I teach in a further education college (business, IT, employability and communication skills) for three days a week. This is the difficult bit (much of my work at present is with students undertaking foundation learning or on alternative curricula from schools, some attending pupil referral units part-time) but helping youngsters achieve is a great feeling. The pay and conditions are OK but not getting better.
Two days a week, and during some holidays from the FE teaching, I teach environmental education and outdoor activities (D of E award, climbing, cycling, hillwalking and navigation) for a number of private and third sector organisations and sometimes freelance. This is less onerous but also, usually, very rewarding. I get to work with different types of kids – primary school, brighter, less “challenging” – which gives good variety to my work. The pay varies from OK to rubbish.
Sometimes, especially in winter, I don’t work outdoors so much but with 2 kids under 3 this suits me as I get to spend time with them.
Generally this balance works out OK but the FE teaching workload and politics can get silly. There’s always something you could be doing “out of school” to do a better job and usually something you have to do to avoid doing a bad job.
