Leave or return?

[Lavender395]

Hello,

I’ve posted in here before and you were all so helpful and lovely, I’m here for advice again.

In the summer I left a teaching post where I had been ‘promoted’ but a series of things prompted me to not take up the position, including a non-existent pay increase, after being kept on M1 for a whole year beyond passing my NQT year because I took time off for bereavement.

Anyway, I decided to just leave completely, because it felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back after all the hard work I had put in. I pursued further education in a different field but it just didn’t feel right for a number of reasons. I missed teaching every day, and in the end it wasn’t financially viable for me to stay either. I’ve never ‘quit’ anything like that before which was a big blow, as well as having to repay the tuition fees which wiped out my savings.

After that I quickly signed up with a few agencies but have had some awful experiences, including one calling my partner at work at 7am as my emergency contact and ordering him to tell me to answer the phone as he ‘needed’ me today to work on school transport (?!). In short, in the last four months I’ve had one ‘trial’ day where I worked for free, which turned out not to be a trial for a long term position, as specified, but a one day cover.

I am trained in secondary but want to move further into SEN.

Anyway, I’ve been desperately applying for teaching and non-teaching jobs and I just feel like...how the hell did I get into this pathetic jobless position that all started because I had time off as I mentioned above.

I want to get back into teaching and move beyond M1. I got a Distinction in my PGCE, lots of ‘1’ observations towards the end of my NQT (I had never had below a 2) and have two degrees from a Russell Group university. I just don’t know...I’m rambling now. Sorry for the huge post.

I am not having any luck with supply, don’t want to work in secondary but don’t have enough experience to apply for a primary position, I don’t think, and I’ve not seen any SEN teacher jobs come up at all. I am starting to feel really down again and have lots of growing anxiety, and don’t want to go back to a bad place mentally which will inhibit me even more.

I don't have any advice for how you move forward into the kind of roles that you would like. But I didn't want to read and close.

But ... while I can see your perspective clearly from your post (bereavement, being kept on at a lower rate for a year because of it, missing teaching, desperately wanting to teach) ... I can also clearly see any potential hiring side's position.

From an outsider's perspective, you look flaky and unreliable: you took a lot of time off during your first post, you quit your first post soon thereafter, you went back to study to do something else entirely, you quit that, and now you don't want to teach what you trained to teach and are applying for different things entirely.

I am not saying you are flaky and unreliable. I'm really not. I think you now know what you want to do and why. But ... potential employers won't see that easily. You're going to have to find personal contacts to help you get a foot in somewhere, I suspect, to change course to SEN from secondary.

Good luck.

Thank you so much for replying. I probably should have mentioned that a lot of my experience in secondary was with entirely SEN/nurture classes and so it would be an extension of that. Thanks for your realistic response though.

What BewareOfDragons says.

Your PGCE/NQT ratings are not going to be of much interest to employers - we've all seen NQTs who had fantastic references but are something quite different when responsible for classes in a full timetable with less support. What an employer wants to see is recent experience, and supply would be one way of getting that, but thatt doesn't seem to be working out.

Back in the day, there used to be more opportunities for teachers who wanted to specialise in SEN, but now it's TAs who bear the brunt. I think you need to get some solid teaching experience and then try to edge into SEN.

Another option is working as a cover supervisor, but that's a big pay drop.

I think that you need to begin applying now for permanent advertised jobs in your subject. Lots will be advertised over the next few months.

Get at least a year more teaching under your belt, then specialise.