Career advice - promotion or leave?

[Orchid876]

I've come to a bit of a cross roads in my career, and I'm not sure what to do about it, so any advice would be very welcome! I'm an experienced classroom teacher, and I've now come to the point in my career where I'd like a middle leadership position. I'm also a part-time teacher, and I've recently come to the realisation that responsibility and part-time are not possible in my current school. I am quite pissed off about this, as up until relatively recently it was possible, but with a change of leadership and with a lack of teachers, things have now changed, and if you want a meaningful TLR, you need to be full time. I've offered to be in every day, but work a part-time teaching timetable, but that also isn't acceptable. It basically seems like because they just can't find enough teachers to staff the timetable, a "carrot" for part-timers to work full time is to close doors to career progression unless you go full time. That's not something I'm willing to do, as for me at least, full time teaching is more than a full time job, and to add responsibility to that would be intolerable. So I'm left with the option of applying elsewhere, or leaving teaching for something with a better work life balance and opportunity for progression. I'm just not sure how to approach applying for middle leadership posts at other schools as a part-time teacher, if that's even possible. They're never advertised, and I'm don't know anyone who has ever got such a job in a different school. Does anyone have any tips for applications, how should I approach them? I don't want to waste mine or anyone elses time, so if asking before applying maybe a good idea? I just don't know if this is an avenue that's even worth pursuing, or if I should leave teaching for a full time job I can actually do in full time hours, with career progression.

All middle leaders at the schools I've worked in have been full time, and when I was working in industry the decade proper to teaching, I'd never had a part time manager, but I suppose they do exist. I'd consider whether progression would be particularly possible in outside fields, considering your full time competition will have much more time to build accoplishments to move forward. Gone are the days where you put your years in and move up a rung, it's a different world than it was 20+ years ago.

Yes, thank you, I think maybe you're right, maybe it's not possible to have responsibility and less than a 100% teaching load. But to be clear, I have no problem working full time at all. I'm paid for 4 days a week at the moment, but I work full-time (and more, evenings and weekends too quite a bit). My OH for example, has a senior position in a completely unrelated field, and he pretty much never works more than Mon-Fri 9.30am - 6.30pm, and he gets paid an awful lot more than a full-time teacher with responsibility too. I don't think I could every come close to working only those kind of hours if I progress as a full-time teacher. I think I've answered my own question really, I think I need to change career.

You've clarified my thoughts though @EllieNBeeb, I think I need to jump to a full time role outside of teaching. Most of my friends work in professions other than teaching, and in their full-time roles noone works the hours teachers do. The only exception I know of is a friend who is a GP, but that is an exception. With WFH being possible at least part of the week in most jobs now, that make full time doing something else even more attractive. I think it's time I looked at other options.