Return to teaching advice please - slightly convoluted work history

[newnamenellie]

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice and this seems like a great place to start!

I'll be 50 in September and have two children aged 18 and 14. the 18 year old will be off to uni in September and the 14 year old will be going into year 10. The relevance of this is that I'm now in a position to think about properly returning to the classroom.

I did a PGCE Primary with EY specialism in 2003. I did this in London where we lived at the time. I worked as a reception teacher for two year until September 2005 when I left to have my older daughter. We moved out of London and I was a SAHM until my daughter was two in October 2007.

The city that we moved to (and still live in) has a lot of competition for teaching jobs (there are two unis here both of which offer teacher training qualifications) and when I cam to look for a part time teaching job back in 2007, I found that the jobs were few and far between. I didn't want to go back full time at this stage so I cast my net wider and started looking at roles in the EY sector (private nurseries, pre schools etc...). To cut a long story short, I took at a job as a pre school deputy manager and stayed in that role from the end of 2007 until the beginning of 2020! During that time I did secure a job in a primary school and was a part time PPA cover teacher working with reception, Y1 and Y2 classes for a day each week. I did this between 2014 and 2017.

At the beginning of 2020, when I left my role at the pre school, I took a few months off (which also coincided with the first lockdown) to complete a Masters degree in Psychology - this was something I'd undertaken out of personal interest but also with a view to maybe incorporating it into a career change of some sort.

In September 2020, I was ready to return to work and took another job as a pre school deputy and SENCo which I did until October 2022. At this point, I had decided that I would like to try a move away from education/childcare and using my new qualification, I secured an admin job in a mental health treatment provider. I have worked there since then but I don't enjoy it and I miss many aspects of working with children. When I look back, I was definitely at my happiest job-wise during the two years I spent as a classroom teacher.

I would really like to return to a full time teaching role in a primary school but obviously the last time I was in a proper classroom was nearly seven years ago and that was as a part time cover teacher. I haven't had my own class for nearly twenty years!! I know that I have a lot of experience from my two roles as pre school deputy, but I'm aware that I'm out of touch with reception age upwards.

My question (finallly!) is how could I best use the experience that I have to get back into teaching? I'm thinking to go in as a TA would give me a good insight and a foot in the door - does this make sense to others? If not, what have others done/seen?

Thanks in advance 😊

[MissMelanieH]

If you can afford it I would join an agency and do supply as a TA or a teacher. It's win/win because you get a good idea of which schools suit you and you get that foot in the door. School’s very often keep people longer term if they do well on supply.

[ThanksItHasPockets]

I think you might find that competition for vacancies is less fierce than it was a few years ago. Honestly I think the best way for you to get back into teaching is to start applying for teaching jobs and jump back in.

Do any of the schools near you have a nursery class? That might be a good fit and way back in.

[newnamenellie]

Thank you @MissMelanieH and @ThanksItHasPockets

I’ve been thinking it through some more and will just apply for things when they come up I think.

Im also considering finding a leadership role in a nursery as an alternative as these jobs are definitely easier to come by.

[NotStylishOrBeautiful]

My experience is with secondary rather than primary, but there’s definitely a huge shortage of supply staff at the moment, so I’d suggest signing up with supply agencies, using it as a chance to check out primaries (which would you want to work in… or not!) and hoping for a longer term contract to come up once you’ve ’proved yourself’ to them.