Teacher looking for career change ideas on remote working.

[Ste23321]

I’ve been teaching for over 15 years at a secondary school. I have young kids and I feel I’m having a nervous breakdown as I cannot cope with my job. I’ve given my resignation in and I leave at Easter. I really want to have a remote job for family life balance. Please give me some ideas. The reality that I’m unemployed come Easter is hitting me and I don’t want to jump into another teacher role and regret it. Have considered tuition but people often complain they only see part of the money as the company takes a huge chunk. Please help me.

Tutoring, but work for yourself and not a company. Set up a Facebook page, post to local sites with your availability and subject etc, you'll easily pick up some yr11's who are prepping for gcses at the mo. There are lots of support pages for tutors with advice for setting up too.

Supply in the short term, exam marking and invigilation. While you are doing that sort out your CV and Linked In profile and get applying for jobs.

What is your subject?

Have you considered something like instructional design in a learning and development role? It's a booming field and a lot of teachers are moving to that career, it's a very natural next step. There are a few FB groups about it, many of which are American based but lots of support anyway.

I went through a career shift 10 years ago. I found the book "The Pathfinder: How to Choose Or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success Book by Nicholas Lore "Helpful.

You don’t need to work for a company to be a tutor, I am self employed. Obviously takes a while to build up a reputation and client base but it’s worth considering doing that as a sideline while finding something else as your main job, especially if you love your subject. Even one or two weekly pupils could be a nice way to supplement your income and it’s so flexible especially now with zoom lessons being so popular.

As for a main role, I now work for a charity remotely which is brilliant, not well paid but job satisfaction is huge.

When I say remotely I don’t mean it’s all WFH, there are events/meetings I go to in person as well, but it’s a good balance

I have been doing supply for 7 years and have never looked back after leaving a horrible teaching job.

I used to just do a couple of days supply when the kids were young, but can be a bit more flexible now with which days and how often I work each week.

Each day is different and I generally enjoy every day! I have set days I work and organised childcare around that. I am in huge demand normally, but especially so at the moment!

I recommend finding a good supply agency and giving supply a go. It will hopefully boost your confidence and set you up nicely for whatever you decide to do next.

Alternatively, tutoring is an option. The only problem with private tutoring could be that children / parents usually want tutors after school and you may be busy with your own children then. National tutor program could be an option too.

I just realised you are secondary. I do Primary supply and love it - not sure what it's like with secondary age kids 🙈

I'm sure you'd be in huge demand as a tutor and may be able to arrange later tuition times with teens.

Have you considered going to work for an academic schools publisher like Pearson, Hodder, Oxford UNi? A huge number of the people working in sales, marketing, as Ed consultants, in content, editorial are former teachers are your skills and experience are transferable and highly valued there.
And many have remote or hybrid working patterns.

Have you looked at jobs teaching online. Schools such as ‘My online school’ and InterHigh often have vacancies. What is your specialism?

At our place the last 10 roles or so have gone to former teachers. We can teach them about our content, systems etc quite quickly and your front of class skills mean there’s an assumption that teachers can talk, present, demo our platform well once they’ve learnt it themselves.

Oh, and if you move to a sales role like account management or some kind of biz dev role you will have a highly flexible role time wise and your salary is about to jump significantly from a teacher’s salary.

I only teach 2 days a week and then top my salary up with tuition and item writing. Plus exam marking when they kids finally get to sit a GCSE again!

The thing with tuition is it’s majority evenings which clashes with me needing to be with my kids. You can sometimes get him education students but I find many unable to long term commit financially to it.

Self employed tutoring or look at jobs in the civil service, charities or universities which often offer remote working.

As already mentioned online schools such as Interhigh would be great for you.

Thank you so much everyone. Very kind of all of you to give me such amazing ideas. I’m feeling so positive now. I hate to admit I was planning on telling the head tomorrow that I’m happy to stay till July. It’s not just financial aspects that scares me as I’ve got savings abs rarely spend much, just on my kids reslly. It’s the reality that what do I do now with my time.

Apologies for typos I’m using my phone and really

@Taxiparent

Have you looked at jobs teaching online. Schools such as ‘My online school’ and InterHigh often have vacancies. What is your specialism?

Taxi - are you working in an online school? If so could you tell me what it’s like day to day. Thank you!

SEND case officer. Not all remote but usually some remote working

I would check out careershifters

They are good for figuring out career change

Hi, yes I work at an online school. It runs in the same way as a bricks and mortar school, except that the lessons are all online and all work is uploaded and marked online too. There are tutor groups, assemblies etc. Behaviour is good, workload comparable with state school.