How many teachers have had a career elsewhere?

[Earnsomething]

And if they have, does that change their perception of how good/bad the job is?

I've been teaching for 6 years now, after 23 years in Corporate Banking.

Teaching brings a unique set of challenges and pressures but that's the point, that's why it's so rewarding IMO. There is a level of scrutiny (doesn't there need to be?) but nothing like what I experienced before where results and progress were reported weekly and moved to daily if you were considered to be underperforming. OFSTED like audits happened four times a year.

I work fewer hours now and have more flexibility over when I work them (outside 9-4), then there are the holidays, during which, yes I do some work but in my past life, if I had a holiday coming up in 6 weeks, it was getting close. My work life balance is better, by a long way.

Students and parents can be unreasonable in their demands but so can customers at a bank, believe me!

I don't earn as much, but then I'm fairly new in the job. My salary before was similar to a UPS3 teacher with TLR, so not different to many teachers with 23 years' experience.

I hear the complaints of my colleagues and yes, of course we all have days when we think we'd rather do anything else, but sometimes I wonder if they would benefit from having done "anything else". Most teachers, apart from PT jobs whilst studying, don't seem to have done other work.

Please don't see this as teacher bashing, I'm just interested in why so many teachers seem so unhappy, when it's by far the best job I've ever had, in so many ways.

I have worked in a variety of areas, as well as teaching. I love not being tied to taking my holidays in blocks, at the most expensive time of the year. I love not being exhausted by the time the holidays come around. I love not working at weekends, and being able to enjoy an evening out midweek occasionally, rather than spending it prepping for the next day. I love being able to book an hour off occasionally to pop to a shop, attend a daytime event my children are in, or even to attend a funeral.

I taught for 15 years in all and loved teaching but have found the other jobs I did far far better in terms of work-life balance.

I had three colleagues and have two friends who went into teaching from other professions. Two finance, one travel, one logistics, one lawyer. All three colleagues walked away from teaching within three years. One friend lasted less than a year. The second is still in it after five, but had been making plans to leave for two of them. She'd have moved on by now if not for a family issue last year, and covid preventing her going this summer.

Varying reasons for giving up, but in all of them there was an element of the job being much different from their expectations, with the good bits heavily outweighed by the stressful annoying bits.

Hi OP complete derailment - how did you make the move? DH at the age of 45 finds himself on the brink of redundancy and Covid has made him re evaluate life and decide he really wants to pursue a lifelong dream of teaching. However he never qualified for a degree - did you have one and then do a conversion course or did you start all over again?

I don’t think it’s as simple as comparing teaching to another job, as teaching in one school can be a very different experience to working in another. I’ve worked in three, doing the the same job. In two of them workload although high has been manageable and overall scrutiny not much cause for stress. In the other workload was not manageable and I was being micromanaged and scrutinised within an inch of my life - needless to say I didn’t stick around. OP if you were working in a different school your opinion may very well not be the same.

I wonder why people don’t complain about doctors not having had a previous career or politicians.

As for not understanding the strains of work life balance- I can’t find a nursery that open early enough to be able to get to work on time to prep lessons, tidy my classroom and answer all my e-mails and attend meetings before school. DD gets dropped off at 7.30 for me to get in school by 7.45. I then stay later after school to complete bus duty, prep, mark and plan until 5pm. I pick her up around 5.30

I am so utterly screwed once she is at school because we have no local family and non of the local schools offer the kind of wrap around care I need. DH works 12 hour rolling shifts so is no help.

I mark all Sunday to keep up with the marking schedule because I teach English. In my last school I used to Mark most evenings as well. It was horrendous. I added up that I did 65 hour weeks and was still behind on marking.

Do I understand the pressures of being a working parent enough?

And yes, I get the holidays. But on the down side- my holidays will always be expensive. I can never, ever go in the cheap bits. I’ve missed countless friends weddings because they were on a week day. I even missed a funeral because the head I had at the time would only let us out for family funerals, not friends.

I love the kids, even when they are being difficult. But Christ alive it is annoying to work in a profession where every person who went to school thinks they know what your job is and that you are as crap as their worst teacher.

I have only ever been a teacher but I do agree - I think a lot of my colleagues have huge misconceptions about other jobs e.g. everyone else works 9am-5pm, don't take work home and have long, leisurely tea/coffee breaks. I know that this is absolutely not the case and think there are many professions that are more challenging (such as my neighbour who is a nurse and works 12 hour night shifts; I don't know how she does it). Teaching can be tough, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's the worst thing to do. I (mostly) like it anyway!

I’ve had another career with teaching on both sides of it. I returned to teaching because we moved areas for my husband’s job and I couldn’t carry on with my other career. My other career was another professional role with very similar pay. A few weeks fewer holidays (8 weeks rather than 13) but boy do I miss being able to take term time holiday or the odd day off here and there! I was also able to work from home several days a week in my other job. My work-life balance in teaching is appalling compared to the other job. I’m looking to leave teaching but it’ll take some time. In the meantime I adore teaching so it’s okay to stick with it for a bit longer. This can’t be my life though.

Surely most parents cannot take term time holiday because our children are in school. When the children were young we could not ever holiday together because we both had to use our annual allowance to cover the school holidays.

@BeardedMum

But you could take time off to go to a family wedding, no? If you put the request in early enough and you still had annual leave.

Or you could take time off for a funeral of a close friend and use an annual leave day.

Teachers have holiday and we technically have annual leave (holidays we are paid for) but we get no choice about when and how to take them. I’m not really moaning but it is not the be all and end all. A woman in my department was refused permission for leave to go to her brother’s wedding.

Don’t get me wrong. It is very much worth not having to pay for holiday clubs and getting to spend time with DD. However, childcare can be a nightmare in term time because I’m in school hours are 7.45-5 and I have one late night a week for parents eves, curriculum eves, open eves, competitions for clubs or after school twilight training sessions

Not one member of teaching staff at my school swans in at 9 and punches out at 3.30. The people everyone sees leaving at 3.30 are likely support staff.

Or you could take a sick day without needing to do at least an hour of e-mailing cover. It takes me almost two hours to set cover and disseminate work if I am off sick. It’s not worth it and they never do the work I set so I often don’t take sick days. I only took a whole school day off for my miscarriage because there was so much pressure to provide work for my A-level groups.

@penguinsbegin

None of the ones in my village take kids before 8. I have checked. Thanks for the help.

So may generalisations here about teachers who have never done another career.

I always wanted to be a teacher. This does not mean I have not seen real life and does not make me a worse person , or a worse teacher. The very best teachers I know of at my school have all been teaching all their working lives, as it goes.

Personally, I have found the people who adjust worst to teaching to be entrants from other jobs and professions : but this is not always true and it is not fair to draw conclusions.

In fact, having gone away and thought about it - whether intentional or not - your OP (and some subsequent posts) come across as rather sneering at career teachers. Anyone who has been in the career as long as I have has seen a lot of change and we tend to be vocal about that.

The worst thing that has happened on teaching imo over the last 10 years has been the evolution of a 'how high would you like me to jump?' and 'put up or shut up' culture which has seen the wrong people promoted to SLT and has stifled any mavericks or creativity.

Whoops, there I go , moaning. What would I know, eh?

Speaking as someone who has had a 'proper' job, well 2 actually, I don't think it makes a difference to how good a teacher you are or how much you 'moan '. Both my previous jobs were similar pay but 9-5. Over the year I do way more hours in teaching. I love the job and love the holidays but my life was definitely easier in the 'real' world.

OP - you're perpetuating the myth that teaching isn't the real world and this old chestnut really annoys me. I see much more of the 'real' world than I ever did in my previous jobs - I've seen directly the effects of drug addiction, child abuse, refugees, terrorism, alcohol addiction, gangs, poor mental health and probably others I've forgotten. Teaching is real life. As a teacher I inhabit the real world just as much as anyone else.

And to the person who said parents can't take term time holidays, not every teacher has school aged children, or even any aged children so for a lot of teachers it does make a difference.

I worked in a different career before teaching but I would guess the vast majority of parents at school don't know that. Hell, I ran a successful business in between teaching jobs and my current head teacher had no idea until I mentioned a tax return, as I'd not mentioned it on my application. So to the pp who mentioned teachers with previous jobs being superior, how would you know?

The other idea I find odd is that somehow teaching isn't the real world. Being a teacher isn't the same as being a pupil. You go to meetings, have targets, are held accountable. No it's not like all jobs, but working in an office is not very similar to working in a mechanics or in a hospital is it? Yet there is this idea that teaching is not like the rest of the working world.

I used to be a nurse.

I'm just trying to imagine a thread about any other job suggesting the same. My doctor/lawyer/dentist has only ever worked in the field. I think that makes her less good at her job, I mean what other jobs does she know? How can she know how great her job is when she hadn't worked in another career. I mean shes so specialised in that one career. Must have a clue about the real world.

I worked in the city in finance, then as a recruiter for the industry before teaching.

Teaching is just very different. It's exhausting as it's a performance all day. It's draining in that you ultimately can't control the result of all your work. That's stressful. There's no such thing as a clear inbox and half of the public think you're a lazy layabout.

But it's also hugely rewarding. I wouldn't swap it. I'd like to change it (ie improve it) but I wouldn't go back to the square mile for 10 times the salary.

Wow, what a condescending thread from those that claim to be teachers.

The school I teach in has a good spread of those that are career teachers and those that have had a job outside of teaching.

We even have return to teaching teachers as well as those that run businesses whilst being a teacher.

Maybe you should respect your colleagues for what they bring to the job instead of thinking that you are better for coming from a different job.

FYI, before you make a mistake, I worked in industry before I became a teacher.

I'm just interested in why so many teachers seem so unhappy, when it's by far the best job I've ever had, in so many ways.

For balance, perhaps you should ask some of the thousands of trained teachers who have walked away from the profession, rather than only those that have stayed ?

I also find this thread condescending and shitty. Particularly the statements that pronounce those who have had careers elsewhere to be ‘better teachers’ than those who haven’t. That wasn’t even what the OP really asked so it was an utterly unnecessary comment. It went from wondering why so many are unhappy with their job to those who have done something else are better teachers .

I have (save for a year in marketing) only ever been a teacher. I have done this for many years. I love my job, appreciate the benefits and understand that everyone has difficult aspects of their job.

I could give my opinion on the people I have come across who have had careers elsewhere before being teachers but I won’t because it would be a huge generalisation to do so and not representative. Just like what has been said here.

Really disappointed in the comments here.

Having also worked in a range of offices before becoming a teacher, temping between research jobs and travel,I have met some seriously moany workshy jobsworthy people. More so than as a teacher.

have zero understanding of what work/life balance means to most people

Hahaaaaaa. Yep. No.

I think it's disgusting to start a negative thread about teachers today knowing many primary staff are heading back into the buildings tomorrow and facing god knows what.