What can a life after teaching and retirement look like?

At the end of 2022 I took early retirement. I’m lucky. I didn’t have any desire to fill every day with things people think I should be doing. My Dad, also a retired headteacher, had 33 years of retirement. He never said he wondered how he used to fit it all in with a full time job. That’s me. I’ll do what I want when I want.

It’s odd when people think you need to fill your time and even contact you saying you may be interested in supply because you have time on your hands. I’ll never be interested in supply. It’s good to have time to spare because time you enjoy wasting is not time wasted.

Having been able to work in ITT, plan and deliver the suite of NPQs, coach leadership programmes, assess the final written tasks and actually write some of the NPQ written summative assessment tasks, I have enough to fill my time work wise. I have even more time family wise. I can choose how often I want to do this work. There are windows of working time as marking has deadlines etc… but what is very different for me, which is miles away from where I had been, is that all of this work has a defined start and end point. After that the ‘work’ to do list is often empty from pressing things. These times are spent being far more spontaneous, garden time, family time and simply just being.

It’s called a life balance where you balance your time. Balance between what must be done and what you love to do against what should be done.

I’ve been doing this for over a year now. Never looked back.

I’ve been in the fORRtunate position to have done this when I did. Caring responsibilities also influenced the decision.

I planned my retirement for several years to ensure I would be able to manage. It’s amazing what we think we need and really don’t. I’ve seen work colleagues go through threshold or get a higher paid role and immediately spend the increase in salary on things such as a bigger house. Saving or investing or simply leaving it alone doesn’t enter their heads.

I am mortgage free and any other debt free. It’s taken time to get to that point and strip things back to what is really necessary. I have had store cards etc… but cut them up and paid them off. Store and credit cards can weave their own spirals of never-ending payments. I looked at other things I had subscriptions for etc… and decided they weren’t needed anymore. Only years after I had done this I came across this video by teachers and for teachers – The Pit Pony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8d81Frn6vo

I realised I had already done this in preparing for life with a very much reduced income. This video was created to support teachers wanting a change in direction career-wise but concerned about finding a job paying the same as their teaching salary.

Life is good.

I know when to do things & when to stop & simply be.

Learn to know when you need that balance & then actually do it.

Live your life.

What is possible? Look at your transferable skills. There are many jobs in ITT, leadership, assessing, coaching, designing content and resources for many organisations, especially if you want to stay within education.

Create your CV – many sites such as Indeed do Boolean searches for key words and will get in touch.

Plan what you do and work smartly. Set up email alerts – it’s a pain initially as you do get inundated with emails. Once you have what you need you simply unsubscribe and disable them all.

Think about what you need to live as opposed to what you want first of all. Live within your means where possible. This takes time and discipline.

Sell yourself – get someone to check your CV over and take advice on how to promote it. There are lots of people on Twitter (still can’t call it X) who offer great support.

If you want it, do it!