Kate Bohdanowicz

Yesterday was glorious - a rare warm, sunny, ice-cream kind of day. I ambled into Uni for a noon start and left an hour later, a qualified teacher. It seems strange that at the age of 40, having spent my entire career as a journalist, I suddenly had access to another profession.

Before we left, the lecturers asked the trainees what impact the PGCE course had on us. There was a lot of chat about critical thinking and teaching and learning being a continuous journey, but I just said one word - employability.

Twelve months ago I was virtually unemployable. Staff jobs on newspapers were rare and barely anything was advertised. As the union rep, in the midst of yet another redundancy drive, I saw lots of brilliant people leaving journalism to try their luck elsewhere. There was constant talk of retraining, diversifying or leaving the industry all together.

The PGCE is a difficult year. My God, I thought it would be a break from work. How stupid was I? Nevertheless, it's the best career move I've ever made. Now, instead of the weekly email informing me of five or six jobs available in newspapers, I get one a day, alerting me to vacancies in schools and colleges.

I want to give it a go as a part-time teacher and freelance journalist. That's the reason behind launching this site. Who knows what will happen? Give me 12 months and I might be looking for full-time teaching work. Still, at least I know there are jobs out there.