Focus on: Teaching

Date: 4 Jan 2011

Saira Sawtell was running her own retail business selling women's clothes when she got pregnant. During her maternity leave, she realised that she would never be able to balance work and family life if she kept on the same path. “I was working long hours, often seven days a week, all over the country and I had to go abroad sometimes. I realised I couldn't manage that with a baby,” she says. “I could not have lived with myself and balanced the whole working mum's guilt thing.”

Her degree was in English and she says that as a teenager she had played with the idea of teaching. She also toyed with the idea of going into PR or marketing or even accountancy, but felt they were not jobs she could easily do while still living in Dorset where she had all her support networks, including her parents and in-laws. “Teaching was something I could do and still live in the same place,” she says. “Every town has a school after all. I was also delighted to be able to go back to a subject I had so loved at degree level.” She was also already aware of the need to cover school holidays when her family got older. So, when her first son was just a few weeks old she spent a week in a local secondary school. She had a degree, but 11 years ago there was no graduate training programme so she had to get a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. She signed up for a distance learning course which she could do at her own pace and which allowed her to organise her own teaching placements. The qualification should have taken around nine months, but it was modular and flexible and early on she fell pregnant with her second son. All in all it took her two years to complete. She recalls having to get up at 5am to do her assignments and trying to fit everything around the children. “I was slow, but I was proud I managed it,” she says.

Her major problem was childcare, but she had the children's grandparents nearby and they helped out. When she was on her two placements she did no assignments because she had to be at school at around 8am three days a week and she had a bit of a commute to get there. If she had to be there earlier, her husband, who is self employed, could help out and her parents helped with picking up the children if she had to stay late.

She took out a student loan to support her through the course and, since English was a shortage subject at the time, the Government paid off the loan. “I took a long-term view about finances,” she says. “The average wage was £20k, but in teaching you enter at just over £21k outside London [£27k in inner London] and your salary can rise to £30k within six years, plus you earn more if you take on extra responsibility. There is also a clear career progression.”

She says her family could probably have managed financially without her working for a while, but she found being at home with a baby very hard and when her second child was born 20 months later she found that even harder. “I had brain freeze and began to feel isolated and my self esteem fell. I was aware from an early point that I could not be a stay at home mum,” she says.

She finished the course when her youngest son was two and was offered a part-time post at one of her placement schools. The school was very understanding of her childcare needs and allowed her to do five shorter days so that, when her oldest son started school the following year, she could pick him up and drop him off.

She says secondary schools tend to be more flexible than primaries and she loved the challenge of teaching younger children as well as being able to get deeper into her subject with the A Level students. She spent three years at her first school and after her youngest son started school she started looking around for a full-time job with extra responsibility. “I felt ready to move up,” she says. She started teaching at Budmouth Technology College just minutes from her home. A few years later she gave birth to her third son who will start school next year. She got maternity leave for the first time and when she went back she could put her son in the subsidised nursery attached to the school. “It's very convenient. I can see him while I am working,” she says. The school also has a good policy on parental leave so if her children are sick she can take time off.

The job can be pressurised, she adds, but she would not return to the retail business. The timetable fits in well with the family and not only does she get the summer holidays off but her husband also takes six weeks off and they have a lot of quality family time. “It's how I compensate for the intensity of term time,” she says, “when I can be marking until midnight. The older children [now aged 12 and 10] understand the pay-off. I may have earned more money as an entrepreneur, but it's not about the money now and teachers earn quite a good wage. Teaching has a good progression path and it's not as cut-throat as business.”

Saira is just one of around 38,000 graduates in England who are recruited to train as teachers every year. The number who are over 25 has increased this year and now over half of all entrants into initial teacher training are over 25 with many, like Saira, switching to teaching from other careers. Applicants for initial teacher training must demonstrate a standard equivalent to a GCSE grade C or above in English and maths, and in a science subject for those wishing to teach in primary. If you don’t reach this minimum academic standard there are access courses available.

The TDA recommends that those interested in teaching should think carefully whether they want to teach across a broad range of subjects in primary school or specialise in one or two subjects at secondary schools. A good way of finding out which suits you better is to contact local schools and ask to see if you can spend a day there observing classes.

Along with a degree, all teachers are required to have qualified teacher status (QTS) to teach in primary and secondary maintained schools and non-maintained special schools. This is attained via either undergraduate or postgraduate courses.

An undergraduate route into teaching will offer either a BEd, BA, or BSc, combining degree studies with QTS. You are required to have two A-levels or equivalent in order to enrol on an undergraduate course. Some ITT providers do offer part-time courses; these can be found on the TDA website.

The postgraduate course will award you with a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. In order to start this course you will need a degree which provides the necessary subject knowledge you wish to teach. Entry to most postgraduate courses is through the Graduate Teacher Training Registry (www.GTTR.ac.uk), although some training providers accept applications directly. If you don't want to go into full-time education, there are other options: the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) is an employment-based route within a school and allows you to earn whilst you learn. During the GTP you will be employed by the school as an unqualified teacher and this can take up to a year to complete (full time) depending on your previous experience. To enter onto this programme you will need to have a degree. To find out more about the GTP visit www.tda.gov.uk/gtp.

Further information on routes into teaching and information about funding whilst you study can be found on the TDA website. *If you would like to speak to the TDA about teaching or teacher training, please contact our information line on 0800 389 2500. You can also register online and receive the TDA's straightforward guide to teaching and teacher training, plus regular updates: https://www.tda.gov.uk/