Social worker or teacher

[Soophia]

Hi everyone, im new here but I was always reading nice topics that you guys share
Im here asking for advice. I just finished my education degree and took a year break to think about my next step I work in school as a HLTA and was considering PGCE until I met my friend who dropped out because of the stress. Also working with teachers I see how much stress they are under with workload and learning walks and working through theor weekends and holidays. I don't wana be working during weekends and holidays as i have a family to look after I want to be able to switch off while im at home and not have my mind with work all the time. Even as a HLTA I have to plan and deliver lessons and have SLT observations I have 6 classes that I teach each class need differentiation which takes lots of time and usually the PPA time is never enough. There is a government scheme to study social work I will be paid while learning and maybe join egency for flexibility.
What ur thoughts guys carry on and study PGCE or SW pls give ur opinions

If you're finding being an HLTA too much, then neither teaching nor social work will be any better.

I think that the life you envision is unrealistic with either option. I have been a secondary teacher for 25 years, at the same school for 17 now and running my own department. Which means I am in more control of my workload and have everything planned and prepped and I do get my evenings and weekends. But that takes time to build up and organise. The first few years are hard and I couldn’t have done it with younger kids then. It also depends on the school and the head of department you get. I also have a DH who does the school run, cooks tea and runs errands during the week when not on shift because of how his work is.

Social work is not less stressful than teaching.

Both these roles are highly stressful. They are vital and I am so grateful people commit to doing them, but you do have to be realistic going in.

What I would say is don't judge teaching on your friend's say-so, they are not you.

Im saying that teachers obviously have lots more to do than HLTA and I want to be able to switch off when im home and not take any work with me which I do as HLTA its manageable , but I want to progress in my life I don't want to stay as HLTA.

When you say join agency for flexibility what do you mean?

Agency social workers usually work full time so they still work and long and hard hours and have a full caseload they're responsible for. They do the exact same job as permanent workers just with higher wages and less security.They can give just 1 or 2 weeks notice but really you wouldn't be able to go locum until you were qualified about 2 or 3 years anyway. And if potential employers see 3 months here and there they'll assume you're a bit crap/unable to manage longer than that.

Neither are less stressful than HLTA. If you're finding it stressful now, I wouldn't do either.

Thank you for getting back. I have no idea what social worker job involves that's why im asking here and the idea of agency was my friend`s who said u can join agencies rather than working permanently it would be more flexible.
Thanks for clarifying 😊

SW can be stressful, but there's more flexibility in terms of hours, WFH and variety in the role.

Social work- you will be working probably some.weekends, definitely working late often and working holidays. It is very hard to switch off. Probably best to do some research into what social workers do. You will be exposed to things most people don't see or know about and It will change the way you view the world

Would you be looking to teach primary or secondary? If secondary, which subject?

You'd have to do a conversion Masters to become a SW but I'm not sure how you think you'd get on to one when you have "no idea" what the role entails.

I'm a teacher and my daughter is currently training to be a SW.

If you find the HLTA role too much, you won't cope with being a teacher or a SW.

Remain as a HLTA until your children are grown or at a less demanding age and then change. Social work and teaching are not interchangeable careers.

What did your education degree include? Do you have QTS? What are you salary ambitions?
Once you have QTS you can work as an Education Officer at a Wildlife trust, museum or similar but that will likely include working during holidays and weekends but when your children are older that doesn't matter

Absolutely do not do either of these jobs if you want to have evenings and weekends to yourself.

Both are jobs with the potential to be wonderful and to make a huge difference to people's lives. Both are also jobs that tend to demand a lot of extra work from you and don't really allow you to protect your 'personal time' easily. (I know loads of other jobs, including private sector ones, are like this too by the way, so I don't mean this as a sort of public sector virtue-signalling thing).

I suspect that you maybe have a better chance of achieving a better work-life balance eventually if you go into social work... especially if you avoid children's social work and focus more on adults with care needs. Social work can be incredibly stressful - even more so than teaching in my personal opinion. However, at least there is a wide variety of social work teams and roles, and I do know some social workers who achieve a decent work-life balance. As a teacher, on the other hand, you will be 100% guaranteed to have to do a lot of evening and weekend work regardless of where you work (unless you become a supply teacher and accept the precarious pay).

It is also essential that you find out more about what social work actually involves, as it will almost certainly mean working with people in distressing / challenging / high-risk situations. You will also be facing difficult legal and ethical dilemmas constantly. In teaching you end up facing these problems too, of course, and in some ways being a social worker might be better in that at least it is your full-time job to handle these issues, whilst for teachers it ends up being just one of many aspects of the job.

I am a social worker for adults and get my evenings and weekends free due to strict boundaries but it is a stressful job working with lots of high risk complex issues and lots of trauma, but I love it. Don't count on agency work you need to have at least 2 years pq experience and las ate cutting back on the use of agency. Do your research.

I would not choose social work. SW case loads are very high indeed and you are dealing with people in crisis most of the time which is hard to cope with long term

I'm a social worker and I hardly ever have to stay late and I definitely don't work weekends.

I'm in adults though which is a different world to childrens social work which is what your fully paid fast track scheme will be for due to the recruitment difficulties in that sector. It's usually very competitive to get places on them.

The recruitment difficulties are because it's a stressful high stakes job for relatively low pay. People don't stay in it for long generally.

There are also new rules about agency social workers in Children's services since last year which basically require agency workers and employers to have a minimum 4 week notice period to ensure there are safe handovers of caseloads.

You also can't work as an agency worker in childrens services for the first three years after qualifying.

Once you obtain your social work degree and qualify as a social worker via any of the routes into social work (which typically can take between 1 - 3 years depending on the route) you then also have to do and pass your ASYE (assessed year in employment).

I'd choose social work with adults over teaching. But if I had the choice again I'd choose Occupational Therapy over Social Work, or any other job not reliant on having to work for the NHS or local authorities!

social work can be very hard to switch off from at home and you need to be very resilient. At least, if not more so than teaching.

I was a primary school teacher for 3 years and hated the lack of work life balance and the never ending marking, 35 pages of planning a week, and general lack of support from SLT. I used to work every evening and at least 1 weekend day. I think I loved working with the children more than teaching them if that makes sense. Also I was annoyed that the only things that seemed to matter to SLT were points progress in core subjects rather than any social and emotional achievements the children made.

I left 15 years ago to retrain as a children's SW and have worked in child protection ever since. It's also a really tough job, not enough resources / services, not enough staff and high case loads. I've seen and heard some awful things and there are cases that are hard to switch off from, you need to find good ways of coping with stress.

However I have a better work life balance. If we're on duty we might finish late but in general not by more than an hour. There are occasional very late nights (and on one a very early morning). The issue is the amount of written work that's needed that there are never enough hours for. You have to have really clear boundaries about not working during the evening as a rule. I do sometimes write Court reports at night but that is maybe once or twice a month.

As I say, I've done CP for a long time which is really rare. I would say that the newly qualified workers have higher and more complex case loads than I had when I first started and there aren't as many experienced staff around to give the required level of support. Cases in general are becoming more complex and burn out rate is high (although lots move to a different area of SW). I love my job and the satisfaction I get from it but there are days / weeks when I wish I did anything else. You have to really want to do child protection though or it eats you alive and a lot of other areas of SW like you to have 1 or 2 years CP experience first.

I echo what others have said. Most local authorities have less than no money and agency SWs are becoming extremely rare (much like supply teachers in schools).

What do you mean that you finished an education degree and now you are thinking about doing a PGCE? What is an education degree if it's not for teaching?

You can join an agency to be a HLTA but it can very much work out less than minimum wage and also there is a glut of people leaving education and not enough supply roles to go around at the moment.

I have worked in both education and social care (and now do a job that combines both)
I wouldn't be a social worker for all the money in the world. It's a horribly stressful job and the public are so quick to criticise them.
The social workers I work with are way more stressed and over worked than the teachers (and their work loads are awful!)

Given your expectations and your lack of knowledge about social work, I doubt if either role is for you.

I'm qualified as both and neither job is easy to juggle and also be able to ring fence evenings and weekends and switch off easily. Child protection social work is hugely challenging and varied but brutal and you are hated by most people. I would suggest that both choices would be a lot more demanding than being a HLTA. Also when I break down the hours I work I would be better off in a much less demanding job like Tescos.

Social workers get paid much more.