After reading a thread warning against teaching as a career!!

[SunsetOnTheHorizon]

I'm due to complete my degree and I am applying for a QTS+PGCE course for September 2026.

I am aware the teaching sector is a nightmare to work in right now (going by the recent thread).

But my main aspirations are to 1) work as a supply (once I've completed my ECT years) and 2) to work abroad 3) work in specialist schools not mainstream. Considering these 3 factors is it still a stupid idea to go into teaching? Thankfully my dh brings in the bulk of the income, this is something of a dream that I am looking to fulfill. Always wanted to teach, and didn't get round to it as I ended up raising a family. I currently work as a TA in a special school - that's why I am more inclined to work in one once I'm qualified.

AIBU to continue pursuing my dream considering the current climate?

Go to any profession and people will moan “it isn’t like it was” and “it’s changed”.

I think Teaching is great overall, a good salary with optional added bolt one once you have settled in. Pension and perks are good. Yes it isn’t an easy role and technically youre a preformer for 5-6 hours a day (not to mention the countless meetings / extra training / assemblies / projects / displays / reports / marking / lesson planning / communications to parents - all daily) which is exhausting and no one sees unless they work there.

Every job has difficult areas and good areas, teaching is excellent for if you plan a family to r even if you don’t, you have a nice paid holiday time to travel around the world.

downsides are parents moaning about the smallest thing, some kids being down right rude and parents think no way possible. Government and their budgets. Parents think you sit there all day looking at your emails. Can be emotional, but overall the kids are brilliant and make it a great choice and something that warms your heart regularly.

Go for it!

The posts about teaching being a vocation are complete rubbish. It is a job that still needs to pay your bills without feeling that you should go unrewarded for the extras you will be expected to do. Saying it is a vocation is a way of trying to normalise the unrealistic expectations the job now entails.
TAing does not give you a REAL insight into teaching, do not be guided by this .

Yes, my sister teaches abroad and loves it,

Higher wage, she doesn't pay rent, and her salary is tax-free.

I agree with this. I think there’s a distinction here between pressure and responsibility. GCSE (and even SATs) students are put under much more explicit pressure than past generations about exam outcomes. I think what the previous poster was getting at was the arguably excessive responsibility placed on the school for those outcomes when coming under judgement from external agencies, without appropriately accounting for contextual factors. I think both things are true.

OP just be really realistic how much work goes into your completing your PGCE/QTS. The amount of work is unlike anything you’ve ever done!

I was previously a TA and honestly it’s nothing like being a teacher. The pressures of teaching is nothing like that of a TA. Be prepared for a lot of hard work for the next few years

For many people that leave teaching its not the teaching that is the problem.
As long as you are aware of the ever rising behavioural issues and the continual desire of goverments to pile more and more work on teachers.
Increasing even more levels of work load.
Pushing more and more responibility on to the teachers and the never ending poor SLT that buy into crap ideas or are just extremely poor with their own little cliqhes.
You will have a fighting chance.

Also rememeber that even if you find a good school, with good managment and entirely supportive colleagues the school is only ever one change away from that changing.

Yeah it is. I did it for the cash not the good of my heart.

Its just slave labour now. Mainly female slaves

Totally depends where you’ll end up, I know one of the local school 10 previous students (that I know of) returned once they were qualified teachers, but only one of those lasted past 5 years, all were moaning within 6 months.
SEN schools also involve the fact you will get beaten up it’s only a matter of time, a friend is recovering from broken ribs 6 year old caused, and often has black eyes etc, but still loves her job, depends if you can cope with that or not.
If it’s your passion go for it.

My daughter worked 10 years as a teacher in year 1 and reception. Although she enjoyed the job the recent years felt too managed and schools are now run as a business. She still works in education for the local government but wouldn't go back into school not is this country anyway. she has friends who work abroad and love it.

Another thing I experienced after 6 yrs in the job (renting rooms in London and living no differently to my uni student days, now aged 30yrs), was going to visit a bank manager trying to get a mortgage on my own.

At the time, my salary was about 32k. My take home minus pension, student loan, peak train fares to work etc was less than 1.7k. The bank manager laughed at me when I wanted to buy a 1 bed in Catford... 3.5 times my salary plus my deposit I'd saved hard of 5k per year (£112k + 30k) was just about half way to a 1970s ruin. And that was before the London Olympics. It's miles worse now.

It made my mind up that the hours I was working, the unpaid overtime and the pitiful annual rungs up the ladder with no prospect of a jump required in pay (no matter what I did, there was no school budget and senior posts were being shelved) meant that I'd never have my own home. It was the calling card to quit and stop wasting my good years on a salary that maintained nothing more than a student lifestyle.

When the deputy head on 42k is also sharing a flat with flatmates - not uncommon now - not out of choice, but cost of living anywhere within the M25, it's time to recognise that teaching is a v nice 2nd income or job for someone with family money or a well earning partner, but it's becoming ever increasingly hopeless as an income for anyone with responsibilities like children or elderly parents. Yes, you can buy further away, but teaching isn't a job where you clock 9am to 5pm hours. 1st assembly was 8.30am, 1st staff meeting 8.10am, children outside at gates from 7.50am (who needed watching on rota), staff expected to be prepping for day in their classrooms at 7.45... So, yes, you could afford a 1 bed in Basingstoke, but you'd be leaving the house at 6am daily to do it. Yes, possible for a few years. Not a career span.

I look back on those years and feel they were good 'hobby' years financially.. I made a difference, I learned a lot. But compared to my peers at uni, I was way behind them aged 30 in terms of having a home, having a wife, having money in the bank, and having self respect.. I felt like a bit of a loser at 30 renting a room in a shared house with 3 other people (and their various partners and 1 night stands), suffering ever changing flatmates having sex on the opposite side of my bedroom, having my possessions nicked when I was at work by people coming in and out of my home, and contemplating begging my parents for a handout...

The mortgage interview really was the moment my life had to change. The world, the financial world, the world away from 'goodwill' and 'vocation' quotes (senior management team bollocks) had moved on, and I had to as well...

Just my point. If your DD is 'shattered' in her first year of teaching, she will be broken by her 6th and out by her 10th... As a young woman, she shouldn't be 'shattered' doing any job.

There's no long term future in teaching any more. It's great for a while, good fun, the kids are amazing - but it's a meat grinder. Physically (and mentally) and financially.

Just look at this thread... The happiest/most of the happy teachers and older teachers are now all part time...

Supply is the worst side of the job, the kids are feral and tbh you need experience to be able to cope.
Many schools overseas ask for several years experience before they will accept you.
When you find a good department in a decent enough school with reasonable SLT and average kids it's magic. Any of those ingredients missing and it's hell.

Teaching is a job for under 35’s l think. You become too tired, stressed and cynical after that.

I used to be a secondary school teacher and personally hated it. Stress, behavioural issues, lots of evenings etc.

When I did my PGCE, 52 people started, 20 saw it through to the end. 2 are still teaching in secondary schools now. The rest left the profession.

But some people love it and that’s what makes us all different. I did my PGCE at age 30 as I always felt it was my dream job. For me it wasn’t but it turns out education was for me, just something slightly different to teaching children and I’ve worked in the adult education sector instead for 15 years now and love it.

I loved teaching and retired missing it. I did some supply teaching and found this oknwith primary but very hard with older pupils.

If you can afford to work part time and/or employ a cleaner. I wouldn’t recommend it otherwise. I did it full time for 25 years and it eats you alive. The workload is immense, it’s ok for a while but not sustainable. The job of teaching YP is wonderful but schools - well ACADEMIES - are toxic .

Teaching results in loads of moaning bastards but I worked in a school in similar role (SEN role in a very very challenging school, physical aggression etc every single day) and had the best time. I worked there for 11 years and miss it loads (have moved to a consultancy role in a community based setting but very similar cohort and job).

Go in with your eyes wide open, understand that you NEED energy and passion every single day. It’s not something you can half arse. You are under appreciated and it feels like the goal posts move every day. Ofsted is a fucking nightmare, and you need to learn to ‘play the game’ so to speak. That can be very draining. But it’s magic in lots of ways! The kids are amazing, some parents appreciate you more than you will ever know (and some won’t, no matter what you do). You have a laugh every single day, and you’re always learning and developing your skills.

Remember that it’s just a job, and you can leave and do something else at any point. And enjoy it!

If you've always wanted to teach (and money is not the first priority) it would seem worth giving it a go. As a TA you must have a reasonable idea of what's involved. If you feel SEN is right for you that's probably easier than mainstream.
You're lucky if you can find a school with reasonable management - not always the case!

I would think supply teaching would be quite soul destroying - maybe suits some people / certain circumstances.

I suppose you know that OFSTED is a nightmare and can drive away good teachers (especially the head teacher). I'd hope it would be not quite so bad in special schools as in mainstream, and maybe a little less stressful for TA's than teachers.

It's funny how teachers and junior doctors are often tarnished as 'moany bastards' by the press and others, mostly not to their faces.

They are both graduate and post graduate professions.

If you have found yourself £30,000, £40,000, £50,000+ in debt to the student loans company in order to qualify and serve society, you might be inclined to be a bit moany or bastard-like paying 7% interest on this debt per annum, the first year of loan having already cumulatively increased in debt by the time you qualify.

Yes, politician say "don't worry. It will be cancelled when you hit 65!!!"...

Er, yes, will it??? Will it really? Or like the green belt today that was sacrosanct in my parents and grandparents lifetime, will the rules change and houses be built on the land/the debt be taken from one's estate on death???

The debt mountain and omnipresent high rate of interest (double mortgage rates today) verses salary received... Hmmmm... No wonder younger entrants to the professions are feeling a tad grumpy/ripped off unlike their forebears :)

I would get a permanent job rather than supply. It will look better on your cv for an international school. You will need to complete your nqt year before you are a qualified teacher so supply can make that tricky

I've been on MN for around 15 years I think and there have always been threads by teachers saying how awful the job is etc.

Yep-it's been an awful job since about 2010. I enjoyed it before then.

I spent most of my career teaching in specialist schools, and I wouldn't have dreamt of going back into mainstream.

Special school teaching has its different stresses (I retired a few years early because of the physicality and injuries) but it's more focused and you're not having to meet a massive range of needs of a class of 30, from the gifted kids to those overdue a place at a special school (and with a lot less support). I also enjoyed the closer relationships and working with families and other agencies.

Nice how you just disregarded my lived experience of teaching/working in schools and completely ignored the rest of the post rather than just one sentence.

I stand by my statement. I have nothing to add re junior doctors. And I have a student loan - so do the majority of people I know. Not sure how it’s relevant.

My son is as a specialist school and we adore his teachers and think the world of them. We are also completely aware that he gets a fantastic level of support as he is a class of 6 with a ft teacher and ta.

do it - just think was an amazing change you can make to a child’s life. My son started his new school at age 7 barely able to read and after a term of consistent teaching and small classes has learned so much and his confidence is through the roof!

Supply doesn't pay anywhere near as well as it used to. Yes, they'll throw money at you if you're an experienced maths or chemistry teacher, but not otherwise.

It's often about £100 a day, not guaranteed work, behaviour is tough, you need to be able to pick up and follow other people's planning and routines with no warning and often no TA.

Most schools have got no money, so prefer to cover using TAs in house as it's cheap, or will want a cover supervisor from the agency at a much lower rate.