To want to find a less stressful job?

[2023mama]

I’m 5 months off finishing my maternity leave and I’m dreading going back to work.

I work in a special needs school as on the pastoral team (responding to children in crisis, talking to them and using restrictive physical support where necessary) and part of the safeguarding team.

I know worrying about returning is normal after maternity leave, and I’m going back short term anyway (until September/October ish) but I already don’t want to stay longer than that.

AIBU to already be thinking about other jobs? What would I even do? I don’t really need school holidays right now, and I’d like to avoid working over Christmas but I don’t feel qualified for any other positions! Please help 🤞🏼

Just apply for any position you fancy. Men don't care if they're qualified or not.

There is a Facebook group called

Life after teaching - exit the classroom and thrive

Full of loads of helpful advice about what jobs you can do outside of schools. Might be worth a look.

Try and work out exactly what it is you don’t enjoy at work. I think it’s easy to switch jobs, but if it ends up being a similar role with similar stresses, just a different environment, you won’t be any better off.
Sometimes it’s better the devil you know.
it is also completely natural to not to want to return after maternity leave, it’s amazing how quickly you settle back in though.

There is that. But I can’t actually think of other types of jobs (apart from things like doctor, lawyer, sales, accounting - big obvious ones). I feel like there’s loads of other things out there but not sure where to start

Thanks. I’ll have a look at this!

I’m not looking forward to the pressures of extra responsibility with safeguarding, which I know I’ll be going back to as I had already started training. And I don’t like the risk of injury involved in the job (it’s almost impossible to avoid). I don’t mind working, in fact I think I’ll need to for my own sanity, but want to drastically cut down on how many days (from 5 down to 2/3)

There's sometimes some interesting jobs on the local council pages that might fit with your educational background. I've seen jobs where you create and monitor IEPs (or whatever they're called now, been out of it a good while myself). Or universities - roles like student support services and academic mentoring. Much less pressured than behavioural SEN. You've got some good skills there, focus on the de-escalation part of the restraint training, that's a good skill to have in lots of areas.

I'd also just start regularly browsing job sites while filtering to your local area and salary range because you'll see a range of jobs you've just never heard of, and some might spark an interest in you. I know how you feel as I worked in education for so long and when I heard about some people's jobs I used to think 'how did you even know that existed to get into it?'.

Thanks. That’s a really good idea. I hadn’t thought about the other side of SEN stuff. I’ve started having a scroll, but seem to come across loads I’m not sure of and some I haven’t even heard of.

Sorry all, I’ve just realised I haven’t tagged people in the replies. @Ghostwritersinc @LuckyPaisley @confiscatedtables @oxblood thank you all for your replies