WFH jobs after teaching?

[Elliott124]

Hello,

My MAT leave finishes in two weeks and I’m absolutely gutted. I am distraught at the thought of leaving my DD. Teaching has taken over my life. I could just about keep on top of the workload before having a baby but now I don’t know how I will keep up. I have had my head in the sand during MAT leave and am now kicking myself that I didn’t start looking for other positions sooner. My request to go part time at my current employer was denied.

Does anyone know of any WFH jobs that I would be qualified for? All I know is teaching (GCSE English) and I have no idea what my options are. I just want a better work life balance. I don’t want to miss my baby growing up.
Thanks for any help.

This is my dream!

If you leave teaching it'll impact your pension and death in service payout.

If your current school won't let you go part time, look at other schools.
Tutoring and supply are other options.

Public sector admin roles are mostly hybrid now and carry pensions almost as good as the teachers one. Local government, councils, environment agency, cefas, defra etc.

What ever career you decide on you'll still neid care though.

Both my husband and I left teaching after our first was born.

He did recruitment for a local supply agency (not from home). Then did WFH recruitment for international teachers. Pay is pretty shit compared to teaching. And he doesn't really enjoy it at all, but doesn't know what else to do!

I probably wouldn't have left teaching if we weren't relocating- I can't teach where we are now without further qualifications which are pretty unattainable for me. I'm a self employed photographer which is something I developed alongside teaching for about the last 10 years. I would have gone to part time teaching if we hadn't relocated, as I couldn't really find anything that had the same level of pay and taking into account the holidays.

But getting into the right school is key. I once got a 0.5 job (but didn't end up taking it as something else came up) just taking catch-up groups every morning. Would have been perfect in terms of work-life balance. I've also got a few jobs in the past by just emailing every schools in the county directly with my CV - I got a one day a week PPA cover in one school and an afternoon per week doing 1-1 maths tuition.

IF you could stay in teaching, supply agencies are desperate for decent teachers. They will get you in for part time, temporary roles.

Have a look at civil servant jobs- they're meant to be quite flexible. I know you said WFH, but honestly, it's not the best way to go necessarily unless it's just commute time you want to cut out, because there's no way you can WFH with a child in the house anyway, so you'd need to use childcare. DH hates WFH full time, never getting out of the house and seeing anyone. I'd only go for it if you have an active social life outside of work.

With English qualifications, self employed proof-reader or similar might be an option to be able to choose your own hours, but I've no idea how you get into that!

I think most things you'll find will be a significant drop in pay, plus only 4 weeks holiday per year. I've seen a few people on these threads say they found a job with similar or higher pay, but I don't think it's the majority, and I don't think they'd be WFH either.

Good luck

FE colleges always need English teachers to teach apprenticeship learners on zoom or Google classroom. These are mostly adult learners who can’t leave, like maybe a 6 pm session for an hour..

Check out the lead providers that run ECF and NPQs and soon ITT as well. Hybrid or from home, employ loads of ex teachers. Great work life balance compared to teaching. Has annoyances but mostly good.

Teach first
Ambition
EDT
BPN
UCL
Capita

Childminder .... work from home, look after your own child at the same time.

Lots of ex teachers in my role in the council SEND department...we WFH the majority of the week.

Tutoring and online ESL.
Obviously the child would need to be elsewhere while you work from home as you can't be interrupted by baby things whilst working.
There are literally thousands of ESL online teaching companies recruiting constantly. Many ask for no qualifications whatsoever and should be avoided at all costs. They pay peanuts if at all, and simply expect the "teacher" to read aloud from their own materials.

@Techno56 I often see case officer jobs advertised - is this what you mean? What's it like? From supporting a friend it seems the case officers aren't to be seen (I suspect run ragged) which has put me off a bit. But wfh you say....

To be honest they are run ragged. I am part of a new team who works below them taking some of their work but not having as much contact with the families. I do annual reviews and amend EHCPs, send school consultations, send out decisions not to amend etc. The case officers have an actual list of (about 200..!) children they are responsible for once they have an EHCP and all that comes with it - angry and upset parents, schools to deal with and so on. But it's a bit more variety and the pay is more!

There are also jobs working on EHCP needs assesments and writing the plans in the first place. Or working on placement planning, tribunals etc.

I worked in the NHS before so the situation of understaffing with too much to do isn't new to me and the Flexi working makes it feel much more manageable. I am not sure if I will take the leap to case officer any time soon, maybe when my son is older and needs me less - currently in Y10 with ASD so still needs a lot of support.