Any newly qualified teachers out there??

[celyn]

I'm thinking of applying for teacher training to start next Sept. I was going to go for the 1 year in school training plus NQT. By then my DS's will be 7, 4 and 18 months. I took redundancy (must be mad) from my last job when I was 8 months pregnant as my commute was very long, and my job was going to be made full time. I'd never have seen my kids so couldn't face going back.

I figured once qualified, teaching would be a family-friendly and flexible career (I would also love to teach). My worry now is that the training is intense ~ 60 hours a week all in) and I'm not sure that it would be fair to do it with 3 small kids - am I just going to be in the same situation I was in my old job?

Are there any new teachers out there who can give me an honest opinion of the work involved in training and how they have coped doing it with small kids? Would it just be better to wait a few more years until they're all at school? Is teaching a flexible career or am I just deluding myself?
Thanks, your opinions are much appreciated.

[iwb100]

What do you mean by flexible? I'm not a teacher, my wife is, but by its very nature teaching is fixed hours. You turn up before school and leave after it finishes. My wife is always in by 8 at the latest and rarely leaves before 5pm.

I'm assuming you want to teach part time? Id research whether there would be enough demand for a part time teacher in your area. Just a thought

[Who? me?]

Honnestly? don't do it. I am an NQT who did her training with a 18 month and 3 yr old. I haven't been able to complete my NQT year because I never found a job. Despite all you hear, the only shortages in teaching are the jobs, and Gove makes it worse and worse allowing people with no teaching qualifications to work in schools. May be not bother with training? you could go in as a cover supervisor looking after whole classes with no training / teaching qualification. You don't even need a degree, which you have to have to train.
The hours are excessive - being in work before 8 or even 7.30, you may leave between 4 and 5, depending, but still have planning and prep and marking to do at nights and at weekends.The advantage of young children here is that you can pack them off to bed at 7 and then have the evening to work.
The only child friendly thing about teaching is the holidays. You will struggle to get time for thier parents evenings and school plays. Then again, the chances of you getting a job when you have qualified are so small, this would not be a problem. I suggest you head over to www.tes.co.uk and look on the unemployed teacheres and job seekers forum. They will back up what I am saying, Life experiance and age count for nothing, You will be OK if you are 22 with no other commitments, but with a family, they won't touch you with a barge pole. THey want someone cheap who will give every moment of their life to the job. Sorry, not positive, but you need honesty. Teaching is a fabulous, rewarding post when the light bulb goes on, but its hard work and the proffession currently has no respect. Supply teaching doesn't exist either, if you were thinking that! All done by unqualified cover supervisors!

[ILW]

Originally Posted by Who? me?

Honnestly? don't do it. I am an NQT who did her training with a 18 month and 3 yr old. I haven't been able to complete my NQT year because I never found a job. Despite all you hear, the only shortages in teaching are the jobs, and Gove makes it worse and worse allowing people with no teaching qualifications to work in schools. May be not bother with training? you could go in as a cover supervisor looking after whole classes with no training / teaching qualification. You don't even need a degree, which you have to have to train.
The hours are excessive - being in work before 8 or even 7.30, you may leave between 4 and 5, depending, but still have planning and prep and marking to do at nights and at weekends.The advantage of young children here is that you can pack them off to bed at 7 and then have the evening to work.
The only child friendly thing about teaching is the holidays. You will struggle to get time for thier parents evenings and school plays. Then again, the chances of you getting a job when you have qualified are so small, this would not be a problem. I suggest you head over to www.tes.co.uk and look on the unemployed teacheres and job seekers forum. They will back up what I am saying, Life experiance and age count for nothing, You will be OK if you are 22 with no other commitments, but with a family, they won't touch you with a barge pole. THey want someone cheap who will give every moment of their life to the job. Sorry, not positive, but you need honesty. Teaching is a fabulous, rewarding post when the light bulb goes on, but its hard work and the proffession currently has no respect. Supply teaching doesn't exist either, if you were thinking that! All done by unqualified cover supervisors!

With the amount of spelling mistakes in the above, probably just as well you are not teaching.

[snozberry]

Originally Posted by celyn

I figured once qualified, teaching would be a family-friendly and flexible career (I would also love to teach). My worry now is that the training is intense ~ 60 hours a week all in) and I'm not sure that it would be fair to do it with 3 small kids - am I just going to be in the same situation I was in my old job?

Why do you want to be a teacher? If you think that it is an easy profession to be in then you are sadly mistaken.

I did my PGCE 13 years ago and, yes, it was an intense course to do. Long days and non-existent weekends were the norm. The workload, following qualification, doesn't get any easier - you just learn to get on with it. Despite working PT I'm in early, leave late and work most evenings/weekends. However, I manage my time well and, finally, FINALLY, no longer feel guilty about, for example, going out for tea during the week.

Thinking that schools are family friendly environments is an incredibly naive thing to assume. I have worked for some heads who are supportive of home/work balance and others who aren't but it is like that in any line of work. Just because we teach children doesn't mean that we put our personal families/circumstance first. It is unlikely that you will be able to take them to school on their first day and you will struggle to watch their school plays, sports' day, celebration assemblies, class assemblies...

Now, a lot of teachers have young families but they sacrifice a lot because you can't book an hour or an afternoon off at a whim. At my place, we don't book time off for doctors/dentist appointments because it is such a pain to arrange cover. In fact, my old head was keen to point out that such appointments should be made in the holidays. Oh, and holidays are set in stone. Not all LEAs have holidays at the same time. You are stuck should your children go to school in a different authority and your holidays clash.

Think long and hard about applying. Teaching is a great job. I love it - I really do but it is not a doss about profession.

[terryw]

Originally Posted by ILW

With the amount of spelling mistakes in the above, probably just as well you are not teaching.

Do you not mean the number of spelling mistakes?

[SailorSam]

Talking about finding jobs after you finished training, did anyone see that programme on Tv last night or the night before. Parents worried about the standard of teaching were paying for extra lessons for their kids. One teacher who gave lessons from her home at £50 per hour couldn't keep up with the demand and had a waiting list. One woman came to see her to say she thought she was pregnant so could book lessons starting in 2017.

[ILW]

Originally Posted by terryw

Do you not mean the number of spelling mistakes?

No idea, I had poor teaching.

[Toothsmith]

Originally Posted by celyn

I figured once qualified, teaching would be a family-friendly and flexible career

I'm married to a teacher!

[Dunroamin]

If you're worried about doing 60 hours per week when training, then teaching is not the job for you!

[celyn]

Thanks for all your interesting comments. It has helped me with my decision.

snozberry, I did not ever say that i thought teaching was easy! I was asking if it was flexible and/or family-friendly, which is a different thing.

Maybe I should look at private tutoring instead!

[Valli]

Why not volunteer as a parent helper in your local primary school? If you were to apply to take a teaching degree chances are the course provider would be expecting you to have had some voluntary experience in a school anyway - but you will get a feel for the job, and some of what it entails, directly.

[Dunroamin]

Originally Posted by Valli

Why not volunteer as a parent helper in your local primary school? If you were to apply to take a teaching degree chances are the course provider would be expecting you to have had some voluntary experience in a school anyway - but you will get a feel for the job, and some of what it entails, directly.

THERE'S NO POINT VOLUNTEERING IN A PRIMARY SCHOOL IF THE op WANTS TO TEACH SECONDARY. (Sorry!)

From the fact that she wants to do a one year course, I assume that she's already a graduate.

[celyn]

I am a graduate and also have a PhD. I have tried to get work experience and voluntary work in many schools (primary and secondary) and the answer is always the same - "we are completely full for the next year and have been inundated with requests"

Seems everyone is trying to do teacher training these days!

[Valli]

Originally Posted by Dunroamin

THERE'S NO POINT VOLUNTEERING IN A PRIMARY SCHOOL IF THE op WANTS TO TEACH SECONDARY. (Sorry!)

From the fact that she wants to do a one year course, I assume that she's already a graduate.

Don't shout!

It does not say, anywhere in her post that she wants to teach in secondary; moreover it's possible to do a 1 year PGCE and train to teach in Primary schools.

[mrcow]

I did my PGCE with 3 small children in tow and found it just fine.

Some people cope better with these things than others. Some people find the PGCE hard. I just didn't. With 3 kids, I'm an old pro at juggling and was more organised and experienced than most others on the course.

Don't believe everything you read. Everyone is different.
What subject do you want to teach? That will make a difference to your job prospects.

ETA: And yes, you can fit it round your children if you work hard at it.

[celyn]

Thanks mrcow. I would teach science if I went down the secondary route, but am thinking primary at the moment.

[Who? me?]

If you can teach physics to A level, you should have fewer problems getting a job than if you want to teach primary. I believe primary is even worse than secondary. You could always find some part time adult education work in an FE college, which would get you onto a part time Adult Education qualification, leading to QTLS. Once you have QTLS, you are now able to work in secondary and FE / 6th Form. I qualified in both, as you couldn't transfer at the time with the FE Qualification. I now teach in FE, which is a different set of skills to teaching in Secondary. You may find this more family friendly, but the work is still very hard to come by and is generally hourly paid. The funding in FE at the moment is in Functional Skills, which is like teaching secondary in an FE environment.
Good luck with what ever you choose, sorry, my initial response had been rather rushed as I was trying to do too many things at once. Family friendly means you have school holidays, a big advantage, but you will spend a lot of time at home planning etc. which ever route you choose. I wish you good luck in what ever you do, and don’t rule out teaching support either as a starting point.

[tyllwyd]

Originally Posted by Dunroamin

THERE'S NO POINT VOLUNTEERING IN A PRIMARY SCHOOL IF THE op WANTS TO TEACH SECONDARY. (Sorry!)

That's not always the case - my friend was made redundant about five years ago, and she volunteered in a primary school one day a week for a year before going on to do a one year teacher training course based in a secondary school, and now works as an English teacher in a secondary school. It was competitive to get onto the in-school training, and the last I heard another friend had tried to do a similar thing a couple of years later to be told that the course wasn't running any more.

I wouldn't say it was an easy career though - she is a single mum, and apart from the school holidays she works long hours and needs childcare before and after school and to cover TD days, parents evenings etc, and really struggles when her child is ill. (I think she is allowed a certain number of 'family' days off in a year, but it's not that many.) And she often asks my DD to go over and play with her DD so that she can get a bit of peace at weekends to do marking. She's was lucky to find a job easily, but the school has had all sorts of trouble with redundancies and other politics.

[snozberry]

Originally Posted by celyn

snozberry, I did not ever say that i thought teaching was easy! I was asking if it was flexible and/or family-friendly, which is a different thing.

Actually, you will find that I answered your question.