Degree and SAHM?

[Lolsyloo]

Looking for some ‘lived it’ experience! We have a 1 year old and would love another baby in a few years. I’ve been put at risk of redundancy and am seriously tempted to take it and start a degree with open university part time with the end goal of becoming a primary school teacher. Has anyone undertaken a degree with young children whilst being a SATM? Or did you work, study and parent!? I’m a military spouse so will have to move around the country when a new posting arises but thankful this gives us some financial relief. Just looking for views on those who have done this? TIA

I worked, studied and parented. It's hard work but you can do it.

If you look on the Mature Study and Retraining board, (comes under EDUCATION), you may find countless threads discussing this. The OU comes up a lot.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/maturestudents

I started my Masters while on maternity leave although I didn’t complete it until after I’d gone back to work. Choosing a degree that’s flexible enough and doesn’t have a lot of mandatory contact time at set times is important. I don’t find it too bad though, especially when I was on maternity leave. I felt my brain was atrophying so it was nice to do something more interesting when DS was asleep!

I've just finished an OU degree working p/t (older kids though). I highly recommend it, it was something for myself that wasn't work / family / chore based.

Yes I did an OU degree in maths while my kids were pre school, pgce when the youngest went to reception

I tried to do a masters when my dc were in early primary but it was set up for people who had time in the evenings. I had free mornings, but a high needs SN dc and evenings were full on. I could have managed to squeeze out the class time, but not the collaborative group work and meet ups as well. None of the assignments could be done individually.

Try and get in touch with a former student who can give you a realistic breakdown of the actual time commitments because the brochures and uni info only tells half the story,

I am also a Military Spouse who did an Open University degree, I graduated in July and will be starting a Graduate Scheme next week. So I definitely would recommend it!