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..

holiday
Your reply about how most people would assume staff were teaching in subject specialisms.
I was just clarifying that contrary to the OP's view, a science teacher teaching all 3 sciences in ks3/4 is teaching in specialism.

Equally, for an English teacher a bit of RE or history at y7/8 is hardly difficult given the links to literature. I know some physics teachers who'll teach a bit of ks3 maths. Equally I've known some schools teach humanities at ks3 so the class gets either a history/geography/re teacher in ks3 who does all their humanities.

Primary staff don't have degrees in every subject. Year 7 is one step above year 6. Someone of readonable intelligence with reasonable general knowledge should be able to do subjects with links to their own.

P.s. sorry my reply wasn't clear

I am not surprised OP didn't know they'd have to cover other subjects. I only left school 8 years ago and none of the teachers used to teach outside of their area. If someone was off sick or not in you might have a geography teacher telling you what pages your maths teacher wanted you to do work from, and making sure you were working, but it was never actual teaching.

I did triple science, but for everyone doing double, they still got the biology teacher for a bit of it, the chemistry teacher for a bit of it etc. You didn't have the chemistry teacher doing biology. Maybe I went to a weird school!

I think working as a teaching assistant in a secondary school for the next two terms would do you the world of good.
You are really deluded as to how it all works - and I'm at an Outstanding school !
Do you know any TA's / Dinner Ladies / School Care-takers that you could chat to, you'd get a much better idea of school life than you have at the moment by talking to them - or indeed by talking to youngsters - ask teenagers about their lessons, how it all falls apart when a long suffering cover teacher appears, how frequently teachers have to call on SLT to remove children from classes, how much low-level disruption never gets recorded because there is so much of it it has become part of the cultral expectation of the class etc etc

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.

Teachers leaving the profession has absolutely nothing to do with having to teach biology when you’re a chemistry specialist. Honestly.

How do you think primary school teachers cope?

OrcinusOrca
I get them not realising they could be directed to teach genuinely out of subject (e.g. science to geography).

I don't get them having an issue with teaching ks3/4 science when specialist teaching tends to only kick in at GCSE for triple science.

Generally if you teach core then you're unlikely to get used for other subjects unless it's a real timetable issue and even then schools I've been in have tended to ask if anyone would be willing to (e.g. lots of staff have a joint honours background and are happy to teach out of the subject they trained in because they've got an interest in other areas). I'm combined honours background and have enjoyed having a bit of ks3 in other subjects.

We are desperate for geographers in the se-equal to if not greater than in science. I’ve been teaching 18 years and looking for a way out. Ps-the pe teachers are teaching maths😉

It's bizarre that people seem to consider teaching biology if you have a chemistry degree as teaching outside the specialism. At GCSE level most students will get a double science award which is two grades for science. Only students who opt for triple would get separate science grades. In my current school we are lucky to teach all (more or less) in specialisms at KS4 and 5, but KS3 is always just science. I mean it's not difficult, it's basic general knowledge science really. At the school I went to after training, I taught all of science to my GCSE classes and it was a challenge. But I educated myself and managed ok.

It really worries me, and I've seen first hand, that trainees are being enticed by the money, but haven't got the basic knowledge of anything remotely out if their specialism. It's not your fault OP, more like the recruiters are so desperate for bums on seats that they are taking anyone who wants in without regard to suitability and knowledge or lack thereof. It's very frustrating for us as mentors to have to deal with a lack of very basic subject knowledge and trainees who think they can just teach their specialism including at KS3. Who has led them to believe this is what I would like to know?!

@MaisyPops. Aha, yes- I see what you mean.

Having taught Y6 for quite a few years, I certainly had to gen up on quite a bit I didn’t know beforehand!

It really worries me, and I've seen first hand, that trainees are being enticed by the money, but haven't got the basic knowledge of anything remotely out if their specialism.

Quite a few don’t seem to have knowledge inside their subject. Lots of people have totally unrelated degrees and have just done subject knowledge enhancement courses.

I think the days of having three different science teachers (I had this from yr7, very lucky!) are long gone. When the GCSE was modular we used to rotate groups so they DID get a specialist for each module, except for physics as we never managed to recruit a physics specialist so muggins me with A level used to have to do it. To be honest anyone with a science degree should have enough about them to teach the usual GCSE content even if with a little more prep for the first couple of times teaching a unit. It's only the same as a history teacher having to teach, say, the Cold War unit when they have specialised in Medieval history or something.

*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*
To be fair to the OP as well, that'd clearly be the ideal.

And, dare I say it, this is an argument for recruiting teachers straight out of uni. I'd done triple science and then three science A levels, biology degree with compulsory chemistry units in it, then straight into to teaching so never really lost the knowledge base. If I'd been in industry 10 years I'm sure I'd have found it a lot harder to recall the subject knowledge. Do-able, but not as easy. I've mentored trainees fresh from uni and from industry backgrounds and seen success and dropout in both so I'm not generalising, just making an observation counter to the "go and do a real job first" that sometimes comes up.

It's very frustrating for us as mentors to have to deal with a lack of very basic subject knowledge and trainees who think they can just teach their specialism including at KS3. Who has led them to believe this is what I would like to know?!
I agree on a mentor front. I've had some brilliant trainees who've been so willing yo develop their subject knowledge (like we all have to) and others who've been bloody hard work because they think that having a degree means they know it all. Once I had someone who got moody and rude when I suggested they needed to know the texts before teaching them (I did point out that learning new texts was a fairly central part of teaching english).

Much as we need teachers to teach, it's ludicrous throwing money at people who aren't well suited to teaching and have little desire to learn and reflect.

Ah OP I do sympathise - I trained as a French Teacher, that was my specialism. When you apply for a PGCE however, you DO give a second subject - mine is German.
I ended up being the main teacher of my second subject as - in the same way scientists teach all three, linguists teach at least two.
As I did a double honours degree not a problem for me but I do know other trainees who were far from confident in their second language.
Schools would expect you to be able to teach both to GCSE and to my knowledge all science colleagues taught all sciences (although a chemist from industry I knew got more chemistry than the others. His is a cautionary tale however, he found the pastoral and discipline side of things very hard to cope with despite being a mature teacher having spent a decade in industry).
I also ended up doing one cover as part of my timetable as an NQT and I also taught citizenship/pastoral social education/enquiry skills which I had no experience with but is a no-brainer really.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Don’t ask who’ll be teaching them maths

I nearly said exactly that! Don’t ask who’ll be teaching them English either.

OP, there is a teaching crisis. Yes you’ll get a bursary for training in chemistry but the reality is you will be asked to teach at least another science. Or Maths. Or they’ll hear you have an A level in French and you’ll be teaching KS3 French. Or Year 7 English. I’m not exaggerating! You’ll also have to be a form tutor and maybe teach some sort of pshe. Make sure you know what you’re trying to do before you do it. Schools need good Science teachers and you could be one of them if you want to.

Just an aside- when you’ve trained you will be on significantly less money. You might not go up the pay scale at all. Is that worth it for 6 weeks off (which are amazing, until results days come round and then the holidays are over)

Don't do it. The expectations of parents / kids / teachers are so far removed that nobody can succeed anymore. You will want the kids to work. The kids don't understand how.

The parents won't support you, or help the kids work because THAT IS YOUR JOB, but you aren't there to unplug the Xbox/ turn off the wifi/ stop them drinking at the weekend.

Impossible job.

Worth bearing in mind that although there are a lot of experienced teachers who are at the top of the pay scales. (38k) It is much, much harder to get there these days. Up until 2010 progression was mostly just a matter of serving your time, but these days any pay progression is at the discretion (whim) of the head. Although it is easy to think that your performance will of course be good, cash strapped heads seem to have a very subjective view of good performance which makes any pay progression slower and harder.

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

Several things:

• if your children are taught be people who have a degree in at least a related subject, that will be as good as it gets for many, many schools. The legacy of Gove, academies, new specifications etc mean that we have fewer people in the system/wanting to be in the system and the need for qualifications of any kind dispensed with for academies. Theoretically, that means as a graduate of chemistry and chemistry being a shortage area, you could make some applications and see what happens. It would be interesting to see how much interest you get.
• you don’t get to teach real world application of anything. You teach to the test. Increasingly schools start GCSEs in year 9 so year 11 is largely a revision year, eliminating the need for students to properly engage in independent study. Schools have to get results or their Ofsted rating is affected, so they get results. Individual teachers chase kids round school getting coursework completed and literally negotiate with parents over after school sessions, lunchtime sessions, weekend sessions - all of which teachers are expected to do at no financial cost to the school. If your results are poor, the capability process is short and brutal and you don’t get to try it again next year.
• we value subject knowledge in our classrooms but a well prepared, capable teacher will probably get as good results at KS3 as the specialist. More of an issue at exam levels, but still not impossible. It is as much about getting knowledge in heads and an understanding of how to answer the questions/what an examiner is looking for as anything else.

You should be concerned. The system is at breaking point yet the Government can find £28k per chemistry candidate who statistically has only a 50% chance of being in a teaching post 5 years later. That is an appalling dropout rate for what should be a job for life and what is, without doubt, an important job in any society. Why are teachers walking away en masse? More importantly, why do we have countless threads on teacher holidays/stress/lack of a maths teacher on a parenting website that focus on how lazy/stupid/useless the profession is and none on what an outrage it is that teachers are leaving?

As a teacher, I would urge parents to start asking questions. And then demand answers from your MPs. And ultimately, vote for a party that is going to at least fund the system appropriately.

It's made pretty clear when you apply that you're expected to teach all three sciences to KS4- I do agree that advertising it as "biology, chemistry, physics" is a bit false, when actually that only really refers to what you teach at KS5/A-level. But the reality is that unis can't find placement schools where you only teach your specialism- because they don't really exist outside of the private sector. Also, they want to produce employable teachers, and most jobs are now advertised as "teacher of science".

But also, you're thinking about it the wrong way around- this type of timetabling is partly because of the teacher shortage. At KS3, there's not enough specialists in physics/chemistry for all classes to have equal time with them, so it's easier for classes to stay with the same teacher(s) and rotate. In my last placement school there was all sorts of juggling going on to make sure that all classes were being taught by science teachers, never mind subject specialists. At KS4, the school was keen to have combined science classes taught by at least two subject specialists- so usually a biologist and a chemist or a biologist and a physicist, with the third science being shared and taught by both teachers.

Obviously being taught by specialists would be the ideal, but I don't think this has happened at KS3 for many, many years, as it's just too difficult to timetable.

FWIW I also have A-levels Chemistry and Maths, and I put a lot of effort into teaching the other sciences, making sure my subject knowledge is correct and I'm planning good lessons. It's probably not the best deal for the students, no, but equally rotating between 3 teachers a fortnight in Year 7 for science probably isn't great either for some pupils.

and none on what an outrage it is that teachers are leaving?

We also get very few if any on how long MPs get off and how much they earn. MPS wages make teaching look like a minimum wage job.

It does seem strange that someone could not realise that they would be expected to teach all three sciences at least at KS3 since I don't know any school which has them separately on the timetable except for one grammar school which has them separately in year 9.

Non-teachers not knowing that there are geographers teaching French and tech and PE teachers teaching maths and RE teachers teaching English in most schools is not surprising but didn't most of us have just "science" teachers in KS3 and usually in KS4 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.

It's alright. At my school we managed six months of GCSE Science taught by a cover teacher who dropped it after GCSE themselves.

We don't currently offer the sciences separately - everyone does Dual Science except the very weakest.

When I was training in 2011-2012, I heard an interesting statistic (that I cannot verify). 7 out of 10 science teachers are biologists, 2 out of 10 are chemists and 1 out of 10 are physicists. So it's not possible for those 10% of science teachers to teach everyone physics. I've seen physics posts re-advertised many times (meaning they couldn't find anyone suitable). The quota for new members physics trainees has not been filled since I started my training, so I expect it's only a worsening situation. The end of the recession means sought after grads can get jobs with less stress and higher pay (and more progression and are valued more).

I got out last spring. I was asked to do a favour and teach some lessons last term on a supply basis and it was a lovely school and I was happy to help out, but I taught two days a week and did my planning/ marking on a third day, unpaid. It reminded me of my 'real' value.

Don't touch it with a barge pole. Or do the pace but have a serious backup plan about what to do afterwards.

I think those figures are probably accurate - there are normally quite a lot more biologists than physicists or chemists in schools that I have worked in.