If I became a teacher, would I be able to not need childcare during school holidays?

[Twiglett]

or is that naive?

(assuming I work in the same LEA as my children's school .. I understand I would need before and after-school care)

I agree with the people who have said teaching can be family friendly when you go part-time. I work in FE and have just ended my maternity leave and gone part-time. It is a whole lot better stress-wise than when I was full-time. Then I had over 200 A Level students with essays from each of them to mark every two weeks - each lengthy essay takes about 15 minutes to mark if I'm working efficiently - a lot longer if I can't read decipher it!!! There were 200-odd UCAS reports, and subject reports, and endless other achievement reports to write, on top of chasing up attendance, and giving up Saturdays for college open days (basically recruitment drives for new students). The holidays... well in FE it is the worst of both worlds - you don't 'get' the school holidays automatically, you have to take annual leave and don't have as much as school teachers have, but you can't take your annual leave in term-time so still get clobbered when it comes to having to pay top whack for holidays. I have worked in other sectors and can honestly say it is the hardest job I've ever done - totally thankless, never-ending paperwork, all on top of having to actually stand in front of 30+ students hour two hours without drawing breath, before repeating x 4 and losing the will to live. I think there are two types of teachers. Those who love teaching, and those who love aspects of the job like the holidays, their subject etc. Only those who actually love teaching can survive. Good luck to you!

My counsellor says he sees a disproportionate number of teachers due to the stresses of the job. I think it it can be a good job for families if you are dedicated and are able to set yourself reasonable working hours and not work outside of them. However if like me you are a perfectionist who will keep working until the job is done or more likely when you are physically or mentally incapable it is the worst job possible to combine with a family. My partner has literally begged me to get another job.

Twiglett - if you fancy it and think it is the job for you, give it a go. I personally didn't find it to be all I hoped for, but others have and do. Lots of info here for you - if interested check out the Government websites for teaching, even more info about access there.

Fund one disadvantaes f teaching possibly not mentioned yet - getting life insurance or critical illness cover. Teaching is now in the highest band for risk rating (along wth dentists) - primarily due to stress issues - so the insurance costs lots more than it would do in many other occupations such as doctors, lawyers, etc. A few years ago it was in te lowest risk rating band.

At my school i can think of 2 marriages that have broken up because of the hours they work and at least one other relationship put under strain due again to the hours. Every year we have no average two teachers on long term sick Due to stress. This term one teacher walked out on her first day only for her replacement to last five days. I feel as if i am being very negative , probably because at the moment i am that teacher who is off with stress. Teaching is a wonderful job but only if you are commited

For a truely negative thought on teaching do a MN search on my name in the education section - trying to think of dates, probably 2003-2004. My life was a huge misery and looking back I was very close to being signed off ill due to the stress and nightmare experience.

However, if I had been online in the early days, say 1996-2000 they'd be a different story. A very tired, and hard worked teacher but one who loved it!

Haven't read all this thread. But, I find I can easily get time off for Sports Days etc, in fact SMT are pretty good about AND illness with dc.

I usually work about 1 day per week in hols, and yes I do have childcare for that, I wouldn't be able to do it otherwisw

I did not know that hulababy.

I did not know that hulababy.

I'm having exactly this dilemma Twig. Been thinking of going into teaching - I like the idea of having the holidays with the girls, - i think i'd probably be a fairly good teacher, but it doesn't feel like a vocation and i'm not driven to do it - so wondering if it'd be worth it or not. I change my mind all the time. At the moment, after my experiences of dds school and bday table and head etc i'm on a probably not.

About the insurance? Was talking to our IFAs in past few weeks due to DH's promtion. Ruled out me even bothering getting some of the insurance asthe monthly payments are so high for the benefits recieved. Unfortunately although no longer teaching, still employed on leturer grade so still affected,

I was teacher for 5 years and loved it but workload was huge and there is no way I am going back to it with two children under 4 as know I could not do the job the way I used to, would end up feeling no one was getting best of me. Can not agree enough about teaching being a vocation, you can always do more so you always feel you should be working. Used to lose at least half a day every weekend to planning and marking and several days of holiday. Unless you go into it for the right reasons you will hate it as will not have love of the job to get you through the rougher bits. If I had to choose again and was looking for a family friendly job it would be one you could leave at the office.

It depends on the area you go into in education as to the work-load.

I know someone who works with pupils no longer in full-time ed (pg schoolgirls and school phobics mostly) & she is on the same teaching salary as me, gets the hols, it's 1-2-1 or online teaching from an office and finishes at 3.30pm. Similarly, a colleague works in a SEN dept where all work is done in school, very occasionally works outside school hours. Some subjects like Maths teach to a rigid syllabus so it's the same every year and students need immediate feedback so a fair bit of the marking is done in class. Other written based subjects have A LOT of marking and prep, esp English.

i havnt read all of the thread, so apologise if this has already been said. If your looking to follow the primary teacher route, think very carefully before going through with the training. In most parts of the country there are far too many NQTs for positions (over 200 applicants per post) if you dont manage to secure a position, after 4 terms you loose your QTS status. which means you cant teach. There are many unemployed primary teachers out there.

I would like a job in education with very good pay and short hours where you don't have to stay late or do too much hard stuff and it's all very rewarding all the time and not too hard. Is that possible at all? And i'd like to do lots of art and no maths and all the children will need to be mostly fairly delightful.

"I would like a job in education with very good pay and short hours where you don't have to stay late or do too much hard stuff and it's all very rewarding all the time and not too hard"

Boco you could substitute anything for education. Like Law for instance

Should I do law then?

I'm very easily influenced. If you said law was easy and well paid then i would probably do that right now. I feel utterly clueless, i need an employment advisor.

Although law sounds hard.

bethelsie - That is a scary stat.

DW's a teacher. The best thing about it is the holidays - when they coincide with DS & DD.

The worst thing? The holidays. Because we can never go away in term-time. So we we end up paying rip-off rates every year.

Actually, no, the worst thing is the stress and the amount of extra stuff they are asked to do.

At the risk of opening up an old argument - it got bloody last time - teachers have in reality no more holidays/fewer hours than anyone else because their salaries are worked out on a pro-rata basis. They're paid for a 39-week term, in other words. It just happens to be paid in 12 instalments. If they worked 48 weeks of the year they'd be paid a hell of a lot more.

Well it depends what bit of law you want to do. My niche area is not hard technically but it's all the extraneous stuff - like managing a team and managing clients and billings and recoveries and the latest change of direction from the exec ...

I think most jobs have aspects that are hard. I think people are very lucky if they have jobs that they enjoy most of the time. You don't need a vocation to do my job, you just have to have the sort of mind that likes doing cryptic crosswords. So in that sense of the word it is probably easier than teaching.

I probably don't have that sort of mind. I think i'll be pulled back towards social work without really meaning to be.

yes it is scary, apparently they are training far too many primary teachers, than there are position.

I'm hoping to become a teacher, the holidays and no weekend work is a great part of the benefits as it were.

Mainly the summer holidays tbh, I remember my friends mum being home during most of the holidays and she loved it.

haha you will be in for a shock then

I'll be in for a shock???
Why?
I'm not planning on teaching primary btw, I want to teach secondary english.

And the holidays aren't my only reason for wanting to teach, I didnt even do my GCSE's at school and went back to college a few years ago, I had the most amazing English tutor and she inspired me. There are other easons but I won't go into them.

Hi there, I am a teacher and I think it works great with having children for several reasons. You get to see your kids more than in a regular job, 8-5 is plenty of childcare you will need, some people put their kids in from 7-7! You get more time off with them than in a regular job, all the school hols in fact. And as someone else mentioned, as long as you are very organised, then you can do your planning in school time and in evenings.
Not to mention that schools are NORMALLY very accomodating, so time off to go to sports day or special occasion can be done. There is also the part-time option. I worked 3 days a week after child number 1, and going back at Easter for 2 days per week. Just make sure you get your work/ Life balance right.