Retraining as a teacher.

[WhiteCat1704]

I'm a qualified professional with years of experience in my industry. I have a job that pays well and, at the moment, is flexibile. Unfortunately my business is getting sold and there will be a round of voluntary redundancies. I'm considering taking it and training to be a chemistry teacher (worked as industrial chemist for several years and my diploma is over 50% chemistry).

The 26/28k tax free bursary makes retraining an attractive prospect.

I have a young child and if I stay in my industry and want to mantain my level of pay I will have to travel extensively. 10-15 weeks of travel within a year used to be my pre-child average.

I don't want to do that. My child will start school in couple of years and I want to be there. Prospect of long holidays at the same time as DC makes it very attractive too.

My question is..would you do it?
I would be looking at over 40% pay cut and that's really putting me off..On the other hand the salary would likely build up so it could be temporary..

I have read a range of opinions..some people say it's long hours and not a family friendly career but coming from a job where so much travel is required I find it hard to believe..

I also suspect you think teaching chemsitry will be easy because of your experience and expertise. The chemistry bit will be fine, but the teaching bit takes hard graft and a whole different expertise. You can have all the experience in the world but struggle to communicate it to teenagers. To an extent, of course, this but can be larned! But easy it isn't!

One thing you ahve got in your favour is 'the cult of STEM'. There are more students opting for triple science and A Level chemistry these days, so your opportunity to teach in specialism will be enhanced by that. Pity the MFL teachers here :(

I think the OP saw the government adverts and swallowed the propaganda whole and without question. Truth is, you will rarely face small groups of well-behaved, motivated students in well-equipped classrooms, listening attentively to every pearl from your lips.

What’s the phrase? Drank the Kool-Aid?

No offence to you OP. I'd canter after a big juicy 20 odd K carrot too. But see this bursary thing? It gets my fucking goat.

I am currently doing PGDE Secondary. I am having to do it the part time route - placements and coursework over two years instead of one. I am having to do this because I have to FUND MYSELF. Oh - and I'm in Scotland.

I work either a 13hr day or nightshift at the weekend during placements alongside planning, creating my own materials, reflecting, so say at least 13 hour days 6 days a week.

I also have a 2yo. So I'm paying thousands for nursery fees in childcare to ensure I can get to placements, attend uni when I'm not on placement and juggle the school hours. I use a private nursery to ensure I can pick up at 6pm which btw is still rushing me to leave the school 15mins commute away.

Because I am a part time student I am NOT ELIGIBLE for student loan, or of course a bursary. Never mind an incredible amount like twenty odd k.

I have taken on this incredible workload, as well as working in clinical healthcare because I am striving to do well by all children. I am hoping that by getting in on the front line I will be able to learn and assess where educational policy needs changing, support needs to be put in place and amendments need to be made to our education system.

I am hoping that by taking such a huge hit on my earnings these last two years I can do some good.

I am hoping that by sacrificing time with my small DC just now I can improve the outlook for her education in the future.

It fucking enrages me that the government are enticing people to the vocation by financial means. It is inviting financially driven, incentivised selfish cretins (I have come up against a fair few of them already openly admitting they wouldn't be present but for the bursary) into the profession and in doing so demoralising everyone who has had to sacrifice to get there already.

Sorry OP I am not saying you are in this cohort; however as the bursary was mentioned and others have picked up on it I wanted to throw my two shillings in.

Teaching will only be effective if people with a passion for doing good by children are motivated and compensated by fair working conditions. And of course appreciated for their incredible hard work (seriously - the course is so full on and incredibly hard) in their daily working lives and not shat upon by these insulting incentives to get others who do not have the necessary passion to do a good job.

Ha , great post!

I knew you were Scottish (Glaswegian?) from a) your user name and b) your use of 'see this..' in your first sentence!

Some great Scots straight talking there!

The idea that people should be rolling out the red carpet is going to get people's backs up.
I career changed and there was a few of us in my cohort who'd had a life before teaching. One in particular rubbed everyone (including their placement schools) up the wrong way because they seemed to think they were more valuable and better because they'd done x y z in industry. They also seemed to think they should get paid more for their first post because they'd been in industry. The fact they were still a newly qualified teacher seemed to escape them.
Much as I'll stand by my view that i think doing something before teaching really helps, it doesn't make the trainee or new teacher somehow more valuable or better or mean they should get to cherry pick elements of the job.

I can understand the view of 'I'm training to teach MFL so would have thought they'd be wanting me to teach languages, not history'.
I don't understand the view 'I'm training to be a science teacher, oh but I don't actually want to do the full job of a science teacher because I only want to teach chemistry and is have thought they'd have welcomed me with open arms'.
The former is understandable, the latter comes across as quite arrogant.

I'm training to be a science teacher, oh but I don't actually want to do the full job of a science teacher because I only want to teach chemistry and is have thought they'd have welcomed me with open arms'

Actually you don't train to be a science teacher. You train to be chemistry or physics or biology teacher. You can get a scholarship -28k- for chemistry or physics but there is only bursary -26k- for biology.

It might be common knowledge that you need to teach all scientific subjects in a staff room. Some of us had nothing to do with schooling system for quite a long while so it comes as a suprise.

getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/funding-my-teacher-training/bursaries-and-scholarships-for-teacher-training

See for yourselves. Three separate subjects. Not one "science".

Also as some of you pointed out it's supposed to be about the students. I personally don't like and never liked biology and would be terrible at teaching it. How is forcing someone qualified in a completely different are to teach subject they dislike good for the quality of teaching and the students?

If this is the attitude and expectation it really is no wonder people are leaving the profession. When I worked as an industrial chemist nobody expected me to do engeneering, IT or design. I work with other specialists but I don't specialise in everything.

I'm now getting quite concerned about quality of teaching my DC will recieve in secondary if somebody trained in biology will be teaching them physics.

It’s been going on for years, your children will have the advantage of an expert at home to help them. Like the majority of parents, you are only becoming aware of the problems as they directly impact your life. Unfortunately, we are now in the endgame, the decay is terminal and the entire system in meltdown.

I'm now getting quite concerned about quality of teaching my DC will recieve in secondary if somebody trained in biology will be teaching them physics

Don’t ask who’ll be teaching them maths.

You are correct to be very concerned, unfortunately you are now being confronted with the reality of schools in 2019. The recruitment ads are nonsense, as previous posters have said watch School for the reality. I completely love my job (primary) but I have lost my personal life and can't sustain a relationship as my children then work (very very often the other way round can 😪) mean there is nothing left

WhiteCat1704 I entirely agree with you - I know nothing about biology but I still sometimes have to teach it.

It's the way teaching is because there's NO MONEY in the system.

When I first started teaching about 15 years ago, I only taught chemistry, and now I'm even having to teach biology. Every HoD would prefer their staff to only teach their subject specialism, but there just isn't the money to employ the extra staff which would be needed to make the timetabling work.

I don't even have a GCSE in Geography but I've had to teach it due to staffing shortages.

I'm now getting quite concerned about quality of teaching my DC will recieve in secondary if somebody trained in biology will be teaching them physics.

You’ll be lucky if that’s the case. Your kids might get someone with no training at all. Or no degree or A levels in the subject. That happens all over the place.

Schools don’t really welcome people with open arms. They take people on, hoping for the best, but anticipating that over half will leave pretty soon.

I can punctuate. Just getting that in before opening the work laptop.

Most science teachers I know are actually quite enthusiastic about science as a whole concept. They tend to have triple science GCSE themselves and at least two sciences at A Level, so not hugely out of comfort zone. I have taught German. My degree is not in MFL. That doesn't mean I didn't teach it well at beginners/KS3. Also, don't forget that you might end up teaching science to students who are academically very weak.

Your last post does convince me that teaching is not for you. You don't have the right approach imo and, as I suspected - it's all about that (short lived!) bursary/ scholarship.

You seem to believe what a recruitment website from the government tells you more than experienced teachers!

Anyway, don't get us all satrted on the list OP. The row broke out long ago on MN as to why geographers (not a shortage subject anywhere I have been) are worth so much and why the bursary for classicists is the same as, say, biology and 11k more than English. It's a scandal.

Not having to pay for childcare in the holidays is a big perk (and tbh is one of the only things keeping me from changing career).

If the main draw of teaching for you is spending time with your kids then... Don't do it!

I’m now getting quite concerned about quality of teaching my DC will recieve in secondary if somebody trained in biology will be teaching them physics.

They'll probably be lucky to have someone with even a science A level to be teaching them science. We have no maths specialists and have someone with a geography degree teaching Gcse maths. Remember, you don’t actually need to even be a qualified teacher to teach in academies.

You are right to be cross about this. All parents should be cross about this. That won’t make the excellent qualified teachers we already have in this country want to stay, but it might eventually make the government make the massive changes that are needed to try.

We don’t have a shortage of teachers in this country-there are thousands of them. They just chose to leave. Someone needs to find out why and make the changes necessary to stop tht happening.

Did you think op that everyone teaching a subject was a specialist in just that area ?

Did you think op that everyone teaching a subject was a specialist in just that area?

To be fair on the OP-I think a lot of people think that.

Schools are hardly going to shout about it and if teachers mention it, they usually get ignored because people think they’re moaning.

Haven't read all replies and I'm a primary school teacher, not secondary. I've taught for over 30 years and still love it but it's not a job I'd recommend to anyone who didn't know they have a flair for teaching and truly believe it's what they want to do. To use an old fashioned term, I think you need to feel it is a vocation.

It's very fully on and demanding. Always has been but is worse nowadays with all the top down pressure re targets and performance.

It's not easy to make more money without adding significantly to your responsibilities and even then you'd never be very well off unless you were head of a massive school.

The early years where you're training and finding your feet are particularly hard and not really easily compatible with family life.

My DH thought about it a few years back when his own company was floundering but I don't think he'd have hacked it very well. He's very interested in education but not great at getting things across to our kids - he doesn't have a sense of where they're coming from.

Yes it really helps to have school holidays off as a parent and they helped mitigate the guilt of working when they were younger. But they don't roll round as often as you might imagine - plenty of full on stress-filled weeks in between.

If the holidays are your main reason for going into it - don't do it would be my advice!

I think my experience in the industry could be valuable in inspiring students to pursue the subject further. I started as a lab technician and worked in manufacturing and waste treatment and renewable generation so could really focus on practical applications of the subject in real life and career opportunities...I have ideas of what to show the students and how to make the subject accessible and interesting..

This actually made me laugh. No one cares about your experience, the only thing schools care about is your students’ exam results. You will not have time for any engaging real life applications, you will need to teach the curriculum.
I like my job, but it is not much like I imagined it to be. I’m a career changer, too.

I'm now getting quite concerned about quality of teaching my DC will recieve in secondary if somebody trained in biology will be teaching them physics

And are you equally concerned that there are literature graduates teaching ks3/4 English language and linguistics graduates teaching ks3/4 English literature? Because the reality is we've all trained and developed our subject knowledge, just like those who train in a science have to. Jobs are typically advertised as 'teacher of science' or they'll say 'teacher of biology' where they've got a specialist gap in the team but in almost every school science teachers will teach to ks4 in all sciences.

Holidayshopping
Teaching ks3 and ks4 science is teaching in their area.
Having to teach all 3 sciences wouldn't count as teaching out of subject

HolidayshoppingTeaching ks3 and ks4 science is teaching in their area

@maisypops

What was that in response to?