Hi and welcome! I am a British primary school teacher, who decided to leave teaching in the UK to follow my dream of teaching English abroad combined with travel trips wherever possible in between. All whilst writing about and sharing my predicaments and shenanigans along the way!
The early days…
Writing is something that I’ve always enjoyed, but up until now, I haven’t really pursued it. And I guess if I hadn’t gone into teacher training, perhaps I would have studied English literature at university. But then, the people I know who did study English literature are now teachers!
However, when I started secondary school I wasn’t really interested at all. Partly because I hit my teenage years – which developed my vocabulary in quite an unsavoury manner! And partly because the English teachers at my school were frankly, awful! Yes, they were passionate about English itself, but teaching wasn’t their calling. They didn’t want to be there, and children were just a nuisance to them! This meant that I disliked my lessons, completed coursework half-heartedly and even bunked off! Which inevitably resulted in me not doing so well in my English GCSEs, gaining a C in literature and a D in English language. I remember being really disappointed when I opened that envelope at the end of that summer. Even though I’d virtually put no effort in. But what did I expect? I was worried that it would hinder my prospects and what I wanted to go on and do at college.
I knew I could do so much better and I also knew that I wanted to go into teacher training. So I had to do better! And so, I retook my English GCSE alongside my A level course at college. This time my English teacher was great! Slightly eccentric and told you how it was, which I like and respect in a person. You know where you are with them! He had no time for the individuals who couldn’t be arsed and were only there because their tutor said they had to be. And why should he? As well as school leavers retaking like me, there were also mature and foreign students. Everyone pretty much just wanted to get on with it, which was great. We had a teacher who wanted us to achieve and wanted us to get those grades so we could go on and do what we wanted to do next. I can remember the last few lessons before the end of the year, and even though we had that big exam we were all still preparing for, he took the time to ask us what our plans were for the coming September. He wanted to listen to our plans for the future and which direction we were going in. Knowing that this qualification was a stepping stone to the next stage of where we wanted to be. I guess it gave him job satisfaction in a way.
He was passionate about literature and integrated this into his lessons. For the first time in a long while I was interested in writing again myself. Which resulted in me achieving A grades that summer.
Travel and exploration…
After teacher training, I moved back to my home town and got a job in a local school, where I worked for several years. But, I always felt and knew that I didn’t want this to be me forever. I always had that niggling feeling that I didn’t just want to settle and that there was more out there to see and explore beyond what I already knew.
I’m not really sure where the urge to want to travel and live overseas comes from. But, looking back, I think I’ve always had an interest in travelling and exploring the world whether I was aware of it or not in my younger life.
I remember tales my Grandad would tell me, my siblings and cousins of his navy days. We would sit across the kitchen table with our elbows propping us up, heads in hands and ears pricked up as he slurped his tea in between story sections. Totally engrossed and intrigued by his stories and the adventures he’d had in all kinds of places. Stories of being stranded from the ship in the jungle and having to eat snakes to survive. Which, after discussing them in later years amongst ourselves, we are pretty certain they were highly exaggerated tales! But nonetheless, I remember being completely fascinated. I wanted to hear more travel tales and adventures. And I wanted to be off having adventures of my own – minus the snakes that is!
My Gran always calls me the ‘wanderlust one’ of all her grandchildren and every time I meet up with one of my cousins she always asks where I’m off to next! Feels kind of funny that I have that reputation with my family. But I guess it’s also kind of cool too that I’m now actually doing what I was only dreaming of doing a few years ago.
Being a teacher in the UK…
I’d been teaching for around 8 years in the UK after graduating, but that niggling feeling was still there. I didn’t just want to visit somewhere for a week. I wanted to immerse myself in another culture and tell my own tales – just not as exaggerated as my Grandad’s tales! But, after spending years contemplating and reading several other travel blogs, I still wasn’t quite brave enough to start my own adventure. Instead, I kind of followed the pack in the sense that I fell into the rat race of graduating, getting a job, buying a house, and then following the belief that I needed the security of keeping that job to pay that mortgage each month!
But, as anyone who has or does currently work in education will know, the system in the UK really isn’t great! Every year it felt like it was getting more and more stressful to me. There always seemed more that had to be done. More book scrutiny, more meetings, more learning walks, and more emails later into the evening. It just didn’t feel like the job I had signed up for eight years previously. How was it right that I was working every single evening and every single Saturday morning just to keep on top of marking with the highlighting and the ‘next steps’ malarkey instead of spending time with family or out living life with my friends?! My colleagues were all working the same amount of hours every week, so it wasn’t just me either. It was the expectation of being a teacher in the UK itself!
I was disappointed in a way because I’d trained and gone into the profession with the expectation that this was a ‘job for life’. That I’d retire some 30 years later having felt I’d done some good in the world, children had had a good educational experience and I’d leave satisfied with that thought as I was ready to draw my pension. How young and naive I was!
But realistically, teaching, especially in the UK, isn’t like that, certainly not anymore! When I was on the receiving end of education myself, the majority of my teachers had been at the school 10/15 even 20 years with no plans on going anywhere until they were ready to draw their pensions. They had gotten their jobs straight after training, and that was them for the next 30 years!
In my teaching career, I have only ever encountered two teachers who had retired from having been teachers all their working lives, and another who retired 5 years after making teaching a second career.
I can remember one lunchtime in the staffroom (on the rare occasion most of us were able to actually sit and have our lunch! ) where we got onto the discussion of when we were all newly qualified teachers, our first year of teaching and how long we’d been teaching. The discussion went on to how long we’d all been teaching at this particular school. One teacher, who was due to retire that year, spoke up and said she’d remembered when another colleague in the room was ‘the youngster of the team’ as she put it. ‘How long ago was that?’ Asked another, younger teacher. The teacher in question then proudly announced that it had been seventeen years. I remember thinking, ‘Wow! It is an achievement, she’s right to be proud of herself.’ But at the same time, the thought of still being in the same job all those years later was unthinkable to me! I knew I wanted to go and experience other things. If only I had the courage to take that leap! And just as I was thinking this, another colleague, who had just happened to sit next to me that particular lunchtime, looked at me and whispered, ‘Don’t let that be you saying that in a few years!’ Those words that lunchtime have always stayed with me. She was right. That particular teacher who was proud to say she had been teaching seventeen years in the same school was obviously happy and content. But what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. And I knew that whatever happened in my career I wouldn’t – couldn’t stay somewhere as long as that!
Leaving the UK…
It became that the thought of totalling up all those years and retiring as a teacher in the UK was something that I just couldn’t contemplate. I just got fed up with all the expectations, pressure from management, and ridiculously long working hours. I kept asking myself what it was all really for. It certainly didn’t feel like it was for the children’s benefit! Then came the whole capability thing, which was just, frankly, a barbaric way to treat teachers. From what I observed at this time, all I knew was that it was wise just to keep my head down and try to get on with the job at hand in my class! Thankfully, I managed to escape getting that dreaded white envelope in my pigeonhole. But it was more than enough to make me think I should be jumping ship before I was made to walk the plank!
There were several, what I called nonsense moments that kept swaying my thinking towards taking that long-awaited plunge. But, the absolute final push for me was after a book scrutiny by the maths co-ordinator and deputy head. As always, the email was sent out a day or so beforehand that they were coming around to collect a lower, middle, and higher ability child’s books. They were to come around and pick which ones not us! This we were used to. Feedback for this particular book scrutiny came back in the form of scribbled Post-it notes almost a week later all over the children’s books. There was the usual nonsense of not underlining with a ruler and the LO not being copied properly etc. You know, all the stuff that supposedly would get SLT the brownie points with Ofsted when they appeared. Never mind if little Jonny was actually achieving the learning objective! Just as long as he was reminded to use his ruler so that his book looked neat and tidy ay! I got to the final post-it that was requesting evidence of maths work for the whole class for three consecutive days. I think to myself that that’s odd! Given that we teach it every day, they haven’t not had a maths lesson for 3 days in a row! I spoke with my colleague across the corridor who informed me that she had also had the same post-it asking for ‘missing work’, but for different dates. She went on to inform me that when she went back and checked these given dates it was for three days during the Christmas holidays! No joke! And the three dates I had been asked for were for three dates during the February half term! I mean, wouldn’t you at least have the common sense to have a quick scan of the academic calendar on the wall above your computer screen? Would have taken much less effort than writing copious Post-it notes surely!
It all just became utter nonsense to me, and I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore!
So, in 2016 I finally took the plunge and accepted a teaching job in an International English school in central Spain. Sold the car and rented the house out. And so, my long-awaited dream/adventure/travels had finally begun!
I kept a diary of my experiences at the time, but until now haven’t shared any of it. Instead, I’d scribbled my mishaps, shenanigans, etc into a notebook. Then, once filled chucked it at the bottom of the suitcase where it eventually ended up in a box in my old room at my parent’s house. After recently being reacquainted with them after a clear out and reminding myself of certain ‘travel teacher shenanigans’ I decided to put my diary notes into blog posts to share my overseas teaching experiences. And, trust me, there are several, funny, silly, bashful, and hilarious ‘me’ moments, as I attempted to find my way! Like the time I needed to transfer some money home and somehow managed to turn off all the lights in the bank leaving everyone in almost complete darkness. Or, when I thought I might be getting somewhere with my Spanish, and somehow ordered a glass of wine instead of coffee at 8 in the morning!
What I hope to achieve…
Fast forward from 2016 and I’m still teaching internationally. I’ve now taught in three countries (and counting!) and, as ever, use my free time wisely to explore my newfound home and surrounding countries. I’ve made friends for life and experienced so much more than I ever would have if I’d stayed teaching in the UK.
I’ve found that the same job is different elsewhere. Of course, there are pros and cons to every environment, but I’ve found that teaching can be an enjoyable, less stressful job!
So for now, I just want to continue living and experiencing what I am whilst I still can and share my experiences as I go.
