Teacher to School Admin?

[newbluecurtains]

Hi, I'm currently an ECT (finished my first year) and I'm about to take some time off to have a baby. My current job contract ends in a week so I don't have any maternity pay so I'm hoping to get back to work quickly.

I'm considering getting a job as a school administrator/receptionist type of thing? I used to work in admin before training to teach and the job appeals to me. I think it may give me a better work/life balance with a young baby, then I could return to teaching in a couple of years.

I'm worried how this will make me look to employers - if I have an unfinished ECT and then a couple years of school admin rather than teaching. Do you know anyone that's done this? What are your thoughts on it?

I think it would be better if you could finish the 2nd year of the ECT program first and then move into administration. At least its out of the way then and you can go straight back into teaching (if you choose to do so) straight afterwards, without anything hanging over you iyswim?

Agreed with pp - I’d try to get second year of ECT out the way. Could you look for part time to make things more manageable with baby?

As someone who works in school admin, just make sure you realise quite how crap the pay is! Many admin roles are not paid much more than minimum wage FTE, plus you usually don't get the 'headline' salary because they're paid term time only and part time hours. Unlike teaching, there's hardly any pay progression from experience alone - you need to actually do a different job to get more than a token increase each year. A lot of TAs and school office staff who work a 5 day week will only take home around 10 grand a year. Just something to bear in mind, particularly if you're looking to fund childcare. Lots of people move into these roles once their kids are in primary, because while you're still paying for childcare, it's often cheaper to stay at home.

I would think that you’re unsure about teaching so decided to consider admin. But I’m not someone in a hiring position so I could be wrong. I would finish your ECT and then reconsider. The hours are obviously better but not the drop in pay is massive.

School admin is incredibly badly paid. If you really want admin work then you will be much better off looking in other sectors.

However from a longer-term career point of view I would really strongly recommend completing your ECT induction. Could your partner take some shared parental leave to support you to return to work sooner?

Sorry OP but you would be mad and as PP have said significantly worse off. Maybe consider a part-time role to complete your ECT. On M2 at 0.6 FTE you would bring more home than virtually any school admin job, and you would still be making contributions to your teacher's pension in the valuable early years.