Good reason for quitting my school after 8 months

[Mssecondaryet]

Hi everyone,

I'm stuck, and would really appreciate some help. I qualified in 2020 and spent 3 years at a school then moved on working at an Academy because they offered me a promotion. 8 months on and I could not cope with all the silly rules, being treated like a student, being held up to sky high expectations and given blunt tools to achieve them. I ended up in hospital, and promptly handed in my notice. I now have a job interview, and have no idea of what to say when they'll ask me the fatidic question "Why do you want to leave your current role?". The job I've applied for is a part-time position, but how do I explain why I want it? I left my first school because I wanted a promotion, and 8 months later I decide that I want to work part-time?! I've a feeling that they'd see it as a red flag. Do you have any advice? Happy to provide more details.

Obviously it depends on what you want to share but you could always say 'I left school A as I was keen to develop my practice in a different context and with a promoted post. Unfortunately, I became ill and spent some time in hospital, following which, I felt I would not be able to give my all to a promoted post. I am still very passionate about teaching and working with children, therefore, I was attracted to this post and feel I would be able to utilise my skills and experience to provide excellent teaching for the children here'

Or something along those lines.

You have an interview and they will have seen you were only at your second school 8 months and they haven't been put off. If they were that bothered, they wouldn't interview- interviewing is time consuming so they wouldn't waste time.

I have recently been interviewing people and I would not be put off by this with a gold candidate.

‘Family circumstances’
’Planning on doing a course’ masters/adhd anything

If they are prepared to interview you they don’t really care.

Lots of teachers have these little blips on
their CV.

And if you are a core subject they probably won’t even ask, they’ll just be delighted to have you!

Life’s too short to work somewhere awful.

Good luck.

…and our LA school has 5 teachers who came from the academy chain down the road 👀