Transition from teaching

As a member of our Network of Essex Alumni Teachers (NEAT), Annabel Harries (BA Modern Languages and Linguistics, 2015) got in touch with us to tell us about a recent award won by her organisation and education resource provider, Sweet Education.

Eager to hear more about her journey from Essex, to becoming a teacher but transitioning out of the profession, we asked her a few questions.

Tell us a bit about your time at Essex – what did you study and what did you think your plans would be after graduating – did you always plan on becoming a teacher?

I arrived fresh-faced at the University of Essex in 2011 and eagerly began my degree in Modern Languages and Linguistics. I had always loved Spanish and I really enjoyed learning about language acquisition, so perhaps there were early signs of a career in language learning and teaching. I spent my third year of university abroad in Madrid, working as a teaching assistant and helping students to learn English. I absolutely loved the role, and I knew then that it was the direction I wanted to take in the future. I remember attending a careers talk from a Teach First representative in my final year at Essex, and I thought it sounded like a fantastic opportunity! I applied and somehow made it through the mind-boggling interview process to be accepted into Teach First’s 2015 cohort in Wales.

What has been your career journey since, how did you get to where you are today?

I completed three years of teaching in my Teach First partner school before getting the itch to travel. As an MFL teacher and a lover of all things Spanish, I enthusiastically returned to Madrid and got a job as an English teacher in a private school. I taught in the school for two years, but when Covid hit and the tapas bars closed, I decided it was time to head home. Cue lots of online teaching, nonsensical lesson planning, and a general sense of chaos! At that point, I knew I wanted a change from teaching. I still wanted to continue working in education, so I looked at a variety of roles within the sector. I stumbled upon a job at the company I work for today, Sweet Education, and began a new career path in sales and resource development.

Tell us a bit about the organisation you work for, and what your role is?

At Sweet, we design innovative and engaging resources for secondary school students across the UK and beyond. My role as Head of Sales is all about engaging with schools and letting them know how our resources can support their learners. We are best known for our Personal Growth and Wellbeing (PGW) resource, which helps learners to achieve an accredited BTEC qualification with double GCSE equivalency. The PGW resource develops life skills, supports student wellbeing, and promotes progression to further study and future employment. It’s also mapped completely against the new PSHE and RSE curriculum in England and Wales.

What’s the best bit about your role?

The best bit about my role is being able to support both staff and students in schools. In my previous role as a teacher, I was only able to celebrate the successes of the handful of students I taught. Now, I get to work with over 200 centres and 20,000 students, and it is an absolute joy to see so many of them succeed. As well as this, I get to work with teachers and help to make their lives easier, as there is no need to plan lessons or create additional materials with our resources. At team Sweet, we’re all ex-teachers, so we’ve got ready-made PowerPoints, flashcards and mark schemes coming out of our ears. We receive such positive feedback from teachers (and inspectors!) about the benefits of our resources and this always makes us smile.

What has been your proudest achievement in your career?

In October 2022, we won Best Education Product of the Year at the Mental Health and Wellbeing Awards! We are absolutely over the moon to have won the award and we are still pinching ourselves now. It has been a huge team effort to create the PGW resource and it’s fantastic to see the impact that our work is having on students across the UK. We have also recently gone international, as we’ve started working with our first overseas school. We really feel like our resources are helping to make a difference, and these milestones are a true testament to this.

If you are a graduate working in secondary education, join the Network of Essex Alumni Teachers via our online form. By creating a network of alumni teachers, we are better able to allocate our resources to offer support in higher education information, support and guidance for you, your colleagues and students.

Alumni within the scheme have access to a range of benefits, including:

• Termly newsletters to keep you informed about all our upcoming activities.
• A single point of contact at the University for any information relating to the University of Essex or Higher Education in general.
• Priority booking for all our engaging events for students and staff.
• CPD opportunities for all staff.
• An invite to our Annual Teachers’ and Advisers’ conference.