (to the point that they weren't always the best of company at times). It's so nice to see them happy in retirement.

I wouldn’t let my own children train as teachers. It’s a wonderful job but the workload is awful.

Thank goodness for @pairsinparis and @WorraLiberty redressing the balance on this thread. There are lots of teachers who love teaching.

Yes, it is hard.
Yes, it is relentless.
Yes, it involves long hours.
Yes, the stuff outside of the classroom can overtake the time and focus on the children.

But it is so rewarding too, and I laugh every day in a primary school.

The suggestion to take a week's leave and find a school (or preferably two) which will give you school experience is really important. Of course you won't get the full teacher experience, but you'll get more of an idea than just ad hoc volunteering as a parent.

I recruit for ITT, and we strongly recommend that experience before application - some potential career changers come back to report they have realised the reality wasn't for them; others come back energised and enthusiastic.

We have 7 more mature (aged 30 - just over 50) career changers (not counting TAs) on our PGCE this year. A term in, 6 of them are convinced they have done the right thing. The last will work with children, but probably more on the pastoral side or alternative education rather than as a teacher in mainstream. None of them regret leaving their previous career.

@Howshouldibehave

The actual teaching part-the performance, if you like, is the lovely bit-being with the children, but you are almost counting down the minutes till they go home so you can start your actual ‘job’-the bit that management care about. Having books marked properly (this takes bloody ages and I teach Y1 who can’t read half of it!), assessment, planning (and you’re not planning one lesson, you’re planning for every child in it so it might need such adaptions that it feels like you’re planning 5!), SEN provision, interventions, data analysis, displays, staff meeting, phase meetings, parent meetings/emails/phone calls to respond to, report writing, trips (I love trips, but hate the paperwork that comes with them), assemblies, performances, book scrutinies, performance management, learning walks, observations (you’re only as good as your last one and the more expensive you get, the more academy heads seem to find fault!), and then OFSTED, which can end careers.

Yes the pension is good, but I know very few over 50 who are working full time because of the stress, so a part time pension (still working 35+ hours) will be crap.

I realised when I felt like this it was time to think about getting. I miss being in the classroom and I enjoyed planning lesson too. I’m sure there was a survey out a couple of years ago saying primary teachers work on average 60 hours a week. While been paid for 32.7 hours a week.

To be clear - I love my job and I’m glad I switched and will be here until I can retire BUt it’s important the OP knows the reality. And that is the actual teaching part is the smallest part of the job. Also volunteering won’t give you the reality. When you are a teacher, you are responsible for the progress of the kids in your class abs will be expected to answer for their results. That responsibility, you can’t replicate in advance. I did loads of volunteering etc and someone else was there to tell me what to do, how to do it. It is quite shocking as an NQT that you are thrown into a classroom, to run and manage on your own. And before anyone comes along and says ‘that’s not right, you should get support’ that is how it works in reality. Go and look on any of the ECT groups on FB. As a mature student you are probably more prepared than most to deal with this than others. But go in with your eyes open.

No. For every teacher who loves teaching there are probably around 10 who find it too stressful. But up to you.

And despite what people may tell you, even part time the pension is great. It’s a career average which accrues at 1/57th with employer contributions of nearly 25 per cent!! You can buy additional pension and it is inflation adjusted yearly. It’s DB and government guaranteed. If you compare with a DC pension, it wins hands down (sorry - pensions are my thing abs it grates when people say PT it’s crap. It’s really not!)