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?

I left University Facilities I was high up, to become a apprentice Tutor, it was hard work and a lot of travel, I was better off in the university, but I loved teaching. I finally moved to been College based which suited me .
Have you thought about teaching Nursing or been a Doctors Nurse ?
I took a drop in pay to become a Tutor, but it was so worth it in regards to my home life in the end. I retired early at 50 , as I was able too work 3 days a week, the last few years before retiring, as I became an IV then EV

Teaching will give you a DIFFERENT work/life balance but it won’t be a BETTER one. Teaching and nursing are both overwhelming. If you want weekends and half terms “off” then I strongly recommend you do not teach English. You will spend every evening/weekend/holiday marking exam papers on top of your planning and other admin and marking. And you will almost never “switch off”.

We also have do deal with safeguarding issues outside our normal work hours and are frequently working late in cold ans freezing classrooms. The only time I return to my normal self is the middle two weeks of the summer holiday. The rest of the time I am working and at full speed.

Ex teacher here. Teaching won't give you a better work life balance. The holidays may be attractive but term time is very intense and teachers are leaving in droves due to poor work life balance and heavy workload.

You think it will take four or five years for the penny to drop? More like six weeks of teaching practice.

I suggest you rearrange the ward you work on ( if you are working on a ward, I know there are many different roles in nursing). Put all the beds ,or chairs for more mobile patients , in rows facing you, you might need to borrow some student/ patients from another ward to get up to about 26 or 28.

Make sure any other HCP are not in the room, you are on your own in this scenario.

Give all the patients a lesson on blood pressure. Read through the text, highlight significant words, maybe show them a video if you can get the whiteboard to work, then give them a worksheet to complete on why it is important to monitor BP what high blood pressure can do to the body and particularly to the heart etc. Include a diagram of the heart and get them to label it. In pairs get them to take each other’s blood pressure with blood pressure monitors ( you might need to negotiate the sharing of BP monitors with other wards, but this is a good skill to learn, there is never enough working equipment in schools either) and record it. Ask them to take BP on both their partners arms and discuss any differences. Remember that if any of them ask for help going to the toilet remind them that that is what break time is for. Make sure all your students/ patients have achieved the learning intentions of the lesson, even the ones who are asleep, unconscious, confused , demented, or otherwise disengaged.

The difference with teaching is that you don't get paid for any additional or unsocial hours. It's worse paid as a result.

Honestly I think teachers get an incredibly crap deal. My husband has always done over and above- at present its not just an 11 hour day starting at 7:30am and going on till 6:30pm. He works through the "holidays".

Nursing is also hard work but at least the shift system puts some boundaries in place.

IMO both jobs are stressful and it’s difficult to have a decent work life balance. Although IMO teachers are not working any harder than many nurses doctors ANPs etc the job is stressful just in a different way. Now you may find this easier.
I completely get the worrying about patients when we finish, the going back over things that happened, did I prioritise the right patient treatment? Did I realise how sick Mr Smith was and would the outcome have been different if I had? If I’d made more fuss and really pushed my concerns would that child still be alive, or would that patient have died more peacefully? I’ve been there done it got the T shirt and am still getting it.
And I completely understand the anti social hours thing especially if you have a partner/children our Xmas rota has just been published I don’t need to say anymore I know you will understand what that means!
But I found teaching more stressful (maybe it was my age🤪), the teachers I met all said they couldn’t be nurses in a million years, the stress of dealing with the critically unwell the dying etc. HCPs repeatedly go above and beyond they step up to the plate and as saw during Covid work till they drop and sadly even die for the people in their care they sacrifice everything health relationships etc but somehow teaching was more stressful and I can’t put my finger on it and explain why even though I wasn’t in such demanding stressful situations it’s the ethos that underpins teaching the attitudes of teachers towards each other, the attitudes towards the kids, the SLT and the SLTs attitude to non SLT, the heads, the MATs and their ethos I just couldn’t cope with it. Something was missing.
But where do you go? I left a very demanding and well paid position in the NHS where I was completely emotionally burnt out and physically very unwell and joined the nurse bank, and an agency I went wherever they sent me bar CAU! Some places I hated others I quite liked but I kept going and then one place I was sent I loved, it took me a while to realise I liked it, I love a shit hitting the fan emergency situation and this certainly wasn’t that but now I do it permanently. I am able to give the care I believe patients should receive i.e. do a really good job and make a difference to people’s lives. The wonderful thing about nursing is that there are so many different roles out there I genuinely believe there is something that will suit you. Don’t train to be a teacher.

@TwinklyRoseTurtle Are you looking to move completely away from hospitals, or would you consider a teaching position for children staying in hospitals over longer periods? UCL has a hospital school and the teachers there were brilliant. Maybe speak to some hospital teachers to see if their work/life balance is better than general teaching?

I’m a teacher and it’s incredibly intense - I appreciate nursing also is - but I doubt teaching will give you a better work-life balance. I stay sane only by working part-time, and I’d have looked at alternative careers for myself if I didn’t have a child with SEND that meant I needed the holidays. There are definitely some good bits and some upsides to working in a school, but if I had my time over, this wouldn’t be the career I chose. And definitely not if a work-life balance was my goal!!

Have you thought about Sen teaching. Worth looking into

Having done both, I would say do not go into teaching. No work life balance, it took over my life!

See I disagree with this. Teaching is my second career. First was highly stressful city job. You can absolutely work smart. And year on year you are teaching the same stuff so it becomes so much easier. And- and this is the clincher - WE GET 13 WEEKS OFF WORK! That is more than double the national average. Even if you work a few of your days you are still massively quids in.

I think teaching is an entirely manageable career. Yes it can be hard work but it is also hugely rewarding and gets easier year on year. Training is a tough year but i loved mine and still love the job.

most teachers haven’t had another career to compare it to. Those of us who have maybe think a it differently about it and i suspect you would too OP.

I’d go for it, OP! You understand the demands of a stressful role with multiple different stakeholders to juggle, and how to manage the interpersonal stressors. I’ve worked in a school (not as a teacher), both my siblings are teachers, and I have multiple other teachers in my family. They all enjoy the profession and having the balance of school holidays off is useful for their circumstances. They find the biggest two issues are an increase in student violence, which you may be somewhat used to depending on your area of nursing. Some schools are going to have less of this issue than others though. Their other challenge is managing the low morale and persistent hatred of the profession from colleagues. In my experience the staff room could be quite a negative place, which was interesting as when I’ve worked in forensic mental health facilities, the work was intense but the staff attitudes were just significantly more positive.

I might be shot down for this, but unlike many teachers here, they didn’t spend their entire holidays working. Over the long summer holidays they would have 2-3 days of professional development, and would then go into school to set up their new classrooms for a day or two, and sort their early lesson plans and activities. They never went into work in the other breaks, and any prep from home was just ordering resources or sorting plans/marking.

I have career changed from a corporate job into teaching. Like you, I had grown very tired of my industry and had a niggle to switch to teaching. I qualified with Teach First so you are placed in a school as a salaried teacher whilst you train and you are awarded QTS and a PGCE with no cost to you. This is across primary and secondary. Before I started Teach First, I did a short period as a cover teacher to decide whether it was the right job for me.

Overall, I have no regrets changing into teaching. Honestly the best job ever! I think the key thing is to find the right school and phase that suits you. I work Monday to Friday 7:30am - 4:30pm as an average, two nights after school I have meetings until 5pm latest. I very rarely take home marking and any planning I need to do I plan around when my child is in a sports club etc. I am currently on a two week half term and yes I have had planning to do for next half term, but I have done this over a couple of afternoons whilst watching a film etc.

My biggest warning would be how gruelling the training year is. It really is 100 miles an hour with a massively high expectation to ensure you qualify. There is a lot more to teacher training (and teaching in general) that people don’t realise! The PGCE on top is another layer of workload. I just told myself it would all be done in a matter of months and I would be qualified.

I could go on and on, but I will finish by saying I would be mindful of what teachers in the profession say. I am not saying they are wrong or telling lies, but in my experience I have found people who have only ever been teachers have a tunnel vision of the world. The reality is, a lot of the problems in teaching apply to any public sector role, it’s not just teaching that has it hard. I haven’t found the issues to be a problem as my corporate job was public sector based (like nursing) so I was already well versed in the politics and how to play the game.

Trust this comment.i was a teacher. There is no balance especially when you are training and in the first few years of teaching. Less hours having to be onsite but you make up for that in the work you take home and the mental work load never being able to switch off

From one fire into another!

Exactly this!

In my corporate job I was working on reports until the early hours with no where near as much time off or work fulfilment. You can always tell when someone has only ever worked in education.

You are very much in the minority. I work across lots of schools and most teachers I work with are really, really struggling. And yes, I was a teacher myself for 13 years.

OP, don't do it. Teaching is a complete shit show at the moment.

I would recommend if you are serious about going into teaching that you spend an hour or two reading the posts on the ‘Life after teaching: Exit the classroom and thrive’ Facebook group. This had about 100 members when I joined. its now got over 181,000 members. See what current teachers are saying.

Just wanted to say that when I taught FE I absolutely loved it! Yes its a lot of prep etc and marking is as dull as dishwater when you have to mark 35 of the same assignments but if you become proficient at your job, prepping for lessons will become more streamline once you've completed your first few years etc
Like most jobs, it takes time to adap, many cant hack the pace but those who can, get a lot out of it.
Yes I taught some shitty students some years and couldn't wait for their cohort to end but others were amazing! I taught from age 14 all the way up to 50+ and my favourites by far were to 14-18 year olds! Such a laugh to teach with all their dramas!
Go for it! You can always change your mind alter on if its not for you.

I really don't want to put you off as we desperately need more teachers. However, you need to understand the mental load that you will be taking on. The job most definitely lead to sleepless nights and horrendous guilt. Without too many details, I have experienced in the past year:
*A child that was being physically abused. I had to send them home as SS couldn't find an alternative for them and suddenly 'it wasn't too unsafe'.
*Many children that are highly neglected (no food, needing to sleep in school, no access to hygiene products at home...) I have bought many things and pretended that my children didn't like/need/use.
*A non verbal child who desperately tried to tell us that they were being SA. The guilt when we realised, I will never recover from.
*A child with little English reenact how daddy had abused mummy.
I could go on. I work in an Outstanding school in a semi rural area.
This is not a job that you can sign off at 3.30. We can't discuss most safeguarding issues outside of the 'need to know' either so cannot tell dh even when I desperately need to talk it through.

🤣🤣🤣
Is this a windup?

Experienced nurse here, go for it! 13/52 A/L a year too. Just put my bullet proof vest on re that but I have several family members who are teachers!

I think this is very true. As I said up thread teachers work and moan in an echo chamber. This reinforces the idea that idea that no one works as hard as they do. My friend who’s a teacher moaned that most days she works till 5 30 and looked annoyed when I pointed out that most people work to 5 30 and beyond. During my teacher training I listened just before October 1/2 term one teacher moan that she hasn’t had a holiday since the beginning of September, most people in the private sector get 2 weeks holiday in the summer if they are lucky and there next holiday is December. One spent 10 minutes moaning about all the work she had to do over 1/2 term and how she wasn’t getting any time to herself. Later that day she dropped into conversation that she was going to Greece for the week extensively detailing her plans including sitting by the pool drinking cocktails and chilling out. I’ve no problem with this but don’t moan your working every hour of 1/2 term.
Yup they work hard and the job is stressful but so do nurses cleaners carers and many others and many work even longer hours I wouldnt be a doctor for all the tea in China. I live in a mainly farming community my parents were dairy farmers now that’s really is bloody hard thankless work for virtually no return. A friends husband or now ex was a corporate solicitor with a magic circle law firm he earned loads of money but he worked 18 hours a day 6 days a week to progress his career and rarely took a holiday three times he simply failed to turn up at the airport due to sudden unexpected work commitments by the time their marriage collapsed she barely recognised him physically and emotionally.

Good luck with that.
Teaching is NOT the right career change if you want a work life balance.