Thinking of switching careers to become a teacher - thoughts?

[Bettymum]

I have a science degree but I'm an accountant, so I get well paid but I have a long commute, long hours, and I've been doing this for 16 years [old emoticon] and frankly I've had enough and I miss my children.
DD will be starting school next September, DS will only be 30 months.
So...am I mad to consider jacking in my job and retraining as a primary teacher? I want to do something that adds value to society, and other than being a good parent, surely being a good teacher is adding huge value. I know I will take a massive paycut but I think we could manage.
Opinions from primary teachers please! Am I insane or do you love your job?

Others have probably said this already, but the best way to find out is to do a couple of weeks of work-shadowing in a variety of schools.

You need to also think about employment prospects when you finish your PGCE. I think it is pretty hard to get a primary job at the moment, but it would be much easier for you if you went for secondary maths or science. And having worked out in the real world, you will have a lot to offer in a secondary situation and definitely add value.

I switched from working for a major blue chip to teaching and I found the transition really easy, tbh. You don't hear a lot of teachers say this, but it really isn't as hard as working for a dynamic corporation. It isn't a 9-3 job, however.

When I did my PGCE and my first teaching job, I had small children who were with a childminder. They were with the childminder for the same hours as when I worked in industry (approx 8 - 5.30pm). I have never been one to do much work at home. I never do marking at home, but do do research for my lessons.

If you decide to pursue this career change, do not mention the negatives of your current job in your PGCE application or any future job applications. You have to be positive about teaching - and you have already mentioned the usual 'good' reasons.

Good luck!

I think that it useful to point out the actually hours-it is quite plain on here when people mention 'teacher's holidays' that they don't realise how much work has to be done in them.

I have no desire to be a teacher, but I have enjoyed reading this thread. I have new found respect for teachers, you all seem to work so hard for little financial reward, props to you all.
(incidentally I used to go out with a guy who lived with his sister who was a teacher, Sunday nights she used to get the wine in and we'd split the books up and Mark a few each, wonder if the kids ever compared teacher/s handwriting)

I had nine weeks holiday this summer and went into school for about 2 hours. I didn't do any work at home.

I do very little in the holidays bar reading around and having an organise in my classroom and to be honest I only have to do the latter because I am such a slattern.

To add to my post above, I love teaching and am very, very happy to have retrained as a teacher.

And the holidays ARE great (though try to work in the same county as your children are at school - working across a county boundary can mean completely different holidays. Easter in particular can get a little exciting). I tend to work several days of most holidays and 2 weeks of the summer, but most of that is at home with maybe 2 days or so in school printing out and sticking up displays etc.

Term time, however, is hard. The huge benefit for me is that although I work very similar hours in total to when I was a middle manager in industry, those hours are somewhat more flexible. So while in an office I worked continuously 8.30 am - 6.30 pm on a normal day, as a teacher I can choose to work 8 am - 4.30 pm, drive home, be 'mum' until 9 pm when both children are in bed, then do the next 3 hours of work in the evenings. It's that ability to create a 'mum time' gap in the day that makes it more child-friendly for me, especially as my DH leaves the house at 7.15 am and normally gets home at 8.30 pm.

Nine weeks holiday?

You must work in a private school or in a different country then.

I would also be a bit about a teacher who genuinely did no work in a holiday - because for me, holidays are when I mull over what worked, what didn't, what I will do differently next time, what units of work I will completely re-vamp, which books I might use to enthuse children about particular types of text, how to create displays in the classroom that are actively helpful and engaging to children etc etc.

I would worry that a teacher who did none of these things in the holiday was, perhaps, just planning to use last year's lessons, and last year's resources, and last year's ideas, all over again even if they were teaching a class with different needs, even if the teacher was bored with some of the topics, even if some of those lessons didn't really work last time... (I do have a private school teacher freind who literally does have every lesson for the year filed in neat plastic pockets - complete with undifferentiated worksheets - and teaches them in order every year)

DD, at the moment, has the same teacher DS did 2 years ago. She is receiving EXACTLY the same lessons as DS did, and I have raised this repeatedly with the head as a concern and a competency question about the member of staff concerned. DS, on the other hand, is receiving lessons absolutely tailored to him, to his class (happens to have an unusual number of very good mathematicians, for example), with all sorts of new topics and new angles on things and new resources.... which I don't think his teacher just pulled out of the bag on the day term started....

When do you do your marking then, Mindthegappp - teaching generates plenty of it, so how do you avoid marking in the evenings/weekends? Genuinely interested.

I meant to say teaching Y6 generates plenty of it - particularly writing.

I too would love to know this because my PPA time only makes the tiniest of dents in my marking let alone planning etc

I get to work at 7:20, mark like a maniac, also during my lunch hourbreak. I have 2 frees a week, both are ppa, but i use one to go and pick up my own kid from school. I am in school til quarter to 5.

i don't usually have marking to take home, and i aim not to. I think 10 hours a day spent working is enough, actually, except in extraordinary circumstances (mock exams needing a swift turnaround).

i have somewhere between 20-30 students per class, and i have 11 classes i see over the week. I don't think it would be physically possible to mark everything they did in every lesson, and i would raise my eyebrows at someone who did. having said that, i am likely marking something done by some class every day.

i am a secondary science teacher.

teacherwith2kids - are you seriously telling me that you 're-plan' every lesson you teach?

On the whole I can not think of a single fellow professional that doesn't use their previous planning and 'tweak' it to fit the current students they are teaching - the curriculum hasn't changed that much in the last couple of years that needed a complete overall in planning and resources.

Are you sure that your DD is not just reporting that they have done a, b, c in school and you are reading this as it was 'exactly' the same as it was with your DS?

i have also been teaching for about a decade - it just doesn't take me 5 hours planning per lesson anymore. Sorry.

I plan and mark in my frees (20% of my timetable) and in the hour to hour-and-a-half that I spend in school three days at the end of lessons. I am also in school one hour before the start of day and have a 75-minute lunchbreak should things get out of hand.

I replan all my lessons as I am teaching the stuff to different kids and it needs to be completely personalised. I havent yet found in 10 years that I can just simply teach what I taught before in the same way. I will also every couple of years or so relook at LTP and qualifications to make major changes to what I teach.
I work in special.

I mark every classes' books once a week, btw. It takes me 20 - 30 minutes per class, typically.

I can teach some lessons with virtually no planning - using published or pre-used resources and my memory of previous years (adapting, not repeating)

These are not the best lessons, however. Even 10 minutes spent on planning pays dividends.

I spend about 2 hours per week in one go planning my lessons for the following week, as well as shorter bursts closer to the lesson.

Cricket,

I have just done my main planning for the week.

The Literacy lessons were completely re-planned because I have changed the books used for this Literacy unit a) to engage boys more and b) to fit in with the particular topic that we are doing.

Maths lessons: Re-planned 2 of 5, significantly changed 2 of 5, found additional online resources etc to engage HA children more in 1 of 5

Both of these will also change daily during the week depending on how the class progresses - especially in Maths as it is the first time I have done multiplication with this class so I don't yet know their capabilities in detail. May get to Tuesday and have to scrap plans and re-do the rest of the week.....

Topic: haven't done this topic before (we plan for each year from scratch in Topic), so all new.

Science / ICT / RE / French etc: The unit plans for these were 'tweaked' during the summer holidays based on what happened last year and on links to topic. Some weeks I teach lessons I have never taught before, some weeks it is a tweak from last year.

PE (happens to be swimming): my group this year is significantly stronger than last year, with 2 children in particular needing fdifferent tasks. So some extra thinking these, though I don't write formal plans for swimming.

Have been working (with MN breaks) since around 10.30 am, so not 5 hours per lesson, more like 5 hours for the week (have also set homework tasks and am about to embark on the final round of marking from the week).

Ahhhhhh - there's part of the answer: 20% non-contact time, and a 75 minute lunch break!

Still don't get this bit though: I mark every classes' books once a week, btw. It takes me 20 - 30 minutes per class, typically.

Really? For writing? What do you write? I would mark using marking symbols (circle for missing punctuation, etc), then comment positively on what a child has done well and then the next step to work on.

Takes at least 5 minutes per child - could maybe manage 8 in half an hour.

Ah, what mirth. 75 minute lunch break? That's twice as long as mine. 20% of timetable? Try 10% (or 3/30).

And totally agree with Feenie. If it takes you 20 minutes to mark a whole class's worth of books, you're either not doing it very well, or you have classes of 5.

Work in a private school by any chance?

I think MTG either works in private or not the UK as her conditions are very different to state schools. I get just over 10% PPA, P/T means I would have half a session if truly stuck to 10%.

20 minutes' marking ONCE A WEEK????

I'd be hanged at the next book scrutiny, is all that I will say.

I don't mark every subject every day - our marking policy actively encourages self and peer assessment, and I don't need to mark every book in detail if I have given verbal feedback to that specific child during the lesson (just the normal highlighting of objectives trick and a note to say verbal feedback given). But even so, Maths and Lit I would mark fully (2 stars and a wish, green and orange highlighting, all the usual stuff) 3 days or so out of the 5, other subjects it will depend wht we are doing.

the point I was trying to make teacherwith2kids was that you are want to complain (even discussing competency when you yourself has just admitted that "Science / ICT / RE / French you have only tweaked")

Whilst I agree that you change your teaching to suit your students (which I do all the time by the way) you also cover the same topics in general and whilst your dd may be reporting that she did this and that - how do you know that the teaching is exactly the same.

I really think that you are being very judgemental about this teacher on hearsay reports.....

Sadly, cricket, I know that I am not.

For example - and only a small part of the whole picture - a comparison between books across every subject (which is possible because all books are sent home at the end of every year and also displayed at parents' evening) reveals exactly the same material and exactly the same written work, even the same guided reading books and the same page of the maths scheme book, used day by day for DS and then DD 2 years later.

Obviously my concerns raised with the head are not just about this - they range between no provision for able children in that class, the fact that teachers in the next year have stated (written and on record) than the reason that DS did not make progress as expected last year was because they were 'too busy catching up those children who had been failed by the teaching in the previous year', etc etc etc. Apologies for not spelling out the full background for you - I can see that I could have come across as miss judgypants - and I hope that I have now given a little biut more of the (sad) full picture!

Even where I have only 'tweaked' a unit, I mean that 50% of my lessons in that unit will be substantially different.