How I changed career at 40

I started off thinking this was going to be a blog about the past 3 years. It ended up being about the past 20. And it made me realise that every year of those 20 was relevant to what I’m doing now. I’ve drawn on so many of the skills from my previous career in running a freelance copywriting business. From the technical nitty gritty of sentence construction, to my presentation skills and ability to explain things clearly. It’s all there. I figure I just spent 17 years training to be a copywriter!

My name is Catherine Jones and I used to be an English teacher.

I hadn’t planned on being a teacher. As a youngun, I’d always dreamt of doing something creative. I had a deep joy for the performing arts, loved doing dance, music and theatre. However, in my family, we were firmly geared towards a ‘sensible’ career route. It was clear (although never said explicitly) that the performing arts were not a viable option. Which wasn’t terrible – a big part of me enjoyed academia – but it wasn’t my dream. But, like the dutiful daughter I am, I shelved my dance/music/theatre ambitions and trundled off to do a gap year, then an English degree.

Which was a bit rubbish. I mean, the academic side was great (Old English, Shakespeare and Marlowe, The Forms of Modern Poetry etc)  but lots about my university experience didn’t live up to expectations. In fact, I struggled. And I emerged from my 3 years of study with no idea what I wanted to do (which seems to happen to a lot of people).

So, while temping in some truly atrocious offices, I applied for over 100 graduate positions. Not a sausage came back. I had some thinking to do. I knew I loved English as a subject and wanted to use my degree, I’d enjoyed the voluntary work I’d done at a nursery in my gap year, both my parents were teachers so I had some idea of what was involved… and that was it. Decision made.

For the love of my subject

Teaching wasn’t my vocation. I never felt the calling to make a difference – well, not at that stage anyway. It was a way to embark on a solid career, that was interesting, varied and allowed me to work with my subject specialism. And that’s what drove me.

But teaching is not easy. It’s multi-faceted, complex and ever-changing. And despite what many people think, it is a learned practice. It’s not innate. You could say I had a gift for the performance element and the academic side – I built great rapports with my classes and was quick to learn the latest pedagogy, education theory or initiative. But I found it overwhelming. Emotionally and physically. I had flashes of inspiration and drive followed by periods where I felt I was drowning in the marking and admin. I was not organised. I didn’t know how to be organised. And, because “organisation” was not on the official teaching skills list at the time (even though it’s a crucial part of the skillset), I was unable to receive support on it through my professional development. Crazy.

But I ploughed on. And got by. Great results for my students, less great results for my personal admin. But I could live with that. However, as the years went by, more and more education initiatives were sent down to schools, usually to push the latest government agenda. The focus on teacher accountability and scrutiny (and admin) soared and the maverick, creative teachers I remembered from my own school days were pushed out of the profession. I began to feel disillusioned and looked for other roles.

Finding an alternative path

Anyone who’s been in teaching can tell you the allure of the TES (Times Educational Supplement) Jobs Abroad section. Jobs in Barbados, Cyprus or Spain. Australia, Germany and South America. Every Friday, I’d sit in the staffroom and pore over those pages in the hope of finding the opportunity to escape.

A chance to reclaim my creativity and reignite my excitement for the job did eventually appear. I found an opportunity teaching English at a Pupil Referral Unit (now called an Education Centre) in Brighton. And honestly, it was the best job I ever had.

I taught students who had slipped through the cracks – whether for emotional and mental health reasons, or for behavioural ones. Our remit was to reengage them in education and try to get them back into mainstream school, or find them a suitable alternative placement in a special school. We had a core curriculum to deliver, but aside from that we had a very free, creative remit. Small classes, a generous budget, we were encouraged to inspire the students in really creative ways. I loved it.

After that I began to seek out alternative roles, and was appointed as deputy SENCO at a mainstream Secondary school. Again, I was able to work creatively with small groups of students who found the demands of Secondary school a huge challenge. I trained to become a dyslexia specialist and was proud to help even the most challenging students make progress with their literacy.

These two amazing jobs really changed my perspective on teaching. I was now a passionate advocate for the needs of vulnerable students who struggled – either academically, behaviourally or emotionally, and it paved the way for my next role.

An opportunity to lead

There were no opportunities for progression at that school. I’d become union rep and got involved in a ton of extra-curricular activities (yes, doing performing arts!), but there was no chance for me to climb the ladder there. After 3 years, I sought out management opportunities elsewhere. And my dream job on paper appeared – leading a unit for emotionally vulnerable teenagers. An Education Centre in Hampshire wanted an English or Maths teacher to lead and manage the team. The role seemed made for me.

So I applied, had a rigorous 2 day interview and was appointed. And stayed there for 4 years. It was a hugely varied role. 50% of the time spent teaching, 50% running multi-agency meetings, dealing with families, working with local schools, advocating for the vulnerable and LAC (Looked After Children) in our care, managing staff and of course running the day to day operations of the unit.

It opened my eyes to the realities of life for deprived communities, even more so than Brighton had. The area was rife with drug problems, criminality and social deprivation. Generations of the same families were known to the services who supported our students. And I was on the front line, trying to make a genuine difference to the lives of the truly vulnerable. I loved it.

The changing education scene

However, times change, and politics came, and cuts came, and it became harder and harder to fulfil our remit of engaging students in creative ways. The Ofsted criteria for Education Centres merged with that of mainstream schools, and suddenly it felt like we were in a strait jacket. Because the focus was now on academic progress, not engagement. And that was such a skewed way of looking at our service. When students came to us they hadn’t been in school for months, sometimes years. They had a range of emotional, behavioural and academic obstacles to overcome. Their confidence had taken a battering, their family situation was usually at crisis point and just getting them through the door was an achievement.

And in all honesty, if our students got to the point of making academic progress, we put them back into mainstream school. Measuring their grades was completely pointless. We were working at the stage of getting kids to attend consistently, sit in class, listen, interact in socially acceptable ways, become emotionally stable and develop resilience. Plus, we were a temporary facility. Kids were only ever meant to be with us for a few terms.

Then came the accountability initiative. A drive to monitor teachers like never before. “Book looks” became a tool of tyranny. Exercise books were no longer just a place for students to record their ideas, but a log of evidence that teachers were doing what they were supposed to be doing in class. Discussions, role plays, presentations, group work  – if it wasn’t evidenced, it didn’t happen! If you gave verbal feedback to a student, you had a special “verbal feedback” stamp to verify that you’d had an actual conversation. The professional trust was gone, completely. My morale, and that of many amazing colleagues, was broken. It was like the system was actively working against us.

A life changing event

You can imagine the relief that came with my first pregnancy (and joy, and excitement and all that jazz, of course!). Because at last I had a way out. An opportunity to escape. Actually, I’d only intended to take a year off for maternity leave, but when it was made clear that I would be demoted if I went part-time, I decided to cut and run. I mean, how hard could staying at home with a baby be?

“Ha!” I hear you chuckle. And yes, you’d be right. I was very, very naïve. I thought I’d be perfectly content being an amazing stay-at-home mum and throwing myself into baby groups, homemaking etc. What I hadn’t prepared for was the loneliness. And how much of my identity had been caught up in being a teacher.

Because when you meet someone, that’s the first thing you ask isn’t it? “What do you do?” – our identities are all caught up with our jobs. And when you don’t have a job, you feel like you have to justify your existence. I found that really hard.

I needed the world to see me as an intelligent, valuable human. And I missed having colleagues. I mean, I made some new mum friends but the only thing we had in common was our babies. It was a lot tougher than expected, and I think many women have the same experience.

The hunt for a new career

So, I need some mental stimulation and it wasn’t long before I was scouting around for something else to do. But it’s really difficult to pivot your career. By the time you’re 40, or even 35, you can’t afford to start again at the bottom of the ladder. And ageism – there’s that too. So while I knew I had been unhappy in teaching and didn’t want to go back, I had no idea how to retrain. I’d been tutoring and marking GCSE exam papers since before my baby was born, but it was hard to make any decent money from it around my childcare restrictions.

A new challenge was needed, something flexible and creative. I came across an idea for mums to retrain in digital media and took some online courses. I decided to take the plunge, creating a Facebook group of 2000 followers and a events website for local families*. I did a year-long business programme with the university of Chichester, and took workshops in marketing. I was piqued.

*Disclaimer: to be completely frank, I had no idea how to monetise my following, and the business tanked. But my appetite for entrepreneurship had been whetted.

A helping hand

Now, with my mind opened and new knowledge at my fingertips, I was sure that I could forge a career in digital marketing somehow. I talked things over with some online friends, and my wonderful friend Diana Tucker of Marketing Fusion suggested copywriting.

It was a lightbulb moment. The perfect match! Little had I realised, that for all these years I’d been studying, teaching, demonstrating and practising writing, I’d actually been honing my own skills as a writer too. I have to thank Diana for pointing this out to me. And for offering me my first paid copywriting gig.

Learning the ropes

So, until pretty recently, I hadn’t even know copywriting was a thing. I’d been a prolific story writer as a child and won prizes for my creative writing. English had by far been my strongest subject at school. But, all I’d been told about careers in writing was that either you were born some kind of fiction writing genius, or you studied journalism (which was described as ‘far too competitive’ for the likes of me).

I never knew you could be a writer in any other way. What a joy it was to discover otherwise! It’s a more creative way of working than I ever thought possible. I wish I’d known it was a thing years ago.

However, it must be said, everything I’ve done in my career has helped, and continues to help. My deep knowledge of grammar, form & structure, of finding specific ways to improve and polish writing. The way I am as familiar with the building blocks of language as I am with finessing a high-quality piece of work. The way I modelled the craft of writing for so many years and made the process explicit. The way I analysed, commentated on, and created myriad examples of writing for different forms, purposes and audiences. All of that was training for this.

No agency background? No problem

You know what, the agency thing comes up every now and again, although most of my clients would rather work with an individual. Having said that, I enjoy the teamwork of agency jobs. I may not be totally familiar with the etiquette or protocols, but I’m learning.

And I’m not intimidated by the shiny agency status. Because frankly, when you’ve dealt with kids who smash up classrooms, windows, doors and threaten you with assault on a daily basis, held high-level multi-agency meetings for the most vulnerable children in the country, been child protection officer for some truly tragic cases and dealt with dysfunctional families in crisis throwing everything they can at you in frustration, you know you can hold your own.

Because it all counts

Diversity is what I love about the copywriting community. People come to this career from all walks of life. Everyone’s story is different, the industry is completely diverse and we all bring our own unique stories and skills to the mix.

And actually, I’m still teaching. Whether it’s copyediting another writer’s work, looking for ways to brush up a piece of content, finding the thread in a woolly blog, asking probing questions of clients, managing group work, running a webinar or applying my creativity in ever-new ways. I learnt all that in the classroom. It all counts.