I Will Not Become A Teacher

When I went to uni to study English Lit, I confidently told all of my friends (who told me there really wasn’t much else to *do* with a Literature degree) that I would absolutely NOT become a teacher.  I resisted for quite a long time, spending most of my twenties working in customer service in one form or another.

The universe was not to be denied, however, and one day, I did a day’s volunteering in a small primary school in Cheetham Hill, Manchester.  I fell in love with education – I was a teaching assistant 2 months later, and four years later I was completing my PGCE at Manchester Uni.  I’d met my husband (also a TA at that little school) and it looked like I’d found my dream career. 

6 Years Later, I Was Pregnant With My Second Child

Juggling an unsustainable workload with the demands of growing a person, trying to look after the other small person, and helping a class of 30 to make progress.  In the end, I suffered a panic attack in my car (which I genuinely thought was a heart attack) while driving home at 7 months pregnant and was very lucky not to have crashed – it was a near thing.  My doctor signed me off that evening and sadly, I never returned. 

After spending a year with my second child, I needed to find something else to do.  I knew I still felt passionate about education, and I wanted to find a way to contribute to the sector but on my own terms.  I’d been doing a bit of informal PA work for a friend and neighbour, and when the lockdown happened, I wondered if I might be able to offer these services online.

Katie Stone, PA

A bit of research and a website later and I was set up as Katie Stone, PA (I was worried nobody would understand what a VA was since I’d only learned the term about 3 weeks before!)  I decided that I would like to work with education businesses so that I could follow my passion and leverage the specialist knowledge I could bring to the role.

These days I am earning more than I did as a teacher – but I also get to drop my kids off at school, see the nativity (lockdowns allowing) and have the odd day off (unheard of!)  

I work with many different types of small education businesses – consultants, coaches, tutors, mentors, suppliers – you name it!  Every day is different too, which I love – some days I am embedded in a business’s systems and processes, helping a client to map out their SOPs, others I’ll be creating complex, high-level email automations. I help clients out with inbox and diary management, social media marketing, document creation and formatting, audio typing, database creation and maintenance, and spreadsheet analysis…and I feel confident to try just about anything because as a teacher, that was exactly what I had to be able to do – turn my hand to anything!  I was also a finalist for the West Midlands VA of the Year award which was great fun – I got to go to Birmingham and drink champagne in a posh frock!

Teachers Make Amazing VAs

I passionately believe that teachers make AMAZING virtual assistants, whether or not they choose to niche into education businesses as I have.  We are confident communicators, able to work with loads of different stakeholders, brilliant at juggling many, many balls without ever dropping them, and uber-organised.  My clients appreciate the edge I have due to my background experience in education and schools, and I love the fact that I get to continue to contribute to an industry that I feel is the most important one in the world – while meeting some amazing people and getting a MUCH better work-life balance than I ever managed while teaching.

My next step is going to be helping other teachers who want to leave the classroom and set up their own virtual assistant business – I think learning how to shift from a salaried mindset to that of a freelancer (and all the practicalities of how to set up and run your own business like tax, building a website, what kind of insurance to get etc) can be really overwhelming – I know it was for me – but the rewards can also be life-changing.

Side Hustle

If you’re thinking of setting up your own virtual assistant business, I’d definitely say you need to consider a niche – trying to sell to everyone will mean you end up selling to no one; I learned that the hard way.  I’d also encourage you (if you can) to think about setting it up as a side hustle if you have the time and the brain space.  It took me 8 months to earn anything more than pocket money – and I was lucky enough to be able to put that time in due to various lockdowns, but I think it would have felt very stressful otherwise.

The VA industry is really friendly and there will be loads of people on hand to offer advice and cheer you on – including me!

If you would like to get in contact with Katie you can visit her website here: Katie Stone PA

Or via social Linkedin and Facebook

Note from Did Teach

‘Virtual Assistant Education’ has a nice ring to it, lot’s of EdTech organisations have work they can outsource and who better to deliver high-quality content than a teacher? Setting up as a virtual assistant can be done whilst you are teaching, build your business slowly and with purpose, get free advice from your local Growth Hub.

Virtual Assistants for teachers? during my 19 years of teaching, I always thought I would be so much better at my job if I had a virtual assistant, if only the school budget would stretch to that! We can but dream…