‘Career pause’ is a phrase I read in an edition of the TES not long ago. At least, I think it is! It was something like that. As far as I recall, it referred to teachers having some time out and the reasons for why they might need it. It was a positive thing – an opportunity to reflect, to take stock. It was an alternative to the burn-out or meltdown that too many teachers experience instead.
At the time of reading that feature, it didn’t register with me in any significant way. I didn’t think it had, anyway. I don’t remember too much of what I read in the TES though and that phrase somehow stuck with me when others don’t, so maybe – on some unconscious level – it meant more to me than I realised. On the other hand, I may be misrepresenting whatever article it was that I read and just making this up to help justify what I’ve been doing!
When I left my previous school in July, it wasn’t to have a ‘career pause’; it was to get away from a place that had done me more harm than good. I didn’t really know what I was going to do with myself. I told people I would supply-teach for a while and look for another leadership role, ideally for January. I wasn’t really convinced it was what I wanted or needed, but I think it reassured others who were anxious about what I would be doing and where the money was going to come from.
Briefly, I must digress and clarify that my last school wasn’t all harm; there was good. I’m a positive and optimistic person so I can look back on my four years there and know with certainty that I got a lot out of my time there, I learnt a lot and I developed as a teacher and a school leader. Sadly though, there was too much there that was wrong and I couldn’t do very much about it. It grew harder for me to remain positive and optimistic and I was becoming unwell. As I told the staff on my last day there, I couldn’t be myself so leaving was the right thing to do.
As always the summer holiday was wonderful, then September came around too quickly and my friends returned to their various schools whilst my summer holiday dragged on by another (annoyingly grey and rainy) week, and then another. My ‘career pause’ had begun and I reveled in the opportunity to watch as much ‘Bargain Hunt’ as I wanted!
It wasn’t long before frustration crept in and I started to miss school. I started to miss the business of simply working, I missed the hustle and bustle, I missed children – their brilliant, various and changing personalities – and I missed the people. Inevitably, an awareness – if not anxiety – about needing to earn money also began to grow.
Thankfully, my first stints as a supply teacher followed surprisingly quickly – in the third week of the new school year – and I grasped them eagerly. It was money, it was stimulation and activity and I wasn’t sure what I could do other than teach or brave enough to explore other options. Or maybe, in spite of everything I’ve been through in recent years, that teacherly spark that I sensed all those years ago that first took me into the profession still burns somewhere deep down inside of me and I can’t help but be drawn back to the classroom. It occurred to me too that it might be interesting to see what is happening in other schools. Demands on schools have grown and things have changed – big things like the curriculum, tests and assessment – so how are different schools responding to that? It’s not something I had been encouraged to consider or explore for a long time. I was right: it was interesting. And I enjoyed it.
Also quickly, came the suggestion that I do some regular, part-time work in special education. I didn’t hesitate to say yes – more work, more money! Again though, it soon occurred to me that it could be interesting experience; for a couple of terms, I’d covered as SENDCO, which had been interesting, and this could be an opportunity to build on that experience. Moreover, wherever I decided to go next in my career, deeper understanding and experience of special education could surely only be valuable experience.
And so it has proved. I spent one week effectively getting to know the school, covering teaching assistants in a couple of classes and learning the routines and expectations of the class I would be teaching. In the second week and third week, I began teaching the class I briefly shared with another teacher. By the fourth week, I was full-time, in readiness for taking over a different class on a full-time basis from after half term and for the rest of this school year. It wasn’t what I had in mind when I began my ‘career pause’ and it still surprises me to find myself here; however, it has been endlessly fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable and I am excited about taking on my new class. Even in these few weeks, there have been genuinely revelatory moments that will stick with me for the rest of my career. It’s a while since I have felt that excitement and I am so glad for it.
I wonder now, does this really qualify as a ‘career pause’? My spell away from the classroom – away from schools – was brief, but it was a pause nonetheless and it was sufficient for me to realise that I wanted to work and, most importantly, I wanted to continue working in schools. Even though, I’m back at work and back in the classroom, this still feels like something of a pause. I’ve stepped off the trajectory I was on – from teacher to Phase Leader to Deputy Head to Headteacher – and the seemed inevitability of my future has gone, and with it, the pressure to meet other people’s expectations. I’ve stepped into a different and exciting field of education, which is stimulating, challenging and interesting. It’s somewhere I didn’t expect to be and I don’t know where it will take me, so there’s something spontaneous and daring about it. I’m relieved of the responsibilities and pressures I had, but looking forward to new ones and hopeful that this will rekindle my ambition.
Whether you call this a ‘career pause’ or not, it’s been a good thing and I have no regrets. Perhaps I’ve been fortunate to have been presented with the opportunities that have come my way, or perhaps they were just out there, waiting for me to be in the right place to notice them.
It’s an enormous sadness to me that too many good teachers and friends are miserable, fearful, stressed and close to burnout or melt-down and too many feel trapped in jobs that are doing them more harm than good and turning them off the profession for which they once had such hope, that has brought them such joy and to which they have dedicated their lives. I have discovered that there is still hope – it’s not long since I doubted it – so, if you need it, whatever you call it and whatever you do with it, I certainly recommend some sort of ‘career pause’.