Changing channels, changing perspectives

With a successful television career under her belt, Sarah Baxter felt the urge to try something new. We spoke to her about what drove her to swap exotic filming locations for a south London classroom.

After graduating from university in the mid-1990s I had a career as an actor for nearly a decade. But when I got to my 30s I wanted a job with a bit more stability, and I fell into the television industry. I started with the production company Impossible Pictures and after a couple of years joined the BBC, where I worked for 11 years. I worked on some amazing projects and programmes – Walking With Dinosaurs, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire – and shot with great teams all over the world.  

However, by this point I'd had three children and, after each maternity leave, it got harder and harder to go back to the job. My perspective changed massively when I had kids – I got such a huge kick out of them, yet I was spending my days having to pander to TV personalities or dealing with a shoot crisis in my bathroom at midnight because it was the only place I could talk without waking the family! I knew I’d been really lucky with my career, but it got to the point where I wanted to be around to support my family. I also wanted to help others to get the same career opportunities that I had been so fortunate to get, simply by coming from a nice, middle-class family. 

My comfortable background had enabled me to have a successful career doing amazing work and travelling all over the world for many years. I began to feel that it was time for to me to help young people whose circumstances would normally prevent them from having access to the same opportunities that I did, so I started to think about teaching as an option. 

My time at the BBC honed my multitasking and management skills, and I can already see how that will help in the classroom.

I found out about Teach First by complete accident when researching paid routes into teaching – I knew that if I wanted to give teaching a go I'd have to find a paid route into the profession as I had a mortgage and three kids to pay for. As soon as I started reading about Teach First online I knew 100% that this was what I believed in and what I wanted to do, and I turned up for one of the Teach First coffee mornings to find out a bit more about the programme with a baby and a buggy in tow. They convinced me to apply straight away, but I decided to defer my application for a year so I could spend more time with my youngest child. 

Nothing prepares you for your first term in the classroom. As an actor I was never unduly nervous about walking onstage, but I felt moments of real fear as I walked alone into some classrooms. I think joining the Teach First programme can be particularly challenging for career changers like me – we’re used to being successful and experts in our field, so to walk into an environment where you suddenly know so little really puts you out of your comfort zone. That said, my time at the BBC honed my multitasking and management skills, and I can already see how those skills are going to become really relevant in the future.

I’m only a term in, but returning to school after the Christmas holidays was the first time I’d felt excited about getting back into the classroom. Making connections with some of the more difficult students has also been so rewarding – they’ve come to realise that I’m not the enemy, I simply want to help them. Some of kids at my school are complicated and demanding, but they’re all also really energising, and the satisfaction of knowing you're helping your students is huge. I was used to working very hard in my previous career, but anyone who joins the Teach First programme needs to be realistic: to truly commit to the programme you have to really throw yourself into it – and my husband has also had to do the same. 

As a mother to three young children – two of whom are in primary school – I know how important education is, which gives me an enormous sense of responsibility as a teacher. I’m at the start of a long journey, but going to work every day where I’m surrounded by people who are 100% on top of their jobs and really enjoying it makes me see my own path ahead, and I know that’s where I’m going to be in a year’s time. And I can’t wait to get there.

Considering changing career to teach? Find out more.