Why You Need To Consider A Career in Teaching
Teachers often say that their job is not only endlessly rewarding but also offers plenty of practical benefits. We look at some of the key reasons why people get into teaching as well as some of the downsides you need to know about.
Variety
In your teaching career, every day is different and so is every class. The routine is regularly broken up with school trips and sports days, holidays, celebrations, and occasionally something totally unexpected. It is the perfect career for those that don’t like sitting at a desk all day.
Fun
You can have plenty of fun teaching your lessons if you are confident and willing to be creative. Generally, lessons that engage the children most are the ones that you also enjoy – putting on a play in German, or making rockets in chemistry.
School time outside of lessons can also be plenty of fun. You can indulge your own interests, starting a school vegetable garden, a lunchtime knitting club, or even an annual robot challenge.
Working with Children
You won’t find too many jobs where you can count on those around you to be enthusiastic and energetic and speak their minds. Some people love to finger-paint with four-year-old children while others love discussing literature with A-level students.
Whatever your level, one of the key reasons why people get into teaching is the joy of working with young people and children.
Making a Difference
To children, a great teacher can literally be life-changing. Some teachers get into the profession because they loved their time at school and would like to pass that on. For others, it is the opposite – they felt let down by poor teaching and want other children to have a better experience.
Sheffield is rich in transport links and boasts a great variety of both state and public schools. Probably the most useful way of combating Sheffield’s seven hills is making use of the tram network. There are many teaching agencies in Sheffield. If you are interested in teaching, try to reach out to the agencies for supply teaching in Sheffield. And it’s time to start your career as a teacher right away.
Extended Holidays
Holidays alone should obviously not tempt you to get into teaching, but it definitely sweetens the deal. However, you shouldn’t be deceived – there’s still plenty of administration and preparation work to do during the holiday. Furthermore, you have very limited flexibility when it comes to taking any holiday during term time.
Decent Salary
Teaching is one profession that will never make you a millionaire, but if you excel and take on responsibility, it is possible to build up to a salary of £50,000 or perhaps even higher.
Transferrable Skills
In the teaching profession, you develop skills such as organisation, communication, confidence, and conflict resolution, which are valuable to any employer alongside the perseverance and determination needed to work in a classroom. You will be prepared for anything, from related careers such as social work and youth to city jobs such as audit and consultancy.
Financial Support While Undergoing Training
With some in-demand subjects, you can receive bursaries that amount to a decent salary while you undergo training.
A Schedule That Fits With Your Own Children
If you are a parent or plan on becoming one, teaching has the added bonus that your holidays will match up with your children’s schedule. You will get to spend quality time with the children during the school holidays, not to mention saving a lot in holiday childcare.
The Downsides
If you are considering a career in teaching, it is important to get into it with your eyes open to the difficulties that you might face, which include the following:
- Heavy Workload: Besides having to deal with a full teaching schedule, you will need to find time for creating resources, planning lessons, marking tests and books, doing admin, documenting your work, as well as writing reports for each student.
- Constant Changes: In teaching, targets, guidelines, and government attitudes never seem to remain the same for over one year and teachers are often left struggling to keep up,
- Media Attitude: The media tends to vilify teachers. While this might seem like something easy to brush off at first, some teachers find it affecting them more than they actually expect.