Help me switch from NHS to teaching. PLEASE.

[newbed]

I'm looking for career advice. Is a senior staff nurse and a qualified Tutor. I teach nursing and med students. I'm on a career break currently as my son has Special needs. I'd like to look at becoming a teacher. Can any of you advise me on the best way to do this. Is the OU an option?

Have you got a degree? Do you want to teach primary or secondary?

If you're on a career break as your son has SN, then teaching may not be the career you want - it is exceptionally intensive in term time and teacher training involves very long hours.

Pretty much what noble said. Your free time will vanish.

Have you been in schools recently? You'll need work experience to have any chance of getting in anyway and it will help you decide one way or the other whether it's for you.

A job in a further education college teaching health and social care students might be a possibility. It is sometimes possible to do the FE teacher training qualifications on the job. I suggest enquiring at local colleges for part-time work which would give you a chance to try it. You might also want to post on the relevant TES forum where there may be people more up to date than me.

eg

www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/health-and-social-care-specialist-wigan-525681

We have a nurse who nurses and teaches health and social care. Might be worth exploring.

Thanks everyone. I was homeschooling him until we got a place in his Specialist school. He starts in September and I'd like to return to work for lots of reasons. The thought of going back to nursing is making me sick in my tummy.

You might want to read this thread before deciding the grass is greener in teaching www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3006903-To-ask-ex-teachers-why-they-give-up-teaching

The suggestion of FE lecturing sounds good but bear in mind they aren't usually paid as well as teachers.

FE is definitely more flexible and probably more suited to your needa but pay isn't as good and job security is pretty poor right now. There are a lot of funding cuts going on, especially in FE. I would give the Guardian education section a good read before you make the change.

On the bright side though, sometimes teaching can be truely awesome. The good times aren't that common at the moment but they do rock when they happen.

Think carefully. It's much easier to change jobs within nursing than teaching and there are lots of flexible options to suit your childcare need. Have you thought about bank/primary care/community (hospital or district nurse)/more tutoring/governance work etc etc?

Nurses are leaving their jobs in droves there are more vacancies than there are nurses to fill them, and like teachers many are totally demoralised also like teachers they work ridiculous hours and are treated very poorly in often very stressful conditions.
Having said this OP over the last year I have listened to quite a few mums who are thinking of training to be teachers who seem to think they will be able to juggle child care (they mainly have primary aged children) and teacher training, frankly I'm sceptical I know I couldn't which is why I waited till my children left school I felt one or other was going to suffer if Id done it earlier.
You do need a degree as you probably know, but you may have one (many nurses do), in my case my experience teaching in my current job definitely strengthened my application. Nurses are also generally very hard working adaptable and used to working in difficult very stressful situations with people many of whom are not at their best. Nurses have to regularly reflect on their practice and are used to being accountable for their actions. They are used to incessant government interference, and endless paper work and also the ups and sadly now mainly downs of working in the public sector (I also work in the public sector). All desirable qualities for teaching I would have thought.
Look on this website, call up and get sone advise about what options are open to you. I did although I'm lucky I have a good degree in a very in demand subject. I found them very helpful. Also most schools will let you spend a day observing lessons, contact you local schools early next terms and go and see whats going on (its quite an eye opener) and see if you think its for you. Also next term there will be lots of open evenings/days held by various training providers who will happily explain how it works. In my area I found these by looking on my local schools websites.
A friend is a qualified nurse practitioner she really wanted to teach in FE health and social care. She was offered a chance of training at her local college she absolutely hated it. Teaching health and social care in not the same as teaching student nurses and the calibre of the students was apparently really depressing.

Are you sure you want to work 60 hours per week for £24k? FE teachers also only get seven weeks holiday per year. PT staff are often on contracts that do not pay them during the holidays.

Have you looked at a BUPA nursing home, day surgery unit etc

Have you looked at non nursing rolls in the nhs? I trained to be a teacher and now work in the nhs in admin and I'm so much happier, such a better work/life balance. There are nurses in my office in non clincial rolls too, but using their nursing experience on several different projects.

Yes, OU is definitely an option.
You could just go straight in as an unqualified teacher if you wanted at some schools.

Have you considered working as a nurse in a boarding school?

I looked at the above link; why teachers give up teaching. Its very sad but Im pretty sure if you started a thread changing the profession to nurses, doctors, social workers, police, ambulance, drivers etc you'd read almost identical comments. Sadly this is what many public sector workers feel.
I have a couple of friends who work in the the private sector (health) they are certainly treated no better than they were in the NHS, in fact worse in many ways. Ditto with nursing homes the vast majority of which of course are privately owned, I met a trained nurse who works in a reputable but privately owned home her working conditions were appalling, split shifts, long and of course anti social hours, endless paperwork and let's not forget the homes owners are trying to make a profit this may not sit comfortably with you.
Social workers are totally overworked and talk about can't do right for doing right.
A doctor friend who really does know what working ridiculous hours means is leaving the profession to train as a gardener she knows plenty of other colleges who are either leaving or seriously thinking about it.
Its not just those in the public sector who feel their jobs are stressful and working conditions aren't good. My DH who doesn't work in the public sector has on paper a good job paying him an excellent wage but he works 55-60 hours a week an get this wage and only 4 weeks holiday a year he has exceedingly demanding clients many of whom are international and who expect emails to be answered with a few hours and him to answer his phone and reply to emails even at weekends and in the evenings.
I understand we work the longest hours in Europe I think many are totally disillusioned with their jobs have a poor work life balance.

Why is it whenever someone says 'teaching is tough' someone pops up to say 'oh but so is sewage working'? The OP wants to become a teacher because she is stressed out being a nurse. It's important that she isn't coming from a rosy view of leaving at 3:30 and spending the rest of the day with her DS. A lot of people see teaching as family-friendly when really it isn't (although the holidays are a huge perk).

Noble the OP was linked into to thread about teachers leaving the profession, some comments up thread have said don't do it. It seems entirely reasonable to me to point out that other professions and relevant to the OP nurses could say the same thing if they started a similiar thread.
The OP has not said anywhere she wants a cushy number, going home at 3 30 and spending the rest of the evening with her DS she has simply said the idea of going back to nursing is making her feel "sick in my tummy". Most nurses work very antisocial hours including all the main bank holidays (they don't have the luxury of being able to say that "the holidays are a huge perk") and nights, the job is often very stressful and there's a desperate shortage of nurses so many are responsible on a day to day basis for far too many patients, nurses aren't just mopping brows and doing bed baths any more, many are performing the same roles as doctors and with the same level of accountability. So maybe she just fancies a change but that change may not have to be a doddly job. Perhaps she just fancies a new and different challenge.
Secondly having done quite a lot of listening to both teachers in training and those who have finished I did point out in my first post that I am sceptical that teacher training and juggling children is actually compatible.

What concerns me about the OP is that she doesn't say anything about liking teaching or why she might want to be a teacher. It's all about not liking nursing. OK, she has home-schooled her DS, but that bears as much resemblance to being a classroom teacher as looking after your own poorly DC does to being a nurse. I'd advise her to think very carefully before exchanging one tough, under-paid public sector job for another - where she'll be starting again at the bottom. She should definitely also talk to people who entered teaching late: I know quite a few who have done it, but none who have stayed in teaching.

When I tell my colleagues in my "under-paid public sector job" Im chucking it in to train to be a teacher many say "oh I often think of doing that". Maybe its natural that we're drawn to stay in the public sector we understand it warts and all. When I tell friends who don't work in the public sector in a variety if fields mainly professions that Im going to train to be a teacher not one has ever said "oh I often think of doing that" Teaching nursing social work etc in the public sector have a structure we can understand, a career path that again we can understand, and maybe morally we feel the public sector is where we want to be. Also both careers involve working with people, and the OP has said she already teaches medical students so maybe she genuinely enjoys teaching.
I am entering teaching "late" its not a decision I've taken lightly, "starting at the bottom" doesn't worry me, I've got the that age where I'm no longer looking to take over the world and if that was my ambition I should be staying in my current job! As part of my research into teaching I deliberately sort out others like me to find out how they found/find it. Of course I heard lots of different opinions and many do find it a total shock, and you're right Noble many seem to think that its a 9 - 3 30 job but quite a few including at least a couple who were in previously in professions in the public sector said was the best thing they've ever done.

Frankly I wonder more how 21/22 year olds straight out of university cope.

Oh dear maybe I should explain my reasons. I said before I hate nursing. I never want to go there again. I have been volunteering at my sons school as a classroom assistant and during the time we were waiting for that school position he was home schooled. I have lots of involvement in all the kids schools as PTA chairperson etc so I do see how difficult some teachers have it. I still think I would love it. I'd like to give it a go. There seem to be lots of part time posts advertised here in NI.

You're right newbed that there are a lot if part time teaching posts advertised here in NI, but what you may not know is how many people are applying for each job...which can be literally hundreds.

NI is, I think, the only part of the UK with absolutely no recruitment crisis in teaching, in fact we have the opposite problem, young teachers who have never found a permanent job 10 years after qualifying. Local councils in England fly over every year to speak to PGCE students at QUB and UU offering 'golden handshakes' to get them to go across the water to teach.

We also don't have (yet) many of the stresses facing teachers in England and Wales, so people stay in the job for longer. It's a great job, which I absolutely love, but I really wouldn't expect to walk into a job after qualifying.

Unfortunately Northcoastmum is right. O had a PGCE student at my school who was a fantastic teacher but couldn't get a job in NI. She literally had the pick of places to work in England when she left us.

Teaching in NI is great - genuinely still a wonderful career with decent work life balance. However jobs are like hens' teeth - I know so many friends who have had to move to England to get a job, despite being very well qualified and excellent teachers. If you can get a teaching job in NI, I'm sure you wouldn't regret the career change!

Thanks local Teachers. That's given me food for thought now. It's frustrating because I know I could do it. However would hate to go through the expense of the course and have no job at the end. I'm a little less sure now.