Help me change my career

[Wanttogohomenow]

Please 🙏

I’m late 40’s, my degree is in Early childhood studies and teaching. My career has been teaching from Early years to late Primary, working with special needs children, Eal, childcare, nannying etc.
My A levels are in English language amongst others ( have worked in editing)

I would love to work in play therapy or child psychology or maybe speech therapy, but am assuming these all require further study-likely a Masters degree, which I’d love to do, but can’t afford

Any ideas?

Watching with interest as I am in a similar situation. Without knowing your financial situation though I would suggest a masters doesn’t have to be punitively expensive and can be integrated with a job. So if it’s something you are really passionate about and you think it could help you I would encourage you to go for it.

You'll have to do pre-reg masters. It's two years. Funded via the usual loan. There were a lot of mature students on mine, some worked alongside it (but in lower paid jobs as could only do evenings and weekends).
Depending on your outgoings, it can be done. But you may need to save up a bit to cover the shortfall for two years.

It may be worth looking at remote qualifications or doing the same masters course part-time so you have a little more breathing room to continue to work alongside it.

There are definitely remote masters degrees for play therapy. SALT is in-person two year course. I'd probably avoid psychology as it is a much longer study path to become qualified (masters+doctorate)

@Wanttogohomenow - you may not be aware there’s an entire board dedicated to mature study and retraining, here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mature_students

You’ll probably find quite a few threads on psychology there.

BTW, when you say you can’t afford a Master’s degree - have you already dismissed using a Government Postgraduate Loan?

https://www.gov.uk/funding-for-postgraduate-study