With so many people leaving the teaching profession should I be reassessing my long term plans?

[Bumbolina]

I've always wanted to become a Primary School teacher, since I was at Primary school.
I went to University after school to do an English degree, however due to many reasons this did not work out for me. I have spent the last 12 years working, and having a family. I have also in this time been studying at the OU to finish my degree, and hope after my final (next) module to complete this with a 2:1 Hons degree using transferred credit.
I've just gone on maternity leave, and my hope is to get a new job as a teaching assistant (if they haven't been got rid of by Gove!) when I go back, and study to complete my degree. Also getting the experience I would need to work in a classroom, as well as getting a taste of whether I really am cut out for this.

But I see so many teachers resigning from the profession... am I making a big mistake! Or would I have the benefit of never having seen it any different?
Can anyone see any problems with my plans? I don't having any qualifications to be a teaching assistant but am wiling to do the 1 year course at the local college.

*willing

Sorry for epic post!

Of course not, everyone's experience is different. There are lots of positive teacher threads on Mumsnet. Lots of people love being a teacher.

Dip your toe in the water as a teaching assistant and see how it goes. You might love it or hate it. A lot of jobs are difficult at the moment not just teaching...

Oh I do hope so damejudy. I think at the moment it seems like such a long path I still need to take, when I could just go back to my cushy admin job, which at full time paid more than a teachers starting salary! However, I am so so so bored with admin office roles having done it a long time, and would much rather take the pay cut to work in a classroom as a teaching assistant (I do realise there is a huge amount of admin work as a teacher). It's just very daunting. I've been comfortably ambling for a long time.

Look at it as an exciting adventure not a long path you need to take.

You can easily go back to the admin gig if you need to. Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all...

I would go and get some classroom experience as a volunteer and see what you think. I hate saying this but I wouldn't want anyone I cared about to become a teacher now. I have wanted to be a teacher since I was five and qualified fifteen years ago. The job has changed beyond all recognition and morale in my school and many others is at rock bottom. I cry or want to cry most days and caught myself gazing at happy till workers in Waitrose last week wishing I was one. I will leave and will do so with no job to go to if I have to and I'm not alone.

I'm 'Outstanding' on paper currently but it only takes one duff class/day/observation/member of SMT with an agenda for this to all change and you are only ever as good as your last observation... I am not staying here for another thirty years till I can retire.

All I can say is-get some volunteering in schools and talk to the staff before you make a decision. If you were a friend of relative of mine I would strongly recommend a different career path though.

I'd definitely second what Worried said about getting lots of volunteering experience beforehand. I career-changed into teaching six years ago and absolutely loved the interaction with the children and the amazing sense of achievement when they grasped something for the first time. However, I took the difficult decision to leave last year because teaching was beginning to take over my life; I had barely any free time, could never completely 'switch off' and, as someone who doesn't have DC yet, simply couldn't envisage being able to teach effectively alongside having a family.

My teaching was consistently Good or Outstanding in assessment terms, but the goalposts are constantly shifting, there is a constant stream of new initiatives that need to be taken on board, and by the time I left the expectations in terms of marking, monitoring and paperwork had become overwhelming. I don't imagine, with Michael Gove's current reforms, things will get easier any time soon (part of the reason I left was because I loathe MG and would have been constantly kicking against the reforms he's trying to implement).

I think if you're a certain type of person (tough, single-minded, able to compartmentalise and say 'no' to things) then it can still be a brilliantly rewarding career - there were aspects of it that I loved, and (paperwork aside) it's certainly never dull. But if, like me, you're highly conscientious and a bit of a perfectionist, it can be a tricky profession to be in. I also think it has a lot to do with where you end up teaching - a supportive Head/SLT can make teaching a joy; a bad one can make every day a nightmare. My advice would be to find a TA job (I did it for a year before my PGCE and loved it) and keep your eyes and ears open. Ask the teachers you're working with whether they enjoy their job; suss out the local schools and the morale of their staff; keep track of all the changes to the curriculum and pay and conditions that are being introduced. Then you can make an informed decision.

Hmmm I must admit, those were the kinds of responses that I was expecting. I do think that getting volunteering or TA experience would benefit me greatly either way, and is something I plan to do while on maternity leave.

Are you both Primary School teachers?

One of the difficult things about teaching is if you stay in it for a long time it can be difficult to find an alternative career that pays a similar amount. If you are in teaching and in your mid 50s realise that you can't bear the pace, but you still have to pay your mortgage, then it can be like a trap.

That's one of the reasons I left in my late 20s. I genuinely didn't want to be an old teacher.

I totally agree with the previous comment about struggling to find an alternative job with similar pay-there aren't many!

Yes, I'm primary. Don't know if things are better in secondary?

(Ex) primary here too. And, yes, the thought of being an older teacher with no alternative prospects was, frankly, terrifying! Friends in secondary do seem to be happier though.

I was in secondary. Quite a few of the people I trained with or started around the same time aren't teaching any more. A lot of the rest of them have moved to the private sector and for them it was either that or leave teaching. I am not entirely sure who is staffing secondary schools now, but it isn't my ex colleagues.

I thought that primary looked harder than secondary in terms of workload. But perhaps in some cases the behaviour wasn't as difficult to deal with in primaries.

I have friends in Secondary who are really struggling, and would heartily recommend not going into teaching so not sure it is much better.
To be honest though - I have no interest in reaching secondary, I've always wanted to teach the littlest ones.

I'm going to do lots of voluntary work, see if I can get a TA job, and then see where I go from there. I'm not too worried if I end up making being a good TA my career - I'm much more interested in doing a good job and being happy than making myself miserable for more money.

Yes - lots of former primary colleagues now teaching in the private sector too. Bit of a trend, perhaps? OP, you sound like you've thought it through carefully and are going in with your eyes open. Good luck!