Teaching or Midwifery

[Beth199]

I'm 28 years old and struggling to decide whether to keep on track with a possible teaching career or change to midwifery 🤔

Bit of background... I've got two kids, 10 year old and 1 year old, after having my 10 year old I just stuck with simple jobs, first waitressing then retail but I've always hated it. I decided to look into Primary Teaching so started an undergraduate degree, which I recently finished the first year but I'm not sure this is actually what I want to do.
For as long as I can remember I've wanted to be either a Primary Teacher or a Midwife and now is the time I want to make my final decision.

I chose Teaching because I thought it would be easier with having kids, working school hours, holidays off etc. But that's obviously not how it is, lesson planning, marking at home etc, you end up working more than that. On the other hand Midwifery involves night shift, holiday working etc.
Although I'm more interested in Health Visiting, so the night shifts and such would only be whilst training.

If everything went perfectly 🤦‍♀️ I'd qualify as a teacher in 3 years, midwifery would be 4 years as I'd have to do a science Access course first, and then an extra year after for Health Visiting, so 5 in total. But I think I would like healthcare work more than school work.
Theres also the fact that my current health visitor for my son has helped me with my Postnatal Depression so so much, I'd love to help others in this way too.

How do you decide what you want to do when you grow up, nearing 30 now feels like I need to decide quick!

Are you able to move for university? I would be cautious about presuming that you'll get into a local university for midwifery. The one nearest to us had a relatively small intake and only 1 or 2 students would get on from the local Access program.

@presentingpercy I've never heard of doing that so I would happily look into it.

@mrspatrickdempsey I was thinking about choosing the nursing option at first but I think I would enjoy the midwifery experience more than the general nursing experience. However I will be keeping that in mind as I am volunteering as a Covid Vaccinator at the minute and I'm loving giving people their jabs and supporting them.

Honestly, I'd leave the midwifery alone. The training and the job itself are brutal and it will push you to the limit of yourself. Repeatedly. It is the absolute best job in the world and the worst, depending on what day it is and what is going on.

If there is nothing else you can see yourself doing, then apply. If there's anything else you want to do, go for that. Midwifery takes so much from you emotionally that you need to know it's the only thing you want to do to keep going. It is an incredible job, but you need to have a calling to do it. The stress and pressure are enormous. They're the price of the joy and privilege of it, but it is in no way a fall back or second choice sort of job. And there is a huge impact on your family life too.

Hope that what ever you decide is perfect for you x

I'm a teacher with 20 years experience and three kids of my own (ranging from 9 months to 13 years). I'm currently a 1:1 SEN HLTA and love the job with a passion, even though I earn just above minimum wage.
Teaching is not as own child-friendly as a lot of people think and there is very little work-life balance indeed.

I'm going to set my stall out for speech and language therapy moreso to give people an idea of the range of areas we work in. We work with neonates right through the lifespan to end of life care. We work in schools, hospitals, brain injury units, community, clinics, prisons, the youth justice service, probation and all types of mental health services.

The bursary I was given to train (inc no university fees) was abolished but as someone upthread mentioned, it has recently been replaced by something else to adress the fall in applications.

I'm currently doing my BA in preparation for my PGCE.

I considered midwifery a few years ago and went to an open day at my local uni. It ws highly competitive to get onto the course (something like 3000 applicants for 100 spaces) and to be successful, not only did you need good grades in the relevant subjects, but an excellent portfolio of experience was essential.

I was advised to start volunteering in relevant places as soon as possible, and spend a few years building up my portfolio before applying.

I come from a nursery nursing and nannying background, so had no medical experience at all.

I have children and doing my PGCE year will be challenging as it will be full time (I currently work part time as a TA), but there will eventually be the opportunity to job share and go part time if I wish, plus my children are getting older now.
Despite the planning/marking etc, you do still get school holidays off, which is great for us from a childcare point of view as it's never something we worry about.

You sound like you are focusing your study and training around a career that is convenient for your family? What do you WANT to be? Because of you have the passion for it, the training won't be as much of a slog.

I started a psychology degree and was considering going into speech therapy, occupational health or becoming an Ed Psch. I did my first year and had just started my second year when I realised that I hated analysis and the like. Found that my uni offered an Education Studies degree and was able to transfer my credits across. I felt at peace once I'd done it and knew it was the right choice for me. I'm much happier studying for this degree.

Around the same time I started a new job in a mainstream primary school (I'd been in a SEN school prior) and it was like coming home.

I'm 39 this year and it's only in the last year that I've actually settled on teaching. Its what I wanted to do when I ws at school, it's what I planned to do. Circumstances meant that I've gone the long way around to get here, but I've picked up a lot of experience along the way.

@misselphaba I never considered speech and language before but now that I've started looking into it it does look interesting, my only problem being the closest uni that offers this degree is an hour drive away. I'm going to look more into it but that petrol money is a big factor at the moment.

On a good day midwifery is the best job in the world. On a bad day, well. The bad days are dreadful.

The training is gruelling, you get little say in the shifts you work as you’re following your mentors shift pattern and it really is hit and miss as to the quality of clinical education you get based on who your mentor is. Second year is indeterminably long, so far from the first flush of excitement when you start and so long until you can get qualified and do it on your own. Your NQ year is quite honestly terrifying, so many NQM’s can be found in the linen cupboard crying because of the overwhelming responsibility of the job hitting them without the safety net of a mentor to fall back on. The shifts are long, 12/13 hours and the working patterns can feel as though they’re designed to send you crazy, you’ll be tireder than you’ve ever been before in your life (and yes I count the first 6 months after having a baby in that). Shift work often isn’t respected, my dad used to call sleeping after night shift me ‘having a lie in’ and DH went through a spell of popping into the bedroom to ‘see if I was awake’ at like 1pm, no I’m not, fuck off. People either view you as an ‘angel’ or an ‘evil pain relief withholding bitch’ as does the media, it can be draining. Everyone you meet will want to tell you their birth story, some are cool, some are bog standard and some you think really? But you smile and nod and feign interest. Everyone will ask if you watch one born every minute or call the midwife, you probably won’t because they lose their allure when it’s what you do every day at work. They will ask if you eat as much cake as on OBEM, the answer is probably yes, there’s always a tea trolley on the go but it often goes cold as you’re buzzing from room to room, never quite able to give the standard of care you aspired to as a wide eyed and starry eyed student and cake is all you eat as your lunch break never quite comes.

But as I say, on a good day. Best job in the world.

Social work might give you the chance to specialise in more mental health if its supporting people you like. Or even a psych nurse if its the pnd side that appeals.

My friends that are OTs seem to have the best work life balance and sucha range of options. I wish I'd heard of this when younger!

OP, I am a mature student on the second year of a speech and language degree, and am happy to answer any questions you have. I am loving the course, but the work is hard! If you are able to train in Wales the NHS pays your tuition fees, but you then have to work in Wales for the next two years.

Try to think about what you really want to spend your working life doing. It's really a question only you can answer. I will say, though, with regards to finding you education degree boring.... BEd and PGCE etc are quite boring and not reflective of what actual teaching is like. The assignments are generally pointless, many unis are ideologically biased towards so-called progressive teaching methods, and you really learn the craft on the job. I trained via the GTP, and was in at the deep end. I'd choose teaching every time, despite all the well publicised nonsense.

A community nursery nurse role as pp mentioned would be another option where you don't need a degree. You work as a band 4 - qualified nurses are band 5 and health visitors band 6. You need an nvq in childcare or similar and then work as kind of a 'health visitors assistant' but as previous posters have said other than 6 week and 1 year checks the health visitors mainly do safeguarding auppprtinh complex and vulnerable families ...it's the nursery nurses who do a lot of the work with things like support for weaning, child development, breastfeeding etc etc.. basically the nice bits of the job under the guidance of the hv. There's also a lot of things like nursing associate courses which long term can lead to 'on the job' training to potentially become qualified.

Theres so many things I didn't think of that you've all pointed out, thank you.
I honestly never thought about becoming a nursery nurse as I assumed it would be similar to a general nursery assistant job. I thought all of the people who worked in the family centres who advised were all midwives/nurses. I'll definitely look into that one.

@Occitane what do you expect to be doing in your job after qualifying (probably a really horrible, unanswerable question there, sorry). My eldest had a bit of speech and language therapy at school a few years ago and it was basically 15 minutes of someone holding up letter cards and asking her how to say the word or letter, and then correcting her when she said it wrong.

I have a place for midwifery starting in September (I’ll be almost 38)

It’s always been my dream but I’ve never got round to it.

I’m doing my access course now.

I made a similar decision a few years ago (was 25). I did go to uni when I was 18 and then did a Masters degree but ended up in a few different jobs and wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. Couldn't decide between teaching/midwifery/nursing. I had been a teaching assistant and wasn't sure about the shift work involved with nursing/midwifery so I trained as a teacher. I do enjoy teaching, and I do get a lot of personal satisfaction from it as I feel everyday I've done something positive (even if it's simply teaching a 5 year old how to write the number 8!)

But now I've had my son I can't imagine returning full time as it's not family friendly at all. And after spending 2 months in NICU with my son I do wonder if children's nursing would have been a better choice.

If your heart isn't in teaching one year into your degree, it's probably not the right choice for you! I'll caveat that by saying that I found my teaching degree fairly boring and it was the time in the classroom that was the most useful. How much time have you spent in the classroom?

[quote Beth199]@misselphaba I never considered speech and language before but now that I've started looking into it it does look interesting, my only problem being the closest uni that offers this degree is an hour drive away. I'm going to look more into it but that petrol money is a big factor at the moment.[/quote]
I did a primary PCGE and taught for many years but it shredded my mental health. Had my own kids and DD2 had a lot of speech and language issues and the rabbit holes I went down trying to find out what her problems could be and how I could help me got me absolutely fascinated in it.

Started a speech and language therapy degree and am now in my second year and I bloody love the subject - the teaching background knowledge was really helpful for getting to grips with some of the phonetics and linguistics, and knowledge of how things work in schools has been really beneficial at times.

Plus we cover so much really cool stuff - we've had sessions from the audiology department so we know the general background to interpret their reports, we've had specialists in hearing impairment work in, we've had genetics input, we've had a pathologist in talking about mechanisms of cell death (particularly in a stroke context but if a pathologist tells you they've got "really cool pictures" you're well into silent witness territory), we've covered geriatrics, lots and lots of medical science based stuff, child development, neurology, swallowing, acoustics... we've analysed spectrograms of our own speech samples which is absolutely bloody amazing to be able to see the physical movements of your articulators reflected on the trace. Plus being able to write and read the IPA still feels really really cool to me - I find phonetics both incredibly hard and incredibly fascinating.

I started out thinking I wanted to go into paediatrics but now I'm being really drawn to learning disability or the mental health side of things - but there's so much you can do with it.

When on campus I used to commute by train and it took me over an hour each way - takes about an hour by car now (I've got a parking permit this year) and honestly it's not that bad - and as it's a healthcare professions degree it gets student finance funding like a first degree and also the healthcare training grant as well.

Sorry - have you detected I bloody love this course yet?!

@Occitane

OP, I am a mature student on the second year of a speech and language degree, and am happy to answer any questions you have. I am loving the course, but the work is hard! If you are able to train in Wales the NHS pays your tuition fees, but you then have to work in Wales for the next two years.

Oooh hello another second year speechie! I bloody love the course (although I do have an ext IPA transcription exam at the end of the month and am having the regulation meltdown over it that is expected)

@Beth199

Theres so many things I didn't think of that you've all pointed out, thank you. I honestly never thought about becoming a nursery nurse as I assumed it would be similar to a general nursery assistant job. I thought all of the people who worked in the family centres who advised were all midwives/nurses. I'll definitely look into that one.

@Occitane what do you expect to be doing in your job after qualifying (probably a really horrible, unanswerable question there, sorry). My eldest had a bit of speech and language therapy at school a few years ago and it was basically 15 minutes of someone holding up letter cards and asking her how to say the word or letter, and then correcting her when she said it wrong.

I don't really know which area I'll go into yet, there are so many options. SLTs work with people who have speech, language, communication and swallowing problems. They work with all ages, neonatal babies, pre-school children, school children, people with hearing loss, people who have had a stroke, people with degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's, people who have had head or neck cancer, and lots more. I have probably left out lots of areas, but if you look at one of the university courses online, or at the RCSLT website, there is lots of information about the role of an SLT. I think I would like to work with children but many of the other types of job sound very interesting, so I haven't really made up my mind.

[quote Beth199]@misselphaba I never considered speech and language before but now that I've started looking into it it does look interesting, my only problem being the closest uni that offers this degree is an hour drive away. I'm going to look more into it but that petrol money is a big factor at the moment.[/quote]
I drove further than this every day in my first year! At the moment we are doing everything remotely, which is actually much easier for me!

This thread is making me annoyed with myself that I didn't pursue speech therapy and audiology as a degree! I had thought about it but decided it was a bit too scientific at the time and maybe too vocational (plus , back then, I think only about three unis offered it), in case I changed my mind> Silly me!

@CoffeeWithCheese

Hi! I love the course too, but get very stressed about the exams and assignments. I find essays particularly difficult, although I have a modern languages background. I have a transcription exam at the end of March too. I love phonetics but transcription was deceptively easy in Year 1, it's much harder now!

I didn't know there was a mental health speech and language therapy, that would be so interesting. When I thought of this kind of job I genuinely thought it was just sat in an office like room with a patient saying words and doing mouth exercises..... I am so sorry to be so wrong about it!
Neonatal and mental health would be such an interesting subject to look at.

@Beth199

I didn't know there was a mental health speech and language therapy, that would be so interesting. When I thought of this kind of job I genuinely thought it was just sat in an office like room with a patient saying words and doing mouth exercises..... I am so sorry to be so wrong about it! Neonatal and mental health would be such an interesting subject to look at.

It's a bit of an emerging area - but if you think about all the standard mental health "talking" based therapies - you need to have the language to access them. Increasing role in the criminal system as well - huge percentage of the prison population have SLCN - if you're not the best at communicating you can see how something like a "did you spill my pint" could escalate massively. In terms of assessing service users' communication because quite often adults have worked out ways to mask their lack of understanding and it's only when you dig deeper into it that you realise that their "this is bollocks - I'm not doing it" front is actually hiding that they didn't understand what you were asking them at all.

It can get a bit like being a Dragon on Dragon's Den when they all come and try to convince us their area of SLT is the best and we should go into it.

I found our sessions on neonatal feeding quite hard going as DD1 was premature and NG tube fed and I was not well treated through learning how to do it and it brought a lot of it back. Thank fuck it was an online session so I could hide that it was painful!

The other thing that continues to bemuse me is that the SLT world is so small and tight-knit and helpful... compared to teaching where there's a huge element of "don't know why you're finding Damien such a struggle, he's always fine for me" picking holes in others - it's a huge contrast as there's a huge passion about the profession and supporting the next generation to come into it.

I would say you should be careful about wanting a niche area of any profession before you have even started it. It’s best to look at what you could do instead of getting disappointed because the niche element is not offered by your local service.

Stay flexible.

This is all really interesting. I know my OT friends work together and support each other and I like the idea id that.