Why I Left Teaching: My Story After Ten Years in the Classroom

People often ask what we have in common. Usually, it’s our teaching backgrounds. So here’s the story of why, after a “successful” ten-year career teaching languages in UK schools, I decided to leave it all behind.

How I became a languages teacher

It started in 2000, on the year abroad from my languages degree at Nottingham Trent University. I was thrown in at the deep end in a secondary school in Avignon, France. I was 20, some of my pupils were almost the same age, I had little support, and I was teaching classes of 20 to 30 teenagers alone with no training. I swore almost every day that I’d never become a teacher.

After graduating in 2002, I took another English teaching assistantship with the British Council, this time in Pamplona, Spain. It couldn’t have been more different: the students wanted to learn and the staff were kind and supportive. It was meant to be a stop-gap to bring my Spanish up to the level of my French, and it did exactly that.

The corporate world wasn’t for me

At 23, I tried the corporate world for a while. It had its perks, but I longed to use my languages and make a difference, so I gave up the company car and started an MFL PGCE at the University of Derby. By 2004 I was a newly qualified teacher at a great secondary school in Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

The ups and downs of secondary teaching

The ten years that followed were amazing, and full of twists and turns. By 26 I was Head of Spanish, a role I loved but gave up two years later to move south with my then-boyfriend, now husband. I took a job at a private girls’ school in Berkshire, where the culture shift was huge. I left after just one term, when I realised our values were so far apart that I could never be happy there.

At the time it shook my confidence. Looking back, it was the making of me. Never again would I stay miserable in a role, or let the system push me around. (And that old worry about “a gap in your CV” has never once been an issue for me.)

Finding a home in the middle-school system

Windsor, where I lived, had a middle-school system. A three-week supply post teaching French led to a permanent three-day role in a lovely department. On my two free days, I contacted local primary schools and offered myself as a French and Spanish tutor, and soon had more work than I could take on. I loved the younger years and the variety, and I loved being a little “under the radar”, away from meetings and school politics.

After our wedding in 2010, we went travelling for a few months. Before we left, I’d lined up what seemed like the perfect role at a grammar school in Slough: three days teaching in school and two days as an outreach languages teacher in local primary schools.

The grammar school contrast

The outreach work was wonderful. The rest of the week was harder. The students were bright and motivated, but teaching was textbook-led and exam-focused, and we were micromanaged down to how we stored our glue sticks. After the freedom I’d had, being boxed in again was difficult.

Six months in, I was told that funding had been pulled and I’d be teaching full time in school. I felt trapped. Then I remembered a small rural middle school that had asked me to stay on as Head of French. I called the head, the role was available for three days a week, and the grammar school kept me for the other two.

The middle school that pulled me back

As soon as I walked back into St Peter’s in Old Windsor, I knew I’d found my home. As the only French teacher, I ran the department with no one to manage and no one micromanaging me. With Years 5 to 8 there were no big exams to worry about. I could just teach: engaging, joyful, meaningful teaching.

Those three days felt like sunshine, which made my two grammar-school days feel even heavier. The last straw was a lesson observation I had no chance to prepare for. When I asked to repeat it, I ticked every box and was graded “outstanding”. I didn’t feel proud. I felt I had boxed myself into another environment that wasn’t serving me, or the children.

A shift in priorities changed everything

Shortly afterwards, I found out I was pregnant, and I handed in my notice at the grammar school. Maternity leave with my daughter, Seren, was bliss: baby swimming, music classes, baby yoga and a growing circle of new mum friends. Somewhere among those sleepy, joyful days, an idea began to grow. That idea became BilinguaSing.

I still wanted to teach, and St Peter’s was a wonderful school. But its headteacher, Rob, who had built a culture that put children before grades and people before paperwork, was retiring. I knew the school wouldn’t be the same. I went back in June to work my last six weeks with Rob, loving every lesson, partly because I knew there was an end date. By then BilinguaSing was taking shape, and I knew it would work.

In July 2013, I closed the classroom door for the last time.

Everything I learned building BilinguaSing with my sister Mel, and later The Business of Tutoring, now goes into how we support experienced teachers and tutors. If you’d like the shorter version of this story, read I chose me.

Written byEllie BakerFounder, The Business of TutoringEllie is the founder of The Business of Tutoring. A former teacher and tutor, she has built two education businesses from scratch and authored The 2 Hour Tutor. Today she holds the vision for our school, shapes our programmes and coaches on our live calls. Meet the team

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