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?

rollonthesummer - I know what you mean about the difficulties of starting a new career later. On the other hand I've seen people make 'sensible' career decisions and then be made redundant and struggle to find work in the same field or a new field at 45/50/55. There are no easy answers these days are there. I'm going to keep exploring my options.

MaybeDoctor - sorry, I missed your response somehow. Thanks for the insight. I hope my FE experience will help but I'm aware I miss out on a lot of the stuff that causes teaching to be so stressful. I'm not interested in progressing/management while my DC are small (4 and 6 just now) and PT would be ideal if that's possible for my NQT year. I think I just have to give it a go and see how I get on.

Since you have the financial advantage of the bursary you might as well give it a go.

Agree with the above regarding redundancies in other professions. Property markets, for example, can be volatile and most of my surveyor and estate agent friends have been made redundant in the past, with no jobs out there to turn to. I still see colleagues in their 40s and 50s leaving law firms because the work in their area dries up, clients are poached by other firms etc. And we all know about the changes to junior Dr's terms and conditions. I've always thought the key to a successful career is finding something to do that you enjoy doing (heaven knows you will spend most of your time doing it), and the rest will fall into place. Easier said than done though.

I'm a single parent as get no support whatsoever from my son's father so it is achievable.

Did my PGCE when son was 1 and now completing NQT year with a 2 year old.

I am not sure how I have lasted this long, I've just found the strength!! But am starting to crack!

Balancing work with my son is tough, I've been lucky in that my school are keeping me on part time from September.

I've never planned to be a stay at home mother so have always intended to work etc.
The work load is soooo intense but I make sure I prioritise my son.

I have days when I feel incredibly guilty that my son is at nursery from 7:30-6 mon- from but once a week I leave early and literally decide never else matters.
I prioritise what needs to be done and allow marking to wait a day.
Sometimes I even feel guilty that I'm not being he most productive reached by putting my son first on those days so you never really win.
But obv he is my priority and I remind myself that he comes first and we spend quality time together every weekend and every 6/7 weeks we go away.

The hardest part is managing the house! Washing, cooking, cleaning etc but you get into a routine.

Yes you could wait, but it never really gets easier I've been told.
The older they get the harder it becomes esp once they have after school activities, homework etc

Good luck in whatever you decide.

Sorry about typos!

The older they get the harder it becomes esp once they have after school activities, homework etc

This is very true. KS2 seems to be the hardest phase for them wanting to do every after school activity under the sun. They drop a lot of it once they get into teens. KS1 is the worst for there being stuff going on in school time, that you won't be able to attend if you're a full-time teacher.

Thanks Steelo & Dithering. Wow Steelo, hats off to you.

In your experience, would it be possible to work 8-4 then catch up at evening time for a few hours? I know a few teachers who do this, but they are more experienced.

I'm booked on an open day at a high school and a primary (scitt 3-7 yr olds) in the next few weeks so will be asking many questions!

I wouldn't even consider it
I did a PGCE with 2 young children
Am now tutoring and would not consider going back to a school

4 is very early to leave. Schools I go to (supply teacher) no-one is allowed to leave before 4.30 at very earliest - detentions/meetings/CPD till 5 at least 3 days a week.
One school insists people leave by 6 on Friday by getting caretaker to lock up at 6.

Steelo - the clue is in your name - my hat also off to you!

Does a lot depend on the management of the school? I know one primary school teacher who leaves at 4pm by prior arrangement, but her head is very understanding of teachers with young families. Sounds like this is relatively rare though.

I think you would struggle to work 8 till 4 and be organised for your day. My school finishes at 3.15 but by the time I've seen all the children to their parents (who are sometimes late) and chatted with some of them it is 3.30 at the earliest. I then need to clear up my classroom and prepare resources for the next day. The only TAs we have now are assigned to children with statements so I have to do all the classroom jobs such as washing paint pots, sharpening pencils, putting up displays and photocopying. I often have meetings after school with colleagues or parents. At least twice a term I have to stay after school to do something to assist the PTA. I take as much home as I can but rarely leave school before 5.30.

Unlike some on here I do love my job and that is mainly because my school is amazing and the other staff are incredibly caring and supportive. Having said that I am going part time in September because I think that the stress and long hours are having a serious effect on my health and family life.

Thanks soimpressed. Are there many part time jobs in primary generally? More teachers seem to be going down this route, understandably.

Quite a lot of Primary school teachers work P-T, but I'd say a high % of these are teachers who have already been working there a while and then asked to job-share. It's not often you see jobs advertised as PT.

You very rarely see part time jobs advertised in primary. I've been looking for one, on and off, since 2008, with no luck so far.

Hello livelifefortoday. I qualified as a primary teacher last year. I fell pregnant during the first year of Uni, and did not take a year out so I did two placements whilst DS was still young.

I don't want to put you off , but you've asked for honesty so here's a brief look at what my week looked like as a student teacher.

On weekdays, I would get into school for 7.45am to prepare for the day. Preparing for the day was not a gentle start by any means. I would have one hour to photocopy/set up books/load the mornings interactive whiteboard resources. In one school, I had to make sticky labels with the date and title to stick in 31 books. The title was different for each ability group. It took ages to do and I couldn't do it the night before because the queue at the photocopier was always massive.

At lunch time I would mark spellings (25ish books) and write handwriting tasks in about 8 books each day. I'd then set up for the afternoon. If the afternoon activity was art or PE then I had to forget about eating, getting a drink or going to the toilet. Phonics was after lunch, so I'd set up for that too.

After the last child had been collected half an hour after home time, I would go and mark literacy and numeracy books (60 in total) and make sure my phonics assessments were complete. I'd also tidy the mess left behind from whatever the afternoon activity was.

Sometimes I would get the chance to print resources for the following day, but I'd usually run out of time. I would leave school at 5.45 (that's ten hours spent at school each day).

When I got home I'd have to write reflections and edit the following plans according to the work of the pupils (is if they didn't understand the activity, I would have to change tomorrows lesson). I would do this for phonics, literacy and numeracy. Sometimes I'd spend my evenings making resources at home. Id spend about 3 hours working in the evening, every evening. So that's 13 hours a day, 5 days a week: 65 hours a week.

At the weekend id do lesson plans for literacy, numeracy, science, spellings/phonics, guided reading, 'worship' and a mixture of foundation subjects. I'd spend at least ten hours on lesson planning (an experienced teacher might not take quite as long, but as a student it's painful).

So 75 hours a week at least, and I was still never on top of my workload! That's literally like having two full time jobs.

I used to cry every Sunday evening and at one point I started wishing that somebody would bump into the back of my car on the way to school, just so I wouldn't have to go in!

The observations are horrible. I was a good teacher, but you are never good enough (and experienced teachers will usually feel exactly the same way).

I don't mean to put you off, but as I've only just qualified I thought my experience might be helpful.

Oh, and I haven't gone into teaching.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Thanks guys.
Yeah I agree with everyone.

8-4 is just unrealistic, twice a week there are meetings till 5/5:30.
My school ends 3:30 and literally I don't get to do anything really until about 3:50 at the earliest and like Minnie I'm then trying to squeeze everything in until 5:30 after which I literally have to leave.
Work for next day is then taken home (always on days with meetings) or sometimes just left to do the following day.

After my son asleep at 7:30 the last thing I want to do is mark so I've adopted a day on day off policy so will only take work home say on a Monday, weds and Friday (to do Sunday) etc to balance out the work load.

Wow Minnie I know exactly how you feel!! Sometimes I would have similar thoughts! "If I got knocked over now" I could avoid going in! It got that bad!

Redundancies are very common at the moment in teaching. I was a teacher and now work for a union. I take many, many redundancy and restructuring calls every day. Schools have no money and not enough staff.

12 years of teaching broke me. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. A lot of schools are toxic environments. I loved the teaching and I miss working with young people. But I wouldn't be a teacher again if you paid me £100k a year.

Fanny do you have a child in school? Would you home ed instead or is it ok from a child perspective?

I would home school if we could afford for one of us to give up work. I don't think it's as bad for kids, but the ridiculous assessment for ks1 and ks2 this year are a shambles. Tbh I started seriously to go off teaching when by ds started school. I got totally fed up with the labelling everything with a level or grade.

So far my kids school seems to taking a fairly sensible approach to stuff, although I'll probably remove ds from the phonics test this year. My dcs are 6 and 3

I don't understand how they have these expectations on teachers.

Do they literally think we are supers???!!

I was explaining to someone this week about these bloody targets. I had a year 11 boy a year or so ago. He would not pick up a pen. He did nothing. I tried everything. Head of dept, head of year etc tried everything. I remember saying to head of dept "he is going to into that exam and sleep, but it will still be hailed as my fault"

There aren't many industries where tour performance at work is judged by things that you don't have complete control over.

Hmmm. OP, yes, it is hard.....but then so are lots of jobs. Yes, it is absurd at the moment, but it is SO absurd that something is going to have to break soon. I reckon this is not a bad time to be getting into teaching because, well, it's so bad it's soon going to have to get better.

OP, I didn't do my PGCE with children of your age and, being honest, I couldn't have- because I wasn't organised enough. But I currently do have two children of the ages you describe and I am head of a core department. I reckon the stress and all-encompassing hours are comparable. Do you know what? I cope. And, when I don't, I know I will make up for it in the holidays.

For Mother's Day, my son gave me a card in which he had written, 'I love my mummy when she picks me up from school.' Being as how I am a teacher, this has happened about once. I shed a little tear. But at the same time, he was also delighted at half term when he was aware that lots of his school friends were in childcare, but he got to spend the whole week with me.

Do you all think that if the government just disbanded Ofsted and put the money back into schools that teaching would go back to the career it once was?

I am support staff in a secondary school and have been disgusted at the way the teachers have been battered by the recent ofsted inspection. They are doing so much and are so dedicated. But a lot of the problems in the school are outside of their control eg increase in SEN pupils with severe problems but no statement so no extra funding, and SLT made the stupid decision to do a cull of TAs last year. Problem families leaving kids with lots of emotional and behavioural problems who then understandably find it difficult to learn. Increasing lack of effort by some kids, yet parents and ofsted come in and point the finger of blame at the teachers. So SLT work the poor teachers even harder - "what are YOU doing to help poor Johnnie become more conscientious?" In my day, you were responsible for your OWN effort as a pupil, you did not expect teachers to put extra effort in to try and make sure that you worked harder. If you were naturally lazy then you would get poor exam results. But these were not published for all to see and make (the wrong) judgement on. As individual pupils you worked for yourself and your own ambitions. It makes me want to cry the amount of effort I see some individual teachers go to to try to get some lazy pupils to do some work.

Everything is so concerned with how the school looks on the data sheets. Ofsted have ruined education. Really ruined it. They don't look at a school and its pupils individually so they're never comparing like for like.

I always wanted to go into teaching but various teacher friends put me off when I was 15 so I didn't do it. I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake and then I look at the school where I work, and look at the inspection process and the ridiculous ideas that SLT come up with without any collaborative discussions with their actual staff, and know that I did the right thing.

If they got rid of Ofsted, league tables (or had a very very simplified version of both), made it actually illegal to implement curriculum changes as often as is done now, and put the onus back in pupils being responsible for their own outcomes (and there is no excuse these days, with all the last exam papers, and free online learning resources available on the Internet, unlike in my day when all you had to work from was your class text book) then I would re-train in a shot. It will never happen though.