To leave work as life is just so stressful

[Bex268]

I’m a teacher and I am finding it harder and harder each year. My son has SEN and is developmentally behind and about to start transitioning into full time education in September.

I am married, my husband is hands on and works a lot - he makes goodish money and we are doing okay. I have recently came into a very small inheritance which would see me through a full academic school year in terms of wages if I left ready to help my son transition in September. We have very little family support and my school are not supportive at all.

I had thought part time work would work for us and in some ways it does but in others it hasn’t lessened the load as much as we would have liked. As a family, we constantly feel overwhelmed and never get a break.

I am worried though about getting back into the workplace but I’m sick of finding life hard.

am I being unreasonable by just quitting my job for a year?

Part time as a teacher is really hard. Why not look into something else part time that isn’t so emotionally and physically intense? There are a lot of online tutoring roles, for example (although I’m sure they vary in quality).

I would say do it, but only if financially the bills can still be covered. Also can you accept that getting part time work may be a job that is something along the lines of cleaner, call centre, supermarket work, which is very different from teacher. If you think you can handle that then why not give it a go whilst you have the luxury of an inheritance as a safety net.

Go for it!

Do it. I would. I HATE working full time with 2 small kids so even part time would be awesome. Life is too short IMO.

Thank you all

@Whattodowithit88 this is my biggest worry. I don’t think I could go back to very low paid work - I’d always need term time and ideally supply work or tutoring or possibly learning support at a push.

I think supply might be pretty stressful - are you secondary? I used to manage cover supervisors and agency teachers in my last job and the external ones had a lot of behaviour to deal with (class saw it was a supply teacher and massively took the piss, then teachers could also be pretty unforgiving towards them).

How about TA? I loved being a secondary TA. It was not stress free but it (to me) looked a lot better than being a teacher.

Edit to add: the money is awful but it is more than no money, so maybe ok

Once you leave the career, you’d find it hard to go back, I imagine. Go part time (even if just very part time - 0.2 or 0.4) to keep up to date.

I would never become a TA. The pay is far too poor for what it is. For their pay, I’d work elsewhere.

Teaching very part time still brings in the pay. 0.4 (2 days) could easily be a full time TA wage and you’d still get the holidays.

You could apply to have unpaid parental leave from your job. As you have a child with SEN you are entitled to more flexibility into what and how you can take it. At
least you’d have the security of a job
to go back to.

Fair enough, but I liked being a TA and wouldn't be a teacher as it looks very stressful.

Agree TAs are underpaid for what they do though

Could you apply for school admin jobs? Term time only and more money than a TA in my area.

Don’t get me wrong - I think that the job can be great. I just think that TAs are far too poorly paid, especially for the amount of work that gets thrown their way that I think something needs to be done. It’s one of the reasons I think people should elsewhere. If TAs left, then maybe they’d need to do something about their pay and conditions.

By the time you have teacher qualifications, I would be trying part time before anything else where I’d have to work full time for the same pay more or less. Not saying it would be perfect, or definitely the answer, but I’d at least want to have given it a go.

I do primary supply teaching day to day. It's worked out well for me. You need a thick skin 😏 but with the attitude of go in, do your very best and leave it all behind, it is actually quite rewarding. I've found the majority of schools to be very welcoming and obviously the job offers full flexibility. Downside, the pay is less than permanent work but that might be fine for you with your financial situation. Good luck, totally understand the stress of part-time teaching. It took over every aspect of my life.