Going into teaching and stuck deciding which age group would be best?

[ThisMauveMentor]

I've spent the last six years in academia (humanities, specifically literary studies) and am thinking about moving away from it into teaching. It's what I probably would have done had I not wanted to do the PhD, but I have no idea which year group to train in.

I have experience with Primary and Secondary school kids, and have a PGCE offer for both a General Primary and a Secondary English course. The deadline for accepting one of them is approaching, and I still have no idea which to accept. Obviously I know I like and would be good at teaching English, and it would be the most practical as a career change, but I also feel I'd love the novelty of working with younger kids, even if it would be comparitively more of a jump.

Has anyone got any tips for deciding which route to go down? Or are there any questions I should be asking myself? What kind of a person is best at teaching each age range?

Thanks!

Teaching is very hard as I'm sure you already know.
I've taught from age 14 to adults and tbh I really enjoyed teaching the younger students! Adults were entitled arseholes a lot of the time and didnt think any of the classroom rules applied to them as they'd paid to be there so could do what they liked!
I think if its a specialist subject you have passion for then secondary school would allow you to apply this, however, dont expect the students to have the same level of enthusiasm as you.....
I dont have experience of primary school teaching but I'm sure teaching English would be lots of fun albeit less challenging for you maybe?

You really should have done observations in both sectors to get a feeling for which you gel more with. I definitely preferred working with secondary pupils because I appreciated the teenage years more. However, depending on your subject, the marking in secondary school can be brutal for English teachers

I've taught primary abroad in an English school for three months, and secondary history for two weeks, which was a slightly odd mix of experience but enough to tell me that I like teaching both for very different (not exactly compatible) reasons.

The primary kids were fun and sweet ...mostly lol, and I got to know them very well as a class over that time, but I worry that teaching them long-term would make me miss teaching English. Would be great if I could do academia stuff on the side, but I can't unfortunately because of the struggle for funding and publications.

I'm used to teaching undergrads how to write essays, and marking doesn't bother me - in fact, it's one of the best bits! - the worry with teaching secondary is that it would be too impersonal and I'd get sick of the lack of critical thinking and original thought that's encouraged. That was pretty bad in a university setting too, but at least I could do my own research there.

I’d have a quick look at the local job market to see where you’d most likely find employment

There's a national shortage of qualified English teachers so you may have better career prospects for secondary. I chose secondary because I wanted to concentrate on English rather than the whole curriculum.

I would advocate looking at UK schools for experience rather than settings abroad as it's quite a different feel and budget!

I'll be interested if you still think marking is the best bit when you are teaching full time!

It's a tough but rewarding job. Just be aware you may have some great academic qualifications but you'll learn so much when you are training and indeed may find it quite difficult!

Good luck with whichever path you choose.

Marking can be beneficial to your teaching and for assessment purposes, however don't underestimate the slog of constant marking. It won't all be essays, the amount of scaffolding you will have to give can be onerous and there will be many many children who dislike English, don't understand it and in some cases are functionally illiterate. How will you engage with those? As a brand new teacher, you are unlikely to get only classes of a high ability. I think you sound idealistic, which is no bad thing going in to teaching and I certainly would recommend it as a career, but I feel you need to weigh up the opportunity to teach a subject against building strong relationships with primary pupils. There are primary teachers with academic backgrounds who thrive in primary schools and use their background to further educational research. There are secondary teachers who are very academic and learn how to support pupils who are not. I think you need to be realistic.

Honestly one with the least exams ... Not ks4 or 5 and I would avoid yr 6 exam factories are soul destroying

Yeah, that's what I thought. I've been looking around for some more experience but, with my current workload and the school holidays, it doesn't look like I'll be able to get any more before I need to make a decision on my offers.

To be fair, I meant marking essays when I said I liked marking haha. I bet marking pages of the same incorrect Maths question is way more infuriating, but I don't mind marking pages of wrong assumptions about Shakespeare. I'm used to it!

How do you cope with emotion? Are you patient? If you wouldn't cope with young children being emotional at some point everyday (anger/extreme excitement/sadness) then primary is NOT for you. You are also stuck with the SAME children ALL day EVERY day.

Secondary, you deal with less emotion. You HAVE TO be able to build rapport with teenagers. You need to be able to work in a fast paced environment.

You do realise that teaching English is a very huge part of a primary teacher’s job don't you?

Although I’ve never taught in Secondary, I am a parent and my children have all been through their teen years. I would say that those years were by far the most challenging in terms of their emotional dysregulation - far more so than primary age!

That's ultimately what I am trying to weigh up. I could easily be suited to or terrible for either role. Either way, my career will be very different from what it is now, but I do need to decide whether I'd be best suited for teaching those children who dislike English and struggle with it, or whether I'd be best suited for teaching something other than literature entirely.

Of course, but teaching reading comprehension to Year 3 is very different from drilling Macbeth quotes into Year 11.

I think I cope well with emotion and with working in a fast-paced environment. I'm less good at building rapport with teenagers, if I'm honest. I'm fairly good at leaving them alone and concentrating their attention on the work, but I'm not fully convinced I'd know what to do if I personally became the subject of their messing around.

I feel from your posts that your heart is pushing for the primary age option, while your head is telling you to go for the secondary school option. If that's right I'd tend to go for heart option!

For me it would be a choice between how much I could stand nits and how much I could stand the stench of teenagers.

Teaching English is also about teaching language skills too, not just literature as I'm sure you are well aware. Teaching literature in secondary school can be soul destroying with pupils who can't read, don't read, shrug when asked for an opinion and the only texts you can access in the book cupboard are not to your taste! I taught in Scotland where I had free reign of what I taught in younger classes, depending on who else wanted 'The Book Thief' etc. Exam pupils choices were more proscribed. The fun of having a choice was the ability to create tasks which would help even disinterested pupils engage. And I did build relationships with families, many of whom I had known to the second generation. Regardless of primary or secondary, you need to remember you are teaching children. The subject / primary dilemma is incidental.

Ooo ok, if you teach in a secondary school whether state or private (moreso in state schools) you will have challenging behaviour, there is no doubt about that. A thick skin is an absolute requirement.

I mentored a student teacher who had a PHD in Shakespeare studies, he was completely unable to deliver material to a rowdy year 10 class. He persevered but it was not easy.

Behaviour management is a key part of teaching in both primary and secondary. There is a wealth of information around it. It is good that you are aware of your skillset already. Teenagers rarely can be left to get on with it for long though!

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm scared of. Coincidentally my PhD was also in Shakespeare studies, and I know that it won't make me automatically good at teaching that same period at GCSE. In fact, it could easily make me worse if I don't recognise the limits of the class' knowlege.

You'll get all that knowledge on your course don't worry about that. If you are someone who is willing to persevere when things are tough then teaching could be for you.

I LOVE teaching secondary, but it is TOUGH and exhausting. Truly exhausting. I have myriad of experience in other sectors and nothing compares to the stress and tiredness BUT it is worth it because I love it and I've gotten good at it.

6 months in, I quit and said I'd never teach again. Thankfully I gave it another go. I would strongly suggest supply teaching (you don't need to be qualified they will snap you up).

I can't recall if you are London based?

I teach secondary English and absolutely insist on critical thinking and original thought. I do teach A Level and IB though.

Apologies for punctuation errors, I'm on mat leave making the most of nap time so typing quickly.

Yeah, exactly. I think I'd struggle with not having a choice over what material to teach and what would be best for the kids prior to exam season, which might be an issue in any school where teaching materials are heavily proscribed.

I do think I prefer the primary age group more generally. It's just difficult to engage with the idea that my subject skills and personal interests will be no longer utilised professionally. And then there's the question of career progression, as I don't really know where I'd go once I'd been teaching primary for a decade or so. I think I'm just worried about being detached from the literature-heavy parts of my identity amid the workload and general demands of teaching.

I was a TA in secondary for a few years so did lots of support in various lessons and I think secondary English is the hardest subject to teach by some margin. Genuinely. Lots of pressure cos it’s core, lots of marking, and the GCSE syllabus is (in my view) a pile of pants. Obv depends on the class and the ability levels and other teachers will defo disagree it’s the hardest! But it’s the subject I would least want to teach at secondary.

I think maybe take some time to consider what you would actually be teaching for GCSE and if it interests you. Having said that, primary English seems very prescriptive too, but are least you would be doing other stuff.