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?

A teacher on the top of the payscale (M6)earns about £47000. Above that is senior leadership and more responsibilities. So a bit more pay than nursing but probably double the hours if you take into account what has to be done at home. Nursing is also a respected job, most people think teachers work 9am to 3.30pm and have long holidays.

Hi, absolutely! For context, I worked there a few years ago so no idea how much if/how it has changed. Imagine the worst micromanaging you have ever experienced by non clinical managers who know nothing about healthcare. You are put on a "learning curve" from day 1 where all of your reports are 100% audited. If an auditor disagrees with your report, which can be often as reports are subjective, they will ask you to change your scoring, review the report and call the claimant back without giving you any protected time to do this, so you inevitably end up working late.

It is common for a report to be considered a pass by one auditor and a fail by another, so it is soul destroying and you feel as though you cannot win. You will work late every day without lunch breaks, they expect you to complete the reports with top accuracy in a completely unreasonable timeframe, rarely showing any consideration that some claimants may take considerably more time than others. If you fail to achieve 5 A1 graded audited reports in a row in your first 6 months, you are sacked. If you are struggling they put you on a PIP. I have seen this happen to numerous people, I have seen numerous previously strong and resilient nurses falter and become nervous wrecks after being PIP assessors.

This is my experience only, but please have a good look on reviews from previous employees on Indeed etc, I wish I had read them before I took on the role. I imagine that it only suits nurses who have a strong ability to compartmentalise, it is the worst job for anyone who is empathetic and compassionate.

@monicaspurpledoor Whatever you do, don’t assume your BIL’s experience as a male teacher would be the reality for you if you went into teaching. You would not believe how much worse female teachers are treated than male teachers, not just by the students either!
The example you gave about finishing at 5 instead of 7 is not comparable to teaching either. Try that 4 days a week plus an additional 2-4 hours in the evening as well. That’s without even mentioning the weekend and holiday work that’s needed just to keep on top of things. It is far from a job with a good work life balance. If you asked my DC what career they would never choose they will say teaching without any hesitation because they saw the amount of work I had to do when they were growing up.

i didnt.
I used my friends who qualified at the same time as me. Long term career and pay prospects are better than nursing. Also with 10 years service plus bank
holidays I still get 5 weeks less holiday.

I’ve been qualified 16 years so well established and my pay is at a standstill and that’s with nurse prescribing as a band 6 specialist nurse. Higher grade jobs are few and far between unless you want to risk your registration doing 10 min appointments at GP surgery where your expected to assess, treat/prescribe in 10 min slots. My friends after a few years including NQT year have better balance than I can get in nursing.

My BILs example is that he changed careers and working alongside without a teaching degree.

I also used one recent example of how even in the ‘community jobs’ nursing doesn’t just start and finish in core hours and it’s classed as ‘part of the job’.

You sound very defensive and bitter. Thank goodness my friends aren’t like this! We can have grown up discussions about work experiences etc.

Nurse specialists can earn well over 60k

So you are just reiterating what I said although as you’re not a nurse and only know 1 who’s become an imms nurse perhaps you really shouldn’t be speaking for any nurses. I’ve nursed for 40 years I don’t speak for all nurses but I’ve got a pretty good idea about what nurses think and why they do what they do.
I know 30+ who are imms nurses or tried imms nursing it is exactly what you say it is: somewhere where nurses “happily ride it out for the last 20 years to retirement as also suited them after their kids left school.”
Maybe I’m wrong but I suspect the OP is looking for something a bit more challenging and interesting than immunisations.
Secondly we are not oblivious to other roles in nursing maybe not the super specialised ones but being an imms nurses is not an overly specialised role I think most nurses know about it.

You wouldn’t have any shred of work/life balance, secondary teaching. You sound naive about the reality of teaching.

I am a teacher. Have done it for 20 years and am desperate to get out. SLT is toxic and misogyny by both SLT and the students is rife. You have to put other children before your own. I have missed every event my children were part of in their schools growing up as I was not allowed time off. I was in hospital having a massive operation last year and there were piles of marking waiting for me when I returned. I am spending half term writing UCAS references. Each takes an hour to write and I have 25 to do. Nobody thanks you when you do a good job but everyone notices when you make a mistake. Don't do it.

Teacher here, teaching will NOT give you a better work life balance. Sorry but you're in cloud cuckoo land if you think it's an improvement. Read the teachers replies on here, if you pro rata the pay against the actual hours you'll need to work to do the job properly, you'd be better off stacking shelves in a supermarket...and no stress. I do get irritable about people who can't see past the holidays to the reality of today's classrooms.

wowsers!! Thank you for replying.
Micromanaging to this level is stupid & fully explains the high turnover rate. I personally know two nurses that have left for a PiP job but then returned, the reason they cited was due to feeling isolated working from home.

I've just found this discussion online sounds like not much has changed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DWPhelp/comments/1wf8588/pip_assessor_jobs/

It's definitely time for me to step away from the ward, I'm going to keep looking at alternative roles.

Approx 50% of nurses are band. 5 in England that’s about £39000 pa more in London of course and we get enhancements for nights/weekends. Band 5 is the starting band for a trained nurse.

I have two DDs. A nurse and a teacher.

Both find their jobs really stressful, but though nurse daughter might have work on her mind when she's not there, she doesn't have to actually work when she's at home

Teacher DD spends a whole day of her weekend working, and a fair bit of her holidays. But she has a clear routine rather than working shifts. Nurse daughter rarely gets to leave promptly at the end of her ridiculously long shift. But she works three long days, plus the occasional shift to bring up the hours, and doesn't have to actively work in those remaining four days.

I'm not judging which job is harder/more stressful. I'm just pointing out that you'd be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

What about nurse education? You already have the knowledge, you only need the teacher training, and imagine no more night duty, ever 😀

Starting salary for teachers is low £30000s so nurses start on considerably more money. Still not fair for hard jobs with lots of responsibility.

Teacher here. It's half term and I'm marking. I am in no way new to the profession but due to curriculum changes I have planning to do this week, at the very least 3 hours just to be ready to start the week. Have lost track of the times I work late at school and then have to do more at home. Regular compulsory training and meetings after work. It's very fulfilling in the classroom but that is a fraction of the job.

Nurses all start on £39k? I didn’t realise that!

Starting salary i.e. bottom band 5 is £32k in England so similiar. Top band five: £39k is after 4 years. The problem is getting onto the next band there are significantly less jobs it’s not a coincidence that 50% of nurses are band 5 although this may change under agenda for change. IME of teaching there’s quicker and easier progression, when I trained to be a teacher they all said you would earn more than £39k after 4 years and they get extra money for taking on extra responsibilities running after school clubs etc nurses don’t, not that this is a good reason to be a teacher horrible job!

No in England they start on £32k it’s £39 after 4 years.

Thank you again everyone for the messages and advice - especially all my nurse colleagues who feel the same way 🥰 it helps to know there are many of us that feel like this, I’m still undecided.
I would just like to clear up about the phrase work/ life balance I see many teachers commenting how the workload is - I totally understand this part for me I don’t mind a lot of work what I don’t want is to be out in the cold up to 9.30pm at night when my shift finished at at 8.30 pm, I’m going home worrying a patient might not make it through the night, various safeguarding issues that I have to deal with day to day but no time to deal with them so will have to do it on my day off. I have migraines most days, wake up in the night with anxiety and then feel sick on my days off ‘recovering’ then I have to work a shift a day at the weekend. So workload is no issue it’s the unsocial hours/ mental workload that we deal with daily. I’m by no means taking teaching lightly- I wanted to teach before nursing, I feel I would be a good teacher.
Also noted some posters have misinformation about nursing salaries for reference I earn over £52K per year- nurses above me start at 65K ish.

Yea that’s not going to work. Teachings work life balance isn’t inherently better than nursing. I view them as quite similar. I’ve been a lecturer for 15+ years and it’s only since working at a university would I say I have a better work-life-balance. Aldo the pay isn’t amazing. Would not advise! Saw your update….No you will not do shift work but teaching is a very stressful job with a heavy mental load.

Teaching would not reduce your stress or improve your work life balance in any way. Please just take some time to read the teachers posts on Facebook/here , the unions, the news. I have been teaching for 30 years and it is getting harder and harder. I have literally no life outside of teaching apart from being a mum of 2. It has destroyed me. We are now run by MATS who cream off all the money whilst parents and the general public blame teachers for everything. We are constrained by our employers, watched daily for compliance to rigid rules (we are not allowed to teach how we want to). I love my subject but I use my own money to ensure I can do my job properly, whilst dealing with complaints constantly from parents about things we have no control over. Some dreadful attitudes and behaviour, no support. Classes of 34 for KS3 and 4 with up to 50% Individual Education Plans. People have absolutely no idea what is going on in our schools. It shows how little people understand that you would even think this would be true. I am sat here marking my Y11 mocks during half term and will be working the whole week just to keep my head above water, planning, writing references, ILPs, online training. The unions are weak and non existent in most MATS and work related law is not adhered to as you get managed out if you dont say yes to everything you are asked to do. So extra meetings before school , after school, CPD, open evenings, parents evenings (not all online) etc etc. Please wake up to what is happening in schools.

@monicaspurpledoor
Thank goodness my friends aren’t full of absolute bollocks like you! 😂
Funny how the experiences of your ‘friends’ differ from the vast majority on here…
I’ll tell the small number of my friends who are still in teaching (the vast majority have quit!) that you think there are greater progression opportunities. I’m sure that will amuse them, especially the ones who have only recently secured a permanent contract after several years of temporary contracts! There were 100 trainees on my course 22 years ago, I think there are less than 20 still teaching! Tells you all you need to know!

I'd highly recommend a sixth form college or FE. The stress with rooms full of actual children will ruin your life, unless you find a nice private school. I'm not exaggerating. Teacher since 1989.

I don’t think you understand the role if you think a huge mental load and safeguarding issues waking you up in the night, don’t affect teachers.

@TwinklyRoseTurtle I think if you really are thinking of going into teaching you need to look at exactly what your going to teach.
When I did it the 3 subjects you mention teaching health and social care, at the time wasn’t a progress 8 subject so most MATs aren’t interested, dont know about now, and was taught by anyone but usually someone who teaches art/music/drama etc. I observed a lesson the teacher hadn’t the faintest idea about health and social care, there was no shortage of English teachers so no bursary for the training and the one English teacher trainee couldn’t get a job at the end ditto biology. Of course things might be different now but if you can return to university and do another degree and you really want to go ahead with this mad idea look at which subjects are short of teachers maths being the most obvious.