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.

It was Thatcher's government who first realised that education was really easy to meddle with and doing so made the government look as if they were 'taking action'. I started my teaching career in 1981 and watched as education first became a political football.

Successive governments have joyfully dived into messing with the national curriculum - remember, especially, the glee with which Michael Gove in 2010 tore up the history curriculum and made it reflect his own, special perspective on what children shouldn't get through life without learning (I said of the primary history revamp he did that even if primary teachers spent all day, every day teaching it, children would still leave primary school remembering very little of it)

My friend works in a school for DC with SEN (she has 9 DC in her class) and it’s the amount of paperwork that she finds overwhelming. She was the highest level of TA before and her salary has increased a fair amount but so has her work load.

You're massively underestimating what the job is. It's 65-70 hour weeks for not all that much money.
It's also a very physical job. If you were to end up with the younger end (which it sounds like you are at the moment), you need to be quick on your feet and have good stamina.
I've just turned 40 and am starting to feel it. A day on my feet, with a lot of bending and up and down off the floor is hard on the bones.
My dad was also a teacher. He got to 50, announced "teaching is a young persons game" and took early retirement.

I wouldn't if I were you.

I admire you, OP! You have already done a very tough job, and it sounds like you would have a strong sense of purpose. Doing it part-time is also going to make things more sustainable. I think she's already been mentioned on this thread, but the FT journalist Kate Kellaway retrained as a teacher in her 50s and wrote a book about it. She loves it. There is also somebody in my field who has retrained as a maths teacher after 20 years as a history professor, he is also very positive: https://teachingmathsscholars.org/whatadvicewouldyougivesomeoneelse

Oh thank you so much! I’ll take a listen. Really appreciate that.

Re Lucy Kellaway. The article was from 2016. I believe she taught FT for a short time then set up a programme to enlist mature trainees and now teaches PT Economics alongside this (I think) to 6th formers. I don’t think she taught for very long. Prepared to be corrected.

Not rtft but I think it's a great idea. What have you got to lose? I went straight into teaching after graduating from Oxford and I absolutely love it. Yes, it's tiring, but it's absolutely never boring. And I would hate to be a TA for the same reasons you state - I would want to be in charge!

Is there any chance of you training in your current school via a SCITT or apprenticeship?

@MyPearlCrow There ARE happy teachers and happy schools, and to answer your previous question yes leadership can make a big difference.

You posted at a time when most teachers were teaching, so got most replies from ex-teachers, not those who love it and still do it. It’s also the week before half term so many teachers are exhausted!

You must be resilient to be a teacher. Those with low self esteem, people-pleasing tendencies, poor organisation, lack of boundaries and mental health struggles get taken advantage of and burnt out. (hence the posts saying they work 70 hour weeks). It’s not their fault, they just aren’t suited to it.

If you have the emotional stability, support network and cast-iron motivation and love for children, you could still have a great time.

I visit different schools everyday. There is a huge variety out there and many of them are happy places. In the best schools there are stand-out staff (sometimes senior leaders, but usually TAs or teachers) who are joy to meet and a ray of sunshine to be around. You could be one of them!

I am a teacher and have been for many years. I am now close to retirement and just teach 2 days a week and teach adults. I started to scale my job back (moving from secondary to adults) from 50.
You need to be prepared for it to be physically and emotionally demanding - you are 'in charge' and 'on stage' all day - lunchtime meetings, break duty, cover, after school stuff. Plus all the prep, marking, displays...
Also, the added pressures of being in an academy..
I think teachers also get tired of the pay not matching the workload. I know it is slightly different but I work in FE and new teachers are low paid (it's worse than schools) - you could earn more in retail.
Many like the pension (which is good if you are like me and have 40 years service but 10 years will not bring much).
I still love my job - but not sure I would starting at 50.

She's teaching in the North East now.

A friend of mine did just this. A brilliantly capable woman who had been many things including being aTA. It's been difficult and she is easily working twelve hour days. She goes out once a week but doesn't see most of her friends until the school holidays. Even then it's usually half way through when she's recovered a bit. She is hoping to go down to part time. In her own words "I'd actually like to live"

A generic plan will ever suit your class. Some will need a hook they are interested in (algebra through the medium of F1 anyone?). Many will need additional scaffolding. Some will need extra extension I’d rather plan from scratch than adapt a generic plan. It’s quicker.

I love teaching. I did it for 35 years. The enjoyment never really dimmed.
Neing a teacher? Nope. It broke me in year 31. Total burnout. I managed to go back as supply and I was very good at it (I’m not naturally good at bugging myself up, but I competed what I got done with supply teachers I’d experienced from the other side and that’s the conclusion I came to).
Teaching and being a teacher are different things.
Could you look at jobs that involve teaching but not be8ng a teacher? Something with charities maybe?

You can sign up with the tracher training site and they send you on a be a teacher for a day experjence day thing . I did this and decided not to persue it but I am sure for some people it validates their choice. I found it very useful. You can always try that and start the aplications etc.

With your expeience you could probably also teach higher education or there is also industry training which might be an option if you decide not to teach in schools.

@MyPearlCrow - my advice to someone in your situation would be to take the TA job and then consider applying for SCITT - school-centred training - for September as SCITT gives more of an immersion into ‘real’ teaching than college based courses.

Once qualified, there is nothing to stop you working part-time if you wished and/or - given your particular circumstances- being extremely choosy about where you teach. For example, your school sounds like it has a sensible approach to creating resources - but not all do!

Another option would be to take the TA job and then look into training as an HLTA.

Going into teaching at a much later stage in life is a very different thing from most people’s experience and comes with its own challenges - less tolerance for SLT nonsense, for example, (not necessarily a bad thing 😹), but potentially having less energy as well. However, going into teaching later can also be very rewarding as older applicants often have a wide range of life experiences to draw on which can help with resilience and confidence. Being financially secure also means, in effect, having nothing to lose: If it works out - great - the kids get an enthusiastic and motivated teacher and you get to ‘make a difference’ for those you teach. If not, then you could return as a TA, but with even more experience.

This is my last year ( after 38). Only here because of student dd. I am quite serious in that if someone offered me a million pounds, I would not do another year.
It is an awful job. Don’t do it.

I’m cut out for rolling up my sleeves etc etc. I still burnt out. You seem to suggest those who don't are deficient in some way.
It’s not ‘negative’ to say don't, it’ll destroy you to someone thinking about it. It’s realistic.

My DD was at my secondary school. It meant I could never do her parents evening or options even8ng because I was working.

This exodus has been going on for years! All those highly educated, confident, energetic, strong teachers have spoken up many times - and been ignored again and again. In fact, things have got worse IMO.

You’d be completely mad to retrain as a teacher.

But I don’t have 25 others to think of or any of the other responsibilities so it might be easy to feel idealistic right now.

I think that's the crux of the difference in roles @MyPearlCrow . I get that you'd like to be a decision maker (I feel the same about my retirement volunteering role) but with that decision making comes a whole lot of intense work and stress. It's meeting and managing the needs, the behaviour, and Ofsted's expectations of all 30 pupils, that makes teaching massively different from being a TA. The work and stress level is entirely different.

That's why the posters who've said that their children's TAs can do the teacher's jobs better, are almost certainly mistaken. Even the TAs working with the teacher every day, don't really know what the teacher's work outside the classroom is like, or how it feels to carry that responsibility all the time.

If money isn't important, I think you've made the right decision.

Do it! Our kids need people like you!

Also, you may only want to work another 10 years max so it’s ideal, lots of people who talk of burnout have done it a lot longer and at younger ages.

If you can find a school that does help. You won't be able to do it on your own. Even the most fantastic teachers have to work within the expectations of the school. That's why amazing teachers end up leaving. It's not the kids.

I work in alternative provision but we are very much not academic.The learning is all done outdoors/ real world. Even that is pretty tricky as they have to evidence prescribed stuff to get even basic qualifications. Maddening when capable kids don't come in for weeks on end, when they come back they disrupt the ones that have just settled...and how to judge you are a success and make a difference?

Sorry that was meant to have someone's quote with it...about making a difference in a school...

I missed this post from @MyPearlCrow somehow.
That system sounds horrific. Short changes all the children and so, so dull for the teacher. It’s this kind of bollocks which is leeching the joy out of the good bits of the job. Nobody can plan for someone else’s class. Teaching to the minute of a script is awful, terrible, soul destroying, ineffective crap.
Your school sounds awful OP. Dont teach there, and don’t take anyth8ng that happens there as a model for what teaching is like. Unless you’ve misunderstood what’s happening, of course.

If you don't need the money why are you bothered about the low pay for a TA. I get that the social value to volunteering as a TA and being a teacher maybe perceived by some as on par as opposed to being employed as a TA. As an NQT and for a few years after won't be autonomous and will be at the mercy of Leadership team in terms of where and what you teach which could be demoralising. Why not just enjoy the volunteering to challenge yourself suggest a new approach or different way of doing things . You have a fab set of legal skills that could be put to work - perhaps as a debating group or similar. Good luck with whatever you choose x