Teaching to civil service - losing the holidays

[Hellothereitisme]

I am a teacher and middle leader (I work 3 days a week, good salary) and have been offered a job in the civil service. I was so happy when I first found out as I find teaching so all consuming and exhausting and was sick of working in the evenings.

However, I have two young children (one in nursery and one in school) and I feel such guilt about losing the school holidays with them that I am now thinking about turning down the offer. If I take the job, it will mean myself and my partner get to have no time off together as we would have to split our annual leave to cover the holidays, which feels depressing. I've tried putting my eldest in a holiday club before but they were adamant they eidn't want to go back.

Is it a nightmare to cover the holidays? Am i mad to be taking a 16k paydrop to work more days and get less holidays?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Feeling very confused 😕

You also need to calculate the cost of holiday clubs etc to work out if it's worth it.

Personally, I would stay in teaching and demote yourself to classroom teaching only and that's your pay drop, not a new career with little holiday.

The availability of term time working in the CS must really depend on which Department it is. I've moved jobs three times recently and requested only 2 weeks (not the full 13 weeks) and both said no.
I'll take parental leave anyway which I doubt my manager can say no to but yes it's not as easy as it seems to cover school hols in the CS. Plus you'll be starting again at 25 days whereas I've accumulated 31.5 days.

16k pay drop
increased working hours
reduced holiday
increased child care costs
less family time
Yes you are mad.

I also think you’re mad. Juggling school holidays is stressful and very expensive. Then your kids get to an age where they just don’t want to go to holiday club. Add a £16K pay drop on top that could take years to get back. I wouldn’t do it but depends how much you hate your current job

Don’t do it.
G7 is not that easy to get. So you’re starting on about 44k? That’s a good salary in the CS and already quite senior. With all the recruitment freezes there are dozens of SOs chasing every G7 role.
Most departments give max of two weeks off over summer holidays as it needs to be shared fairly.

@JuneSoon is right... I assume you don't have any relevant specialist skills and 18 months isn't long to build up a bank of experience for a G7 role.

How much do you hate teaching?
3 days is a nice balance. I love the holidays and as your children get older you'll have 2 days off to yourself each week or more ability to be flexible to sort illness.

I think it depends how unhappy you are teaching.

DH and I split almost all our annual leave for the primary years, it was hard but do-able. We sometimes found temporary nannies for a week or so, did reciprocal childcare, and some clubs - DC mainly disliked those but we did our best. There is also the option of some unpaid leave for you both.

From what have heard and read think teaching involves far, far more work ‘out of hours’ and at weekends than civil service, which in general can be good for work/life balance.

What level and type of role is it?

People sometimes get promoted to grade 7 roles relatively quickly, but it’s not a given and varies by location and department.

I spent thousands of pounds on childcare and holiday clubs when my children were smaller and never, ever felt that they had enough of my time. Don't underestimate the value of having school holidays off. What will you do about wraparound care in term time?

If you could have seen the worry and sadness in my office last year about allocating days off over Christmas you would understand what I mean. Everyone wanted the 24th and 27th off but we needed to maintain cover so half the staff were disappointed. No - one got the whole week let alone the 2 weeks school holidays. Very difficult for people as there were very few childcare options available.
I always said childcare worries were worse than the actual childbirth.

I think given the age of your kids I would stick with teaching. If they were 11 and 13 for example I would have said take the new job.

I am in a very similar position - work 3 days a week, feel reasonably well paid and gave holidays off but do lots of work on my days off and sick of it. However my kids are both disabled and there is zero available for them so I am a bit stuck.

True, I’m a long time out of the civil service but I have worked with the civil service in voluntary sector recently. Recruitment freeze doesn’t mean no promotions does it? You’re right though, very department dependent

sorry, see you’d be taking an SEO role and would like to get promoted to G7 within 2 years. That’s feasible but seems unlikely unless your SEO role has great content that you can present at interview as close to the next level. 3/4 years with a job move to another SEO role after 18 months more likely.

If the role is part time it’ll likely be harder. I found working part time in CS seriously hampered my progression.

how is teaching affecting you - so many who feel like it’s taking a toll find that after staying with it they are left in tatters. If that could be you go now. If you are just fed up of the hours then have some firmer boundaries, use everything from AI to outsourcing to gain some time and get. Supervisor or mentor to help you find a balance you are happy with.

I don’t think the timescales you’ve given yourself for promotion are realistic, sorry, not if you’re coming into this without much previous experience (that’s an assumption based on you saying it’s a career change). You will need to be on an all-year round childcare contract for your nursery-age child as holiday clubs etc are generally only for 5+. But you will gain much more term-time flexibility.

I moved from teaching to NHS (retrained) and never looked back. Me and DH have got into a bit of a pattern for holidays:

-normally have 2 weeks off with the kids in the summer and go away for 7/8 days of this
-have a trip/uk holiday cottage etc over the four days of Easter,
-one of us takes AL on inset days (usually me) and takes the kids on a day out or over night trip somewhere that's normally too busy in school holidays
-we take a combo of a day each here and there over the other holidays to properly spend time with kids and ask GPs to have them for a day or two plus use local holiday clubs.

I found as the kids got older they liked holiday clubs more as school friends went as well or there were interest clubs like football, art etc.

I am significantly happier, less stressed, more present. We spend our evenings together, I teach them how to bake, cook, play board games, card games etc. I did none of that when teaching as I was low level/mid level stressed all the time.

I'm lucky to have clubs and GPs and I will never work somewhere where I don't have some control over my AL (and sanity) again.

You are right about the holiday clubs, I'm sure my kids would enjoy them! I just feel such a sense of guilt, but probably just need to get over it.

Thanks this is very useful. I am London based. Do you think it is still competitive to get a G7 role in London too?

It is an SEO role.

There are things about teaching that I like and I am good at my job and well-respected. But I find the micromanagement exhausting! I work in a nice enough school, but I do a fair bit of work in the evenings so generally just feel a bit disillusioned with it all. I can't imagine doing this job for another 20 years but I also recognise it brings me lots of benefits at the moment (time with my children, short commute, holidays).

I think I would stick to 3 days teaching and learn how to use the ais available that make our job much much easier

There is a move for civil service jobs to move out of London, therefore there are likely to be fewer promotion opportunities than elsewhere in the country (even for existing civil servants).

Yes, IMO there is a lot of competition for G7 roles in London.

Micromanagement could also be an issue! Depending on the type of role and manager / team there can be limited autonomy.

Personally a term time job while your children are you is hard to come by, id stick at it until both your children are in high school, term time definitely makes things easier during school holidays.

though I certainly wouldn’t be changing jobs for a 16k pay drop, working more and having to pick and choose holidays.

But I find the micromanagement exhausting

The micromanagement is the one thing everyone in my department complains about!

I left teaching 10 years ago and I’ve never missed the holidays. Because it was so worth it in terms of the loss of stress.