[Closed] Teachers - Transferable Skills

Watching very keenly on behalf of Mrs Pondo, a secondary teacher desperate to escape.

Hi, I started teaching in 2004, left for three years and have been back for 4.

I got a job training people in soft skills. It was basically teaching but someone else planned my lessons and wanted them delivered more or less word perfect as a script

When we lost our only client and my boss started a new company that did the same stuff the company I worked for did I spent a lot of time applying for training jobs.

Teaching pays really well compared to training jobs. I was in the round for one that paid better than teaching. That was out of 200 odd applications over 6 months. Teaching pensions aren't what I was promised when I started, but they are a lot better than most places.

So I came back to teaching, but at a less stressful school. And now I'm down to 4 days. I really like it, most of the time.

I would be unsurprised to find all the skills she has with kids with those needs will land her a job at a nicer school.

I found my job idliy browsing the guardian. I spent a lot of time looking at trainer coach roles.

Good luck! The feeling when I gave my notice and ran round the school I had grown to dispise high giving my mates was incredible!

I was a deputy head in a secondary school and successfully got a safeguarding role in local NHS trust (I had lots of education safeguarding experience). Did it for 9 months, learnt loads but ironically now working back in education!

So to answer your question safeguarding elements of role may be transferable. I had to convince NHS manager to accept application outside of health but they were really open to people with different experience.

I hope your wife is ok.

Have you though about local authority and children's service. Not necessarily a better environment, have friend who did rehousing of kids and how they didn't kick the crap out of some parents I don't know.

FE here and escaping after 15yrs, can't do it any more.
How anyone copes in compulsory education I don't know, they don't make medals big enough.

Come and be in my gang, most are EY educators and teachers on our team.

https://www.ltl.org.uk/work-for-us/

Herding cats?  Wrangling aliens?

In all seriousness if she has 30 year in then how about simply retire.  No job is worth that level of stress that it makes you ill.  go to GP - get signed off. .  She will have good sick pay - use it to recover.  If she gets better great if not retire on health grounds

public services rely too much on loyalty and people working themselves till they break.  I have seen it too many times

Also a teacher and looking for a way out. If she wants to do similar things, maybe recruitment or some kind of coaching?

Lots of options.

I'm >30years in secondary and handed in my letter to ask for flexible working (reduced hours, 60%) last Wednesday. It's a weight off my shoulders tbh. I have worked hard and can get a final salary pension. Is this a scenario that suits your wife's situation?

30 years of experience is huge, if her current employer is unaware of what she has to offer perhaps another employer would be more sympathetic. A friend of mine recently pitched a scheme to nurture pupils whose progress has been damaged by the shitstorm of the last two years and she now runs a series of groups enhancing their literacy skills. I'm considering joining her as a numeracy/ science specialist.

Or just eject. Mrs A had this forced upon her and is SO much happier.

I taught at primary level, started in 93, realised that I didn't like the paper work or approve of the way things were going so ended up supply teaching. Not as lucrative as the real thing but many times less hassle. Did a couple of years "teaching" in a naughty boys home as well. Now just done 3 years as a TA in a 3 class primary school. Great fun. I plead ignorant/dinosaur/ jobs worth if need be or play the super helpful"I'll teach while you have covid" colleague as needed.

My best mate from school went through this. He left primary school teaching utterly despondent, had a lot of time off due to depression. It wasn't nice.

He retrained in horticulture aiming to provide horticultural therapy to kids with learning difficulties. I don't think he managed to get funding to make that work and spent a while as a gardener. Now he's training to be a social worker, which he loves. I guess because he'll still be helping those in need.

There are a lot of very transferrable skills in teaching but they're not the sort of things that will secure you a job in another field.

The options then are to retrain, do unskilled work or stay in teaching but change something like school or working pattern.

Ditto here so watching with interest...

I left just over four years ago. Felt a little lost after leaving as it is a profession that just consumes you, and I saw myself as a teacher, that was my identity. It hasn't been easy since then in terms of finding a new career etc. However, I am happier, healthier albeit poorer. As said above, teachers are paid very well compared to many other roles and professions.

I luckily found a great job with a local heritage charity, leading on their learning programme at the museum and castle. Take a look at charity job, and searching learning roles. There will be wildlife charities etc. all who do outreach programmes and visits.

If she wants to move completely out of teaching, then it may be a bit more difficult. I'd start by going through the roles and responsibilities that she performed, but then think about the key skills used to perform those jobs and reword them without using 'teacher' speak. I found it tough to reword my letters trying not to sound too 'teachery', and ensuring those who were reading it, could understand what I actually did.

I have done a little retraining, not massively successful though. I completed my Prince2, but hated it (totally put me off project management). However, it helped me get my current role. Perhaps a job to get some money, but use it to take some time to carefully think about where to go and do some retraining?

Hope she is all OK OP. It can be daunting leaving, but once you leave you'll be surprised how many other ex teachers you meet who have not regretted leaving one bit.
Feel free to PM if you want 🙂

Private tuition

or

Deputy / Designated Safeguarding Lead

or

Teaching on a bank contract

?

There are a lot of very transferrable skills in teaching but they’re not the sort of things that will secure you a job in another field.

The options then are to retrain, do unskilled work or stay in teaching but change something like school or working pattern.

Mrs lunge left teaching 3 years ago and I’m afraid the above quote is about right.
Just cut her salary in half and retrained in the NHS as a pharmacy tech. Loves the new role, much less stress but sis not suing any skills she gained in teaching.

7 more Easters to go.

You could do a lot worse than look to getting into some of the government's DDaT professions

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/digital-data-and-technology-profession-capability-framework

There are organisations such as CodeClan that can help with courses to get you into junior positions
https://codeclan.com/

I've often thought that good teachers could make good user researchers or delivery managers.

It would be an initial drop in salary, but the opportunities to progress are there.

Mrs asbrooks has been going through this for as long as I can remember, you have my deepest sympathy as at times it's hell for her and our family.

She is a language teacher in a secondary school teaching GCSE & A levels for most of her career then her school became an academy 5 years ago, they take kids from 11 to 18 years (used to be 14-18 years) and have around 2500 kids. I gather from our conversations it is bedlam there most of the time.

As from last September, she now teaches 60% at the school and 30% at 6th form college. From tomorrow she'll be teaching 3 hours a week at Leicester Uni, which she hopes the hours will increase as she would like to reduce the hours further at the school.

It is tough as said above that relatively teaching, is paid quite well (although she's not had a pay increase for over 15 years) so moving out of teaching usually means a drop in salary. We have two daughters at uni, so the decision to change careers is taken not lightly at the moment.

Whatever your wife decides to do, I wish her and your family the best of luck.

I stopped after 31 years, having gone part time for the last couple. It was definitely a release of stress until the college I worked for started making the hours I worked at awkward times eg two hours in the morning then another hour at the end of the same day. Another thing to be aware of in part time work is that the pension ‘years’ accrued are proportional to the time commitment. So in my case working at 55% FTE the last two years only counted for 1.1 years.
I now have a part time job working for a GP surgery as an admin assistant on effectively a zero hours contract but it suits me very well and is (almost) entirely stress free and I can put it to one side as soon as I finish unlike teaching.
The transferable skills that the new job really appreciated are reasonable IT skills, an ability to read large numbers of documents quickly and pick out the relevant information required for assessment (much like marking coursework!) and work to deadlines and interpersonal relationship skills.
Edit: I should add that it is not as well paid as my teaching job and that I am in the very fortunate position of not relying on the income as my only financial support.

My sister has made herself a little specialism in taking on short term contracts (mat leave, long term sick cover etc) in schools with a focus on children with severe mental health and or behavioural issues. She is never short of work and doesn't seem to get stuck in a rut or being ground down by one particular school. She also manages to avoid large class mainstream teaching.

I would imagine also that there are plenty of roles as external advisers to mainstream schools to support the IRL/SEN teams also which, if she wants to stay in an education setting, may be worth exploring.

There's certainly a commonly used term on this discussion with regard to teaching - 'consuming'.

It certainly describes the way I feel about it after 14yrs or so incl. my PGDE. I'd like to make it to 20yrs; by then I'll be well into my mid-50's and ready to find something else - accepting that in all likelihood it will be a halving in salary!

Breakdown after 30years and climbing the greasy pole was the writing on the wall for me this year too. I changed to a new school and took a huge pay cut. Much happier and I can see 5 or 6 more years as viable rather than a hideous black pit.

I really do recommend changing schools, the frog in increasingly warmer water analogy is often apt. Good luck OP.

I've just left teaching (secondary chemistry) for health reasons and am going through some career counselling to try and crystallise my next steps.

Before thinking about leaving the profession entirely it's worth speaking to your wife about her health and asking if she needs some time off. It sounds like she might need to ask the school for a stress action plan, and it's worth speaking to a union about how to get what she needs to stay healthy. This might take the form of changes to her role, extra support or even redeployment.

If a change in career does turn out to be the answer the National Careers Service (or myjobscotland) has some online tools to help identify where your strengths are and what careers might suit. I will say that without exception I've found primary school teachers to have people skills that are off the chart.

Having looked into this several times over the years, the answer is probably "part time and/or another school/role".