I want to retrain as a teacher. Scared of leaving my secure career for practical reasons.

[LockedDownOpenUp]

I’m a specialist speech therapist currently on 30k a year. Have been wanting to leave for a while. The career isn’t what I thought I would be - very rarely do I get to directly work with kids. Instead I run a lot of parent workshops and make session plans for our assistants to deliver.

Ive wanted to be a teacher for years and it was a toss up between that and SALT. I’m regretting my choice!

I’m used to working above and beyond my usual hours making session plans late into the evening or weekend and having to buy stuff for this out of my own pocket. I’m used to working with difficult parents and children with complex needs. I have about a year of classroom volunteer assistant experience (did this when I was trying to gain experience for uni courses).

As I already have a degree and live in Scotland, it’ll be a one year post graduate course which I’m sure SAAS will fund. I really want to do this but am TERRIFIED of giving up a secure position to be a student again relying on a small student loan for income. I’m a lone parent with no family support so can’t work evenings around it as a job would need to be within childcare hours.

Am I mad? I can’t stop thinking about teaching but terrified about what I’d be giving up to retrain, the financial disadvantages to my family because I chose to be a student again (limited savings but I could stretch them for a year for basic living - no usual treats) and ultimately I might struggle to find a permanent job at the end of it.

I hate my job at the moment and no longer feel like I make a difference. In my position, would you retrain?

I studied my undergraduate degree as a lone parent so the juggling of that with studies doesn’t faze me. It’s the year of financial shittiness of being a student again!

Don't become a teacher.
Huge workload, low pay, massive and unparalleled distrust and disrespect from students, parents and SLT.
Do a search on here to see how much teachers are utterly despised and taken for granted.
Honestly - stale cat shit is held in higher regard than teachers, by some individuals on here.

Its the last job.

Do a search on here to see how much teachers are utterly despised and taken for granted.
Honestly - stale cat shit is held in higher regard than teachers, by some individuals on here. As shown by the latest posts by @BubblesBuddy who used to be a school governor.

bubbles I don't appreciate being called two faced. Being put under pressure by SLT to put on a happy face to the governing body is not being two faced. It's keeping your head down in a job that's already taken its toll on your mental health and not having your card marked as a difficult member of staff who will then be a target for being managed out.

Don't do it. It consumes your life.

Being put under pressure by SLT to put on a happy face to the governing body is not being two faced. It's keeping your head down in a job that's already taken its toll on your mental health and not having your card marked as a difficult member of staff who will then be a target for being managed out.

I agree with this, my friends have had experience of this at their schools.

If you put your head above the parapet at school - you will be snipered.
You'll have your head taken off.

Keep the head down in order to survive.
Its happy clappy jazz hands, all bells and whistles all the way, while privately a lot of teachers are having a nervous breakdown.

What toxic places some schools have become for dedicated teachers.

I have ckearly stated I wanted the schools to treat teachers fairly and know if anything was wrong so we could improve. We took the work/life balance of teachers seriously. I do think it is two faced to pretend to governors that you are happy if you are not. I am actually cross and upset to read that professional staff think that I hold cat shit in higher regard. It’s difficult to know how my posts have provoked that reaction. However I’m obviously out of this conversation and you are welcome to your own collective misery.

OP: it really, really isn’t like this in elm run primary schools. Village schools in particular have a lovely ethos and staff are happy. Governors know the staff and we respect each other. You only have to look at primary school threads in here to see many parents speaking highly of their schools. There seems to be a huge sense of injustice on here. Choose a great school and you will be happy.

The OP is in Scotland. There are no governors in Scottish schools.

bubbles, I pretended I was ok right up until my mental breakdown. I pretended I was ok when I was having diarrhea & dry heaving every morning before school. I pretended I was ok while thinking about driving my car off the road, for months. I pretended I was ok right up until the day I threw up in the kitchen sink just as I was due to set off for work, and my DH put his foot down and told me to call the doctors. I spent the next six months signed off work and the next year on anti depressants. So sorry to have been a two faced teacher .

@BubblesBuddy I do think it is two faced to pretend to governors that you are happy if you are not. I find your naivety astounding. In some schools, thankfully not my current one, but certainly in three other schools that I have worked in, if you raise a concern of any type you are marked as a trouble maker and life is very difficult indeed. In teaching you need to give a reference, always your current headteacher, when applying for a new position. References are often taken up before interview. Can you see now why teachers might be "two faced"? I once had an informal interview before the proper interview and, when I told my then head about it she shouted at me for about five minutes for daring to want to leave her school. I was very thankful that the prospective school was willing to take the reference of my previous head, as I'd left there about a year before and thus it was recent. Teachers need their jobs and often can't afford to rock the boat. Your posts make me wonder if the teachers in the school where you were governor may also have been "two faced" when giving their reasons for leaving...