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.

You are lucky in the school you are volunteering in to have so many staff. Funding cuts mean this is not going to be the case for long or everywhere, so you might want to get some experience in other schools too.
Where I work we mostly now have 1:1 TAs with the most challenging pupils, they are unable to help out generally as eyes need to be on their 1:1 constantly. General TAs are all part time and are often shared between classes.
Being a volunteer and working with the one child you mention improving is amazing, and is what many of us who work in education go into it for, but those successes are minimal due to lack of time to do that (think about it you weren't there volunteering, would that child have so much extra input individually?).

It’s a bit sad you’d even ask that question.

Well, I'm not sure that's sad, more realistic. If you have already left one stressful job due to burnout, many would advise caution when you are considering going into another than is also famous for causing burnout.

See my previous comments on my own situation, burn out is probably not the right description. I just got disillusioned/fed up of it which I think is probably different.

See my previous comments on my own situation, burn out is probably not the right description. I just got disillusioned/fed up of it which I think is probably different.

Oh right, that's what you said in the OP, I hadn't realised that wasn't actually the case.

@MyPearlCrow

‘I know that all of teachers’ time off isn’t paid but the pay is not the key issue for me, it is work life balance overall’

If you want any kind of work life balance then you are making a huge mistake even considering teaching!

My DD is a lawyer. She has a much better work life balance than I ever had in teaching and law is definitely a stressful profession where you are expected to work over and above.

You seem to be unwilling to listen to anyone telling you otherwise.

I think it’s really hard to ‘compare’ stress, let alone stressful jobs between two people who are both experiencing stress in different fields/work. What’s stressful for me might not be stressful for you and vice versa. My mum did a job which had emotional stressors but pretty reasonable working hours - she literally burned out. I’m emotionally much more resilient and I don’t think I would have. However, I know someone who is an an and e doctor, and I know i couldn’t do a single shift in that environment. The idea of working with children like I want to would probably bring him out in hives. Horses for courses.

I am absolutely listening. I’m just then applying that information to me and my own personal situation. As we all do when we receive advice.

i think the fact that I don’t HAVE to do it, and can stop at any time, is really really important here. It’s utterly my choice, the absence of which is often a material factor in stress of any kind.

i haven’t decided what to do yet, except to say I will take up the TA post and start treating it as a job, rather than a hobby. Be interesting to see whether anything changes for me by taking that step.

You want to do it and are aware of the bigger picture so go for it. I think it’s something that many people find difficult to enjoy for a long time but with flexibility and good boundaries and a strong work ethic it can work well. I enjoy it. You don’t need it so the biggest stress is removed as you can leave, change jobs and do whatever you want. I also wouldn’t work as hlta when their terms and pay are so poor.

I don't know why people are suggesting that @MyPearlCrow isn't listening. She's engaged with her thread much more than most people do, and she's clearly listening. But the lawyer in her is looking for clarification and detail, that's all. And that's the best kind of listening.

I agree. I think the OP is being fairly patient actually!

Of course it happens! I’m employed as a maths teacher but this year I’m also teaching History, Geography, Music and PE due to staffing issues!

I teach Economics and have on three occasions been given year 7 Geography. I worked hard to make the lessons good quality but I don't have a GCSE in it even. And no it is not the same thing! Not the physical Geography anyway.

Just being super nosey, do you have a lesson plan to teach off? Or are you told ‘topic is x, teach it’ and that’s it? Is it in a sick cover capacity for a lesson or two or for whole academic years?

I don’t want to do secondary, but this issue - an expectation that a teacher can teach a subject that they have no qualifications in - is genuinely jaw dropping for me. It doesn’t happen in my kids’ (state) school so I had no idea. I bet parents don’t either!

That’s a really unnecessary way to respond to that post. What I meant is that teaching is very stressful and there are other ways of ‘making a difference’, especially if you’ve burnt out before (though I see now you are saying that you didn’t). Just FYI nobody does teaching because they are motivated by money. I’ve done 35+ years of it and I think your response is uncalled for.

No, they aren’t all struggling with what to do instead. Some want to leave but are sticking it out because they don’t want to let down children - they know it will be hard to replace them. You aren’t the only one with good motives, you know.

What people mean when they say she isn’t listening is that her responses basically say ‘no, it wouldn’t be like that for me because I can stand that sort of stress/am more altruistic/can stand up for myself’. She isn’t taking on board that many teachers are exactly like that and still burn out/get managed out.

I bet it does happen in your kids’ school. How would you know? It happens in every school I know of. If you are lucky the HoD or another teacher of the year group will share their planning, which you then have to tweak to fit the kids in front of you. Often there’ll be nothing but ‘teach x’ and you have to research it yourself and write your own resources (as happened with me and A level Media Studies - and that was in a very supportive dept, but the MS teacher was the one I was doing the maternity cover for so I couldn’t ask her). Several people (including me) have told you they had these non-specialist subjects on their timetable, officially, for a year or more. They did reports and Parents’ Evenings for the lessons too.
The idea is you are qualified to teach, and expert in teaching. Anything else you can pick up.

The staffing crisis and the budgetary issues mean that we may be at an all time high when it comes to staff being given subjects unrelated to their own. We had .8 of a Geography timetable that has been met entirely by staff who were over hours in other subjects. Non are humanity teachers!

I'm surprised you find it so surprising! It's totally commonplace. Are you sure you'd know if it happened at your dc's school? It's not as if the school would announce it. There's no reason you'd necessarily know your child's geography teacher is actually a history teacher or a business studies teacher. They might quite regularly teach both but only be qualified in one. I doubt the school publishes a list of the teachers' actual subject qualifications.

When I taught KS3 English for 2 terms (in a school that had been rated Outstanding the previous term), I certainly wasn't given lesson plans to teach from. And they were also lacking a Head of English, so nobody really to guide me either!

I'm surprised you find it so surprising! It's totally commonplace

Why should she know? I'm a teacher and I didn't realise it was that bad in secondary now.

I'm a history teacher. But i've also taught all humanities subjects at ks3, plus geography and sociology at ks4 due to lack of staff. Currently teach history, geography, ethics at ks3 and history and ancient history at ks4 and 5.

In the past, when I moved and returned to work post kids, I also taught year 5 and 6 for 4 years.

I would not recommend as a career, and I say that as someone who changed from a competative business setting to teaching in 1999 ish. You'll be attractive as a new teacher because you will be cheap, but trust me, the demands on my 54 year old body and brain are massive. And the respect for my experience is non existant.

Yes, there are days when I have lovely lessons. I still enjoy the teaching, but it is increasingly disrupted by appalling behaviour, or SEND needs that I have no TA support to deal with. I have 32 kids in classes and in some of those I have 6-10 of them with additional needs. I try my very best but it is hard to feel effective.

The behaviour system in most schools isn't designed to help staff. Any sanction is something you follow up, you deal with. There is very little SLT support. Abuse is regular and that's not just from the students, but the parents too. In the past 2 years i've been spat at, had stuff thrown at me, and felt intimidated by students frequently- and I am a good teacher with decent behaviour management skills.

I would not go into it again if I went back in time. And the pension isn't what it's crackedup to be either. And the micro management- it is dreadful. Expect to be observed, judged and critiqued constantly, often by teachers with less experience or skill than you.

Sometimes you get a bit of a lesson plan, but it's more likely you need to cobble something together. Besides, it's not always that easy to understand what's meant by other people's lesson plans! You do whatever lessons you've been allocated until the end of the academic year or until the person returns, if they're sick or on leave.

There are lots of organisations you can usefully volunteer with:

Coram Beanstalk is one. Google 'reading volunteer', loads to choose from.

Schools are crying out for extra support here, with someone who knows how to help (trained in phonics methods etc).

Or tutor (you can train in specialist teaching e.g. Dyslexia Matters or Dyscalculia Network), then you work 1 to 1 and can set sliding scales if you wish to assist children from families who are less well off.

There are lots of ways to make a difference. Not all depend on standing at the front with a class of 30.

@MyPearlCrow

Found Lucy's whole series (previous post was just a snippet on another R4 programme). Here it is - all 5 episodes. Enjoy!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000m84

It's a series called 'Could Do Better'. Very enlightening. Illustrates many points discussed in this thread. Not all the recruits kept going, some decided it wasn't for them after all (no shame in that) and it's interesting to hear their side of the story too.

One former CEO said he had to work just as hard as his old job, when he became a teacher, for 1/10 of the take home pay. What it means is we should be looking after good teachers and paying them better.

Friend who is a single mum with two children chose teaching in international schools abroad as the cost of living here meant she wouldn't have been able to survive (international schools often have perks like subsidised housing).

You will do that in primary, too.

As a primary teacher you could potentially teach anything. I did a stint in primary as part of my teacher training and I taught all of the following:

• English
• Maths
• Science
• PE
• History
• French
• German
• Spanish
• RE
• Art
• Geography
• Music

I dropped Music, Geography and RE the second I could when I was at school, am not sporty in the slightest (nor do I even have a passing interest in sports) and have never had a Spanish lesson in my life. One of my children now also learns computing, which I was taught at school, but in a coding language now so outdated it would barely translate into modern ones, so I wouldn't have the first clue how to teach that, either. You learn stuff the lesson before you teach it, essentially.