The point where I realised, I needed to GET OUT of Teaching was during my 2nd year of being in Year 1 (September 2022). I had anticipated how hard the cohort coming up from Reception was because they were notorious. During the lead up to the new academic year, my anxiety was through the roof in the 6 weeks holiday. I had regular chest pains, and I would wake up in hot sweats in the middle of the night, not even being dramatic. I put it down to family worries and poor diet during a holiday period. I spent time in this holiday looking at and researching alternative careers and the glimmer of hope had started to show. Project Management sound like a bit of me and I spent aa lot of time looking at different job roles and routes into this. I never applied for a single job, but my subconscious mind screamed, that now is the time to leave. At this point, school just gave me stress, but I chose to ignore this and thus began the worst start to the academic year I had ever experienced.
The new academic year started, and it was as TERRIBLE as I anticipated. My year group partner from last year had gone on maternity, so I was already gutted. However, it was the children’s behaviour issues that were on a different scale and there truly was no way to de-escalate the children, as they all required such specialist help. Clearly the support plans in place were not fully meeting their needs and there was no care by senior leaders to move quickly and make something happen. I will summarise the things that would happen; I would have chairs thrown around the room (sometimes at the class/me), my computer switched on and off, iPads flung around the room (several broke), staff (including me) getting slapped and kicked, children screaming/ swearing in your face and everyone getting pelted with fruit from the snack trolley (sometimes even the Headteacher). After a month of dealing with this I went home with several bruises down my leg, and I finally cracked. I had a breakdown in front of my family. I sat on my sofa and sobbed for a sold hour whilst they just listened to what I had to say. My family were incredibly supportive. Their words were “we have seen you go from being a caring person to becoming a shell of a human being, currently you are the saddest person we have seen in a long time and now is the time to stop and rethink what you need to do next”. Those words meant a lot to me. My husband in particularly always dealt with my struggles and supported my mental health, but even for him he knew there was no more he could do for me, and the ball was officially in my court. He had seen me at rock bottom more times than anyone in my life and he knew now was the time to stop and make a change.
That very night I picked up where I left off with my research (October 5th, 2022). I googled “alternative careers for Teachers”, “what else can a Teacher do?” “How to get out of Teaching?”. I googled quite late into the night and various jobs came up e.g., administration, library services, council jobs, Civil Service… the list went on. On the right is a visual representation of how I slept that night. I used all the search engines: WM Jobs, Indeed, Total Jobs, Reed and CV library. After a few days of looking, I finally went back to Project Management and after reading specifications, I felt confident that this was something I could work towards. The job sounded challenging enough to keep me occupied, mixed with the key qualities I feel I possess e.g., working with others, communicating, organising, and delegating. I had no PM qualifications, so I knew I’d have to accept a support job, and thus I narrowed down my search. I was willing to take the pay cut because I was truly desperate. After a few days I stumbled upon a job for the local council. The role was a PMO and Performance Assistant. Quite frankly I didn’t have a clue what a PMO was and what the Performance was even for, but I quickly fashioned a personal statement and googled what the job was and used my teacher examples to relate to the job requirements. The waiting period was strange. I felt in limbo for 3 days, until I finally got an email inviting me to an interview. For the first time in a long time, I had opened my email and nearly burst into tears of happiness. Just getting an interview was huge. I promptly made a note of the interview time and approached my head for the first time. The process went literally like this:
1. I approached her office and knocked on her door. I popped my head in and promptly asked what the process is for needing time off to attend an interview was.
2. My headteacher looked taken aback and finally explained that I need to put in a leave of absence form.
3. I swiftly thanked her and left without letting her question me on anything.
Later that day, after she had registered what I asked, she called me into her office to talk to me about the interview in question. I bravely explained I’m ready for a new opportunity and want to change careers. She seemed taken aback that I wasn’t letting on too much. I explained I’d used the summer holidays to research Project Management and routes to changing careers. As stated earlier, if I had expressed my main reason for leaving was the lack of support for the challenging children in my class, she would’ve gaslighted me into thinking I am in the wrong and need to be a better Teacher. I’ve experienced this before where I was coined a ‘negative adult’ with my TA, so I didn’t want her to have ammunition to bring me down further. Again, reading this back destroys my soul. I get being a Headteacher requires a multitude of skills and very thick skin, but surely ‘gaslighting’ should not be in the job specification. Headteacher’s have schools to run and keeping employees is a vital part of that. She was ticking boxes by calling me into her office and asking me questions, there was never any care behind it. At this point, my heart started to run colder. I knew I was a number; it had only taken me 5 years in this school to realise. There are Teachers’ out there who spend their life deeply entrenched in imposter syndrome and they never get out of this rut. I admire people who can detach their feelings from the job and leave the 'work' at work. My Headteacher tried to make me feel special, but I made it clear I’m ready for something new and thus walked out the room in the most civil way I could.
Interview day rolled around, and I had 2 hours allocated out of school to attend, so was rushing around to get ready. I was strangely fully prepared the night before but felt an emotional wreck on the day of the interview. The butterflies in my tummy were completing their Couch to 5K activities, so I was worried I’d throw up in front of the interview panel. I drank some water and tried to keep it together. As soon as I entered the Council House, I felt calm. I was greeted nicely by the Receptionist and waited patiently on the sofa to be seen. I was walked in by one of the panel members, who greeted me warmly and then I introduced myself to the ladies. There was one beautiful Indian lady and two kind looking Caucasian women. I always feel you can tell a lot from the look in someone’s eyes. The staff in front of me seemed, happy, excited, and genuine. My aim was to not look like a deer in the headlights, so I breathed deeply and focused. The questions were mainly about how I manage admin, data, organisation, and general support tasks. I used every inch of my Teacher experience to answer these questions and I sprinkled in a few quirks to make them laugh. I was aware that coming across like a robot isn’t going to get me the job, so I tried to be ‘me’ as much as I could, without the anxiety coming though. At the end of the interview the ladies, shook my hand and were complimentary- that took the edge off. They told me that they would contact me in a weeks’ time, as there are other candidates to interview for the job. I thanked them and treated myself to a KFC before returning to school. It was early, but in my eyes it’s never too early for popcorn chicken and Pepsi Max to be honest, I finally deserved it. At this point, I had attended an interview and felt elated. The result mattered hugely but my notice was already typed up and hidden underneath my computer monitor. The pieces of my life finally felt like they were falling into the right place.
As soon as I returned to school the Headteacher grabbed me and took me into her room. The deputy was sat with her, and they straight away asked me how it went. I was positive and explained the job (again probably for the 3rd time) and they didn’t have much to say. I know they were annoyed but obviously couldn’t outright show that. The Headteacher asked me, “what about notice period when will you hear back because if you are leaving? I need to know”. At this point I don’t know if it was the Pepsi Max or the genuine growing strength inside me, but I outright said “they have said they will let me know next week if I get the job, but even if I don’t, I’m leaving. You will have my notice tomorrow”. They both looked at me oddly and the Headteacher nodded, that was my cue to leave which I was grateful of. I practically skipped backed to my classroom and told my amazing TA and staff how it went. They were all happy and sad for me, naturally it was bittersweet, but I smiled all day. Literally even the challenging children, pelting fruit, couldn’t dull my smile, I had never felt happier. My head and heart for the first time in years eclipsed to develop what felt like an internal bliss.
Later that day as I was loudly Teaching music and singing quite outlandishly with the children, but suddenly my watch buzzed to say my phone was ringing with a private number. I darted for my phone and told my TA to take over. I answered the phone, and it was the lovely Indian lady who interviewed me. She pretty much straight away said “YOU’VE GOT THE JOB”. Literally I screamed and felt like crying, I was just so happy it was unreal how I felt but the weight of the world literally fell into an abyss. It was finally worth it, and I was so happy. Actual words couldn’t describe the happiness. I thanked the interviewer on the phone and told her thank you repeatedly. She was very kind and complimentary of my interview, and I re-assured them that they wouldn’t regret hiring me and I would do everything they need to progress the team forward. I ended the call and went back to my class literally jumping for joy. Even the children looked at me, like what’s wrong with this nutcase, but I didn’t care, my TA’s albeit sad, were happy for me. I clock watched until the end of the day and raced to my Headteachers office to let her know the result and to drop off my notice. She read it promptly, agreed with the key points and thanked me. I left the room feeling like I was walking on water. I then promptly went around the school telling my allies (Teachers and TA’s I trust) about my day and what happened. They were happy for me, for putting the steps into leave and taking the plunge.
I left school that night and celebrated with my family. We deserved the take-away. It’s remarkable how good a bog-standard fish burger can taste, when your heart and mind are finally happy. I could taste freedom, victory and the apprehension fading away. I had until Christmas to leave, so tried to enjoy my last two months at this school. I did my day to day, continued to work hard like I always did and just ploughed on. Eventually the time came to say goodbye and it did hurt. I collected my farewell flowers in assembly and cried in front of the whole school like an actual baby. The Headteacher asked the children to raise their hands if they were taught by me and literally the whole school except the current Year 6 put their hands up. It was a full circle moment, as upsetting it was it was a good feeling to see that I had impacted these little lives and watched the development of these children into becoming young adults. I shared with the school that I regret not seeing my NQT class (current Year 5s) for their prom, but the Headteacher was kind enough to say I can of course attend the prom. I appreciated this a lot and left the assembly feeling content. The parents and their gifts were truly very sweet, the children were amazing on my last day making farewell cards and cutting out pictures for me. On the gate I was overcome with tears, I cried in the morning and the afternoon with a range of families that I got to know and cared about. It hurt to leave but I was thankful for the next chapter. This was it, this was the moment I could change my fate and I was ready.
Please read the "Life BEYOND" page, to learn about my transition to my new role.