A MATHS teacher who gave up a high-level corporate job to retrain has labelled it the best decision of her life.
Melanie Muldowney, who started her teaching career at Trinity High School before joining Alcester Academy last September, spoke to the Standard after it was revealed teaching levels were at their highest since 2000.
Research from the National College for Teaching and Leadership shows in the West Midlands there were almost 8,500 queries in the last recruitment year alone from people interested in teaching.
Mrs Muldowney said she had a place on a PGCE course 20 years ago but met her husband and decided to go into business with him. After working in the pub trade for a number of years shed joined the corporate world and made her way up to the level of director of operations at an electrical contracting company looking after the UK, Ireland and Portugal.
But she said after the death of a colleague she reconsidered her career and decided she did not want to get to retirement age and regret the decision not to try teaching.
“I knew if I didn’t do it then I was never going to do it.
“Something was telling me I had to try it, it was quite a life-changing moment.”
After doing her PGCE in her mid-30s, she joined Trinity but after seeing a significant increase in results there wanted to try a new challenge by moving to a different school.
On her advice for those considering getting into the profession, Mrs Muldowney said: “Get into a school first to make sure you have a feel for the kind of school you want to work in.
“You also do need to make sure you’ve got family support, to have a shoulder to cry on sometimes and someone to remind you why you’re doing it.
“There are the highest of highs and the lows can be heart-breaking but the highs outweigh that 110 per cent both inside and outside the classroom.
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done without a doubt.”
