Retraining as a teacher with young children

[Livelifefortoday]

Has anyone retrained with young children? I'm looking at a pgce (part or full time) or school direct. A teacher friend advised me to wait until dc are at least in reception class due to workload. This is another 3 years away.

I currently work part time in an unrelated profession and I'm just looking for some ideas. I also volunteer one day per week in a school.

I looked into level 1 TA roles but this would require a huge pay cut and level 3 would mean going to college for a year.

Is retraining realistic with young children?

I was looking at going into 16+ teaching. (So in a sixth form college or with adult learners)

Does the above apply to this level of teaching too? Is it primary and secondary that is a mess at the moment or 16+ too?

FE is in a terrible mess and both FE and Adult Education are facing funding cuts. It's all about the money.

That said, I left secondary teaching for Adult Ed and am happier. The problems are still there but not so intense. However the pay is dire. Swings and roundabouts!

Actually I don't know if FE is facing cuts, but we certainly are!

I agree with jellyfrizz, if you're going to do it, do it now, because if they're in nursery, you can drop them off at 7.30, and pick them up at 6pm, and they don't have parent assemblies, nativities etc, all of which you will miss when they start school. The worst time is when any of your children are in reception, because often schools do a gradual mornings/afternoons only start for the first few weeks, then there are a million welcome mornings, nativities, mother's day mornings, assemblies, "what to expect" meetings etc, almost all held during the day, and as a teacher, if you are full time, you will miss every single one of them (obviously the upside of that, is you get to be with them in the holidays). The other good thing with doing it now is that you'll probably have to pay for school holiday care anyway, which means that during the school holidays, you can put your DCs in to nursery for some of the time to catch up on work - this is almost impossible when your children are in reception/year 1 kind of age, since they still need a lot of attention from you, but it's more difficult to find holiday clubs, and you feel more guilty putting them into some kind of holiday club, because a) it's an extra cost b) part of the perk of teaching should be to spend time with your DCs in the school holidays.

However, I agree with other posters and would not recommend it at all at the moment.

NUT sixth form college members are striking on 15th March.

www.teachers.org.uk/news-events/press-releases-england/nut-sixth-form-colleges-strike

How about teaching early years or reception? My dc's teacher told me that she loves her job (except for the pointless paperwork), she's one of the reasons I had intended to pursue a teaching career.

My experience relates to under 5's only at present, although I had intended to broaden this to other age groups.

In relation to family support, my husband works long hours but I do have relatives close by who can help with childcare, including after school pick ups and holidays. I've wanted to teach for a long time and always felt it would be the right thing to do, it's just when to do it. And whether my perception of teaching is accurate. From what you've said, I suspect I'm looking at things through rose tinted spectacles. Getting more experience more experience will probably help. I've previously spoken to teachers who have such differing views of the profession and I'm just reluctant to give up on something I've wanted to do for so long. Thank you for your views, they've been really helpful.

I don't see why early years or reception would be any less stressful. Certainly less marking, but the paperwork-especially for assessment and evidencing-is still very heavy.

I am also looking into the possibility of teaching. I am currently doing a degree which could potentially open many doors into different careers working with children, families and young people. However even my lecturers have warned me about going into teaching especially early years. They said jobs will be difficult to come by in this sector as early years settings are not required by law to have a qualified early years teacher, so I would be looking at school based nurseries rather than private and even then jobs ate few and far between. I'd love to know others thoughts on this.

I'm not saying give up on it, just please don't be surprised when the days are long and you barely see your children. I love teaching, now that I'm a few years in I find it just about manageable but the early days were SO hard and everything was so time consuming.

I currently see my children every 6-7 weeks. I spend all my time working at weekends and pick them up and put them to bed. My husband (private sector) sees a lot more of them than me which is why when my youngest wakes up in the night she wants him not me. As a parent that kills.

The holidays allow us some time to reconnect but it's not ideal, I feel like a stranger to my own children.

I have actually found it harder as it goes on (I'm in my 5th year and had another career first). The teaching is fine but the school is so understaffed that I find myself doing increasing amounts of admin and management with no time to do it in, no budget and little support (by the way, this is a great school, with a nice SMT and affluent well behaved students!) I definitely agree it's easier using nursery childcare than primary school - we are having to consider private primary for DD just to make it workable. The brunt falls on DH as I have to work every single weekend. If DH wanted me to stop, I'd stop - teaching affects the whole family.

FE is hideous. Shit pay and you don't even get the school holidays off.

What's going to happen to our schools?

Sorry to sound naive but what work are teachers doing at the weekend? If I'm busy at work and have deadlines to meet, I take drafting home to do on my computer when dc are in bed.

Is it lesson plans? Observations? Marking? Dissertations and uni work for trainees? Presumably it depends upon the subject/age you teach too.

Today I have marked a set of tests for Y9, I'm currently planning a lesson for Y12 and typing up some notes for them because they are too slow to make them themselves and after that I have to properly plan a lesson for Y10 as we are having drop-in observations. After that I've got Y8 tests to mark. I also have to enter test scores on a spreadsheet and email any set changes for discussion.
Y8 marking may have to wait until tomorrow but then I'll also have a Y12 test to mark.
I've also got to reply to an email with a work plan for a student who is falling behind.

I'm part time, 3 days a week equivalent, but actually I teach every day.

I planned to go into teaching when my youngest started Reception. My mother was a teacher, so I thought I was going into it with my eyes open. I volunteered at the school for 3 years to get experience and researched possible routes into teaching pretty thoroughly. Interestingly, every teacher I spoke to tried to put me off, including old colleagues of my mum's who hadn't yet retired. At one point I phoned up an admissions tutor to see if I'd be eligible: she was lovely but brutally honest and told me that I shouldn't do it, that I'd need total wraparound care for the DCs during the week, that I wouldn't see them at weekends much either and it would be worse once I started teaching. I don't know why that hit home the most, but it did. I changed my mind, never applied and pursued other jobs instead. I'm so glad I did. Looking on now, there is no way I could have handled the stress of it. I think teachers do a phenomenal job in very difficult circumstances at the moment.

I am doing Schools Direct at the moment. I am in school around 8am and leave around 4-5pm.
In the beginning it will take you a good hour of planning for every hour you teach. You can't plan and teach at the same time, obviously. When I am not teaching, I am observing others, planning, marking or taking care of my essays/research.

I am very organised, and still have to work approx. 1-2 hours in the evenings after school and 2-4 hours at the weekend.

I couldn't do this without dh's massive support. One other trainee with small kids gave up before Christmas and other less organised trainees regularly pull all nighters.

On top of that, schools are managed by the worst managers I have ever seen (good teachers do not make good managers!) and the pressure is ridiculous.

All in all, I love it!

I mean 1-2 hours of extra work in the evenings across the whole week, not every night. I do stuff at the dcs clubs.

I am a NQT, in Secondary. My children are older at 12 and 10 and my DH is around a lot as he works from home/flexible hours.
It is very, very hard. Pre-dc I used to work long hours, leave at 7am and be back after 7pm, work at home etc. This is way, way harder. If I teach a full day (no PPAs), I am exhausted. Not as much as the beginning of the year, I am getting used to it, but I was so unprepared for how utterly draining it would be. Like being on stage for 5 hours. And then you have the admin to do.
Admin outside school: lesson planning, reports, marking, prepping for meetings. It is pretty endless. Unlike my pre-dc career, during term time, I never feel like I can just sit and relax and not feel guilt that I should be doing something.
BUT I love it, I love being with the pupils and still love planning lessons.
It is tough. I have no social life, that had to go as between school and my own DC there is no time.
Don't go in thinking "Well I am used to hard work, it'll be fine" as it is unlike anything I have ever experienced!

Thanks everyone, that's really useful. I do hope the expectations are more realistic in the future. Surely we need experienced teachers, rather than a high turnover of nqt's. It is really worrying.

Hi, just wanted to say I'm doing School Direct in September when my DS starts school. I've wanted to do it for so long, used all my annual leave to get experience in a good few schools & worked the last four months as a cover supervisor. I'm working 7.15 til 6pm as I've taken on other responsibilities, I'm also doing an NVQ, & am a single parent with no help whatsoever.

I know it will be horrendously hard. I'm expecting to want to quit at least once a week. But it's what I've always wanted to do, I'm not disillusioned by the behaviour challenges or by the academic stuff. I expect it will be 9 months of hell, a six week break then another year of NQT hell. But it's all I've ever wanted to do.

I know of some people who did a pgce as a young single person with no kids & ended up quitting the course. I also know some people who did it with kids who coped fine!

We'll see which one I am! Good luck OP!

What are the government going to do? It's not going to be long before lots of teachers retire, many leave, and barely any are training. Those that train just don't stay (can't imagine why not ).
Schools are going to become very poor. Good thing they're eliminating parental choice eh

To answer the question about work in the evenings and weekends, the thing to remember is that this is at least 3 or 4 evenings a week and also Sunday. So not just the odd evening...
Responding to emails
Planning lessons
Marking homework class work
Data analysis
Intervention (I'm secondary) planning
Making revision notes
Preparing resources

This is just the last couple of weeks. Roll on easter!

To answer your last question OP, today I have planned and resourced my KS4 lessons for a week and completed my year 7 Data Point (reports to be done for each year group 3x a year).

Yesterday I planned and resourced lessons for KS3 for a week. I also started the data point (teach a lot of year 7).

In the week I spend the evenings marking (a set of books takes me 2 hrs plus) or at parents' evenings etc. Have the occasional night "off" where all I do is a few admin tasks eg minutes of fac meetings.

Tomorrow I have most of my frees for the week, but I am going to spen them planning what we will do on an inset day this week - not had a chance yet for various reasons...

To answer your first question, I considered retraining as a teacher when DS2 would have been 3/4yo and, having waited until he was about 8/9 I am glad I didn't do it earlier.