To career change to primary teaching?

[RedYellowGreenBlu]

I am a qualified lawyer. I hate it. I have been trying to escape for four years but I am struggling to find another career I want to do. In part that is down to logistics – location, having two DCs etc (so cannot just start from scratch either). I am 41 and qualified in 2010. I earn well but not as much as you would think. I don't want to go inhouse etc etc.

I keep getting drawn back to teaching, again and again. I recently saw a career specialist who did personality stuff and teaching came up, again.
The reason I have not taken the plunge is family members, friends and friends of friends have all told me no. Don't do it - too stressful.

Does anyone teach who actually enjoys it? If you hate it – why? Where do you live?

You asked for opinions and experiences.

You now have mine.

Christ.

The thing ís, you are suggesting going from one stressful career to another.
That's what many people are all trying to tell you. Yes, you know what stress is and if you are going to teach then the stress is just a different flavour of stress. It's still stress.

Plenty of primary teachers would disagree.

Also fucking annoying being lectured on stress like I don’t know what that is. Christ

Nobody is saying that. It's just odd to think that because you've had a stressful job (which has caused you to burn out and want to leave) that you have chosen another stressful career and are belittling the stress of people in that career and assuming that because you've experienced stress, that this job won't be a problem for you.

Well, crack on-we need all the teachers we can get. It does feel like you're not listening in the slightest though.

Don't do it without going in to a school and seeing what it's really like. It's a job that never ends. You can never fully relax when you're at home as there's always more you should be doing

@RedYellowGreenBlu

I am not diminishing anyone’s experiences on here when I say this - I truly mean it. But the stress and worry that comes with the high stakes in my current job cannot be matched by teaching.

Why have you started this thread if you already know what the stresses in teaching are like?
People have told you their experiences but you know better apparently

I agree - the page gives a good picture of what it’s like to be a teacher.

I’m a former teacher who did 26 years and wouldn’t go back. Micromanagement, no breaks, constant criticism and pointless paperwork, no life.

Go for it if you think it will be less stressful than your current job.

I retrained as a teacher after a corporate career for 15 years (marketing) and qualified at just over 40. I'm 2 years in and absolutely love it. Yes it's stressful, takes its emotional toll and never ends BUT there is joy and satisfaction in every single day. I adore the kids in my class, I really do. They're a complex bunch but wonderful. I feel lucky to have them!

Im fortunate that tricky parent emails are extremely uncommon. I'm also not in the UK, so OFSTED instead a thing, nor is the NQT year which I hear a lot of bad things about. Here you do several placements over your masters. Then you qualify. In the first two years you need to gather some evidence to show you're progressing but it certainly isn't anything awful. I think here too there is perhaps less teacher bashing, and less rules around taking holidays in term time etc... that's not a thing we'd worry about here. I think kids are kids a bit longer, school starts a bit later and generally as a culture we're a bit more laid back about school (in a good way!)

I honestly can't imagine being back in the corporate world now.

@Sal17690 it sounds like you are describing a different world and I suspect the words I'm also not in the UK are the reason. I know a fair few teachers who love their job but they all teach in different countries as well!

What do you mean by this bit: less rules around taking holidays in term time etc

Is that for teachers or pupils?

I worked alongside one teacher who had been earning megabucks in corporate banking. Switched to teaching secondary maths in a really challenging school. She was utterly superb.

I knew one who managed 10 years before heading back to the job where she'd managed million pound budgets and had had time to eat, drink and pee during the working day.

I have known several who have left partway through their training, one of whom could simply not get used to having zero control of her day and being spoken to as though she were a small child.

Hi @Shinyandnew1 sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant kids taking holidays in term time here isn't seen as a bad thing at all. Just as an illustration of it being a more laid back culture. I couldn't believe when I read about people paying fines in the UK! Teachers definitely expected to mainly use holidays for their holidays!

Hi @Shinyandnew1 sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant kids taking holidays in term time here isn't seen as a bad thing at all. Just as an illustration of it being a more laid back culture.

That sounds sensible-I can't bear the current obsession around attendance for state school pupils. We used to have pupils that would go on amazing cheap caravan holidays with grandma in June, having never been on holiday before, but now they are kids that have just never had a holiday as the family could never afford it in August.

It sounds much nicer where you are!

If we could get rid of a few things, I would be staying, but after nearly 30 years, I'm done. It used to be a nice job :(

Horrible emails from parents at all hours. I've been screamed at in person by parents when their child has lost a coat and I dared to ask if it had a name in it (...'this cost me a fucking fortune, do you think I was gonna to fucking write in it')

Huge numbers of pupils with additional needs and insufficient support but still the same expectation on teachers of progress/workload. We have growing numbers of non-verbal children in nappies, some with significant medical needs, in hoists etc and the inadequate sprinkling of extra money the EHCP brings just means the teacher ends up doing most of it whilst trying to supervise the other 29. 'Reasonable adjustments' means that (some) parents expect a virtually bespoke learn v experience for their child-that could be 6/10 in a class. How much can one person do without breaking?!

Ofsted-I don't even know where to start with this one. I had high hopes for the future when the single grade being removed, yet the replacement is even worse and it sounds like a done deal that this is the way forward despite the 'consultation'. This is the final nail in the coffin for me.

Constant pressure from above, little autonomy with how you can teach and if you deviate from the party line, you'll quickly find yourself in a 'support' plan. This obviously doesn't offer any support but is just capability, meaning you'll find yourself being utterly micromanaged, every minute of the day-observed weekly, your lessons, books and assessments being pulled apart and your confidence destroyed. I have seen this happen to so many older (UPS!) teachers! Being told what to do-and I mean really stupid but time consuming and pointless things-by a 20 something year old member of SLT who is rubbish and you know the outcome won't benefit the children at all.

Lack of flexibility-we are supposed to be able to now take our 10% PPA time at home but this isn't possible in many schools as it's held during the day so you still need to let your class in/see them out so can't go anywhere. If you're lucky, you've got a head that will let you go to your own child's sports day, medical appointment or assembly, but there are many that just won't consider it.

The curriculum-too much content and too narrow. Cut 1/3 out of it and get some flexibility, enjoyment and love of learning and collaborating back and I bet we won't have quite so many school refusers or parents desperate to withdraw them from mainstream.

It could be done, but it's not going to be. All I can see is coming is Ofsted causing much more pressure, schools being forced into providing wraparound care with no funding, being responsible for cleaning children's teeth and redundancies for support staff to pay for the unfolding teacher pay rises!

If you like working 65-hour weeks, having your evenings and weekends dominated by planning, marking and admin, being subject to ridiculous and unreasonable demands from Senior Leadership, being on the receiving end of work-shy parents' gossip and aggression, trying to manage out-of-control behaviour at the expense of actually teaching, then go for it.

It's reasonably well paid after the first few years for very good reason: people don't stay - they don't want to do it.

You seem quite short-tempered when you are told something you don't like to hear. The swearing and aggression from your last few posts doesn't bode well for a career in which you will need to hold your temper far more often than you can imagine.

Even shadowing a teacher will not give you a sufficient impression of the workload and stress that comes with the job as so much of it is now taken home, because there is no time left in the day for you to do the things required of you to actually teach. Workload seems to have exploded in the last 3 years or so, and I hadn't thought that was possible, but it's what happens when schools have no money left and many are already in a budget deficit. No money for TAs means the teacher does it, no money for admin staff, pastoral staff, cover supervisors, lunchtime staff or increasingly even cleaning staff means the teacher does it.

I have worked before my kids got up this morning, am working now while I'm waiting for food to finish cooking, will be working later when my children are playing, will be working this evening and likely most of tomorrow, too, and still not be done. I am working 2-3 hours before school starts, stay until 5pm, work again from 8-10pm. And I am efficient. Very efficient.

You're welcome to try it. We need the staff. But be under no illusion of how hard you will work, how much stress and pressure you will be under and how much of an impact this is going to have on your life, your health and your relationships.

There's a book out where a man travels the UK, talking to people about their jobs. He meets a teacher who had been an army officer and been in Afghanistan . He said without hesitation that teaching was more stressful. I really wouldn't diminish the stress levels.

I used to love how rewarding my job was but the reward is dwarfed by the other shit not to mention constant worry

That's exactly how I feel about teaching! The being with the children part is amazing, but totally dwarfed by the rest of it and you know when you're wishing that part away so you can try to make a dent in your massive pile of 'other shit', you know something is badly wrong. Teaching wasn't like this when I started which is what makes me most sad.

It's important though, not to compare stress or try one-upmanship with it, I think. Maybe it's a different stress to the high-stakes stress of operating on a patient who might die, or representing a person who might go to prison if you don't do it well, but it's still stressful. I wouldn't presume to say I would find it more or less stressful than your job because I haven't done your job, but you appear to be suggesting that you'll be ok with it, despite having never done it, because you're used to stress. The fact you left due to burnout is important not to forget.

The stress I feel is the 'boiling frog' analogy. I coped with the increase in paperwork, observations, PMR, increase in parental contact to 24/7, the prescribed scripts of schemes of work and strict timetabling. But that doesn't stop, it expands and the micromanagement gets continually worse, the complaints get worse, the behaviour gets worse, your TA gets removed, you don't just have 4 pupils with SEN in your class, you have 6/7/8/9 and still no extra support, but you are still expecting to make all children make progress, and still expected to stick to the script, and you still have to do displays, photocopying, plan for your unpaid curriculum areas, prepare for Ofsted, parents evenings, report writing, keep on top of marking ready for data drops and book scrutinies, and plan topic days, lead trips, plan concerts and assemblies, oh and another child with an EHCP has joined your class, taking you to 31 with no extra support. It's the relentless creep of workload that I find stressful and am often ill during the holidays because my body feels like it just packs up when I stop the plate-spinning for a few days.

You might be fine, but don't dismiss the stress just because you have different stress in your current job.

I'm not a teacher so can't comment on the actual job, but I know locally a number of teachers who can't get a job in primary teaching. There is a shortage of roles and the birth rate is dropping, so it will only get worse. Check the situation where you live.

I teach in Special Education- love it. Kids make me laugh, it's often unpredictable and when the kids learn to do something, I feel a huge sense of pride!

I've been a teacher for a fair few years and over my time have worked with the full age range from reception to Post 16. I love being in the classroom and children are the best but it's all the other stuff and not enough time to do the core job properly because of all the other hoops to jump through.

Expectations have ramped up over my career but none contact time has decreased so you have to do everything out of school time. You aren't given the time and resources needed to do the job but it's then your fault when things aren't how other people subjectively judge they should be.

You also have to cover your back in so many ways as parents and SLT hold you accountable (not the child) and you have to justify decisions you make, what you say, the tone you use etc when you are rushing around trying to do 50 things at once.

I'm a well established teacher with a reputation for being firm but fair and I'm usually well liked by pupils, parents and staff but even I get my fair share of rude, even abusive, emails and phone calls from parents who will always believe their child over the professional. These take a long time to deal with and are soul destroying and usually over the slightest thing.

it's not a profession to go into if you haven't got a thick skin and it is fairly stressful. I always say we try to cram a full year's worth of work into the 39 school weeks and that brings it's own stresses.

I've done both: solicitor, then trained and worked as a secondary teacher and now back to law. I personally found teaching more stressful than law - and I only worked 0.5! However, I'm still glad I trained and taught for a few years. And every person and job is different so nobody can tell you which is best. If you have young children then I would not retrain now, the PGCE year is gruelling. I would wait until they are at high school to do it. But otherwise, I'd say try it and see. You might love it and you can always go back to law if you don't. Also I did secondary and I think behaviour is generally worse and the kids less malleable. I did a stint at primary as part of teacher training and the children were so easily pleased!

I’m a teacher and I love it. I teach Year 6 and am an English Lead Practitioner. I don’t find workload an issue if I’m honest, although I’ve been doing the job long enough to know how to work smart. I do work evenings sometimes but so does my husband who is corporate; in fact, I’d say he works longer hours outside work than I do. In my school, we aren’t micromanaged and the children are lovely; it’s a deprived area we’re in so we aren’t coasting off affluence - our children are genuinely great and the SLT supportive over any behaviour issues.

I’m not sure I’d recommend it as a job though as I’ve only felt like this now I’m very experienced; getting to this point is a slog, but I guess you could say the same of any career!

@RedYellowGreenBlu

I'm a 50 something Primary School Teacher looking to leave education.

I've been conflicted for years - it can be incredibly rewarding & great fun, but it's also utterly soul destroying & beyond exhausting. Hardest job I've ever done, by far & sadly, if I had my time again, I wouldn't do it.

I agree 100%! ⬆️