DH Converting to Primary Teaching?

[WhoKnew2010]

Does anyone have any advice or knowledge about converting to primary teaching?

My DH has been a SAHD for 18 months since leaving his last secondary school where he was a D&T teacher. He is also a cub leader (with his mates - seems to involve a fair bit of time down the pub ). He has loved being with KS2 kids and would like to 'convert'.

• Would he need to retrain?
• Would it be easier (all things being equal) to get into primary teaching as a bloke?
• Are there any pitfalls to watch out for?

Any advice or comments would be very gratefully received, thank you.

I don't think he'd need to retrain. Can he do a bit of supply to get some experience? Blokes are generally in short supply in primary teaching so that would be an advantage. I know people who have gone from secondary to primary successfully.

Think there arent many primary jobs around anymore and lots of primary teachers out f work.

Get your DH to volunteer his services at a local school if he has the time. You don't need to retrain but he does need to be able to persuade to take him on as opposed to someone qualified in keystages 1 and 2.
He could also do some independent study on these keystages, and make sure he knows what its all about.

Good luck.

Thank you - that's great advice. It would never have occurred to me us to do independent research on the Key Stages (sorry, I realise how bad that sounds). Great idea.

Rainbow - I take your point. Especially as he will have no experience of primary yet be more expensive than an NQT.

But volunteering and supply sound like a very sensible approach & very glad to hear no formal retraining is required.

Thank you all very much. I really appreciate it.

YY I agree he needs some KS2 experience.

There are lot of primary teachers out there without jobs, so tho it is technically possible to move that way without retraining (unlike primary to secondary) he would need some experience to stand out iyswim.

sorry totally off thread, but how fantastic to see a male teacher entering primary school. This is such a necessary role model for so many kids (particularly boys). Best of luck to your DH!

also he could do some professional development such as a PG cert e.g. in SEN - have a look at your local teacher training uni. Would go down well and help him to stand out from the crowd.

He's a bloke, He will be fine.

I tried to do this a few years ago, but no go (grr to that xx chromosone). Are you in/near a middle school area? may be easier to transfer that way to bein with. Lots of supply goes without saying; also he needs to be upto-date with the various primary strategies etc.

DS's last teacher was an ex-senior school teacher, he had him in Year 4.
AFAIK he didn;t need to retrain.
DS loved him.
He had high expectations of the kids for work and behaviour, maybe because of his background of teaching older kids.
Your DH should go for it. Boys in particular need more male teachers in primary school.

Begin with, obviously.

Thank you so much all the ideas re strategies and training. I'll see what there is at the local uni - another good idea. There are no middle schools here (we're in a city notoriously poor for education where the secondary schools DH was teaching at before he decided he'd had enough often lower attainment than the KS2 teaching in the popular primary schools).

It's really helpful to think about it from the perspective of the school - I realise that should be obvious

gherkin - I feel for you - while as a parent I'm all for more male teachers if they're good, it does irk me that yet again men are at an advantage. I'm guessing that there aren't too many people saying that we need more female hedge traders ...