Why I started my own business and left the ‘security’ of a full-time teaching role.
/Why I started my own business and left the ‘security’ of a full-time teaching role.
It was 2009 when I first started my teaching career as a qualified teacher. I had always worked. I worked from the fresh age of 15 in a shoe shop- Russell and Bromley. I was earning £2.75 per hour plus commission! I’ve always been someone who has worked. After that I worked as a lifeguard for Nuffield Health which led to me applying for the gym creche nursery practitioner role. That was my first real exposure to working with very young children.
We looked after children aged from 6 weeks of age and I absolutely loved it. I loved looking after the children and I loved the relationship I had with the clients. It was a great job. My next job was as a nanny. I worked with several families looking after their children and I learnt a lot from this job. I learnt that I had a gift with children. Looking after them was something that I was just very good at. It came naturally to me and children just adored me.
That’s what led me to teaching and in 2009 I completed my PGCE specialising in early years. In June of 2009 I found my first teaching role – at The Mulberry House School. It was a very hard job. The Mulberry House school in an extended day school which means children can come in by 8 am and they can leave by 5:30pm. This meant starting work at 7:30 and leaving at 6pm on most days. I worked very hard in this teaching job. We also did not have half terms at this school. We only had Christmas break and Summer break. I stayed at this school for 3 years (supporting children from the early years all the way to year 2) before moving to a state school in St. John’s Wood. This was an ‘outstanding’ school but I went through a very turbulent time here (story for another time!). I stayed here for another 3 years before moving to an academy in Wembley. Another very tough school to work at with a lot of behavioural challenges.
In the early years of my teaching career, I really felt like I was making a difference to the lives of the children that I was teaching. But as I progressed through my teaching career, I felt like it became more about the paper work than the children. And that’s when I decided that I no longer wanted to work full time as a teacher and I left my ‘secure’ job the week before finding out that I was pregnant with my son! I did consider begging for my job back – after all, I had worked all of my life – I ‘deserved’ a ‘good’ maternity pay. But I took the risk and I left anyway. I was far too stressed out in my teaching role and I didn’t want that excessive stress whilst being pregnant.
I left because of many reasons but here are the main reasons.
1. The paper work was excessive and I was working 10 hour days + 1-2 hours in the evening when I got home.
2. I had reached the ‘top’ of my teaching career (UPS 3 teacher) and I was earning the highest income I could ever earn as a teacher (3k a month). This wasn’t enough for me to raise a son living in London and having the dreams and ambitions that I personally have for us as a family and for him as my son.
3. I felt like I didn’t have a voice in any of the schools I worked at and when I did express my thoughts and opinions, they were quickly silenced by senior management.
I will be talking more about my experience working full time in schools because I think it’s important that new teachers know what they could expect and for parents to know what it’s like from the other side.
It’s not always flowers and sunshine – like anything in life. Like anything in life, it was very 50:50. 50% great and 50% not so great.
I now feel a lot more free, fulfilled and happy doing what I do. I still teach students everyday but I know that I have a voice that is listened to. I know that I can support my students do the best that they can do and perhaps even more. Even though I do have a lot of paper work to do every single day, I know that I am making a huge difference and a huge impact to all of the students that work with me and that work with my exceptional teachers.
