Mrs Pondo wife is a geography teacher who's desperate to get out of teaching in schools - she's been in the sector for 17 years, been a head of depertment, director of faculty, and her departmental results were the best in her last school for the 14 years she was there. She joined a new school this year as a pure teacher as she was fed up of the horrendous pressure and total lack of support as D of F, but the school wasn't the whole problem - the new one's ok, the kids are alright, the staff are friendly, she just no longer wants to be working 12-hour days plus weekends and through her holidays in a system that's increasingly restrictive in terms of what she has to teach when, left to her own devices, she could teach much better.
The rub is this - she's not that sure what she wants to do. I'm sure there'll be ex-teacher knowledge on here, what do teachers go on and do? Is there anything that's specific to ex-geography teachers? I'm an IT trainer, she wouldn't mind doing something like that, but I worry she'll be bored stupid in a month!
Exam board work. There are lots of roles and as an ex-teacher you get to stay on the teachers' pension scheme, pay can be just as good too.
Lecturer within education team at a university teaching teachers to teach.
Become a college lecturer.
Take a sideways step into Quality improvement officer type roles with local authority.
Colleges and Unis often struggle to recruit good learning technologists or academic developers and teacher skills would transfer to this well I'd imagine.
My sister quit teaching last Christmas. Same but different reasons. She was a modern foreign languages teacher in a school that no longer wanted to teach modern foreign languages. Managed out badly by the employer and in the end got what seems to be the typical 3 months severance pay. She needed to work less hours in order to look after our mum who has moved in with them after losing her sight. At the time said she’d have been happy stacking shelves at Aldi but has picked up enough online teaching work- tutoring Chinese kids for their entrance exams for prestigious schools etc… plenty of work out there it seems.
not an ex-teacher, but my wife is a current teacher and used to spend every evening/weekend doing work. Since having kids, she dropped right back, and probably only spends ~3 hours per week outside of her (2) working days doing "work" (so as an FTE that'd be ~5-6 hours). Its entirely possible, and she's still a decent teacher, obviously maybe not quite as impactful as she used to be.
So has your OH considered just cutting back? If she's unable to do that, will she really be able to do "just" 35 hours/week in a full time job or will she just be one of those people who works all waking hours whatever the task..
B.Ed.Hons Outdoor and Science education here. A few years in schools.
But I've spent more career working in adventurous outdoor centres. Pay and hours are atrocious, and serious competition for any good job. Like school, for every good job PGL recruit another 15 Groupies on £140 a week....
More seriously, we have a raft of ex teachers work for us. Both staff and freelance. The pay isn't as good. But we're lovely to work for, get to do amazing things, get to work with teachers on something that's really positive and true to itself (not just another trendy teaching fad).
https://www.ltl.org.uk/
I left teaching, moved to Thailand and became a diving instructor. That might not work for your partner.
I eventually had to come back to help look after parents. I now work for an organisation that helps adults with learning disabilities. The pay is dreadful - just above minimum wage - but the work is great. It’s the best job I’ve ever had, even more than taking girls in bikinis scuba diving in the tropics.
Is that sort of option open for mrs pondo? Doing something worthwhile and rewarding for little financial reward?
My mum left teaching to work as a teacher/ naturalist for the rspb. Perhaps other charities have similar roles?
So has your OH considered just cutting back? If she’s unable to do that, will she really be able to do “just” 35 hours/week in a full time job or will she just be one of those people who works all waking hours whatever the task..
She HAS thought about it, but she has colleagues who've gone to four days to literally give themselves a day to stay on top of everything, and she doesn't want to do 5 days' work for 4 days' pay.
Not a good day today - thank you all for the suggestions but she doesn't want anything more to do with education...
How about PGCE Lecturing - got to be better than School Kids. Part time Associate Lecturing ?
A biology teacher just left our place to rewrite research into plain English. There must be similar stuff in Geography
There must be loads of environmental impact type jobs where her skills wood be useful . Or monitoring type jobs
B.Ed.Hons Outdoor and Science education here. A few years in schools
Matt. Major shot in the dark, but you didn't ever bump 8bto Bobby Telfer did you?
He was my PE teacher at Balfron High and then disappeared off to buy an outdoor Ed centre up near Newtonmore.
But, stopping to think for a second, that was 30 years ago so maybe not.
God I'm old.
8 years until I step away. I would go tomorrow but pay and pension are factors. If mortgage was paid it'd be different but....
Teaching is still a great job and when I say that it's the kids. A lot of the rest ruins it. There are now about 6 things we must do in a lesson which were/are done in a normal lesson by an experienced/good teacher. But now they must be signposted so when learning walks take place management can make sure the box is ticked.
Looked at exam board but it's effectively a closed shop and is being changed soon.
Matt. Major shot in the dark, but you didn’t ever bump 8bto Bobby Telfer did you?
Bob Telfor become our AAALS/AALA inspector. He was also our technical advisor for mountain sports when I first started.
He had a small holding with rare breed sheep somewhere up that way, I thought on the Grantown-Tomintoul road.
He's a lovely chap, superb to work with and really inspired me in a few areas of work.
I believe now fully retired - he was lining it up when I left in 2013.
Small world.
For those suggesting lecturing about education, you’ll find it has very similar problems to those described above for teachers.
I left after 30 years, I also tried reducing stress by dropping from full time head of department to a part-time role. It didn’t work for the reasons Pondo outlined above.
I now have a part time admin job for a GP’s surgery. Pay isn’t great but I am fortunate enough not to need to bring in a full-time wage. The main advantage is that there is no stress, I leave it as I walk out of the door and I get paid for every hour I am contracted for.
Stepdaughter left the classroom a couple of years ago. She was trying to teach teenage Doncastrian kids English, few of whom wanted to learn.
She's now doing online teaching & doing pretty well. Her only worry is that parents cut down on lessons due to cost of living.
Teaching is still a great job and when I say that it’s the kids. A lot of the rest ruins it
Absolutely. When I taught everyone said “it must be a nightmare teaching kids these days”. Rubbish! The kids were what made the job worthwhile - as you say it’s all the other crap that makes it so depressing.
I’d go back tomorrow if they’d just leave me in the classroom to do the job, and not constantly harass me to ensure I’ve got a four part lesson plan for every class, that I’ve written five ‘essential’ things on the whiteboard for each lesson, and that I’m ‘teaching for different learning styles’.
There’s probably newer crap theses days that some ‘education’ consultant has been paid a fortune to invent. Mine are all from about 10 years ago. I still shudder when I think about them.
I’ll be showing this to mrs g secondary maths desperate to get out to some sort of life holidays are for prep and catching up on other crap they expect I got out in 2014 back into site engineering lots of driving being the downside it can be done good luck
New lunge left 4 years ago. She was earning a good amount as a head of year and head of subject.
This will not be what you want to hear but…
She looked at lots of avenues from admin jobs to the care sector and got rejected from them all due to lack of experience.
She’s now retrained as a pharmacy technician in the NHS, she had to start right from the bottom (and the associated pay) but is much, much happier.
She also did supply for a while which was fine, but not ideal.
I'd had enough a few years ago, left as Deputy Head in secondary school. I had a lot of safeguarding experience and managed to get a job working in safeguarding with local NHS (first non-medical person to do so). Steep learning curve, better working conditions, amazing team and ethos, but missed the kids.Now back in education, working in a PRU. I love it, but lack of support for families in crisis is depressing.
Plus 10 minute cycle to work 🙂
I went from teaching in deprived state schools to an independent school and have fallen back in love with teaching all over again. Not terribly in vogue, but has she considered moving to private education?
@ thegeneralist
you didn’t ever bump into Bobby Telfer did you?
He was my PE teacher at Balfron High… but that was 30 years ago … God I’m old.
Err .. he was my PE teacher at Balfron High too - and that was 50 years ago - and you think you're old!
No one should apologise for teaching in the private sector. Particularly if you feel forced out of the state sector
PS happy in a sixth form college here
I left teaching due to health reasons and am currently re-training in Data Science. Partly because as a teacher I was very frustrated by the mis-use of data by our school management. When I qualify I hope to do something education-related but that's a wee while away.
It actually took a bit of time away from the classroom to get some perspective and realise I have other skills to use. If you're luckky enough to be able to afford a drop in income, taking a part time job and doing some OU modules in whatever takes her fancy might help spark some ideas. Exam tutoring can be good for this.
Again probably not what you want to here but if you get a similar role (many of you mention being HOD level or above) it's still stressful, with long hours, fewer holidays and loads of crap and politics to deal with. There's usually some new initiative, project, rebranding, corporate values being introduced which gets in the way of doing your day job.
If you get out and take on a lower paid job you will probably reduce the stress otherwise it'll be be the same. My dad was a great example 30 years ago, almost identical to whats beimg described above, Head of Physics, couldn't cope with all the changes so ended up being pensioned off in his late 40s after a bit of a breakdown, went on to be a postman. Stress dropped but so did his income. This is not a new problem.
Changing roles might be a partial answer, and from many examples above it seems have been, although its the reduction in seniority as much as the role change. Many good teachers get promoted into management positions for which they have no training and little aptitude. I see it in manufacturing, very good engineers get promoted to engineering manager, what made them very good design engineers is almost the opposite of what is needed to be a good manager.
SiL runs school visits to a local NT (I think) stately home/farm. Not many hours but her classroom is hundreds of acres and the school teachers enjoy the break
IDK if inspection work is more or less onerous. Local academy trust runs pre-OFSTEDs for schools likely to get a surprise visit
Thanks for all the replies, much food for thought and much appreciated - today's the first day in 17 years that she hasn't gone to work simply because she couldn't face it. 🙁
Sorry to hear she wants to leave. I was in the same position 5 years ago, HoD etc. Was a tough one leaving but luckily the right job came up at the right time, it was a huge reduction in pay, but zero stress and left me time to do some retraining etc. A couple of jobs later and I am moving on to a great education charity with pay similar to where I was when I left teaching. Teachers, despite what is said, are actually paid pretty well compared to other occupations, so don't expect to jump in to a role with similar pay.
Plenty of teachers leaving the profession unfortunately so making the CV standout from the others is a good idea. I decided to do my project management qual as I'd worked on lottery and arts council projects and enjoyed it, this led me to the role I am about to start.
I think the key is finding a job that isn't perfect but gives your wife that time to explore the market, training and gives other experience. My first job out of teaching, was teaching in a museum. Was great fun, but I knew it wasn't forever and was a stepping stone role. Start looking at things like charityjob etc. Linked in is also good for jobs, if not just to see what is out there and where her skills and interests fit.
I did think I'd miss the holidays, but turns out, I don't need them! Workload is manageable with peaks and troughs, but nothing like the intensity of teaching.
Civil service? I can't in good nature recommend it for all sorts of reasons, but there are plenty of ex-teachers working in the Department for Education and it might suit.
Perhaps naively I see Geography teachers / graduates as highly clued up on environmental issues. As such perhaps a career change to something like this?
My sister did something similar and gets a lot from it. Admittedly not from a teaching background but based on her post-geography degree & other environmentally related jobs. Your partner's head of department organisation type skills would come in very useful I expect.
I left teaching for 3 years and did training in car dealerships. I loved the job, my company lost the contract (slowly) and I spent 6 months looking for something else.
I ended up back teaching a different school. 5 years in and I still love this school.
I found the training job searching about on the guardian jobs. 3 out of 6 trainers were ex teachers.
We have an ex Geography teacher at work (environmental charity) who does our stakeholder and public stuff to explain what we do as we are mostly introverts that go into far too much technical detail when pressed for an answer.
I left teaching at Christmas to move to Canada. They don't recognise my PGCE here so forced my hand a bit, either 3 years of uni to do the job I was already doing (secondary electronics and product design) or something else. I'm now studying a masters in Building Science, hopefully to shuffle into sustainable building technology.
I don't know many teachers who escaped tbh, our school was the sort of place you stay at for 20+ years. It's never too late to retrain or expand her knowledge though, it's just picking something that sparks interest. If her background is geography then maybe something in sustainability or environment? Likewise, if she has been head of dept. then that's excellent management experience, so should, theoretically, be able to transfer to other management roles?
The quality of lectures at my uni is God awful, which is something I feel may be pretty endemic, so I suspect there would be a gap in the market for passing on a bit of pedagogical knowhow onto HE academics.
EX here. Started with a OE degree in 86 but wasn't good enough for the "good" centres so drifted into primary teaching. Too repetitive for me so then supply with mostly maternity type work. Got bored 4 years ago with the commute to the big city from the FoD so back to primary schools as a TA. Great fun in a school of 43. Relatively little responsibility unless I want it and a short day. Poor pay but 13 weeks off a year. Sadly all in the school holidays!
She is obviously good at skills transference - how about becoming a driving instructor - choose your own hours and get to deal with young adults?
In the short term she should talk to her Gp. She probably needs a few eye weeks off and a phased return to work. I realise that’s first aid, but first aid is important.
Any organisation that offers training or education eg: museums, national parks, NGOs
Staying in education training new teachers:
Teach 1st
SCITT
PGCSE
Civil service recruits ex teachers in sig numbers.
Thanks all - this...
In the short term she should talk to her Gp. She probably needs a few eye weeks off and a phased return to work. I realise that’s first aid, but first aid is important.
... has become the key issue - she's made the right decision and been signed off for a couple of weeks, instant drop in stress but now she's worried about being a wimp/letting everyone down/should be able to do it, etc etc etc. She has my uneconditional support whatever she decides to do, but it's odd for me to contemplate that her career as a teacher is probably over - must be crazy for her! Not sure what comes next, and that's ok for now - she spoke to a couple of agencies at the weekend about trainer jobs and they fobbed her right off, which hasn't helped - she can totally do what I do.
Will see how it goes - thanks all, much to mull over the next few days.
Firstly, I second the comment about seeing a GP. It sounds like she needs time off to prevent a burn-out. She has spent 17 years damaging herself for the sake of the school, she should take that time off on the school's dime, not her own.
Jobs wise, I think that teachers need great negotiating and active listening skills, plus handle masses and masses of data. This could transfer pretty well into a sales/customer relations environment I guess? I would trust an ex geography teacher to sell me a house or be my financial advisor, for example.
I'm in the same situation, OP.
Currently teaching full time and fed up of being tired and stressed all the time. I've been looking at non teaching jobs within education. Recruitment, support, technician, invigilation, moderation, etc. No luck yet though.
Also looked at jobs with police. There's quite a lot that could be matched to teaching skills.
