Are Free Teacher Career Change Events Actually Worth Your Time?

Free career change events promise a lot - here's what they can actually give you, what they can't, and what's worth checking first.

You might have seen one of our free events land in your inbox or on your social media feed by now. Leaving Teaching in 2026. Stay or Go. Next Step Fest. Different names, different points in the year, similar deal - a properly useful hour or two, on the house.

Maybe one of them gave you exactly what you needed at the time. Maybe you signed up and never quite got around to watching. Or maybe you've clocked them going past and wondered what a free event can actually give you, versus what you'd need to pay for.

Fair question. Let's answer it.

What a Free Event Can Do For You

One good session can do a surprising amount: give you permission to take the whole thing seriously, help you see your situation with a bit of distance, and give you a taste of what proper support feels like when it's not just you and a search bar at 11pm.

What it can't do is rebuild years of teacher-shaped identity, hand you a finished CV, or replace the quieter work of figuring out your values and where they'd actually fit. If anyone tells you one workshop will sort your entire career change, they're having you on.

Is It Worth Your Time?

Depends what you're hoping for. Turn up expecting a finished plan and a new job and you'll leave a bit deflated. Turn up expecting more clarity on where you stand, what your next move could actually be, and how to carry it forward - that's usually exactly what you get.

Worth a bit of due diligence too, ours or anyone else's. A few honest testimonials, or an episode of a podcast where someone tells their own story (ours is here, if you fancy a listen.), will tell you more in ten minutes than any sales page will be able to.

The Trap of Feeling Like Action

Here's the bit nobody says out loud: signing up to every free thing going can start to feel like progress, even when nothing's actually moved.

You watch one. You feel lighter for a day. Another one lands in your inbox, and you sign up for that too. Weeks go by, you've picked up a lot of solid information, and the CV is still blank - or you’re sending off applications and they’re still not getting noticed! Watching starts to stand in for doing, because it's a lot less scary than actually making a move or changing up what you’re already doing.

If that's you, it's not a character flaw - it's an extremely easy trap, and it usually just means something's missing from what comes after the workshop. A free event can start something. It was never going to finish it for you.

The Free Events We Run Each Year

None of the timing of our free events is an accident. Teachers hit different points in this decision at different points in the school year.

Leaving Teaching in 2027 is our New Year workshop - for anyone ready to actually plan an exit instead of waiting for a mythical "right time." It covers the psychological barriers that tend to keep people stuck, plus a realistic pathway out. Best suited to anyone with a decent runway ahead of them, who wants the year to be their last one in teaching.

Stay or Go is our Easter holidays workshop, for teachers who know something needs to change but haven't worked out what - whether that's still deciding whether to leave, or having decided and not knowing where to start. It covers what staying is actually costing you, how your skills map onto roles you'd never have considered, and a framework for making a decision you can trust.

Next Step Fest is our NEW summer holidays event, for teachers who've already made the decision - whether you’ve handed your notice in already or are planning to do it sometime over the next academic year. Running on empty. Stuck knowing you need to move but can't. Applying and hitting walls. It's personalised through a short quiz, so you get the bit that's actually relevant to you.

Which, handily, is what's on right now.

What Actually Happens When People Show Up

We asked attendees of last year's summer event what it gave them. Here's a flavour, in their own words…

"From the start, I knew they understood what I had been through and how to move me forward - which gave them undeniable credibility." - Steph

“Jo and the AAT team are such a breath of fresh air! The teacher-specific information is 100%, I’ve learnt so much in a short time.” - Kirsten

"It changed my mindset from 'I'm not sure what to do next' to 'there are a lot of opportunities out there that I could be considered for.'" - Elizabeth

“Just what I needed this summer. Having wavered for a while, it’s galvanised me into action" - Sam

Jen's a good example of where that first step can lead. She came to one of our previous free summer events stuck in a pattern a lot of us recognise - quietly convinced she wasn't good enough for the roles she was applying for, which meant she never properly translated her own skills onto the page. It gave her space to actually stop and look at that, rather than push through it. She came away planning to move forward more carefully, later joined the Academy, and is now a Project Support Officer in the Civil Service.

None of that happened because of the free event on its own. It happened because it gave her something to work with, and she kept working with it.

What's On Right Now: Next Step Fest 2026

This year's version is a bit different. We always run a summer event (we used to call it ‘Summer Bootcamp’ if you’ve been following us for a while!), and in the past we've tried to talk to everyone at once - useful, but a lot to wade through if half of it isn't for you. So this time, you take a two-minute quiz when you sign up, and we build your line-up around exactly where you are - burnt out and running on empty, stuck exploring and can't move, or applying and getting nowhere.

Everything opens on 23rd July, nothing's live, so watch whenever suits you across the week - with replays available for a limited time only. Completely free.

Whatever your starting point, it's a good place to take your next step from. Take the quiz, and we'll take it from there.

Categories: : Teacher Career Change Tips