Change career to teaching

[Mam34]

Wanted some advice…currently working in the NHS but finding the pressure unbearable, every day feels never ending. Have 4 children at home, thinking about a career change to primary teaching. Although still pressured and would be a significant pay cut would work much better with childcare etc and feel ultimately that I would be happier. Husband very supportive. Wanted some advice on the realities of teaching.

Low pay for a graduate job, low kudos/respect, lots of unpaid hours doing preparation etc, parents can shout at you and complain about you with abandon, kids may well be very needy. If you have been patient facing in a tough bit of healthcare you may find it less stressful but people leave teaching in droves for good reasons. Can you try and meet some local teachers, go into primary schools to observe or anything?

Haha no.

it’s very pressured. You’ll need childcare.

school holidays might be easier but that’s about it.

Don't do it. Honestly.

Average 60 hours per week.
Very limited free time, even at weekends (bar school holidays)
Nothing you do is ever enough because of limited resources/funding
You can never switch off
Shouted at by parents, including malicious complaints and investigations because you're accused of xyz (normal classroom stuff like taking a toy off a 9yo mid lesson to put in your drawer to give back at the end of the day.
You'll be screaming in frustration at lack of SEN support and funding
Ditto SS
Many schools are toxic places to work (although when you find a decent one, it can be the best place to work)
You live in a permanent state of exhaustion
No time for your own kids during term-time
Your partner will have to take over 90% of housework if you're full-time
Training years are TOUGH but it does get easier with experience
You will be using your own funds to 'top up' classroom supplies
Goodbye social life during term-time

Building relationships and watching your class grow is the most amazing job in the world.

It's just a shame that's not the job anymore and all points above outweigh the joy of teaching.

Very high pressure job, nowhere near enough time in the day to get everything done and especially the early years there is huge scrutiny of you. Also parents and children are extremely demanding these days, there are so many with additional needs, SEND and there’s no money to support these children adequately. There is poor pay at first and no overtime paid. Yes you get the holidays but you will have to work part of those. Otherwise it’s just as bad as any job for childcare and there is no flexibility whatsoever, so you will miss many milestones such as assemblies and sports days as you can’t get time off. Some people still have some strange idea that it is a 9-3 job, but that is a totally fantasy. I don’t know anyone with 4 kids that is a teacher I think it would be very difficult.

As an ex-teacher, I have nothing but respect for anybody who works in the NHS, so given the demands of your job, I think you will fare better than most in teaching in that respect.

Honestly, the teaching itself (I taught Reception for almost a decade before starting my family) was wonderful. The time interacting with children is wonderful, I especially loved setting up all the independent play activities for them, the interacting and observing their play. Yes there was some challenging behaviour, but building those individual relationships over time meant this could be overcome.

The less good bits: the job never ends or feels finished, you really can always do more (terrible for a perfectionist like me!), I was often run down and ill due to talking/performing/being ‘on’ all day, there is a great deal of micromanagement of absolute nonsense that is absolutely not for the benefit of the children, and some parents were incredibly unreasonable and abusive towards members of staff at all levels. Some are actually banned from schools for threatening/swearing at staff (this may be nothing new to you having worked for the NHS).

I left because ultimately I wanted to be a SAHM. There is very little flexibility to attend school events/impossible to WFH if your own are ill etc.

My DH still teaches Year 3. He feels the job is unrecognisable in terms of the pressure put on the children academically and the amount they are expected to deliver in a day. He honestly feels done by 11.30am some days, takes a 15 min lunch break to eat as he has 150 books plus to mark a day, and would like to see our kids for dinner. He stays because he gets the school holidays with his own children.

Overall, I would have continued to teach if I hadn’t started my own family, it is enjoyable and certainly rewarding. I worked with very deprived children, and it felt meaningful to provide them with some secure care and safety each day.

Good luck if you decide to go for it!

I posted a thread similar to you recently and the general consensus was don’t do it. I have to stay it’s stopped me pursuing it for now.

The holidays are definitely better but it’s tough going.

Erm yea no, definitely not.
Terrible idea.

I'm in my 29th year of teaching and I'm retiring this year.

Ive been at my current school for 21 years. People very rarely leave as it's such a great school. It's been a great job. Ive loved so much of it and have worked with some great people. I got divorced 8 years into my career and it supported me and my 2 children. I can't believe I worked fulltime during those years, moved house 3 times and still kept my head above water job wise.

Saying that though, I agree with everything the above posters have said. It's not the job it was. Mon-Fri and from one holiday to the next you live and breathe the job. It consumes you. Nothing is ever finished and you're constantly adding to the bottom of your to do list.

The threat of Ofsted looming even makes the most realistic senior leaders demand so much. You will bring work home every night and have to work for some of your weekend Feel continually torn between the job and your own children.

Children have become entitled, selfish versions of their parents. Parents have become demanding, unrealistic and have no idea what happens in school on a day to day basis.

If you're really serious about it, volunteer in a school and see what you think. But I'd think long and hard before you make that final jump.

Yes you’ll get the school holidays but….
Teaching, in my experience , is not family friendly- in term time there is no flexibility with any time off so half terms are a frantic catch up of appointments
You have 4 DC so hopefully they’ll have the same holidays as you!
What about your own DC before / after school / if they’re sick / school runs / any week day activities - do you have a DP with a v flexible job?

I love teaching. The knowledge of knowing you’ve helped children understand something is great. Whether it’s getting on with other people or something like how to add fractions it’s very satisfying. I’m lucky in that I’ve been teaching a long time and am now in a position where I can work part time and pick up supply when needed. The school you work at obviously makes an enormous difference. Perhaps you could try shadowing a teacher to see the
reality.

You'll have lots of skills and attributes from your current role which will help transition into teaching, as well as being a parent yourself. Find the right school and some good wraparound childcare. Be organised with what needs doing well and what just needs doing. The teaching profession needs people. Yes it's hard and tiring, as many jobs are but it's also rewarding. Try to get into a couple of different schools for some work experience/tours and make up your own mind. It would be sad to be put off by the experiences of others. I'm sure you'd have a lot to offer.

I taught for 17 years, left because of everything already said on this thread. Really missed the interaction with the children so went back 4 years later. Now I’m leaving again and this time I won’t be going back, ever. It makes me incredibly sad because being in a building full of children and building those relationships with them and seeing the progress is incredible and I love it, but everything else sadly makes it unsustainable for me. Yes, the holidays are good and that is what draws people in, but having done a job in my interim time with 30 days’ holiday a year, but where I felt I had more time in the evenings and weekends, I can honestly say that school holidays aren’t worth it and don’t make up for how unbelievably tired you are in term-time. For context, most teachers work 10 hour days Monday-Friday and more at weekends just to stay afloat. I’ll not be the only one looking forward to this Bank Holiday just because I can spend tomorrow trying to catch up with my work backlog.

Do you want to be a teacher OP? If so what about the actual job appeals ?

I feel like too many posters on MN who say they are looking at a career change into teaching never say it's because they want to actually teach but because they perceive a different kind of working pattern and some kind of benefits that may not exist..

Any profession needs the (majority of) the people doing it to want to to do it - otherwise you end up with a frustrated workforce.

I agree with the shadowing idea above.

Primary teacher has changed so much over the last 25 years that it will be almost unrecognisable from your own childhood. I am sure they were but I never thought my own primary teachers were stressed or overloaded with loads of box ticking , marking or paperwork when I was young. They seemed to have a genuine love for what they did and a flexibility around what and how they taught us - it was a more creative and autonomous job. I am a secondary teacher and I can't believe how much constant and often pointless marking and form filling my primary colleagues have to do.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I just looked at teaching jobs yesterday as I do primary supply at the moment and there are hundreds of jobs. I’ve never seen anything like it and I’ve been teaching for twenty years.

So, at least there is work! But that’s because it’s hard, under appreciated and badly paid. I get £17 an hour on supply. Three pounds less than my mum pays her cleaner.

In some areas it is actually really hard to get a primary job.

Teaching is a 60 hour a week job. My DC's primary teacher is at school for 7am and is frequently still there until the caretaker locks up at 6.30pm.

There is a reason that there is a huge retention and recruitment crisis in teaching. Because it is an unmanageable job.

With 4 children, unless you have a nanny/au pair, there is no way you'd be able to keep up with the demands of a teaching job. Working at home until 10pm every night. All of at least one day at the weekend.

I'm secondary so can't really comment on primary but would say in thr right school it can still be very rewarding.

Do take heed of the advice above though go and shadow some teachers and ask lots of questions about workload. I know from my own kids primary experience that the expectations are much tougher now for what the children need to be able to do, it's all driven by SATs and primary teachers are increasingly having to manage students who's behavioural needs can't really be met in a mainstream school but there isn't a suitable alternative and no real provision or money to deal with it in primary.....this can really have a huge knock on impact on the learning of all the other children and create massive stress for the teacher and teaching assistant.

YABU and clearly haven't read the many other threads where people have asked opinions about a career change to teaching 😀

Even now? I haven’t looked for ages as I don’t actually want a job but I couldn’t not believe how many roles there were.

I covered for some interviews this week, they had four applications and offered interviews to all of them and two didn’t show up! (I only know that because they were supposed to be taking some of the children for an activity).

Out of the frying pan, in to the fire.
I'd look for something else, sorry OP.

Yes, even now. Hence the government doesn't view it as a shortage subject for bursaries.

It’s great for childcare in the holidays, but not if kids are sick or if you want to see school plays etc. And you’d probably work quite later than school finishes, and need to be there earlier than it starts, so you’d need care around school hours.
Are you thinking primary or secondary?