What’s it like being a teacher? Student Kieran Daly turns the tables on his teachers and asks them some questions about why they chose a career in teaching.

What’s it like being a teacher? Student Kieran Daly turns the tables on his teachers and asks them some questions about why they chose a career in teaching

If you are after a career that keeps you close to the academic subject you’re passionate about then being a teacher could be the perfect line of work for you. Nurturing young peoples’ potential is a rewarding responsibility so who better to give us an insight into being a teacher than teachers themselves?

I interviewed some of my teachers at Coopers Company and Coborn School in Essex, to hear what they had to say about what being a teacher is like for them.

Mrs. Cheale is a key member of the teaching staff in my school’s history department. She’s also head of faculty and is the school’s safeguarding officer. She spent her early years working in a London bank but found that she missed her subject too much and retrained as a teacher. “I love the process of history.” she told me.

Never bored because of the varied nature of her job, Mrs. Cheale loves being a teacher and inspiring young people to enjoy the subject she teaches.

Asked whether she would recommend being a teacher to Moving On readers, she said, “Yes if they are robust, determined and resilient and they have an excellent grasp of their subject.” She told me that despite there sometimes being a lack of respect for the profession, there are very few negatives to being a teacher.

Mrs. Wilkes is both a PE teacher and head of year 12 at my school and she has to juggle both these responsibilities every day. Mrs. Wilkes has a degree, as well as having Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), which you need to for being a teacher full time.

Having had a positive experience at school herself, she decided that she wanted to pass this on to others. Mrs. Wilkes told me that she would not like to go into management as she loves being a teacher and being a head or a deputy head would involve less actual, hands-on teaching. She gave me a really positive view about being a teacher, telling me, “You get to work with different people every day and I enjoy the challenge of bringing PE to my students.” She says that the job of being a teacher is all about self-improvement and that the pressure of the job is significantly outweighed by the many positives she finds in her role of being a teacher.

Miss Gibson teaches geography at my school. She told me that her love of the subject was what made her choose to become a teacher. Career-wise, she would either like being a teacher of a single subject or to go into a pastoral leadership role. She likes the variety of her job being a teacher and the fact that no two days are the same – a view shared by all the teachers at Coopers Company and Coborn School!

A key reason for Miss Gibson choosing to become a teacher – and a comment made by all the teachers I spoke to – is that they all want their students to do well. Although Miss Gibson says that her desire to reach perfection creates a large workload, she assures me that being a teacher makes it all worthwhile – especially when you factor in the great geography trips!

Read more about being a teacher here on the Moving On website. There are loads of informative articles including: A Year in the Life of a PGCE Student , Primary School Teaching Careers and Back to School – Paths into Teaching Explained.