Any teachers about....sensible advice needed (maybe I have come to the wrong place?!)

I am considering Business as a topic as I feel that I have a lot experience to impart, 

Before we go any further......what's your degree in? Would it be considered relevant to get qualified teacher status for business as a subject?

Business would give you less scope for job/geographical mobility than a mainstream subject. Since Gove there is much micro management in education and that can cause stress, strife and is completely unproductive. Apparently behaviour has been adversely affected by Covid, I think there are a range of issues here. The hours are long and Sunday afternoon onwards you're working. I did 35 yrs in a range of roles and really enjoyed it but was glad to get out of it at 58. Fortunately I'd fixed my finances so that rapid escape was always an option and that gave a certain degree of independence. There is a teacher shortage, if you're keen the world is your lobster.

Obviously you'll need to do a PGCE (or equivalent) to teach in secondary - FE I'm not sure you need qualified teacher status?

I did 15 years as a secondary teacher, and made the move into primary a couple of years ago.

Positives of teaching are:

It's great to impart knowledge to (sometimes) eager learners.

The kids are generally great, but you do have to deal with the results of piss poor parenting a lot.

Holidays - yay - I'm now on half-term 😁

Pay is ok as you move up the scale, but it takes a few years to get past M6 and onto the UPS.

Negatives:

Stupid management. In my experience a lot of school managers/SLT couldn't manage to open a box let alone run a school properly.

The academy system is creating an 'upper class' of highly paid management level people who don't actually contribute anything to education.

Internal politics. It can be a bit of a back stabby environment.

Those few kids who are not nice. Unfortunately they tend to be REALLY not nice.

Marking is a ballache - there's never enough time to do it properly.

TLDR - I love teaching, but it's not for everyone, and don't expect it to all be roses.

Also the first few years are really hard while you get to grips with it, it does get easier. High drop out rates in the first 3 years.

There used to be some 1 or 2 day, see-what-teaching-is-all-about courses where you spend some time in a school, if you can get on one, I'd definitely recomend it.  My wife's a teacher and often has student teachers, the middle aged ones rarely last.  The first 5 years or so are really hard, long long hours and a lot to learn. A quater of new teacher leave within the first 3 years.........

I left teaching in 2018 to "do my subject" rather than teach it and to be honest I could have taken the OP's post and flipped it about why I left teaching for the outside world.

Agree with what was posted above about Gove reforms and Academy management making things worse.

I don't miss the holidays because now my work doesn't extend beyond Mon-Fri office hours and I can take time off when I want and work flexibly and from home if necessary.

I miss the lessons where the kids really wanted to learn but I don't miss enforcing tedious uniform rules and all the other pointless crap that came with the job.

I happily took redundancy from teaching in FE ten years ago. Looking back, I think it saved my sanity!

Unfortunately, FE is about making money and not so much about learning. Each student has a bounty and it’s your job to make sure they all achieve. This results in not being able to invest time into those learners whom it would have the most value while your time is spent dragging those students who don’t care through their assessments.

The last straw for me was being asked by my line manager why I was using resources with students who had already achieved but still had to attend! A soul destroying job!

I like it, it's not for everyone though and crucially I just teach, it got too stressful and time consuming when I had promotions and extra responsibilities. So I don't earn much...

I left the profession for health reasons in 2020 but I genuinely loved my time in teaching. There is (as with many jobs) and enormous mountain of bullshit to deal with but much of it is really manageable.

I'd say that the things to be most aware of are that it does take a few years to find your groove and it will always be a 'hungry' job - you're never 'done' with anyting in teaching so it has the potential to eat up all of your time of you let it.

Rather than secondary or FE, have you considered HE? For the last 3.5 years I have worked at a slightly more specialist HE university centre (mostly animal and wildlife specialties) and many of the teaching staff come in with their degrees and work experience and take a teaching qualification whilst teaching.

Compared with the business world I came from the environment is so relaxed (TBH a lot of the staff here don't realise how good they've got it) and seeing the students develop into proper capable adults over a few years is quite satisfying.

I specifically work in the student support area, with students needing help with learning specific skills or with disabilities and medical conditions and seeing them progress is brilliant. OK, I'm only on 2/3rds of my previous wage but work-life balance and my general mental health have improved significantly since taking this job. 

I can highly recommend it.

Mrs Pondo says have a word with a college, they might let you go and have a look. She would not want to teach business, but horses for courses and all that. 🙂 

Two friends left senior positions in industry and trained to be secondary teachers. One went back to their original job and the second left for retirement. Both in STEM subjects and both had had previous experience of teaching science and maths to children informally. 

Me? I’d personally go into primary teaching. 

I’m happy teacher in a sixth form college. Been there 20 years.  

I don’t think your idea is crazy. I’ll add a few thoughts

 A college might let you start without a pgce and let you train on the job

 Do get in a college and do some shadowing 

Could you teach any other subject? Business studies can end up as an option for the slightly less able and motivated. The vocational courses can be heavy on marking.

 Teaching jobs really vary. Find one where the managers and students are what you want

OP still to come back a tell us where they in terms of existing qualifications....

Its worth noting school teachers gets paid a significant amount more than equivalent lecturers in FE colleges. Not sure why - pastoral work, increased number of contact hours....more stress...not sure. 

I've been a teacher in state and private schools since 1998 so I don't think I'd trust my ability to answer the question simply because my ability to give you a reasoned judgement about the comparative difference between teaching and business/industry is woefully out of date. You need people who have switched later in life and in the last 5/10 years. I could tell you how teaching feels now in my 50s in 2025 in comparison to in my 20s in the late 90s but that's not going to help you hugely. 

What I will say is I don't know a single career teacher in their early 50s now that thinks they've got it in them to keep doing it full time to 67. They plan to go part time and have a phased retirement or stack shelves or basically anything ahead of that age. If getting into teaching now at 52 required a significant amount of training I'd be thinking long and hard how long you thought you might be able to keep going to make it worthwhile. 

Theres a big DFE drive to get people from industry into FE. Same points as above but make sure you find the right school / college as they are not all the same. Decent department and early career support would be a priority. Would be worth checking to see if you can get a bursary for Business for the PGCE. You will still need to complete 2 years of ECT training before being fully qualified after your PGCE. There are other routes QTLS but I am not sure on the how that stacks up with QTS and getting onto main payscale.

Good luck with whatever your decision.

Thanks all.

My degree is in Geography, but my subject knowledge is 30 years old having never used it vocationally.

I have done an AET Level 3 and spent time shadowing in both schools and colleges so I am not entirely green and idealogical, and have a fairly good warts and all view of both. School is a good option because I should have a PGCE within a year which is like passing your driving test in a manual (ie you can then teach anywhere). In FE I would have a Level 5 Diploma which is like paying in an automatic as it wouldn't qualify me to teach in state schools. Having experienced both however, I preferred the informality and students in FE. As somebody mentioned however, schools pay better. 

I interviewed and was offered a role in a school last week, but they are only prepared to start me on the NQTS scale, whereas colleges are prepared to credit me with my time in industry. As much as I want to make the change, I couldn't support the family on the NQTS salary - it is barely better than delivering for Amazon. There's a whole different thread about how undervalued teachers are in terms of salary......

Some really useful insight thank you, but on balance there seem to be more ex teachers who left for really good reasons than evangelists, which is a concern. I want to make sure that if I can find a school prepared to sponsor me, and pay me an acceptable starting salary that I won't hate it and get overworked and spend less time teaching and more time administrating.

Having taught a lesson as part of the interview process, I can see what you mean about the calibre of students taking Business as a subject at GCSE. It was very mixed, and that can lead to its fair share of disruptive behaviour. Given my subject knowledge vs my degree subject however, I think that Geography is probably a step too far in terms of convincing a school to take me on to qualify on the job.

Coming to it late myself, I think it will have sufficient novelty value to last me until retirement, but I get your point about teachers starting to think of other things by my age if they have been in the profession for years already. I felt much the same myself in industry. I think the element of rejuvenation that comes from the career change element (whether into or out of teaching) is a 'thing' here. I am just as jaded about working in the private sector as a teacher of 30 years is of working in education. Maybe that's ultimately the point of a career change.

Sounds like you are being very measured and thinking it through. To be clear though, most teachers in their 50s that don't think they'll keep it going to retirement isn't because of being jaded I don't think - it's the stress levels and workload. Obviously if you are new to it you'll no doubt have a bit more enthusiasm for spending your Sunday marking exam papers or getting up at 4am so you can write reports before going in, or any of the other 'off the books' tasks that aren't allocated into your day.

On the pay thing....I'd do a bit more digging there if I was you. From memory (and a tiny bit of google just now) FE pays roughly £7k pa less than schools. I've got a feeling that NQTS in school might not be that far from full fat in an FE. Sucking up NQTS pay scales for a shortish time for a longer term pay benefit might be worth it. And a NTQS and then a NQT has a limited value to an employer as you'll be on a limited timetable and supernumerary in many respects. We all need money, but at this stage what you need more is an employer that'll properly support you whilst making this jump, not someone wanting their pound of  flesh when you are not ready to give yet.

Finally - get at least some post 16 teaching in if you can - GCSE's hoop jumping mediocrity gets tedious fast. A level is not perfect but you at least get some mildy complex thinking and conversation back in your life. 

My thoughts are that year ten and eleven are the students that have chosen a subject, so that's generally the more focused ones. 

Year 9 students in a subject that they will drop are the more unfocused.

Then, possibly the college students that don't know what else to do, but that's a guess.

The flip side of that is that FE tends to be more likely to take on an outsider straight to teachers pay rates, and pay for the training at the same time. Also business could appeal to them more.

But if you want to go school age,   you might want to do a SKE course to boost your geography confidence. I think you'll surprise yourself and find that teaching it is well within your skillset. 

Teacher of geography and business could be a lot more employable, and give you more future options.

If you are not working at the moment, I'd suggest getting some experience in a secondary school.

We have someone coming into our science department and helping out as part of their pgce next term.

Get a job as a teaching assistant/ coach/ something else.

On the other hand ages 22 I did a TEFL course and then applied to the pgce. 

Quite a lot of my mates say they couldn't do it as they would punch the cheeky/ defiant kids.

If you need some help my mate works in a government funded company helping people get into teaching. They can help with organising all sorts of stuff and advice.

http://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/

On our pgce course there was a guy who had come from industry. He quit the course pretty quickly as it's nothing like working with adults. You could just jump straight in and give it try.

All the best

Martin 17 years at the whiteboard 

And this type of generous insiderly knowledgeable advice ^^^^^ up there, is why this forum mustn't be allowed to fizzle out! 

Nothing useful to add though!

Indeed. I have a call with mentor from Teach First on Tuesday which should hopefully prove invaluable too.

An FE or Sixth Form job with secondary school salary and support through PGCE would be perfect. Just like a cutting edge full suspension bike dripping with shiny parts for £500! Compromise at every turn but I think that if I can survive the first year, the advice to go with a school that is prepared to give me reduced hours and help me out is probably sound.

Thanks once again for the helpful advice. Keep it coming!

Don't worry too much about bringing your practical and employment experience into the classroom. Success relies on how well you can deliver what's on the syllabus to the full ability range. Examples and anecdotes from your past are good pegs on which to hang ideas however.

It's useful if you can get some experience in a challenging environment as you can 'appreciate' the stress, see some skilled teaching,  test out all sorts of strategies but then walk away from any mistakes or misjudgements and not repeat them in your place of permanent employment. You also need to learn how to fill a room with your voice without shouting. In your first term you pick up all sorts of viruses but you become immune pretty quickly. It's not an easy job but at least you have the satisfaction of having contributed something socially useful.

You also need to learn how to fill a room with your voice without shouting

Very valid point. Voice control and use of tone, volume and pitch to control a room is a very underrated skill.

I came into teaching with a good understanding of the use of voice as a trained singer (chorister as a child) and vocalist in a band. But a lot of people struggle. I always find the first week back after the summer holidays is very hard on my vocal chords.

A good chunk of teaching is basically being an actor, delivering content to an audience (but as they're not paying they may not be listening!)

but then walk away from any mistakes or misjudgements and not repeat them in your place of permanent employment.

This is definitely a thing, and one of my concerns about the on-the-job qualification model that a lot go through now.

I sometimes feel guilty knowing how I can command the room without ever raising my voice and putting in a fraction of the prep whilst a newbie with the same group having broken themselves prepping the night before get eaten alive! There's probably a million little things I do now so instinctively I don't know I'm doing that help with this, but your playground reputation before kids walk in the door makes a huge difference. They respect teachers who are fair and consistent as well kind and knowledgeable. Getting a bulk of the class on your side makes a huge difference when dealing with the more challenging of the flock.

Posted by: natrix

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There used to be some 1 or 2 day, see-what-teaching-is-all-about courses where you spend some time in a school, if you can get on one, I'd definitely recomend it.  My wife's a teacher and often has student teachers, the middle aged ones rarely last.  The first 5 years or so are really hard, long long hours and a lot to learn. A quater of new teacher leave within the first 3 years.........

100% this. When I was having a rough patch at work, about five or six years ago, I organised a three-day shadowing visit to a local secondary school (Tapton in Sheffield, quite good by most accounts), teaching geography.

I was so glad I did it, it completely put me off teaching. I'd previously taught English abroad at seven different schools in Japan (primary and secondary), and lectured in HE, so I thought I had a fair idea. God was I wrong. The relentless focus on textbook content and exams, with no room for creativity or discourse, was crushingly boring. Maybe I visited at the wrong time of year, close to exams, but still. Anyway I went back to my existing job with a new-found enthusiasm.

None of that is intended to put you off, I'm just really glad I did the immersion visit.

Make a habit of positive interventions when confronting inappropriate behaviour, 'Are you making good progress?' and 'I'd be most grateful if...' and complimenting the adjacent student for good work etc. Kids coming from difficult background will always win in a head-to-head, work out strategies for sidestepping, diffusing and getting them reintegrated. Playgrounds (as above), corridors and tutorial sessions can play an important part.

non

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My thoughts are that year ten and eleven are the students that have chosen a subject, so that's generally the more focused ones. 

 Chosen sometimes means that point in the timetable has subjects of even less interest to the pupils. 🤣

Business Studies is on the list of subjects chosen by students simply because they have already collected evidence from all the subjects they did at KS3 that they are rubbish at them, so they might as well go for something new they've not already failed in!

You sure you don't want to go back to Geography - if you've done any colouring in in the last 30 years you'll be golden! It's the only subject the PE teachers get to mock which could get tiresome, but on the upside.....leather elbow patches, so it's not all bad.