Possibility of returning to physics PhD

Hi,

Background: I graduated with first class honours in physics at the end of 2023 from a good university (group of 8 in Australia). My honours thesis also produced a paper which we published in PRL(I am a coauthor). At the time due to some personal reasons I could not directly go onto a PhD program but I always wanted to do one. I decided to do a teaching degree instead and now I am a high school physics teacher. I am based in Australia.

Question: I want to apply to a PhD program. Has anyone made a shift from high school teaching to a PhD? If so did the teaching experience have a positive impact on selection process. I’m asking cause the way I see it is that I’ve been away from physics research for 2.5 years and this is a gap in my research experience. I obviously put a lot of work in my undergrad and my honours research so I don’t want to settle in terms of going to school with below average research reputation. My research interests are is atomic physics and gravitational wave physics. I did my honours project at the intersection of atomic theory and gravitational wave physics but I am happy to do a PhD in either Fields.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks