Anecdotes

Retirement can unleash the 'new you'

Career | Published 9 May, 2009 | By: Alan Farnish was talking to Jennifer Beckles

Retirement is not an ending but a time of transition or even, if you so choose, a time of opportunity, according to one teacher.

There's no single route to follow after retirement, explains Alan Farnish of Darlington, County Durham.

Q: Were you worried about retirement?
A: I had real concerns in the years preceding my retirement in the year 2001. Work for me was a way of life and I was still physically very fit and mentally very active. Even at sixty I felt I had contributions to make and needed to fulfil new ambitions.I missed school and colleagues where I had spent the last 25 years of my career. I had had a great send-off from staff, governors, parents and students, an assembly hall named after me and a letter of congratulations from Estelle Morris, thethen Secretary of State for Education. I am naturally proactive, enjoy company and people.

Q: What kind of work do you do now?
A: The first opportunity for me came from Darlington Sixth Form College with a part-time vacancy allowing me to teach A Level politics. With fabulous students and a positive environment, superb results followed and the initial one term extended to six years.

I was then approached by an LEA to promote the 'Healthy Schools Award' in secondary schools which kept me in touch. When this terminated I was asked to organise and monitor their 'Education at Home Programme' where a significant number of families were choosing to educate their children at home rather than school; another enjoyable short-term contract for two years. A local business asked me to run two-day courses for them involving people from all professions and backgrounds, who were intending to work and teach abroad. I currently run about eighteen courses a year from Edinburgh to Leeds.

After attending a Teacher's Retirement Agency course in Durham I was approached to run one-day courses for headteachers and teachers in venues across North West and North East England.

Q: What about work life balance?
A: Retirement is essentially about achieving the right balance and my wife and I spend time travelling the world from the Caribbean to Middle East, Far East, Australia, Asia and Europe. We continue to do this with much forward planning and juggling of dates to fit in with family and all other commitments. Currently our daughter is teaching English in South Korea and our son is in final year at university.

Q: What advice can you give to other retirees?
A: Teachers have huge amounts of skills and yet many are reluctant and unsure as to how make best use of these skills. The 'new you' must continue to feel worthy and valuable and to be active in mind and body (I'm still running 25 miles weekly). My new identity since retirement will continue to grow until such times as I decide otherwise. Age for me is a figure with still much to do and I live the dream!

Semi-retired suits former headteacher

Career | Published 6 December, 2008 | By: Jennifer Beckles

Julie Cutts, former head of a comprehensive in the West Midlands, recounts how she spends her time

Q: What was your situation when you retired?
A: After a teaching career lasting 40 years, nearly half of which I spent as a headteacher of a mixed comprehensive, I reached retirement age. I was just over 60 at this point, and I was already trained as an external advisor to governing bodies. I was also trained as a threshold assessor to those teachers who reached the top of the pay scale.

Q Did you retire in one fell swoop?
A: My governors had the foresight to see that I would be ill at ease putting away the tools completely. How right they were! I was invited by my local university to undergo training to assess overseas-trained teachers who want to teach in the UK. It was a rich and interesting portfolio of work which meant, for the first time, I had the choice of extended holidays during term-time.

Q: What was difficult about semi retirement?
A: Working on my own came as a bit of a shock after 40 years of working within a team, and I had to learn fast. I'm lucky now because I'm also part of a team as a course trainer for the Teachers' Retirement Agency - a job which I feel more qualified to teach as each year passes.

Q: What's good?
A: I love being my own boss. I love being able to combine work with pleasure. I did move away from the school environment but I am still teaching only to adults this time. Best of all, there are no discipline issues. With hindsight, I can think of nothing teachers need training for more than retirement.

Q: What else changes with retirement?
A: It is worth thinking about changing relationships. Who will you see more often? My children thought once retired I would want nothing more than to change nappies several times a week. Now I am a globe-trotting, cappuccino drinking, emailing grandma and I practically explode with happiness spending time with my grandchildren. On the health front, I take advantage of every health check going. I try to exercise regularly by walking, swimming, cycling and horse-riding.

Q: What about financial provision?
A: I've sorted all the crucial but boring things like wills and considered the implications of long-term care costs. Don't look for me in a nursing home, though. I fancy the idea of that American lady who sold everything she had and negotiated a long-term senior discount on the QE2. Room service, sea view, shows every night, meeting new people every 7-14 days - now that's the way to do it.