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Original poster

What else can I do if I leave teaching?

41 replies

kickingking · 24/10/2011 08:55

I'm a primary school teacher and expecting DC2 next year. I have struggled to manage work and family life since having DC1 - I work 3 days a week, which was supposed to help but I had my child at home with me all the time on my days off til he went to school and I found it hard to get anything done in the house or for work. Then I would spent every evening and half the weekend working, I was putting 50+ hours into a p/t job.

I was spoken to with concerns about my performance before becoming pregnant. I can't see me becoming more effective with two children to look after Sad

Ideally I would like to change careers after DC2 arrives, but have no idea what else I can do. We can afford for me to take a drop in salary, but whatever I do would need to justify the cost of childcare for a school aged child and a baby. We don't qualify for very much CTC as DH earns close to 40K.

Any ideas? What do people who leave teaching actually do? I don't have much experience of anything else, apart from a bit of youth work.

I could possibly afford to retrain but would be worried about studying while teaching, think I might collapse under the strain of that!

OP posts:
twinklytroll · 30/10/2011 20:09

I could do cover supervisor , although I love my job so much I think I would have to do something not related to teaching as I would find it so hard to be so close to a job I love and an good at without actually doing it.

MayDayChild · 30/10/2011 20:13

Crumbs!
You're all putting me right off! I want to do PGCE secondary English with Media when my 1 yr old starts school in 2014.
I look at teaching as somewhere to put my (in my opinion, totally useless but very glamourous job) to some use after all these years.
Believe it or not, the salaries compare equally but I can work around my children throughout their school years. I expect to be at my home desk in the evenings so I'm not choosing to change my career blindsided.
Is there not anyway to just get through these early years of your children? Once they are at school, wouldn't teaching be ideal again?
I work private sector central London 3 days week. Trust me the grass is no greener!

Caz10 · 30/10/2011 20:21

Sigh, can I join? Primary teacher, on mat leave with dc2. I dropped to 4 days a year after I returned after my 1st mat leave and tbh it did not reduce the workload at all. I was also "spoken to" more in terms of "committment" issues- even though I was working long days I wasnt attending enough evening and weekend events Angry.
I too had thought about TA work, but it would mean going back to 5 days, and in reality there are no jobs anyway. Stuck and pissed off, dreading my return from maternity.
Sorry OP not at all helpful!! But I fully sympathize

mumdad2kidsandadog · 30/10/2011 20:25

Also watching with interest as I love teaching but the workload is just ever-increasing and recently I have found myself asking if it is really worth it.

I really don't know what else I could do as DH works shifts and I have no family help so the school holidays are a huge bonus.

I really love my job but predict a mass exodus from teaching in the next few years- we give our all, we keep on giving, but it is never enough and then we get blamed for all of society's ills.

january29 · 30/10/2011 20:31

watching this thread, interesting to hear different ideas..

hippodrama · 30/10/2011 21:39

I left my teaching post at end of summer term. Went P/T after DS was born but threw in the towel because I was not able to meet ridiculous demands placed on my time.

A disaster really that the teaching profession is (I believe) increasingly made up of younger, less experienced people and those with fewer family commitments.

OP, I've considered speech and langauge therapy (but would be costly to retrain).

twinklytroll · 30/10/2011 22:12

My daughter is at school, although we are trying for another and when that happens I think that will give me the push to finally go

ColonelBrandon · 30/10/2011 22:16

Unless you are going to go into a closely related field, then you probably have to accept going in at a low level, with the attendant pay, and, possibly working your way up OR retraining, with some academic debt.

Areas that friends have gone into:

  • specialised teaching - dyslexia (working privately and in a SEN dept)
  • GP receptionist, taking further quals towards becoming practice manager
  • post office worker (retired from teaching though)
  • secretarial (one PA now for head honcho and earns well, chose a multinational company; the other is a PA in a music company, pay ok, rubs shoulders with rich and famous)
  • accountancy (first specialism languages)
  • legal executive (retrained)
  • hairdresser
  • wedding photography

Others have left and gone back into teaching at a later date.

TheFallenMadonna · 30/10/2011 22:25

MayDayChild - I teach full time and am head of a core department. It is entirely do-able, but you have to be prepared to work long into the evening - every evening!! But I like my work. It is all consuming, but it is interesting and important and I don;t mind being consumed by it. I wonder if I would feel the same with no TLR though - the responsibility has made it more interesting for me for sure.

Original poster
kickingking · 30/10/2011 22:26

God this thread has got depressing!

Some good ideas though, keep em coming...can't remember who it was who loved the pastoral side (on phone so can't look back over thread while typing) - but what about mentoring, or counselling, or something like home school support worker?

OP posts:
twinklytroll · 30/10/2011 22:35

I have responsibility and tbh it is that role that keeps me in the job as I love it. However I am now tired of working every evening all evening . I can feel my life slipping away in front of me. I want to be able to sit and relax of an evening without feeling guilty.

twinklytroll · 30/10/2011 22:37

It was me that said I loved the pastoral side and the last time I left teaching I did family support work, however the teaching sucked me back in .

I need to be much firmer with myself and remind myself why I need to escape.

TheFallenMadonna · 30/10/2011 22:45

Do you think that is the teaching though? Or your approach to teaching? Would you be different in a different job? IIRC, you do more than most...

chickensaregreen · 30/10/2011 22:48

I have been teaching for 5 years. We are starting TTC in December and I honestly can't see myself returning to teaching. I can only just manage the workload with no children. I can't imagine having a child to look after at home too. I have been looking at tutoring and sure start centres. Also looking at teaching 1:1 in hospitals and when children are at home and too ill to attend school. My friend works with travellers children and really enjoys it. Lots of possibilities to explore. Good luck!

twinklytroll · 30/10/2011 22:54

I don't know whether I do more than most, from talking to my colleagues I work similar hours to most of them and to most teachers on here.

I work fewer hours than I used to but it is still too much.

TheFallenMadonna · 30/10/2011 22:57

Ah, perhaps I'm remembering previous posts then.

I work late hours for sure. But I don't find that incompatible with the children. I find teaching very compatible with family life really.

But you do have to enjoy the work - and not just the actual teaching...

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