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From boardroom to whiteboard

The cliché goes that ‘those who can do, those who can’t teach,’ but for some older professionals who’ve enjoyed successful careers, moving into a teaching role is highly appealing

Judy Morrell and Peter Hire both teach English as a foreign language at London’s Greenwich Community College, having worked in market research and advertising.

Judy decided that at 48 she needed a change after twenty five years. “My job still involved people, but less so than before. It had come round to sitting in front of a computer.”

Her workplace is populated with an ethnically diverse range of students, often living in some of London’s most deprived areas.

“I talked round the idea with people I knew. Also the Learning and Skills Council used to be one of my clients. In the end I went to Tower Hamlets College, took a three month English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training course, managed to get work with them, then at Greenwich as well. It was very quick.”

She did not do it for the money, describing the move as “financially terrible.” Morrell says it was possible to earn up to up to £35,000 as an FE teacher, or an hourly rate of £24, “with various other things built in,” a pay scale which in reality is worth rather less.

Working part time, she thinks her earning power is about a third of what it was, and she has continued with some consultancy work. She said the change has made her feel far more connected to her local community. “Before I had the classic commute into central London. Work was very separate.”

At 59, Peter Hire had similar motivations for his two days a week classroom sojourns. He plans to retire to Italy, and felt the English language teaching qualification would be useful, but he did not want to use the skills he acquired to teach holidaying Italian students. “I found teaching was wonderful and natural. It tapped into an area of me that I hadn’t really been aware of,” he says.

Hire says his motivation is giving his students the tools “to be able to negotiate the basics of existence,” and in the process enhance their social, personal and career opportunities.

“When I got to 55, things seemed a little simpler. I don’t see teaching as self improving, or spending time with the ‘less fortunate.’ I’m working with them, not lecturing.”

Hire says the job involves a lot of work outside the classroom, with lesson preparation and planning filling a fair bit of his time. As he now works in a publicly-funded area, what he does and how he does it are audited and inspected, and he must meet prescribed targets. He describes being inspected by Ofsted as “very intense, very pressured.”

Stepping into a classroom also required a cultural shift in his approach to work. “In marketing, people want you to help them because they like working with you. Often that’s a constructed situation. Here it’s not about me, it’s about them: the students, the structures and the systems. I’m required to follow those systems effectively.”

Click here to find out how to become a teacher

Written by Martin Gurdon

This article was created: 5 January 2007.
This article was last edited: 9 January 2007.

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