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

I was a Social Worker. You need at least 3 years under your belt before you'd be considered for agency.
That being said the degree in SW does open doors to other jobs that are less stressful once you've got a couple of years statutory Social Work under your belt...jobs with NSPCC, Barbados, CAFCASS etc....all coveted jobs though.
I have done some interesting jobs such as a project lead, part of a new front door pilot team, involved with offenders but from children's services perspective.

Sounds great...until I tell you the reason I left was due to working for an awful Local Authority that was very unsafe and I ended up with PTSD.

Social Work also isn't social work in many cases...it's case management.

I now work in a lower grade role doing what I consider the true heart of Social work to be....and I love it.

Do they? Where does your info come from on this? From my own experience a newly qualified SW might get paid similarly to a teacher at the top of the main pay scale for teachers / bottom of the upper pay scale. It was possible to progress to a similar salary to the top of the teaching upper pay scale, or to a similar salary to school HoD / HoY, but only by going into management. Pretty comparable really. Hard to earn much more than 40k in either without a lot of experience and and / or additional management responsibility.

Edit: I've been out of teaching for a while and just checked out the current pay scales. Ignore what I said above - teachers have opportunities to earn a lot more without needing to go into management.

Thanks I appreciate ur comment. If u don't mind what is ur current job?

What about teaching in a prison? Its very interesting, plus classes are much smaller than they are in schools! You don't have to have qualified teacher status, just QTLS. You cannot take any work (marking, etc) home with you, as it cannot leave the prison for security reasons, and your hours are very strictly defined, for obvious reasons. It can be very frustrating at times, because of low budgets, disengaged learners, and deranged difficult management, but its also very rewarding. Education is one of the safest areas in any prison, so you wouldn't need to worry about your personal safety.

There are three education providers serving all the prisons in England (PeoplePlus, Milton Keynes College and Weston College). In Wales, prisons recruit their own teachers, so you would be employed by the Prison Service. If you want to teach, prison teaching is one of the least stressful ways to do it. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

I want to be able to switch off when im home and not take any work with me

in that case, I’m not sure that either teaching or social work is the job for you

Your manner of writing would indicate that perhaps teaching might not be the best fit for you.

My god social wrk is incredibly stressful! I think it's almost a calling too - it's not a job I could do. I worked with young violent offenders at a special school while doing my masters in educational psychology and it was heartbreaking - these kids hated social workers and it must be fairly soul destroying.

Why?

What do u need to be able to teach in prison?

A teaching qualification and experience in secondary education or FE. And nerves of steel.

I don't think either social work or teaching are good professions for getting regular hours and leaving work at home.
Children's SW is extremely stressful ( I have been a SW) but watching family members work as teachers they have long hours and have to be quite flexible.
Most of my friends have much lower stress jobs than either of these ones.

Neither...

As long as social care and state schools are not properly funded and people's behaviour in society continue to worsen, being a social worker or a teacher is not going to be a good option.

You would be working in stressful, short-staffed environment for a pay that is not great.

So unless you have a real passion for these type of roles, I would keep looking for other options.

I was a secondary school teacher on and off for 20 years, with a 7 year break in the middle to work in children’s services for a local authority, where I worked closely with lots of SWs. Both teaching and SW are god-awful jobs, with huge workloads, being abused by students/clients/parents, being constantly scrutinised and appraised, and continually vilified by the press and public.

If you are concerned about the impact on your family life, I can assure you that neither career is compatible. Both very stressful and requiring lots of additional work out of hours. I would advise you to totally re-think your options.

Your writing isn’t very literate tbh; your punctuation and grammar aren’t great. I presume English isn’t your first language but If you do a PGCE, you must prove competency in English and Maths, amongst many other standards. And in both teaching and SW, you need a high level of literacy.

I'm a social worker and lots of my friends are teachers. Both jobs are very stressful.

Social work is more flexible - in my LA most social workers work a 9 day fortnight, you can wfh sometimes. I'm no longer Frontline as I've moved into strategy/management and wfh almost exclusively. I can easily switch my start/finish times around, for example I've got a GP appointment on Monday morning so will start at 10 and work through til 6.30.

Teachers work phenomenally long hours in term time and have very little flexibility. But they don't have to make decisions which impact on people's lives or that, if wrong, might place a child or adult at risk of harm/death. So the stress is different.

@Madamfrog

Your manner of writing would indicate that perhaps teaching might not be the best fit for you

You're being really mean!

@Soophia

Maybe you could earn as much teaching say 0.6 as HLTA role full time. So although those 3 days would be more full on you could have more time to plan & maybe do some on one of your days at home & leave the weekends free for yourself/family?

Maybe do teacher training and then do a cover teacher role? If you’ve got a teaching qualification and a pulse you’ll find work to be honest! I’m not sure either teaching or social work would be a good fit with the work-life balance you’re aspiring to (which incidentally there is nothing wrong with!). Teaching part time is another option, I do this for the work life balance but do still work Sunday afternoons and occasionally evenings. The holidays with my kids and two days off per week are worth it for me at the moment. But I’m 16 years or so in at this point, so my planning time is far less than it used to be!

You can do a degree in Education without Qualified Teacher Status. If you want to teach you need a PGCE as well. In the early 80s I did a 4 year BEd which combined both things but I don't think you can do that any more.

You’ve completed an education degree and work in a school and don’t know what a social worker is?

Agree with some posters above.

Your literacy is poor, you are ignorant about safeguarding roles and you seem to want to do as little as possible.

Please go into a career where people’s lives and futures are not in your hands.

I am a social worker, and I wish I trained in a different profession.

We are paid shocking for the responsibility and what we are expected to do.

It's definitely still true that it's rare for teachers to earn more than 40k without going into management. Very few schools have posts paid on lead teacher payscale, TLRs are hard to come by and the majority of teaching posts are advertised as Main Pay Scale only. Removal of pay portability has been a significant change and means looking at pay ranges is fairly irrelevant to most teachers.

Anyway, back to the OP. I think people have covered a lot about both roles. I would ask if the unhappiness about doing extra work is because of how low your pay is and not feeling like you're valued. It may be that you might more inclined to take work home when you are paid more. It does sound like you already have a significant teaching responsibility and have a good idea of what the role is like. You know it will involve taking work home (more than you do already). You know it will be long hours. But if you think all of that it going to be worth it, then go for it.

I’m not a social worker but I’m fairly certain they can’t switch off when home. They must see things that break their heart and stay with them.

I work for a Local Authority as a social work assistant but I'm in a specialist team so do my own stuff not working under social workers per se. You'll see similar advertised where you are. Might be a way to dip your toe. The L A I work for do offer social work degree too.

I don't know much about SW, but more about teaching. If you want to be a teacher, please prioritise improving your SPAG.