What can I do?

[Teachingornot]

I have reason to believe that I will lose my job at the end of Easter term. Whilst the reasons being are underhand and sneaky, I'm not sure how I can challenge it. Anyway, that's another matter.

I will be looking at other teaching jobs but after a run of bad experiences I'm considering leaving teaching, but I don't know what I can do.

I have a BSc Hons in Psychology and counselling (2:1)
A PGCE in post compulsory education
7 years teaching and head of department experience.
A background in youth work.

What else can I do with these qualifications? I'm not in a position to retrain or do further study so looking for straight swap ideas.

Please help!

Could you see what's available in the civil service? Are you near to a big city? What did you do before teaching?

I'd not thought of the civil service, thanks, I'll take a look.

I could travel into London although it wouldn't be ideal. Before teaching I worked a little in youth work and did some extensive volunteering but pretty much I've always been a teacher.

Bump. Anyone?

Adult education.
Prison education.
Tutoring.
Kip McGrath type places.

Have a browse on the local council websites

Tutoring
Youth and community work
Charity projects working with young people or those at risk of being NEET
Civil service
Social work (but probably more stressful than teaching from what I've heard)
Youth offending service
NCS or careers based jobs
Mentoring or counselling for young people
Kip McGrath/Kumon centres
Private tutoring for maths/English resit at apprenticeship centres and vocational providers
Access to university / widening participation posts

Or start fresh in something else. I know former teachers who left within 2-3 years who went back to university, went into publishing, some are musicians and writers and have a gig economy CV, another went to teach abroad but is doing something different now I think.

Training and development in a large organisation? Depending on what the role actually is, you might be able to get in without a CIPD qualification given your background.

I've known ex-teachers go into transport planning, university admin and hospital management.

If you need to stay in your current location, then that will dictate to an extent what you can do, so you could do an indeed search for every job within eg, a 10 mile radius, perhaps with certain key words or a certain minimum wage to reduce the size of the search.

I tried to leave teaching about 4 years ago, and I've ended up coming back because I must have applied for about 50 jobs and didn't even get a reply, never mind an interview. It didn't help that I was very limited in what I could do due to childcare/stuff my girls do after school.

You need to be prepared to apply for hundreds of jobs (which is normal for non-teaching professional jobs anyway), and apply for anything and everything. And you need to be absolutely determined that you are not coming back into teaching. It's easy to get a teaching job, so too easy to drift back if your first attempts to get out of teaching don't work out.

Good luck!

Thank you for your responses. I've been looking at jobs all day and I'm qualified for very little that's available it seems but I've found an admissions tutor job that looks good. Does anyone k ow anything about the rules of handing in notice whilst on a probation period?

I've been looking at jobs all day and I'm qualified for very little that's available it seems

I know the feeling-people talk about transferable skills but there’s really not much out there!

I know I will be limited to the education sector in one form or another but there's really not much without additional experience.

Have a look at ABA therapist jobs. I know there’s a new ABA school opening up in London, so with your psychology degree and teaching experience that might be good. I teach in an ABA school and don’t have to do any planning etc, so that might good. Pay isn’t as good obviously though.

Not a problem with handing in your notice on probationary period, it a trail for both parties to see if it is a good fit. Usually there is a shorter notice period as well.

Or if the school are trying to get you out (I’m sorry to hear that) they might be prepared to take a shorted notice as well.

Don’t just restrict yourself to education section, there is a lot out there that you might be qualified for.

How about education officer at a tourist place?

e.g. Our local theme park hosts groups for physics stuff. Other places host history, tourism, media, art/D|T etc.

I'd imagine it would involve developing programs for 4-18 yos, outreach to schools, hosting on the day etc.