To think that no one ever regrets leaving the teaching profession in England?

[Restlessness]

I have been noticing a lot of posts ex teachers mentioning how much happier they are now that they have left the profession, and it has got me wondering—does anyone ever miss it? Or regret their decision? Or maybe even decide against leaving in the end and choose to stay?
For context, before entering teaching, I worked in a mix of charity and not-for-profit roles. While those jobs paid less, they didn’t feel nearly as stressful in comparison. Of course, I’m not saying that’s the case for all jobs—there are certainly challenges in WFH roles or other careers—but teaching has its own unique pressures.
My circumstances have also changed since I first started teaching. I now have a toddler in my life and only just returned to work from mat leave. I’ve gone part-time, but I find it really difficult not to work on my days off. It doesn’t help that I’ve essentially been given a full timetable, with an unqualified cover supervisor taking my classes on the two days I’m off. This means the majority of the marking falls on me, along with all the parents’ evenings and the responsibility of overseeing their learning. Knowing that the cover supervisor isn’t equipped to handle the more challenging lessons, they’re left to supervise easier tasks like library sessions or assessments on my days off. As a result, I’m left trying to cram everything else into the days I’m in.
I know that leaving teaching might mean a pay cut, but I think I could manage it—I’m fairly sensible with money anyway, and I’m already on a part-time salary. My DS is still a baby/toddler, so having term-time holidays doesn’t make a huge difference right now, or maybe I’m just too new to parenthood to feel the full benefit of it yet.
So, is there anyone out there who left teaching and wished they hadn’t?
YANBU = Anyone who actually left is glad they did
YABU = Of course, some people regret it.

I left and went back. I missed the kids, I missed the creativity, the sense of community, the hustle and bustle and buzz and laughter and sheer drama of being around teenagers all day. I also missed having a sense of value and purpose to what I was spending my days doing. I didn’t feel that what I did in an office mattered, whereas every day at school I feel that I am contributing towards helping kids become the people they’re going to grow into, and I love that.

It is hard and relentless but we have the holidays and honestly I found my job outside of teaching just as, if not more stressful, and with far less reward.

I work in a lovely private school now with a manageable workload due to small class sizes and I don’t plan on leaving. I can’t imagine what else I would do that would give me as much satisfaction. Yes I often have to do a bit of work in the evenings and for a couple of hours at the weekend, but most people in reasonably senior jobs have to do the same - it’s not unique to teaching. And honestly I don’t mind it - I love my subject and coming up with lessons - it’s not as if I’m spending evenings on calls or waist high in spreadsheets like some of my friends, who work far longer hours than me in pointless banking jobs they hate.

Before you quit altogether, try a different school. The workload can differ hugely between schools. Going private makes a massive difference - having up to 15 fewer kids in a class reduces your marking load so much that it makes everything a doddle!

Left after 20 years in primary at Christmas. Now an EOTAS Tutor. Don't get paid in holidays which is crap, as is the pension scheme, but the workload is so much lighter. I feel like I can be a better mum to my own kids now.

But you're not a teacher yourself? I wonder if there is a little more to these stories of teachers who went back. Are you assuming they went back for the 'perks?'

It's a myth that teachers have 12 weeks paid holiday. They don't. They are employed for 1265 hours a year + directed time (that's time for marking and preparation, parents evenings, study days etc) which brings the working year up to the average 2000 hours (40 hpw x 50 weeks). They are not paid for the holidays, their pay is stretched over those weeks so that income remains constant - which helps with bills - which means they get 4 or so paid weeks like most other workers.

Your job isn’t really part time though. I’m just about to go part time after 30 years teaching and I won’t share classes with anyone else - I’ll just have proportionately fewer classes and therefore correspondingly less prep and marking. I think you need to push back as it’s not reasonable or move to another school.

The only people I met who missed it are the people who had to leave due to chronic health conditions. People who left through choice seem to be perfectly happy elsewhere.

Haven't regretted it for a second. I wish I'd done it sooner, to be honest. It's so nice waking up in the morning and not feeling sad that I didn't die in the night.

A few updates:

• no the school didn't advertise for a part time qualified teacher post, they used an existing cover supervisor who had no prior experience of working in a school to take on my classes - the cover supervisor was keen to gain experience in teaching but I think this was unfair to all.
• I did put my request for flexible working in 'late' 3 months before I returned but they did not make communicating with school easy, prior emails ignored and no guidance on when I should put this request in.
• no maternity guidance given either or even anyone asking how long I'd be off before I left - they made an assumption I'd come back early as that would probably have been convenient to them!

I don't have a year 11 class so that helps but I have 5 classes in total , the Ks4 class I hardly ever see. I agree with PP, if I was a parent of a GCSE student I wouldn't be too pleased either.

I am 90% sure I'm leaving and it's a case of when, not if, I'm not sure I have it in me to try again at another school. This is the third school Ive taught in and the last was dire and for some years there wasn't even a scheme of work let alone resources.

When I started out I absolutely loved my students and planning fun / innovative lessons had a notice board filled with thank you cards and plenty of funny stories to share. Looking back the management were awful and totally exploitative but as a department we worked well and did shared planning which made a world of difference. I enjoyed wrapping my head around new schemes of work because I loved my subject and loved to learn.
Now it's just a job and it's about getting through each day.

There are things I miss about it.

I miss it being a part of my identity.

I miss the feeling of a lesson that's going really well and everyone is engaged and there's that sort of energy.

I miss looking at kids books and seeing them implement something I've just taught them.

I miss hearing them use social skills like conflict resolution that I've taught them.

I miss school plays.

Overall though, no. Not at all day to day. I don't miss the holidays because now I actually enjoy my annual leave. I can't quite describe how much happier I am.

I wasn't able to be a teacher while staying mentally healthy. It was just too much and it took everything from me. I was so unhappy and constantly felt on the edge of breaking down.

Now I feel like a normal person again. I can enjoy life and my family. They were suffering because I had nothing left to give.

This is why I don't understand when the topic of teacher recruitment and retention crisis comes up and people insist that teachers just whine because they don't know how hard other jobs are.

Those of us who left aren't coming back on the whole. We could but we choose not to. If teachers were all crawling back with their tails between their legs then the shortage wouldn't be too much of a shortage.

I'm an ex-teacher, I was one of the statistics of NQTs who don't make it 5 years before leaving.I don't regret it at all, and now (six years after leaving) that I have my own child I'm doubly relieved I'm not still suffering from that work-life "balance".

However, teaching is still my main professional passion. I miss it a lot. It's the only job I've ever had where (during the time spent actually teaching) I've not been watching the clock waiting for the end of the day. It was much more fulfilling than any job I've had before or since. I loved working with the children, even (or perhaps especially) the ones who needed a lot of extra time and care.

If they could solve the workload issues and micromanagement/lack of professional respect, I'd go back in a heartbeat. The amount of extra things and pointless paperwork that teachers have to do on top of their planning and teaching responsibilities is ridiculous.

I think the behaviour crisis needs addressing, too.

Bite the bullet and re-train. I didn't, ended up in a school with nightmare behaviour and lost both career and most of my pension. Had I re-trained earlier I would have been a lot richer and happier.

Not that the holiday is paid. The salary is spread to cover the year, so OP will be living on the money she has already earned.

I left 5 years ago after 20 years in teaching. I don't regret it at all. My income halved and I now have 2 weeks off a year, but would never go back to teaching. Before I left, people said I'd miss the kids but I don't. Don't miss a thing about it. I'm friends with a few ex teachers and can't think of anyone who regrets leaving the profession.

I am going to hand my notice in at the end of May and won’t even have a job to go to. Am just hoping I find something. I really hate it that much now after 20 years. It will be the best decision regardless of pay cuts etc. I am just thankful that my DH supports my decision as I am sure lots would leave if they could but can’t afford to.

A side note:

Why do people usually refer to 'the teaching profession'? It grates on my nerves and it's been going on for many years.

No one refers to 'the banking profession', 'the nursing profession' or the 'social-work profession'.

In my own head, teaching isn't really a profession anyway. Medicine, law, architecture, etc, are 'professions'. Have a look at a lot of new teachers coming through now in their early twenties and you'll see that a great many aren't even particularly literate.

In the '80s and '90s, teachers were usually quite academic with good degrees from good universities. They were respected. All of that status has gone now. The government are so desperate they'll take almost anyone with a CertEd or 10-month PGCE.

This pompous insistence on referencing 'the teaching profession' sounds as though people are attempting to convince themselves their overworked, underpaid, low autonomy, often menial, public-sector jobs carry some kind of kudos.

My 15 years experience in the job was that the most successful were the ones who willingly put up with the most crap, and who sucked up most to SLT. There was no rewarding creativity, ideas, or relationships. Teaching is not really a 'profession' - it's a semi-profession at best.

Yet still, nobody speaks of 'teaching'. It's always 'the teaching profession'. Odd really.

Yes and no.

If you leave at Christmas you have been in school for a larger proportion of the four months you are paid for than if you start in January and leave at the end of August.

The OP says she has just returned after maternity leave, so perhaps only last month.

@cooljerk : Yet still, nobody speaks of 'teaching'. It's always 'the teaching profession'. Odd really

When I was at teacher training college one of the lectures was “Is teaching a profession?” It must have been important for me still to remember that, and for us to be given a lecture on it.

There were various criteria that indicated whether a job was a profession or not. I can’t remember now what they were, but teaching met them.

It's relatively easy to get back in, so quitting is a low risk decision

The issue is that you have been totally stitched up with respect to your job share arrangement. You should only be preparing, marking, planning and assessing for your own lessons. If the school employs an unqualified teacher, it’s up to the SLT to figure out how to get the additional work completed.

I left classroom teaching about seven years ago and I don't regret it. Folk told me I would miss the holidays but I used to spend so much time planning and marking, I feel as tho I have more holiday with five weeks plus eight B hols genuinely empty. Also there is a lot more flex with hols (obv) which suits me now.

Tbf when my DC were tweens it was really good to be off with them, even if I spent half the time planning. But those days are gone.

I went back to my former career (had retrained in mid-life) and took a pay cut, but I would say I am now earning more than if I had stayed in teaching. Or at least about the same (creative industry so not well paid).

I miss my colleagues who were the best - but then I still see a good few of them on a regular basis anyway. Interestingly they are the only set of colleagues from my many jobs whom I have kept in touch with. Most of them still teach, tho not all.

For me teaching had some unexpected benefits – yes being off with my own kids, also standing all day and not being able to eat meant I controlled a) weight and b) posture problems well. And I reignited a long-lost love of my subject. But I keep that going by tutoring and advising on MN hahaha. Best of luck @Restlessness - you have been properly stitched up with your job share tho.

@IndependentSchoolTeacher I remember a similar lecture! It would have been in 2005.

The conclusion in the lecture I attended was that social work, teaching and nursing are 'semi professions'.

Whether teaching is a profession, semi-profession, or neither isn't so important.

But it amuses and frustrates me that people merrily trot out 'the teaching profession' - unthinkingly it often seems. It occasionally makes me think of prostitution, which is often described as 'the oldest profession'.

That's the theory but in practice there's such a shortage of teachers that this type of thing happens all the time. It's not right of course. Not sure what the solution is.

@cooljerk Qualifed teachers are not professionals?