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any teachers moved from secondary to primary teaching?

5 replies

lucycat · 11/10/2006 14:42

that's it really!

I've been out of teaching for a few years now and really not sure whether the whole secondary thing still appeals, if i could just teach A level then that would be a different matter, but jobs just doing that are like gold dust

soooooo, I've been helping out in dd's school and wondered about moving down into primary, being a TA would probably drive me mad as I'm too bossy and a bit of a control freak so i would want to be a class teacher, probably as a job share.

Has anyone done it? What do I need to look into? am I being all 'grass is greener', 'rose tinted glasses' about this? am I mad?

or should I go and get a job in Tesco's instead?

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lucycat · 11/10/2006 16:05

ok, are you all home from school yet?

tell me I'm being bonkers, that primary is as crap as secondary, twice as hard work and less rewarding

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roisin · 11/10/2006 18:54

Most primary teachers I know do stacks more hours in school than secondary teachers. Much of the P&P is of necessity school/classroom-based.

Also depends on your area but primary teaching jobs round here are like gold-dust, and job-shares subsequently still quite rare.

What is your secondary subject? You might be able to get a part-time contract covering primary P&P time, especially if you have a specialism like music, MFL, or IT.

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sarahalloween · 12/10/2006 14:11

Lucycat. A good friend of mine made the move about seven years ago now. She was working with me in a really rough inner city secondary and just had enough. She did some kind of evening conversion course at uni for one night a week, managed to get supply in primary schools and is now in a leadership post!
As you may have seen from my thread I've had enough too! I'm certainly thinking about approaching primaries regarding offering MFL for P&P time.
One weekend to go then I have to decide whether to hand my notice in!

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swedishmum · 14/10/2006 23:44

Hi Lucycat
I did a return to teaching course, retraining for primary after many years teaching music in secondary schools. Really enjoyed it but along came baby no. 4 before I could do much more than a bit of supply!
I must say that I found I needed to do less hours than I had previously (I think that maybe as a Head of Music I was putting in many more hours than required after school, every lunchtime etc) and the main relief was the lack of silly discipline issues.
Primary schools are very different places to work in - depends if you like being part of a small team. I agree about being a TA - I did it while retraining and was frequently frustrated, though it was nice not to have any real responsibility. It did make me change schools or dd2 and ds - realised that the school was not actually that fantastic when I worked there. Still think it's a much easier way of life than my old job and at least you get to see 30 children all the time rather than 550 ish different children every week.