AIBU to consider retraining as a maths teacher in my forties?

[Curioustoteachmaths]

I have a successful career in finance but quite frankly I am tired of the corporate game and looking to change careers into teaching maths. Late 40s, in London. Have you done this shift? What has been your experience?

I did this and qualified when I was 40. The first couple of years was hard work but I was juggling massive workload and childcare- I then moved into FE and got promoted. I love it.

I suspect you'll find you earn significantly less, have just as much stress and much less respect to be totally honest with you.

I know many people who made similar moves into both primary and secondary schools at a later age and almost all of them left pretty swiftly to find another profession where they felt more valued.

Ha I was a maths teacher and left to run my own bookkeeping business. I wouldn't go back to teaching personally

How much time have you spent in schools recently? Arrange to go and do some observation first.

It’s a tough job but Maths teachers are in short supply so you would likely be able to pick and choose your school.
Having a previous career outside teaching would mean you could bring some great life experience to a school.
You need to have very thick skin and be good at time management though.

We have a friend who made a similar transition. He chose a school that has some challenging aspects and had a rough first year but now absolutely loves it.

Teaching is a young person’s game and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to go into it in their late 40s. I trained as a teacher in my mid-30s, also in London. Was burnt out within 5 years.

Left to work in children’s services/safeguarding for a local authority, where I was still making a difference for young people, and found it far preferable to teaching, in terms of workload, stress and work/life balance.

Went back to doing some supply teaching when I was 50 and did that for about 3 years before having enough and left the profession for good.

Teaching in inner city schools is a very tough job. The workload and pressure from senior staff is immense and continual. Behaviour is DIABOLICAL. You will be spoken to with disrespect, derision or downright abuse on a daily basis. You need a lot of stamina and energy to get through tough, unpredictable days, often with minimal breaks. You have to deal with entitled and//or disinterested parents. It’s a bloody nightmare.

Most teachers I know are looking for an escape route by the time they are in their mid-50s, when you will only have started.

Would strongly advise you to reconsider and think of other jobs you can do with your transferable skills, I wouldn’t go back to teaching if they tripled the pay.

This is exactly what I am afraid of. I have arranged to go to a school and meet the teachers and observe a day in school. I expect the pay will be less but what about work life balance. I am hearing pretty scary stuff on this aspect. My plan is to train attached to one of the top private schools in my area. I suspect it wouldn’t be representative of the broader teaching profession?

I expect the pay will be less but what about work life balance

Honestly pretty much non existent. I really love my job (I'm supply) but I wouldn't recommend moving into the profession to anyone especially someone who has seen life outside of teaching and is used to being treated like a human being in their working environment.

Schools are crying out for maths teachers so you will be snapped up. It is a very very hard job. (I have never been a teacher myself but DM was one and I am friends with several teachers and they are all very stresssd).

Have you ruled out finance in industry? Having trained in a corporate firm in London and now working elsewhere I have a decent work life balance I’m not in London though anymore.

OP if you get a job in a selective independent school you’ll probably be fine. I’m in Year 30 of my teaching career and still love it. Teach at an independent school in a big University city, been there 20 years and it’s great. It’s intense and you have to be resilient and great at multi tasking and enjoy the company of teenagers but I get great holidays and contrary to all the doom and gloom I don’t work all holidays and evenings and weekends.

I knew someone, highly qualified and a brilliant teacher, who made that switch. She taught in an independent school. It didn't end well.

I teah in an independent school and have a very good work life balance. I teach a similar subject to maths and the marking load is very light because there's no essays. A lot of my colleagues set auto-marked homework which is possible in maths too.

It does take a good couple of years to get confident in the classroom with behaviour management and generally cheeky kids who will try to push boundaries and see what they can get away with, in terms of rudeness or laziness etc. Be prepared not to enjoy it until maybe 1.5y in. But then it'll all click and every year becomes a rhythm you repeat, like driving a familiar route.

I assume you are willing to accept a very substantial pay cut so I’ll try and keep it to the actual job itself.

I was a teacher, and it’s a very draining job. If you’re introverted you are likely to struggle - if you’re feeling a bit ill, or maybe having a bad day you can’t just sit behind a laptop and do a few meetings, obviously no working from home, you have to be “on” performing, happy; engaged with 100+ children/teens over the day. Yes the hours are draining and long, you’ll get hardly any breaks in the day and if your school doesn’t have a proper behaviour policy you’ll feel unsupported and stressed constantly.

There’s no sick days (you obviously can’t work if you’re horrendously ill but management hate having to pay for supply so you’ll be working when maybe in an office job you’d take a sick day or wfh/leave early). And obviously no flexibility on holidays and things like being able to pop to the shop at lunch. Some schools will expect you to give up time during Easter and May holidays to support gcse revision (unpaid).

In some schools teachers may share resources and lesson plans but otherwise you’re on your own. At least with maths after a year or two you should be able to reuse your own lessons with some tweaks.

You probably know all the above already but the other things I’d add are schools can be a very cliquey place to work and if you don’t get on with your colleagues (if you’re a maths teacher the other maths dept) then prepared to feel isolated at work. The flip side is if you do get on with them you’ll have a supportive team that will make a huge positive difference to your day to day.

perhaps if you’re changing careers you’ll have more resilience and be better able to manage the workload, hours and expectations. So I’d really think about whether you feel you are the type of person that gets energy from others and would love interacting with close to 200 children a day (very possible if you have 5 classes of 30 plus a form/tutor group plus all the kids you’ll see on break duty etc). The school you choose to work in will be critical - and I don’t just mean “good” (results) but the point around having a supportive team, realistic expectations on what a good lesson looks like, whether there is a supportive behaviour policy. Are there proper consequences for children who distract, swear or get violent with other pupils or staff? You want to spend time teaching not doing behaviour management.

What are the book marking and homework requirements (ie when you look for a job think about all the “extra” things you might have to do - you want to work in a school that makes things easier, for example setting homework online via a portal so then things are automatically marked and checked etc rather than you setting, marking and logging homework outside of lesson time). Will you have to run an afterschool club and what are the break/lunch duty requirements?

I don’t want to put you off as it can be a really rewarding job and give you some real highs. But the constant grind and exhaustion (I felt I never could really enjoy Sunday afternoons, and felt too tired most evenings to have plans) just wasn’t for me. But some colleagues had seemed to find it much easier got their energy from it. I think it comes down to the individual personality and the school dynamic. Good luck if you do go for it.

One other thing - you haven't said if you have kids - if you have school age kids, there are pros and cons to being a teacher. You're off for the holidays which is a huge pro. But in term time, it's impossible to do drop off then get to work on time unless you work at your kids' school. It's very hard to get time off for the nativity play or sports day etc.

We only make it work because I'm part time and dh works from home most days. Otherwise it'd be much more stressful

Pay scales are publicly available. Gently, if your research hasn't even extended to finding out the pay, then I am not sure that you have really given this the serious consideration it needs to determine whether it's a realistic idea.

Not at independent schools, they often aren't. Sometimes they'll give a ballpark range in a job ad, sometimes not.

Op said independent school

Do a week in a school to see what it is like.

i’m retired now but i was maths teacher for twenty years and my ExH worked in finance in the city.

in term time I did more hours than he did. Holidays different obviously.

we had a fair few mature trainees at my place. Honestly the ones that wanted it for logistical reasons (school holiday childcare etc) were the ones that stuck with it as the trainees who want to give back often burn out.

the office politics in schools is much worse than in more corporate environments and they are much less professional generally.

one guy who moved in from the civil service had it right - people are people wherever you are and if you are managing them (whether teens or teachers as a hod) they don’t really change. I think he regretted leaving his well paid job,

the trainees who want to give back often burn out

I strongly agree with this. No one should try to "give back" or "give their all" to a job as you'll just burn out.

I consider it my own responsibility to protect my own evenings and weekends. I have little sympathy for colleagues who pipe up and volunteer for lots of extra stuff but then complain endlessly that they are overworked. Say no!

Have you watched Ann’s maths lessons on Amandaland?!
Teaching is the best job in the world mind!
( Said on a sunny Saturday afternoon after coursework has been handed in! )

Do private schools train teachers? If they do, I assume you wouldn’t be getting the £30k tax free bursary to train?

@Curioustoteachmaths I have to say that some teachers do have a satisfactory work/life balance and do take the holidays. In my experience as a school governor, we are keen to not overwork staff but it’s a steep learning curve for new teachers. I think, ultimately, the key is being very organised. You need your family life organised around you and work smart! In your current job you are probably doing that and many job changers make a great success of teaching. You must like dc and an independent school or selective school is easier in terms of behaviour. Dc who want to learn are wonderful.

I went to uni when I was in my 40s and have since had a successful career in teaching. It's a wonderful and very rewarding job. However, I will say that there are always piles of beaurocratic crap to wade through, which can be overwhelming.

Go for it.

Have you arranged this with any of the top private schools yet? They tend to be less keen on trainee teachers as parents don't like it if they think the quality of the maths teaching isn't up to scratch. Maths is probably the subject they focus on the most. Top private schools also generally want teachers who can teach further maths as well. If your subject knowledge is shakey, the children will rapidly discover this weakness and will pick up on it and complain about it.

State schools are more challenging when it comes to behaviour but they will also pick up on poor subject knowledge and be quite brutal about it.

When you start out as a young person you are used to being out of depth a lot of the time. You are also fresh from doing A levels and a degree so more familiar with the curriculum. There is no easing in gently to teaching, so you have to develop your skills in front of a class and sometimes you won't be very good at it. That can be quite difficult for people who are older and used to being very on top of things at work.

Having said that, I love teaching but you need to go into with your eyes open. Work life balance is difficult for the first couple of years but if you are efficient and on top of your subject it is ok. The holidays are amazing!