Retrain as primary teacher or nurse

[Abbylikeswine]

Hi.
I have a very stressful low paid job. I grew up in quite a poor family.

I'm 40, I just got some inheritance money , which is the first time that I've ever had money to spend.

I really want to use it to go back to college and train to get a better career.

These (in my title) were the two careers that interested me. And I have the school grades to get into both as a mature student.

I'm just really trying to figure out which degree to do. I don't want to make a mistake and choose the wrong path for me, when I only have the money to do one choice.

I know both teaching and nursing are hard jobs. But the job I'm in at the moment is extremely hard and low paid. So even though nursing and teaching would be hard, it would be better pay and a better career.

Nursing appeals to me as - I'd have a job for life. There are mursing jobs anywhere. And i like caring for people. But I know it'll be hard.

I like primary teaching and I'd done a little bit of teaching English as a foreign language abroad before so I know what it's like. But it will be an intense degree and also getting a job in teachinf may be harder than nursing.

I wish I could see the future and see which way to go. I don't want to waste money in the wrong area

I just wanted to ask had anyone retrained as either of those careers at an older age. And how was it?

I think your plan is fantastic. Of the two careers I would go for teacher. Could you try and get TA work to see if it's a good fit?

You could do what my sister did and do both. A 3 year nursing degree followed by the 1 year PGCE.

My advice would be to contact your local FE college today (as term is starting) and get yourself enrolled on a course called City and Guilds Award in Education and Training. It might also be referred to as PTTLS (‘petals’) but that’s an old title.

This course is, effectively, Teaching 101. It’s designed for people who want to teach in the FE sector but is a very good introduction to teaching in general.

It will cost you a few hundred pounds and about ten half-days of your time, but this is far better than wasting years and £££ on teacher training if it turns out not to be for you.

Also get experience in a primary school, but make sure you shadow the teacher rather than the pupils e.g. before school, after school, break duties etc.

Regarding being a TA as preparation for teaching: my own view (having done both) is that TA work familiarises you with schools but doesn’t particularly prepare you for teaching as they are fundamentally quite different jobs.

I’m biased but for me at 40 nursing was my choice and I didn’t regret it, not for one second. Adult branch nursing gave me so many opportunities and I subsequently did a post grad teaching qualification, to qualify me to teach in practice and at university.

That's interesting.

What was the nursing degree like? Was it doable?

Yes the nursing degree itself was very doable. The biggest problem was placements as you are often working unsociable hours so need fantastic childcare if you have children. The PGCE year was a slog but it made sense to do that as we are in Scotland so an ordinary teaching degree would be 4 years anyway.
if you are interested in nursing though it might be worth looking into apprenticeship schemes. Our trust will put health care support workers through their nursing degree in conjunction with the open university.

I was going to suggest this, if you end up not liking the nursing

You're very interesting, thanks!

So are you a primary teacher now? Do you like it. Was it easy to get a job?

Also check out what the job situation is like in your area. Because I know in my area primary teaching degrees and primary PGCE are extremely competitive because there isn't a teacher shortage. Then newly graduated teachers are struggling for jobs too, I know two people who ended up getting two part time teaching jobs in two different primary schools during their first year or two of teaching.

With nursing you should walk into a job

Think about what you want your working role once qualified to look like. These are two very different job roles.

If you want to work with children do you want to look after very poorly or distressed children and help them recover (or not)? Or do you want to give them an education?

Have you thought about speech therapy, occupational therapy?

Have you looked at alternative routes into these jobs?
Dc is currently doing nurse associate training. It's 2 years, gets paid at a band 3 (nhs pay university fees so wont have any debt), 30 hours on wards, 7.5 hours at university each week. After there's a top up to become a band 5 nurse. It may also help to see if you really like the work.
I wonder if theres a similar option to get into teaching too?

Have you looked at seeing whether you can do some shadowing to closer look at whether nursing might be for you? It can I deed be stressful, but there are lots of roles so you can move positions to fit your interests reasonably easily.

Can I ask what you find so stressful about your current role e.g poor management, long hours etc?

Teacher. You get the holidays.

I would look at speech therapy - you would get to work with children but less stressful and more regular hours than either nursing or teaching

Have you spent any time in nursing or this environment? I would STRONGLY suggest you do before making a decision.

I'm a nurse, it does have lots of potential avenues outside of 'traditional' nursing. However is a hard hard hard career, physically but more so emotionally and stress wise (& I don't work in hospitals, quite senior so have done a lot of things). Plus your learning never ends, be prepared to continually be back at university or other courses

Well done for having the ambition and drive to do either though, very commendable x

Have you considered occupational therapy or speech and language therapy.

I personally find the nurses i know are happier than the teachers i know. I dont know why. They seem to have diversified so one is in a school nursing team so goes out to schools to do jabs and health checks, one actually is in a private school sick bay. one is at a hospice, one is in a day clinic so no shifts. But the journey there was very hard.

Have never heard of someone going into teaching using a nursing degree. That's unusual.

I have heard of someone doing, for example, a biology degree then PGDE but never nursing.

That's really interesting. Covers both bases, I suppose.

I wouldn’t recommend primary teaching. There are 164,000 members on the Life after teaching: exit the classroom and thrive. All trying to leave, due to

workload-lots of pointless tasks that take up hours but don’t benefit the children or you in any way.
micromanagement
stress levels
huge levels of scrutiny
low levels of autonomy
lack of flexibility during term term
high numbers of teachers (usually women) of a certain age/pay scale who suddenly find themselves on a support plan/capability/leaving under a cloud with a NDA. Nothing wrong with their teaching, but they are expensive and once the head has decided they want you out, they will find something you aren’t ‘excellent’ at.

Have you talked to any primary teachers recently? Volunteered in schools?

I thought to do a PGCE you needed a subject taught in schools. English, P.E. Etc. for primary, same for secondary plus Economics, Politics and others. Maybe it’s changed.

If i was doing primary teaching, i wouldn't do a pgce. You need a degree already to do that.

I would do a B.Ed

You can get into a B.Ed as a mature student. I know someone who just did the B.Ed, in her forties

I worked as a TEFL teacher in Spain for a year.

And I did like it.

That was only teaching one subject though.

I know that full primary teaching would be harder.

I thought that too. Very unusual to springboard into teaching using a nursing degree.

You don't actually. You can do a degree in anything, and then do a PGCE.

There's another thread on mumsnet today about PGCE's.

One of them was saying that someone she knows did a degree in retail management, then did a PGCE.

And she is now a primary teacher.

I like primary teaching

Why? What do you like about it?