Anyone teach in a sixth form college?

[LoyalGreenHam]

In short, I've got a big decision to make.

I've got a great job in an 11-16 comprehensive which I love (obviously it has its downsides) but which is about 45 minutes away from home. Lone parent, 1 DC in junior school. Long days.

An opportunity has come up in the local sixth form college, 10 mins from home. I've never taught A Level but I have a degree in the subject so I'm confident I could upskill myself quickly, but I know it's a totally different environment and I don't want to make a mistake. I've been teaching nearly 20 years. Anyone made the transition from secondary to college? Pros/cons? Especially anything I might not have thought of that you only realised once you'd made the jump?

Thanks for any thoughts.

I do - moved from secondary school about 7 years ago and would never want to move back!

Pros: salary matched with school, same amount of holidays. First names for everyone up to and including the Principal - feels less starkly hierarchical than school. No form group so much less pastoral stuff to deal with and none of the utter bullshit uniform/planner checking/duties stuff that eats so much time at school and which I hate. You get to focus on your subject properly and I get 4.5 hours a week with each class (no split classes currently) so I know them really well. Not much interference in terms of teaching and fewer observations etc. Can basically structure my lessons and year how it suits me. Good relationships with students who are generally well behaved and polite (though can still have challenging classes for sure!).

Cons: holidays don’t align with school 100% so I go back earlier in summer for enrolment. Also have Saturday open events. Finish later than school but can leave on the dot so doesn’t make much difference. No flexibility/ can’t take PPA at home and frees are at a bare minimum. I teach 22.5 hours a week and all my classes are obviously exam/certifying classes. A lot of pressure for results and that’s every class you teach. Lots of marking because it’s all essay stuff or coursework. Lots of data stuff and the same Ofsted pressure as anywhere else. Classes can be up to 25 (though none of mine are that big). Pressure on staff for things like setting homework, monitoring attendance etc. Some points in the year are very stressful but some are very simple!

Overall I much prefer it. The atmosphere is much nicer than school although we are slowly moving to treat students more like school pupils. The maturity level is definitely dropping! But I still wouldn’t go back.

Thanks so much. Everything you've said matches closely with what they've told me when I've asked questions, except I would have a tutor group so would have some of that pastoral/academic monitoring load. I am worried about the marking but where I am now, I get huge loads dumped on me in one go - 2 groups of Y11 sitting 2 mock exam papers each all needing a two week turnaround with zero release time, for example. Then I have months with virtually no assessments whatsoever. I also like the sound of the autonomy. I'd hate to lose that last week of the summer as I've never had to arrange holiday childcare before but equally I love the sound of gaining a week to myself at the beginning! The fact that you wouldn't go back says it all really. I really appreciate your insight.

Marking is a funny one because in some ways I have less. I don’t mark class work (and we’re not expected to) unless of course I’ve set an exam question or piece of extended writing. We are expected to set marked homework every week, which I do for my A level classes but not BTEC as they always have plenty of work to get on with. The level and method of marking is not prescriptive (not purple pen or WWW!) which I like. But when I do have marking it takes a long time as obviously needs detail and attention. However after assessment periods we tend to get a decent amount of time before we have to enter results. I’ve just had 1.5 weeks to do a full class set of full A level papers for y13 which took a long time. Last year y12 had assessments at the same time which was way too heavy a load but we were consulted and said it was too much so those have been taken off the calendar.

I did the opposite and I preferred FE to secondary, I think it suited my temperament better. Good luck with your decision!