Be honest with me - train as teacher or not?

[WelliesAndPyjamas]

I am totally on the fence with this very recent idea I have had! I'd appreciate your honest opinions 🙂

I appear to be in a good position to get a very decent bursary to train as a Spanish teacher. But should I do it?

Pros

1. Have taught teenagers before (EFL teacher) and found it mostly fulfilling and the age group very entertaining and inspiring
2. DH is a teacher so we'd have holiday times together as a family, which means a lot to us
3. there is high demand for teachers in this area
4. it would almost double our household income and we could possibly afford to renew the passports and have a foreign holiday for the first time in six year 😄 (Yes, I shallowly crave 'proper' sunshine!)
5. with two jobs we could increase our mortage and add another bedroom so the kids could have their own rooms
6. I am already aware of the teacher workload through DH and through being school governor for a few years (in our school we fully appreciate the hours and effort put in by staff!)

Cons

1. it's a personal thing but it has always been very important to us that one of us is always here for the children outside of school times (i.e. preschool age, drop off, pick up, etc), and not to have to rely on childcare. This has worked well for us with our eldest two (13 and 8), with one of us being a sahp or self employed and the other employed in order to make it happen. Ideally, and out of fairness too, we would want the same for our youngest, who starts school this year. With teacher training and teacher hours, we would need to use childcare or reduce dh's hours. Please don't try and convince me that it isn't necessary to have this setup. It just means a lot to us as a family and makes us very happy.
2. What if I end up in a horrible school and I end up hating teaching? It would be a waste of time and bursary money. I have seen and heard enough negativity from teachers and head teachers I know to understand it is a strong possibility.
3. I am already well qualified, with a Masters degree. Would retraining as a teacher now just be a waste of my education so far?
4. I just don't want my job to take family time away from me. It's a big deal. I know teachers who live the job and can't stop working. I also know teachers who know how to draw a line between home and work and make use of existing resources etc to save time. What if I end up in a school that discourages effective time management? DH's first school expected staff to be there 8 til 8 or later, it was the organisational culture, with no flexibility even if the work could be done in less time. I also love getting enough sleep, being human and all 😄
5. my father was a MFL teacher when I was a child, about 40 to 30 years ago, and he hated the disinterest and behaviour of the children, the unsupportive ht, etc and left it for something he loved. I know I am not him (am definitely very different!) but I can't help thinking of it.
6. I can only offer Spanish. We moved abroad when I was a child (to a Spanish speaking country incidentally!) so missed out on learning much French or German in school. So I am more limited in what I could offer a school. But would a school be interested in or make use of other skills and degree subjects, albeit more unusual, once you are 'in the door' so to speak?

Will stop there as pesky kids real life will never let me finish this 😄 Will add more thoughts if I get clarity of thought later on ha ha!

Yes or no - should I give it a go?
Any Spanish teachers who can share experience? Anyone who changed career to teach secondary?

Many thanks!

I have a Spanish friend who teaches in the UK without a teaching qualification. She teaches in 3 primaries 3 short days. She drops off her own children and is there after registration and teaches each age group for 1 lesson and offers a free club during the lunch hour.
She gets paid hourly self employed but is really happy doing it with little kids at home.
She got into it by dropping off a cv this the offer of the club.
This might be an option for you.

Have you thought of local adult ed?

Another consideration is that there has been more and more of a mismatch between my holidays and my children's in recent years

Agreed. I'm not a teacher but I work with young people that are in Secondary schools.

I tried planning loads of trips and stuff with my groups. However in a borough where there are 5 secondaries all of them have start and go back days at different times. Some are going back on Monday and others only broke up today. Another one finished two weeks ago and one finished yesterday afternoon. It's gone bonkers. We used to have a set patten that we could plan our targeted work!

So glad I'm not a teacher or social worker. I work with both and there isn't much difference in my pay and some of theirs but if you broke it down to hourly rates with all the extra hours they put in I am miles better off.

I teach adult ed. I love it but let's just say it doesn't pay the mortgage.

Very true! I enjoyed it so much more though.

Look at elf in local colleges. In my college they are paid on the teaching scale.

Efl not elf

Thanks for the new ideas - adult ed and language in primary. Both worthy of research.

Before starting this thread, I registered my interest with the get in to teaching website...naturally, their emails have started to come through, seriously bigging up the world of teaching 😂 as if I didn't already have a partial insight in to what it's like! Whilst I am still more against than for the idea of teacher training, I am considering maybe letting them set me up to do one of their trial periods in a school. It would be after September though as we can't afford to pay for additional childcare (beyond the free 15 hrs) to allow it to happen this academic year, which also puts the whole teacher training idea on to a back burner until 2018, if at all, and that sits better with me.

No.
Sorry, haven't RTFT but teaching is shit, despite the lovely kids.