Why would you want to go into a profession where you get half the pay for double the stress? This was the most common question I was asked when I told people I was quitting the world of banking for a life in the classroom teaching maths.
Oh, that and “at least you’ll get all those holidays; it’ll be a breeze”. I’ll admit, the holidays are a welcome addition, but they definitely come at a price.
I knew that I wanted to teach maths (I know, I’m one of those people that likes algebra), but I wanted to get some first-hand experience in a career that involves maths every day.
Living it up in the City
After spending a year in industry as part of my degree working in the financial district of Canary Wharf, I had no doubt that I would continue working there after university. As with most maths graduates, I became a sheep and followed the carrot on the end of the stick, which led me straight to the bank. Ideally, the bank was full to the brim with money. Life made? Initially, maybe, but let’s leave that thought there for a moment.
I was successful getting on to a sought-after graduate training programme at an international investment bank, spending 18 months being trained as a Global Operations Analyst (fancy title, eh, but what does it mean? I still don’t know...).
The training was first-class, very intense, and landed me with lots of opportunities to try new things. I was one of 70 graduates dotted around the globe, fresh-faced and ready to apply ourselves in a fast-paced industry.
At a time when the financial industry had just suffered massive turbulence and where regulation and conduct were very hot topics, my main role was simple: ensure everyone was keeping to the rulebook. If the rules changed, we were there to ensure that the new rules were implemented and kept to. Within my first day, I was involved in a $70,000,000 transaction (yes, that’s 70 million dollars, I had to count the zeros too).
These transactions were real; real money, real situations; it was definitely an awesome experience and one of many days that made it such a worthwhile job. But that’s it – it only felt like a job, it didn’t feel like a career.
While the three years at the bank were a great opportunity to enjoy promotion, network and fast-track a financial career that reaped lots of financial reward, it just didn’t always get me out of bed in the mornings. It also rarely rewarded me personally for my individual performance; there was more negative, unconstructive feedback with maybe a “well done” or “thank you” in there somewhere, but that was it.
The graduate training programme wasn’t just about working toward financial qualifications, though, it was also about the bank’s values system of giving back to the community.
It was this part of the job that I really enjoyed. Being the Community Chair lead in my department, I led a scheme that took the bankers into the classrooms of local schools in the community and provided workshops on money skills. This was the spark that got me thinking: the bankers should be coming into my classroom, where I was the teacher. It was time that I trained to be a teacher.
From making that choice to me applying to train as a teacher and getting on a course all happened in the space of two weeks. I didn’t hang about!
I knew the place I wanted to train with and I also knew it was the right time in my life to do it. I had had three years of unforgettable experiences and made some lifelong friends along the way. But this was the time to start a new chapter in my life, and of course I had to plan it so my last day in the office was July 17, giving myself a summer holiday off first. Maybe it is all about the holidays in the end...
Thinking back, now a year or so on, I have achieved so much but it hasn’t come without its lows to weigh down the immense highs.
By training through a SCITT (school-centred initial teacher training) provider, I was able to immerse myself in a main placement school and really start making a difference early on in the year (similar intense and rewarding experience to the training programme at the bank). By attending whole-school open evenings for prospective students to helping out at table tennis club, I knew that the school was the right place for me.
Resilience is key
Let’s whizz back to the first few weeks in September; spending hours planning starters and plenaries and searching online for hours on end to try and find the “perfect” pre-prepared lesson that I could have planned in much quicker time.
If I think back to the last few months in the bank, I would spend similar amounts of time ensuring presentation packs were organised and reports were extremely detailed.
Sometimes, I would be told that they were missing something or they were not good enough. I’ve learnt from these experiences to always bounce back. Resilience is the key – it’s the same with teaching.
So if a lesson didn’t go so well, reflect. Reflect on the strengths and feel good about these and also reflect on how you can make the lesson better next time. Sometimes it may be that you spent too long planning the lesson. Over my training year, I learnt to focus more on what the students thought and their progress in the topic and less on what I personally thought about the lesson and how it should be taught.
Take risks
Another thing I learnt from being at the bank and put into practice quite swiftly in the school environment is taking risks. They can be as small or as big as you want. It could be having an IT lesson with your most challenging class or taking students outside to learn bearings by doing a treasure hunt around school.
I have definitely learnt that making things relevant and engaging to the students is paramount. The main aim is to take the risk, deliver the lesson and of course reflect.
Once you have taken the risk once and reflected, the next time will feel like a breeze – and it is also an opportunity to share ideas in your department or across the school.
I was able to try an assessment for learning technique that I gained from a CPD session and sent the resources I made to all staff at the school to save them time if they wanted to try the idea.
You’d be surprised at how many friends you make by sharing resources – it also works in your favour too when they start sharing things back!
The next year
Now the new year has begun and NQT status has brought increased confidence but also new challenges to overcome. The first one being that of having my own tutor group of anxious but excited year 7s. I suppose I was in the same boat as them on their first day. Even though I’ve been lucky enough to be appointed a job at my main placement school, I was teaching completely new classes with lots of new faces and new names.
Six classes of 30-odd students – I make that 180 names. Luckily being a maths teacher has its perks of being able to remember lots in a short space of time (failing that, I might just assign them a number from 1 to 180 instead!).
Three years in banking has taught me three things: reflect, take risks and, finally, tell the $70,000,000 story – it’ll hook them in on what would have been a rather dull compound interest topic!
- Mark Grimmett is a mathematics teacher at Guildford County School and was formerly an operations manager at an investment bank.