To retrain as a teacher at (just turned) 50?

[MyPearlCrow]

Just that really. I was a solicitor/partner in a law firm for my first career but burned out /got bored and cynical, so gave it up. luckily we can afford for me not to work which I realise is such a privilege.

I volunteer in a primary school now several days a week and essentially do an unpaid TA role. Here, TAs here are essentially teachers without all the planning/prep/responsibility, as in they actively teach the curriculum to small groups of children. They are highly skilled.

I have considered being a TA. I have been offered a paid role at my current school. But I’m still considering my options and it’s desperately badly paid. And all the TAs here are technically over qualified (all degree educated, or ex teachers, but don’t want the ridiculous workload of a teacher; entry requirement for TA role in England is just passes in gcse English maths and science) but they are paid peanuts. But it’s such a rewarding role and I love it. I think I could really add value.

Complete honesty here: I also realise that I’m used to running the show, in my old job. I suspect that in time I would want to make my own decisions on how to deal with my class, rather than carry out someone else’s instructions. I can already see ways I would want change up the teaching/approach for some children who are struggling. I am acutely aware that teachers just don’t have time to individualise the curriculum for 30 kids though, so I’m aware I might be looking at this from the 6-8 kids I currently take responsibility for in lessons and the ability to do this with a whole class might be much more limited.

i really love being with kids, I value education, I’m a good ‘teacher’ - as in I love to explain things simply and differently to children (or in my old role, to adults too).

Teachers - am I mad? I know too well how hard the job is these days. The primary curriculum here is crazy complicated. The breadth of ability and need is jaw dropping. But I truly believe in state education being a passport to a better life and would love to be part of that.

or do I just take the TA role, qualify up as much as I can in TA courses and accept I’ll be minimum wage forever but trying to make a difference?

important point: I have kids, so want to work part time. And train part time too. I know there are options for this but it will be competitive (I have top grades academically which I think might help). If I do a part time pgce, could I do my first year as a newly qualified teacher part time or is that not an option?

I don’t underestimate what a massive, difficult, demanding and at times (currently) desperately frustrating role teaching is. Am I too old for such a huge challenge? I’d love some wisdom from teachers and ex teachers please.

I was always inspired by the Lucy Kellaway (sp) story and have considered retracing when a bit older too. I work in a profession where I can long long hours - I think having mature people entering teaching could be good for kids and the profession.

I'm a secondary school technician and teach some lessons as an UQT, unqualified teacher. The pay scale for this (after 4 yrs) is roughly double the technician rate and I can claim overtime for parents evenings etc. I'm not expected to do duties. This is a great compromise for me. The best of both worlds

Thanks for this; I’m assuming you’re science?

I think if you're keen and fully understand what you are doing then go for it. That's what teaching needs. Unfortunately, you may not stay feeling that way about the job.

The school you're in now may have planning they can use. However, we have to tweak planning all the time. I've been in this school 12 years and have never just picked up last year's planning and run with it. It is constantly being improved/re written for the current cohort, or to include a new initiative (which may have been done 5 years ago anyway). Also, someone has to plan this in advance. Then it needs resourcing which takes time.

Like you say, you currently work with a group of 6-8 and want to make changes for them. You may well be able to do this as a class teacher. You may make different decisions, however, there will then be another 6-8 that you are then not doing the right thing for.

I worked part time for a few years and often worked on my day off. I'm now back full time and not looking forward to when my own children are up past 8.30 and see how much I work in the evening. I'm debating leaving the profession when they get older.

There are many frustations from Children's behaviour showing their needs are not met, to parenting decisions having a huge effect in the classroom, either on you or the children. You are fighting to get the right support for children all the time and picking up so much of what should be done at home. For example, if a child does not read at home, the child used to be kept in to do the reading. Now we realise it's not their fault but we can't make the parents hear them read so that's another job on us to fit into a very busy timetable. You might be lucky and have a TA to pick this up you might not. There is also an expectation that this child who is not getting daily practice at reading needs to meet the same standard at the end of the year as another who not only is heard read but gets a variety of life experiences, and it's all down to you.

Some schools cannot let you out for your own children's events as there is just no one to cover. So they miss out on seeing Mum or Dad at their assemblies etc.

However, if you are keen, have the enthusiasm and energy then go for it.

Learning subject knowledge and associated pedagogy is a requirement and you learn it in your own time. Your Y6 SPaG example is a good one. You need to learn it for yourself, and then device ways of teaching it in such a way that children learn not only to recognise and name specific grammatical features in text or speech, but will also use them successfully -and independently- in their own writing, in order to meet the age related expectations for Writing.

Subject knowledge in Art and Music, both required for regular primary school class teaching, is often considered insurmountable for non-specialists, yet it is -thankfully- obligatory. You can't just learn the bare bones; you need to have a broader understanding and capability in order to be able to craft meaningful learning experiences which meet the needs of all learners in your class.

Changing year group, or rolling out new curriculum developments, means a massive uptick in hours.

HLTAs don't necessarily plan and assess to the same extent as a teacher, but there is an expectation to deliver the curriculum at a more comprehensive level than a general TA. Our HLTAs either deliver pre-planned content as part of PPA cover or may plan smaller interventions under the guidance of the class teacher or a subject leader. The pay isn't brilliant as you have observed, but there is a greater sense of autonomy, and as you would be 'allowed' to take a class on your own, you would be a treasured resource. Our HLTAs both considered teacher training but decided to stick at HLTA.

I haven't read every post here but having been both a late-starter primary school teacher and a TA, the two jobs are poles apart. I loved being a TA but hated being a teacher.

Before embarking on my PGDE (in Scotland), I thought I had considered all the pros and cons but how wrong I was!

One thing I hadn't envisaged as a teacher was the loneliness. It might sound bizarre but this really hit me hard, just having almost no interaction with adults all day, every day plus being too exhausted to talk to my family once I got home.

I also failed to factor in the effects of ageing and the menopause. This was an absolute nightmare. Being in front of a class all day with hot flushes and surviving on about three hours sleep a night was not a joyful experience.

Final failure to forsee was my elderly parents and their catastrophic illnesses, which ultimately ended up derailing my teaching career.

I also was completely unable to build up really strong relationships with the children as a teacher. You just don't have the time for lots of little chats like a TA does. And those chats really do make all the difference for many children struggling with life outside of school.

Thanks for the latest responses.

I am through the menopause tunnel and sitting happy and healthy on HRT. Menopause as a lawyer was probably the worst experience of my life. I can imagine it would be truly awful as a teacher, if symptoms are severe as mine were, as you are effectively on stage 6 hours non stop. At least I could exit a meeting mid/after a full body sweat, mortifyingly embarrassing for sure and bad for client relations, but safe and possible.

HLTA, can I ask the standard process/timescales/training?

Haven't read the full thread but you might be in a small school planning for two, three or four year groups. You will almost certainly have to plan for a couple of children working well below age expectations. Ofsted expectations change so the delivery of lessons has to change. I think it is incredibly, incredibly unusual to land in a three form entry school where every lesson is planned for the year. When I started where I am now, there wasn't a single lesson planned nor even a overall curriculum plan. Literally nothing at all.

You would not be able to 'run your own classroom' the way you wanted. Maybe down to minor things like seating plans and deciding which book to read at the end of the day. The rest is likely part of an overarching strategic plan.

I wasn’t even allowed to choose my end of the day story. This was chosen for me because it matched our curriculum topic. Never mind that the book chosen was boring as hell/not age-appropriate/not what the children wanted. I tried to change it to one the children had requested and was told no. Destroyed their love of reading!

Have you SEEN the size of the entire primary national curriculum? How on earth do you think that can be "taught" to adults? It takes SEVEN years of teaching to get children through it.

But here's an analogy for you. History graduates don't learn all history ever. They specialise at university. When they become teachers, they have to learn some of the topics they're asked to teach. Teaching A level history during my career, for example, I had to learn a lot of modern American history and then teach it.

Here's another. English teachers have not been taught all the literature they might have to teach. They have to read, analyse and work out for themselves how to teach it.

In 1990-92, just after national curriculum came in (and at first, secondary schools were told to teach both geography and history to ALL KS4 students), I had to teach both history (my subject) AND geography to the same group. I had not studied geography since I was 14. I taught myself one lesson at a time.

And the group got slightly better results in geography than in history... but matched or beat their targets overall in both!

It happens and it's been happening for decades. And primary teachers have been learning topics and subjects as they go along forever.

But in knowing some history, on a broad basis and by studying it to degree level, you can teach others how to understand, analyse, dissect and learn from it, and know yourself how to ‘learn’ a new topic quickly and easily. In studying English literature, you learn about literary genres, how to analyse text and character, how to write a good essay. The muscle memory is there for the new topic/text. It’s just not the same as ‘how to teach maths’, understanding fractions at the level of a 6 year old, and what they mean, that multiplication is the inverse of division, all these things that of course I intrinsically know as someone who’s gone all the way through the education system but not, in my view, in a way that qualifies me to teach it. Withoit further instruction and training myself, on the actual curriculum content and not how to teach it, if that makes sense.

I don’t believe most people can just teach themselves the detailed level of SPAG which would allow them to understand, identify, teach and correct in a coherent and logical way. Unless you’ve been through the education system in the last 10-15 years and been taught it. Or as a pp said, knowledge stemming from high level (degree) study of languages.

Perhaps my standards are high but I think our young people deserve that?

And to answer ‘how can that be taught, when kids take 7 years’ - educated adults have a base level knowledge that kids don’t. It could be easily truncated/distilled.

I worked in primary schools as a TA for 15 years and switched to a different sector this year. My fellow TAs were from all walks of life, many as you said are qualified teachers.
A lot of my family members work in SLT/teachers and do it because it’s their true vocation, the pressure is immense, the behaviour of some children is often unmanageable and the budgets ever shrinking.
I switched to working for a charity and feel like I’m making a difference within the community but without feeling totally overwhelmed which is why I left my previous role.
Most of my very good friends are still working within education but I would say over half are looking for alternative employment.
They all work so hard, with little thanks, getting bruised and battered on what seems an almost daily basis. They have also now been told that it’s unlikely they will all still have jobs after April/end of this academic year because there is no budget which will leave the most vulnerable struggling children without the help they so desperately need.
The system is broken, many schools are part of academies so you have to do everything in a certain way, certain rules and teaching is closely monitored. I wouldn’t go back, I miss the children but not enough to change what I’m doing now.
My cousin retrained as a social worker at a similar age and loves it, I think many people start a second career around that age.

I’m primary trained, went into secondary school after 8 years in a specialist SEN teacher role. Between 2003 and 2021 I was directed to teach History, Geography and RE at Key Stage Three, English Language, English Literature and History at GCSE. Being employed as a teacher, I was expected to learn, plan, deliver, and assess the progress of students in those subjects. In every standard teacher contract there’s a sentence at the end - “and any other duties as deemed necessary by the Headteacher” or words to that effect. I left in 2021.

This! I have just retired as a primary teacher from a pretty decent school . It was my second career. You don't have any autonomy really, you have to follow the marking policy, behavior policy, all the schemes of work. If there is more than one class per year we had to do EXACTLY the same, our books had to look the same. We were even told what signals to use for silencing the class and moving around the room. We were told what displays to have on the walls. And all of this was checked week in week out. I never had a break time or lunchtime free - I had to use the time to mark books, and even then never left school before 6pm. And that's after starting at 7:30am. People who don't teach always think it's a case of working smarter, but I was doing the least I could to keep my head above water. And after being told exactly how to do everything, even if you know it's a completely useless thing to do and you could do it much better differently, at the end of the day you as class teacher are held responsible. I used to love teaching when I started about 20 years ago, but it has changed so much

Indeed - you read up on it yourself. Honestly - you do not get taught the primary national curriculum on a teacher training course (PGCE or similar courses last about 30 weeks, much of which is taken up with school experience...)

It's pointless you going on about it - they are not going to 'teach' you it.

I career changed into teaching at 38 and it's worked out well for me (I'm 52 now). I specialise in a sixth form subject though.

You'd be fine in a selective 6th form. Others have trodden that route.

I'm not sure about primary unless you have unusually high energy levels. Nothing about teaching is ever truly part time.

My DSis is postgrad educated with a PGCE and is an HLTA in primary. She does struggle with the lack of autonomy, low pay and working with/for teachers less able than her.

She couldn't handle "proper" teaching though.

Yes, if you could teach Business then we would have recruited you six times in the last four years. And you could have chosen whether to work 2,3,4 or 5 days a week. We generally only have overseas candidates.

I trained as a primary teacher before the National Curriculum even existed.

I did a couple of years in EY (before the Early Years Foundation Stage existed) and then spent years in various specialist roles in the SEN world.

I got a job in Additionally Resourced Provision for children with SEN and was gobsmacked that I needed to teach the full Y6 Maths and English curriculum - at mainstream pace - to students who weren't even close to hitting age expected targets.

And literally noone taught me the curriculum. One of my mainstream colleagues was Scottish where there's a very different approach and she spent 2 years banging her head against the wall at how pointless so much of it was. We picked it up as we went along with the aid of a more experienced Y6 teacher and much Googling. Every single Friday morning spent making sense of what we were doing. Every single Sunday spent writing it all out again with individual adjustments for everyone in my class not to mention producing an attractive interactive PPT for every session.

My kids were 11 and 7 and utterly devastated that we no longer had Sundays free for fun.

Worst job of my entire fucking life.

But we had some training from a management consultant who used Henry V to show us how to move forward as a school.

So that was useful.

Yes. I had a very similar experience. I think you're rather naive about this OP. It happens all the time as a matter of course.

I was employed as an English teacher but directed to also teach Philosophy A' level, GCSE Sports Science and KS3 History and RE. That was my NQT year. It was incredibly stressful. It didn't much differ the rest of my time teaching, although I managed to hook it more round to English and Drama. Our school currently employs a teacher for Spanish who cannot even say, "My name is..." correctly

It happens all the time at my present school and that situation ( though poor) is preferable to that of classes who have no teacher except supply for years at a time due to prolonged teacher absence. Our GCSE IT class hasn't had a teacher for three years. The teacher (who has now just left) came back the minimum days required and got signed off again.An entire cohort has gone through GCSE just with supply teachers. They now have one supply teacher who is clearly studying the coursebook in the staff room at break and lunch. There are plenty of other examples across the school.

We've just had a very successful inspection. It's appalling.

My main stress as a teacher was in fact one of the things you have said you most wanted to address: being able to reach all pupils. The fact that there were pupils in my class that I knew needed more one-to-one support was something that kept me awake at night.

I am now employed as a TA in a specialist unit. The pay is poor but I love my job. I have lots of autonomy to tailor learning to the student. My voice is listened to and I know students who came in to our unit completely failing and who would have left school with nothing, not even confience, have gone on to college, jobs and university due to our work.

It's worth considering if impact is your motivation rather than pay.

I teach Economics and do basically get to choose how much I'll work. You do have to suffer a bit getting trained though and Education has more than its fair share of tinpot dictators.