Forget the old saw of the able doing and the not-so-able teaching. Despite last week’s horror stories about classroom chaos, more and more high-flyers are deciding that — at least in a well-run school — teaching is an enviable career option, rather than a last resort. Whether due to Alan Bennett’s sellout play The History Boys, or the news that Richard Dreyfuss, the Hollywood star, has taken up teaching, professionals are switching to the classroom in droves.
According to the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), almost 33% of new secondary school teachers who have had a career change have come from a management or senior position. A further 22% have come from a middle-management role. The draw is certainly not the cash: while head teachers can earn up to £90,000, all a newly qualified teacher can hope for is a salary of about £18,500 or £22,000 in inner London. Then there are the terrifying job requirements: disciplining and inspiring children, the potential nightmare of bolshy parents, bagfuls of work to take home in the evenings. Of course, this is how we office-bound workers see it.
Teachers such as Kevin Stainsby have no time for such lily-livered musings. He thinks that the decision to trade life as a City high-flyer for that of a Cumbrian physics teacher was the best he’s ever made. “I used to work for Credit Suisse First Boston,” says 36-year-old Stainsby, who since September has been ensconced in the science labs of the Nelson Thomlinson school in Wigton. “I was working in IT on a basic salary of £90,000. After the technology bubble broke in the City I decided to take redundancy and felt that teaching was what I wanted to do.
“I used to spend hours designing computer systems for banks that made no difference to anything other than the bank’s profit margin. I didn’t feel I was doing anything with my life that was any use.” His wife felt the same way and jacked in her job at P&O. Now she’s teaching geography at the same school.
“You use your brain,” continues Stainsby. “And every day is different. It can be stressful but I have more time to have a good life and the issue is about the quality of your life.” And no, he doesn’t care about the money. “I used to have more money than I needed. The residue went on flash cars. I had a Porsche Carrera. I had a TVR Chimera. I had a Mercedes SLK. Now I drive a Renault Clio. The sporty model! The kids think it’s great.”
Leaving the flash career hasn’t bothered Alex Wilson, 41, a classics master at St Paul’s school for boys in London. “I used to be a civil litigation lawyer in a massive firm, working massive hours as most lawyers do,” he explains. “There were huge incentives for working long hours. You could easily work through the night and on occasions I would.
“I would never switch off, even on holiday. My other half used to get very cross because I would be in the middle of Scotland and insist on ringing the office. I used to play Rugby fives competitively but I stopped that because I didn’t have the time. I was getting fatter and fatter.”
A chance meeting changed everything. “I bumped into an old friend who was a classics teacher at St Paul’s. He wanted to take a sabbatical term, knew I had read classics at university and reminded me that St Paul’s played fives. He said why not try teaching for a term? I thought about it overnight and then said yes.
“On Friday I was in court and on Monday morning I was teaching. Was I scared? Not at all. If you can stand up in court and entertain a judge then you can surely entertain a class of children.” Wilson never went back to the office.
After a job teaching classics at the Royal grammar school, Guildford, Wilson ended up back at St Paul’s, where he is now a slim, fit classics undermaster and, of course, fives coach. “I think the boys thought I was a bit of an enigma because I arrived wearing bright ties, clashing shirts, no cuff links and perhaps because I had come from ‘the real world’.”
In the meantime, his counterparts in the law have continued with their exhausting careers. “They are earning six-figure salaries, and more, but as far as I am concerned they are trapped because they have huge mortgages, children at private school and they aren’t lucky enough to have anything else they can do.
“If I hadn’t done law I would always wonder what it would have been like. But here at St Paul’s the boys are very feisty and questioning and I love it. And when you are on holiday, everyone knows you are on holiday.”
A sense of altruism is why Suzanne Hills swapped a microphone for a stick of chalk. A former television science reporter, Hills, 29, is now teaching maths and biology at Cheney school, a co-ed comprehensive in Oxford. “I’ve swapped shopping in Karen Millen for shopping in Oasis. But I am full of soul food now.” So what was she full of before? “Let’s just say I am using my true talents the best way. Using them for the things they should be used for.
“In the media, you can sometimes leave your head behind. To me, the pursuit of television feels a little selfish compared to what I am doing now,” continues Hills. “I’m now focusing on the children’s future rather than mine.”
Mary Doherty, director of teacher supply and recruitment at the TTA, thinks part of the attraction is that teaching allows people to use their university degree subjects at work. “They can use their core subjects,” she says. “There has also been an improvement in pay and conditions, with more support in the classrooms.”
Interestingly, specific areas in particular seem vulnerable to people leaving to teach. “We have seen a lot of recruitment from certain areas: pharmacy, banking and call centres,” says Doherty. “Bankers provide maths teachers; pharmacists, science teachers; and people working in call centres make great language teachers.”
What is more, teaching, which used to be crying out for recruits, is now becoming quite competitive. “Last year we recruited over 41,000 teachers, the highest number since 1975. And certainly in primary schools, getting a training place is now very competitive. People are going for a portfolio approach in their careers,” says Doherty. “They come into teaching late, or they come in early, go off and do something else and then come back. Our need for a challenge is quite considerable.”
