New teacher in their 40s

[seizethecuttlefish]

I'm thinking of doing a PGDE and going into teaching. I'm in my 40s and spent years in business consultancy but always wanted to teach. Do you think it's worth doing at this stage and will I struggle to get a job?

You've still got 20 years of work ahead of you, then of course it is worth moving to do something if you would enjoy it
but
how do you know you would ?

Are you talking about Primary or Secondary ?
Have you spend time shadowing, or volunteering in any school in recent times ?

I was 42 when I started my PGCE. I love it, but have a lot of family support to keep a family going. (In term time i’m Up at 5 and in bed around midnight.)

How does a pgde differ from a pgce?

Having done the job, I wouldn’t recommend it.

I've trained a lot of teachers. I absolutely bloody hate training anyone over about 30. Only one has ever been good, the rest were terrible.

Now clearly that isn't becasue there is something intrinsically worse about older people- if anything life experience should be a huge asset. I'm sure part of it is that I've just been unlucky.

The issues seem to be:

• Some selection effect causing older candidates to be poorer quality. People come to a certain age and get made redundant/get bored and decide to teach, but there were reasons why they didn't do so 20 years earlier. Teaching is a difficult skill and not everyone can learn.

• It's hard to go from being very good at your job to being terrible. You will not be a good teacher for a long time and it's hard to keep failing and keep jumping through hoops set by people half your age.

• At a certain age many just aren't willing to be workaholics and the first two years of teaching are incredibly hard and take huge dedication to get good at it.

It's a brilliant job IF it's the right one for you, but you need to be very sure and understand the difficulty involved.

will I struggle to get a job? What would you teach and where?

RE in the midlands- yep.
Maths in London- nope.

It may be a bit harder for you than someone in their 20s because some schools will be a bit reluctant.

Trained at 40. Got a job at the school I trained at. Did that for a few years till I could take it no longer and moved to supply. Life easier now although money unstable. I am trained in a shortage area subject and also supply in primary so am pretty flexible.

The difference between younger and older NQTs is the students seem to assume you know what you’re doing and therefore push less. I certainly have never been pushed to tears by a class and have never suffered the bitchiness that some younger and pretty and well dressed teachers get from teenage girls. When you look like their mum it seems to help! Being able to laugh at yourself helps and this seems to be something that comes with age and experience.

It is a tough job and utterly relentless and not the 9-3 that many imagine. You see and hear things that stop you sleeping at night. You are forever in fear of your job when exam results day comes round. The holidays are good.

I am in my early 40s and a NQT - it worked for me!

The only thing I would suggest is spending time in a school first to make sure that you know what the job really is..

Have a good read around the staff room, that will give you an insight into the profession at the moment.

Also go and spend some time in primary or secondary for a reality check. Ask to see a range of classes, not just well behaved top sets.

I retrained in my 40s and must be one of the exceptions described above
The “problem” with older trainees is that they can see right through some of the bs and hoop jumping required.

I have said this on here before. Pop along to your local FE college and register for the City & Guilds Award in Education and training. It will cost a few hundred pounds and will last about ten weeks, once a week.

It is ‘Teaching 101’ and gives a good overview of the professional requirements of the job in terms of planning, inclusion, equalities, safeguarding and all the dozens of other things that you need to consider.

If you go ahead with your retraining you will have a head start. If you don’t, then it is a cheap and easy way to find that out without disrupting your life.

I’m halfway through my School Direct training year, I’m 44. It’s enjoyable but bloody hard work. I came from a professional background, but when my children were small we moved away from London and I started working as a TA. The school asked me to do the training. I would STRONGLY advise working for at least a year as TA so you can see how a classroom works and the pressure teachers are under before committing to any sort of training programme.

Also I don’t recognise anything the poster upthread says about older trainees Our school has had several SD trainees of my age and they are all great. If anything coming from a previous career makes you a better teacher - less likely to be overwhelmed by the bad bits of the job.

We train lots of teachers at our school, and many are older entrants. Unlike the pp above we find no age division on those who are good and those not, we have had some shockers straight out of uni, and some amazing 40+ ers, and vice versa.
Yes whether you will get a job depends on your subject, maths and science are in shortage everywhere, whereas the last re job we advertised we had 82 applicants, pe is also very tough to get a job in.

If you have a good and realistic view of the profession then it could be a good move. I wouldn't write it off due to age

I don't agree with the poster up thread about trainees over 30 being worse, but I do think there are different patterns based on entry. If someone is going to experience difficulty then there tends to be different trends.

E.g. a weaker trainee straight out of university might lack the maturity to deal with constructive criticism, think feedback on lesson observations is personal attacks or sometimes ignore direction because they think as the next generation they're going to be 10 times better than their mentors. The struggles tend to be linked to immaturity and being a bit naive.

If you have a weaker trainee who is older then that tends to come from a place of comparing teaching to their previous job, thinking teaching will be better for pro-life balance than other jobs, lots of 'but I don't see why I should do X, in the real world..'. They often have a reluctance to accept that whilst they are older than their mentors, their mentors are the specialists & if they're being told something didn't work in a lesson or they need to develop X, listen and reflect rather than arrogantly deciding that they know more than their mentors.

As a career changer to teaching myself, I think having a pre teaching career really helped in a number of ways and made my first couple of years easier. Having something before teaching can be a real asset as long as the trainee has the humility and willingness to learn

Thanks very much, for all your replies. I was feeling a bit disheartened in the middle of the thread.

In the past I've worked with apprentices and loved it, that's why I started looking into teaching. I've spoken to the HT at my sons school and arranged some time shadowing. Sadly there are no teaching assistant roles here. These have been phased out from schools here, over the last few years.

Loads to think about and look at.

Sadly there are no teaching assistant roles here. These have been phased out from schools here, over the last few years

Yes well there’s one of the problems, right there. One adult to deal with 30 assorted children, many of whom need something over and above mainstream schooling. Or just not mainstream schooling ...

Trained at age 45 - now 54 with middle mangement position. Great salary and job. Love where I work. I don’t recognise the comments about older trainees at all.

I actively employ 'older' teachers.

quicker
And as trainees they're much less likely to be involved in ridiculous drama llama group chat bitching (whereas fresh out of uni ones tend to spend a large amount of time either bragging about how they've apparently been judged outstanding by their 6th lesson or their mentor must be a horrible bully because they gave constructive feedback for an observation)

The main thing for older or younger trainees is the maturity to reflect and respond to feedback whilst keeping grounded. Anyone who does that will do well.

@Naveloranges you are my hero of the day. Thanks so much. I was beginning to wonder if I was mad to put myself through it all and you came along!

I'm going to get my plan properly put in place and go for it. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.