Why I left teaching at 52, without knowing whether my next career would work.

I began teaching in 1989 and left in 2021. Towards the end, I was becoming someone I barely recognised.

The work I loved

Some of the most meaningful work I did was in behaviour support. I worked with individual students and small groups who were at risk of disengaging from school, and with their families too. I could see exactly why that work mattered.

Then a leadership change put me back in a classroom. After about 15 years away from curriculum teaching, I was teaching Year 7 English. Managing the class was fine, and I could keep the students entertained. Underneath, I felt deeply uncomfortable with what I was being asked to prioritise.

A vegan at the burger place

I told my principal that coming to work felt like being a vegan turning up for a shift at your favourite burger joint. She thought I was joking.

From where I stood, some of my students needed basic communication and literacy support more than anything. What I was expected to deliver was prescribed content and preparation for assessment tasks they struggled to connect with. My hope was to help them listen to one another, communicate fairly, think critically and get curious. Instead, I felt boxed in by assessment requirements and curriculum documents, and I began to feel like a sham.

When the results of one assessment were questioned, including whether my time out of the classroom explained them, it crystallised everything I'd been carrying. To me, chasing a benchmark was overshadowing the learning that mattered. I was done.

The mask

The hardest part was what the job was doing to me. I was the staffroom clown, the outspoken one who made jokes and challenged things. Getting through a school day got harder, and my good humour started turning into sarcasm and bitterness. On the surface it may have looked like I didn't care. In truth, I cared enormously, and keeping a lid on it was exhausting.

School gave me structure that helped with my ADHD: bells, timetables, deadlines and predictable routines. Still, I felt like I wore a mask all day, and I came home drained. I could picture a future where I stayed until retirement and grew bitter and resentful. That wasn't a future I wanted.

The fear

I went straight from high school to teachers' college. Three years later, before I'd even turned 20, I was back in a school, this time teaching students only a few years younger than me. School was all I'd ever known.

Leaving it frightened me, especially financially. Teaching offered a dependable fortnightly pay, holidays and super. People asked why I wouldn't just sit it out until retirement, and I understood their reasoning. Staying would have been easier. Safer, on paper. But easier and right aren't always the same road, and I couldn't stay.

While I was teaching part-time, I trained with a copywriting mentor and started building a business. Writing suited my strengths. Years in classrooms had taught me to read a room, meet people where they were and adapt how I communicated. I'd used words to educate students; now I could use them to support business owners.

After the leap

Handing in my resignation was a relief, even with no guarantee copywriting would work. Working from home in my pyjamas felt glorious at first. Later, I realised how much I missed having people around me, and networking became important. I also had to learn to introduce myself as something other than a teacher, which was harder than it sounds.

I won't pretend the move solved everything. The financial uncertainty is still with me, and copywriting hasn't been the complete answer to my working life. But I've sustained myself, grown as a person and found the autonomy I'd been missing for years. Knowing what I know now, I'd still choose to leave. 100%.

The work I loved

A vegan at the burger place

The mask

The fear

After the leap

Your path might look different. That's the point.