To want to change careers from nursing into teaching for better work life balance

[TwinklyRoseTurtle]

I’m aware both are highly stressful careers, I’m quite senior in my role and would be taking roughly a 15K pay cut. However it keeps niggling in the back of mind, from posts I’ve seen this on previously I’ve seen it commented that teaching means taking work home- in my nursing role this is also very common- you never switch off even on days off. I’m finding the shift work increasingly difficult but not just that, I still like helping people it’s my favourite part of the job but I just feel like nursing is not for me anymore, I’ve still got a long career ahead of me and can’t deny the fact I would prefer Monday- Friday hours and all half terms off for childcare also. I’m interested in hearing from anyone else who has done this? Is it an unrealistic expectation for work/life balance?

Cross posted with your subsequent posts OP, so you may not want to consider my suggestions. I loved running clinical trials though. Loads of time to build good relationships with patients and really look after them. The things I was working on were ground breaking and life changing, so very rewarding.

Yes, the holidays are lovely BUT you will be working every weekend and in the holidays too. Long days and the feeling that your work is never done. No option to WFH and you’re only ever as good as your last set of results. Being micromanaged is the norm in most secondaries and there is an increasing complexity of need in mainstream classrooms without the resources to support. Ofsted pressure is truly horrible.

I totally respect nurses and the job you do but teaching is not going to give you a better work-life balance. I’d be looking for health-based third sector roles, or could you train as an OT or SaLT perhaps?

PGCE with QTS is a good route to take. Especially if you can get a ‘golden handshake” subject. With regards to the salary, if you’re looking at FTE salaries you’ll need to reduce that to the amount of weeks you”d teach plus holiday pay then divide it by 12. If you haven’t done that then your calculations will be out as teachers are paid holiday in line with most other professions. The rest of the holiday is unpaid.

That would be a nightmare. If you want an easier less stressful life this would be a very bad idea. Especially taking into considerstion the drop in salary. A totally bonkers move.

I started a thread about this recently
I’ve done some research and work experience in secondary school.

my findings - secondary science dept.

1. teachers are amazing! I was blown away by their communication skill, enthusiasm for their subject, multitasking, managing behaviour while teaching, remembering names, health and safety in the classroom etc also in the school I went to, camaraderie and mutual support of each other.
2. the science you had to do at school in order to pursue a medical career later on, was a little boring then and still is in my view (lots of light waves and photosynthesis). There is a shortage of chemistry/physics teachers so even biology teachers will spend a lot of time teaching waves and particles. It was very different to the anatomy/physiology you will have studied at uni.
3. there’s a lot you will have forgotten - I think I would need to pretty much study and resit my GCSEs/a-levels again to reach the standard I was when I left school (and I got straight As in science and maths). There is a pre PGCE course they can put you on to refresh these if you are accepted into a PGCE, but it is a big commitment.
4. I realised how much I would miss if I left clinical practice, the diagnostic challenge, reading X-rays and blood results, being presented with a problem and being able to solve and potentially fix it in a short period of time, surgery. Teaching is a much more long term endeavour and you don’t get instant results/feedback in the same way.
5. I have kids heading to uni and can’t afford the pay drop in the next few years. I have decided to consciously not let my work be my identity, or allow it to upset me so much, I am looking to study other things part time with a view to phasing into something else in time. (Also thinking about pastoral/counselling type things)

definitely do the work experience, it will really help!!

You could be me!

There is loads of teaching involved in clinical trials too, so if you like teaching it is rewarding.

Can I just ask how this works?

I'm a secondary teacher in Scotland. We can cover classes in other subjects but to be able to teach exam level classes, you need to have a qualification in teaching that specific subject, and it's only accessible if you have a certain amount of uni credits in the subject. In practice, that means you have at least a year's worth of undergraduate study in the subject.

So you have studied English AND Science at university level?

I'm 42 and 5 years or so in, I wouldn't recommend it really, it can be good if your school and department are supportive and on similar pages but it can be awful. Even in a 'good' school some days can be just like babysitting lazy kids and being expected to get them all a qualification even when they have been moved into your subject in late October. Yes, the holidays, but by then many of us can't even string words together. I spend many evenings and a day most weekends preparing work and jumping through all the hoops still feeling behind. Your teens are not representative of teens in classes either.

I don't think it would provide the work life balance you want. How about occupational health/physicals or public health. Are school nurses still a thing?

I am going to assume you do not have any close friends or family who are teachers... Quite clearly.

What's your degree in? Would be very unusual to be qualified for both English and Science!

The OP doesn't need to do any calculations with teachers' salaries. Just go on to the NEU or NASUWT websites and the salaries are laid out from M1 upwards - what you see is the gross salary per year. There's no faffing about with "unpaid holidays" - the salary is not pro-rata, it IS the actual current annual gross salary.

Frying pan. Fire.

I don’t understand how you could teach English or Science or Health and Social Care. Do you have more than one degree? I assume you have a Nursing degree.

I would not recommend teaching for a work-life balance. You can work all the hours that God sends, and it still won't be enough. Your holidays will be spent in work, or desperately trying to get on top of things. No amount of safeguarding training will prepare you for some of the things that you hear children come out with, and trying to support them through the fallout of their lives as they know it is heart-breaking at times. Do you like being observed and inspected on a regular basis? Then throw in OFSTED hysteria. How are you in endless meetings? Are you calm in a crisis, and do you cope well with being screamed at (more by parents than children)? What are your behaviour management skills like? I am assuming that, as a nurse, you do have patience.

I was a teacher, once. I wouldn't go back to it. I know a few people who retrained as teachers. They all left within a year or two, citing stress and a non-existent work-life balance. A few of the teachers from one of my old schools committed suicide because of the stress of work, and having extra pressure put on top of them by the senior leadership. They couldn't see a way out of it. I would not recommend it as a career at all.

I'm a secondary science teacher in England, and I love it, but workload in termtime is totally ridiculous. It's also so inflexible that even though the holidays are long it's quite difficult to travel. I miss long weekends and city breaks.
I could do a science PGCE because I had an Engineering degree. I imagine you would be able to do Biology with a Nursing degree. There is an apprenticeship route now; worth a look. Recommend against English: marking workload is insane.

Why don't you reduce your nursing hours to take account of the salary drop that would happen if you went into teaching.

You'd lose NHS benefits, would you reconsider teaching nursing or being a clinical facilitator, what is your current role in the community, why are you taking work home.

My children regularly beg me to leave teaching.

Reality is that you spend all your time ensuring other people's children are catered for, to the expense of your own. When mine were younger it was difficult. Now that they're older, it is actually worse as they compare to their friends. I have missed assemblies, fayres, trips, shows, parents evenings...I could go on. I am that mum that takes my children to trampoline park etc, and gets out my laptop to work. Even during the holidays.

If you want constant mum guilt, no flexibility, and to continuously feel like you are letting everyone down, then go for it.

In secondary you usually do a pgce in teaching a specific national curriculum subject.

in order to get into the pgce you usually have to have a degree in that subject or something pretty close.

so a bio/chem/phys degree to do a pgce in secondary science. And so on.

some subjects (maths, physics) are much more short of teachers then others.

some places will let you do a subject knowledge enhancement as part of your pgce (eg you have an engineering degree and want to teach maths) but in general you need a degree in the subject.

i can’t imagine a degree that would let you teach English and science.

And you’re saying you have a crap work life balance 😂.

Why would you choose a different job that’s got the same?!

What sort nursing do you do? I work in research team, I'm admin but we have band 6 nurses who work Monday to Friday office hours only. Stat and mand study days are done within working hours.

Definitely do work experience. I don’t know how anyone can believe teaching provides a work-life balance. 40 000 teachers leaving a year, it’s for a reason.

Out of the frying pan into the fire.