So, have decided to re-evaluate teaching after 10 years. I am going to do some supply and tutoring in the meantime.

Looking at a thread from last year I see a few have taken the plunge and left. How are people getting on after leaving? what routes have people taken?

I left uni, straight in to teaching, so feel a little institutionalised! I have a degree in European Politics (even more useless now) an MA in education. So I am struggling to see what routes out I can take.

Happy to start again and retrain, but not with something where I’ll be cooped up in an office environment all day. Any STW suggestions?

You could be a trainer for various businesses.

It needn’t be an indoors role depending on what you specialise in.

You’d have to like the sound of your own voice though.

Mrs Handsomedog left teaching two years ago having pretty much burnt out as a young head of department in
a high flying school with grand ideas. She also left uni (french and german) straight into teaching so her CV was a tad light for anything else.

She moved into residential children’s care after a short break doing supply. Astonishingly, even though she is frequently punched/sworn at/spat on etc, she loves it. She gets to spend 100% of the time working with kids that really need her, she gets to go on all sorts of activities (being paid to go to a theme park FTW), and seeing her kids make progress is clearly hugely rewarding. She also gets paid for EVERY hour she works and we have calculated that if she picks up one overtime shift a week she gets paid slightly more than she did being a head of department.

On the negative her kids are often in a very bad way and she often gets punched/sworn at/spat on etc, the shifts are long (14 hrs), and she spends a lot of time dealing with police/social workers/schools when her kids fight/go missing/take drugs etc.

That may not sound like your cup of tea, in that case take it as an example of a successful world beyond teaching.

That is a really positive move, thanks for sharing. I would still work with kids, as I still want to have a positive impact upon people.

That is exactly how I am feeling, burn out. I am a head of humanities. My health has taken a hit (mental and physical), and I do not have time to exercise or if I do have the time, I really just want a beer and relax.

The grass isnt always greener. If you have only ever worked in teaching – its prob conditioned you to believe its a tough, underpaid, overworked job, and theres a million and one opportunities for you to earn more doing less … unfortunately there won`t be.

There will be the same shite elsewhere – but most likely without the same salary, working conditions and career opportunities/progression.

I’ve left teaching. I’ve done 10 years in outdoor centres (crap pay, horrendous work hours, awesomely rewarding and interesting). I now teach teachers to get outdoors. Better pay, mainly Monday to Friday, small world and set of job opportunities.

I found that companies have not interest in teachers as trainers – I had one at interview tell me that the two day ‘introduction to training’ course they put everyone on was far more valuable than my 4 years learning to teach and coach…

If it wasn’t for my kids(!) I think a change of country may have worked well.

Have you looked at jobs in universities? A friend left teaching a couple of years ago and now works at a uni in their student recruitment team.

The money might not be the same as a HOD but you wouldn’t be expected to take work home. Look at jobs related to widening participation.

My wife is currently moving from full time science teaching to a SENCo role.
She realised a few years back that dealing with 30 teenagers with Bunsen burners won’t be much fun when she’s in her 60s.

She has just finished the SENCo qualification, and is doing the role part-time.
She had originally hoped to stay at the same school long term, but the Head still wants her to teach 15 hours per week (despite there being over 100 kids on the SEN register and it really being a full time job) so she is currently looking to move.

Long term she hope to move to either a school just for kids with special/complex needs, or maybe into educational psychology.

There are a lot of education jobs outside the classroom – as an example, does your county have a ‘virtual school’ for looked-after children?
Kent does, and employs full time staff to manage it.

That is exactly how I am feeling, burn out. I am a head of humanities. My health has taken a hit (mental and physical), and I do not have time to exercise or if I do have the time, I really just want a beer and relax.

I decided the “just” be a teacher, reminded me I quite like teaching, might be worth trying that for a bit first?

The grass isnt always greener.

If that were the case you would expect to see a lot of people return to teaching, I’ve never come across a candidate for a teaching post who was a teacher, left and then came back.

I’m with AA on this one. I teach but have no interest in promoted posts – way too much hassle/stress/time and less time doing what I became a teacher to do.

Bin the promoted post – get back to teaching kids and enjoy it!

You’ll miss the holidays!

I left after 10 years of teaching science.

Got on guardian jobs, saw a job training adults and have spent two years training in car sales. It’s much better than teaching in many ways- complete lack of stress or marking- but in teaching I actually helped lots of kids. In this job I have helped a few people a bit, and made some corporations a bit richer.

Teachers think they are over worked and under paid, i was always quite happy with that bit. Compared to car sales teaching is a breeze 🙂

If you give something else a go and it’s crap, you can always go back to teaching. If you don’t try something else you will never know…

It’s much better than teaching in many ways- complete lack of stress

Compared to car sales teaching is a breeze

?

Teachers think they are over worked and under paid,

They are, hence the teacher shortages.

You’ll miss the holidays!

Bloody too right, I love the holiday time I get to share with my son.

I’m with AA, I was SLT in a big college and hated the fact that I wasn’t teaching, so I took a pay cut, went back into the classroom and am much happier. I am still a Head of Science, but that is the level and job that I love doing!

Good teachers love teaching, but get naffed off with all of the admin, and the expectation that you will constantly go for more responsibility and eventually headship. Much more relaxed when you find the level you are content with.

My missus has done 10 years in a Primary school and has had enough of the rigid curriculum driven agenda with less and less trust in the competence and experience of the teaching staff (amongst other things). She is starting a job as a teacher of deaf children with responsibility for 12 or so kids in a mainstream school in September. She’ll be doing a distance learning Higher Diploma which will also open up the possibility of becoming a SENCo. She got into the job to teach kids and hopefully this will allow to get back to that and away from a lot of the bureaucracy.

Hoping this will work out as her working around 3 hours per evening at least 3 nights a week and at least 6 hours every weekend is ridiculous and affects family life. I should also mention she is in a 50% job share and gets about £17k for the privilege. Of course if you don’t want to do your best for your pupils it is possible to cruise to an extent but for a lot of teachers I think the holiday periods are the only thing preventing a lot of mental breakdowns.

My wife and I both have jobs that give us the school holidays. We earn less than everyone else we know, don’t have foreign holidays, have an older car and our house could best be described a bohemian (or chabby chic). However I will take all that for the time we get to spend together as a family.

I do work during the holidays, but until I see the long lines of people knocking down the doors trying to get into teaching because it is such a cushy job, I will continue thinking that it must be a tough career, that not everyone can do!

If that were the case you would expect to see a lot of people return to teaching, I’ve never come across a candidate for a teaching post who was a teacher, left and then came back.

Or people who have quit don’t think they will get back in.

At least where we live most of the permanent TA positions are filled by people with QTS and these are highly over applied for and wherever possible nonsalaried.

OH spent most of last year changing nappies using her QTS to get herself slightly more than NMW.

Every actual permanent teaching job she applied for has been filled by someone already teaching. (Obviously there must be some that are not)

She’s just been offered a 1yr SEN TA position (funding needs to be applied for yearly) so perhaps that will let her get back in.

Thanks for all the responses so far, plenty to think about.

I think I need a change of scenery too, so even if it is teaching in a different environment that is not a secondary school. I have looked at PRUs, hospital schools etc.

I have found some roles mentoring and teaching pupils one on one to those who have been excluded. Only 25 hours per week, so could always do some volunteering work to help make links else where.

But like you say Martin, I can always go back if it does not work out. If I never try something else I’ll always think about what could have been.

Or people who have quit don’t think they will get back in.

certainly not the case with science jobs or maths

She’s just been offered a 1yr SEN TA position (funding needs to be applied for yearly) so perhaps that will let her get back in.

If it’s anything my Gf’s experience, they’ll not get funding, string everyone along until it’s too late to apply for anything else and leave a load of people jobless for the next term.

certainly not the case with science jobs or maths

Fair point OH has a degree in English…

At least where we live most of the permanent TA positions are filled by people with QTS and these are highly over applied for and wherever possible nonsalaried.

Whereabouts is that stevxtc? Thinking of moving out of the SE and always assumed Mrs SWSD would be able to walk into a teaching job. There’s always loads of vacancies round here.

I left after 30 years in schools and colleges including management roles. I don’t regret it at all.
I now spend my mornings working at various admin jobs at GP surgeries locally and have built up an expertise that is in demand and I do as much as I want when I want..
My afternoons are spent either working at my small business or doing things I never had time to do before, or even deciding I fancy doing nothing much at all for an afternoon.
Stress free, quality of life improved, a five minute commute rather than anything up to 40 minutes etc.

However, my pay is considerably reduced and if I was the main earner it wouldn’t be quite so rosy. I have only taken one weeks holiday in 10 months, but as I don’t need the time to recover from the stresses of the day job this hasn’t been a problem.
As an aside, and I know this has been said ad infinitum on various threads on teaching, for those who haven’t done it, term time is not the only time teachers are working. The main relief from my stress was not having to work evenings, weekends etc. and actually having time to sit down and have a proper lunch break…. Bliss.
Anyway, I am well aware how fortunate I am in this respect.

I also forgot – you earn a lot, lot less outside of teaching.

you earn a lot, lot less outside of teaching

you may, not everyone does

Intersting you say than Matt OAB, I have just sat down and worked out, on an average week, my current NHS admin pay as an hourly rate on an hours actually worked rather than nominal contact time basis is pretty much the same than as a HOD in a sixth form college. I do considerably fewer hours, so get paid less overall of course.

Whereabouts is that stevxtc? Thinking of moving out of the SE and always assumed Mrs SWSD would be able to walk into a teaching job. There’s always loads of vacancies round here.

We are in Woking…. she’s limited herself to commutable jobs so not considered further into London. She’s only looking primary … secondary might be different. There are loads of jobs in Greater London and loads of agency work … but permanent primary seems really hard.

Part of this is funding…. there are lots of parents with QTS filling the TA posts for FREE…. they now have a university science lecturer working for free once a week….

Our kids primary school lost a whole bunch of teachers+ last year (as in worse than decimated). All of them were replaced by teachers previously working elsewhere. (+Not all of them quit…. one went for a head of year at another school and one became a new head of year position in the same school etc. but they had to replace 10-12 actual teachers end of last Academic year… )

Our kids school is a large one and although not a particularly well to do area it seems to have a higher than average number of parents who are teachers or lecturers. I think their philosophy is if they can get them for free why pay….so they won’t pay unless it’s taking a resource form another school.

OH applied for multiple paid TA positions when she was an unpaid volunteer and was told “no thanks”.. left and did some supply teaching then was working in a Nursery and specialised in SEN… she applied for 3 TA jobs since then and got offered all 3….

It’s always true its easier to find a job when you already have one but it seems primary teaching round here its a pre-requisit.

Certainly our kids school relies heavily on qualified teacher parents but isn’t willing to pay them. They also had QTS qualified paid TA’s non of whom were offered a teaching position and hence salary rise.

However OH hasn’t changed (a years more experience) just her current employment status…. at the interview told them she actually didn’t really want the job as she had mistakenly applied* and got a firm offer the next day.

*I probably shouldn’t post more details but they were willing to bend over backwards to take her from a different school but unwilling to pay her a penny when she was working for free…

The grass isn’t always greener – I know a few teachers, they moan about the hours, the stress, the marking etc, but they think that we (private sector workers) just clock in a 9, go home at 5 and that’s it with the same sort of naive fashion we think their jobs are just about 13 weeks holiday a year and knocking off at 3:30 every day. There are very, very few easy jobs left anymore – and frankly if there were, they’re in the public sector.

Two of the Teachers I know are former Bankers like me, they took their redundancy money in 2009 and went back to Uni to complete a one year post-grad route to teaching – they both teach secondary kids and they’ll happily tell you it’s not easy, but it’s a lot less stressful than working in Banking and Finance and staff relations isn’t even in the same league, as far as they’re concerned it’s a job for life, you simply cannot be sacked unless you’re caught beating a kid with a hammer or something and redundancy is still quite rare, certainly compared to the private sector.

they were willing to bend over backwards to take her from a different school but unwilling to pay her a penny when she was working for free

That’ll be to do with the way they receive funding/allocate budgets, existing staff/volunteers will be one cost code, new recruitment will be another. And they’ll have a bigger allocation for recruitment than promotions/pay rises this year.

Welcome to the private sector, where you earn the most by switching employer every few years. 👿

I appreciate all jobs have their own stresses and issues, but I am not looking for an ‘easier’ job. I like challenges, but I am looking for different challenges I suppose. I am just burnt out by my current jobs issues.

I do not want the thread to go in to public versus private etc. Just some advice on options and how to pursue those options. Or if people have had experiences of leaving somewhere when they thought their options were limited due to limited job roles, like myself. I have always been in education…never left!

but they think that we (private sector workers) just clock in a 9, go home at 5

Erm, we do don’t we?

I wish, I typed that whilst waiting for a report to arrive via email for me to review. I’m on holiday this week.

Redundancy in teaching is relatively rare, but partly because when people leave or retire their roles are just not filled. This is particularly true of lower management level jobs in the sector I used to work in, HOD’s would leave and someone else on the same spine would be expected to take over running of that curriculum area, often for no extra pay. this reduced the already very narrow promotion opportunities for those staff who had ambition and ability whom often then left to find opportunities elsewhere. There is a high turn over of staff in some places.

Having said that one of our local High Schools is looking to make about 10% of the staff redundant, some teaching, some support staff. This is likely to become more common.

Real term cuts of 20% over five years in institutions where 80% of the budget is spent on staff salaries will mean more redundancies in the near future.

I know that job security is likely to be on average better in teaching than in many private sector roles, but it certainly isn’t the job for life it might once have been. The increased use of capability procedures within the teaching profession also has made it easier for staff to be removed, particularly in academies.

To go back to the OP’s question. In the years I was teaching many people left to do different things, most thouroughly enjoyed their new focus, almost all I kept in touch with were doing really well in thier new roles. Inevitably a few didn’t and returned to teaching but with renewed enthusiasm because they realised they enjoyed the asepects of the job that they couldn’t find elsewhere. So from my admittedly limited experience, what have you to lose? Only you can work that out

That’ll be to do with the way they receive funding/allocate budgets, existing staff/volunteers will be one cost code, new recruitment will be another. And they’ll have a bigger allocation for recruitment than promotions/pay rises this year.

The volunteers aren’t even paid – hence no budget required…. they are currently using a senior University lecturer for free 1/2d wk (in science) and didn’t even bother doing the prep she asked for.

But yep it’s all budgets … and the only way to get a better salary is…

Welcome to the private sector, where you earn the most by switching employer every few years.

Or …. doing less actual teaching.
I don’t know what the new head of year got paid…. but I bet it’s not significant .. I do know she was serious about quitting as I know she applied for the same job at another school as my kids teacher who ended up being the one taking the position at the other school.

Anyway .. net result 2 of the best teachers no longer teaching at the school

Others are doing reduced teaching… as they have “interesting” additional roles…. they have a “diversity officer” and a “environment offer” both of which are as misplaced as possible in that extra role but not actually teaching x hours a week.

Really does look like private sector.

but they think that we (private sector workers) just clock in a 9, go home at 5

Erm, we do don’t we?[/quote]

I normally do 9 till 4.30!

Quality not quantity is my justification and no one has complained yet…

stevextc – I’m a little confused with your OHs position. She has QTS, but has been working as a TA or has been volunteering. Is she wanting to apply to teaching jobs or TA jobs?
If she’s wanting to apply for teaching job then now is the time. Teachers have to give a half terms notice. So any current teacher wanting to leave now will not be able to start a new job until after the Autumn half term. This generally means that schools advertising posts right now (from beginning of June until end of the summer term) starting in September are only really offering these to NQTs or teachers currently not under contract.

To give you an idea our school has employed 4 new teachers in the last 3 years (small primary school). 3 of us were NQTs (me included), the other was experienced as they were going straight on to SLT.

mrwhyte – on your original question… I guess much depends on how much of a risk you are willing to take. I’m always of the opinion that if I get really fed up then I can leave to take some time out. I’d then look to pick up work on a fairly ad hoc basis – I could do supply, temp work (in any field), private tutoring, start up a small business (supplemented by any other work)… I know I make it sound easy and know it wouldn’t be but I know lots of people who no longer have a main job/profession, they do lots of different things to earn.

If I was getting out of teaching I’d be aiming to be able to do things to keep my life as flexible as possible. There is the caveat though that I’ve already taken the big pay cut to go in to teaching in the first place and I’ve not climbed a long way up the pay scale/no TLRs.

After 6 years of main stream primary teaching I quit in 2000. Before that a few years OEd instructing. Since y2k I have done supply work or maybe short term contracts plus a couple of years tutoring in a naughty boys home. That was fun as I managed, partly by refusing to be restraint trained, to avoid much of the abuse. In deed I often became a place of refuge when the kids had kicked off, realised that and had no way to back down. So they came to school.
I like supply. If I worked every day I would earn my mainstream salary. As it is I average about 4 days a week over the teaching year. Roll in about 8am, earlier than many supply, make a good job of marking, take no shit and do things properly and leave 30 minutes after the kids. No running away 10 seconds after the kids.
At 54 I’m stuck with it I think. Too old to go back to OEd, too achy to train to do anything physical outside and too lazy to work too hard.

Lots of helpful advice guys, thank you again. Great to hear many others have taken the plunge. The hardest bit I think is making those initial steps and to move out of your comfort zone.

I have been pro-active and found a charity starting in Devon working with pupils who have been kicked out of school or do not attend for several reasons. Pay is not great, but working one on one with kids that really need support. So going to have a go at that in September, mixed with supply. Possibly looking to do a SENCO qualification.

Thinking about what gets me motivated, it is helping and having an impact upon peoples lives, specifically kids.

stevextc – I’m a little confused with your OHs position. She has QTS, but has been working as a TA or has been volunteering. Is she wanting to apply to teaching jobs or TA jobs?

What she wants isn’t really relevant, more what she can realistically get…. (except in terms of she doesn’t want a job where she commutes “hours” each way).

If she’s wanting to apply for teaching job then now is the time. Teachers have to give a half terms notice. So any current teacher wanting to leave now will not be able to start a new job until after the Autumn half term. This generally means that schools advertising posts right now (from beginning of June until end of the summer term) starting in September are only really offering these to NQTs or teachers currently not under contract.

100% of local teaching jobs are being filled by people with current teaching.
I completely get what you are saying above … makes perfect sense but somehow they seem to manage to find teachers who are “presently employed as teachers” by the time they do start.

It’s really useful though… as i don’t think she has been taking this into account when applying. She’s also someone who takes rejection letters personally…. and doesn’t seem to have come to terms with the fact our education system is critically underfunded.

When she worked as a volunteer she had some misguided hope that if she worked for free the school would value what she did and then want to pay her for it when a job came up… the reality is the head is a very astute business woman… what additional funding the school do get is down to her business acumen.. the idea of giving someone working for free a paying job would be complete anathema to her. She’s losing a unpaid qualified volunteer on one hand and paying on the other.

The job she was just offered is SEN TA but I think the significant thing is it’s funded…

I’ve just marked 600+ exam papers.

It took 48 hrs and data input for each bloody question.
This is the only thing I hate and being observed.

Love working with the kids but have to be very tough with them as the school is inner city.

At home with bloody flu and doing cover work.