Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Career change : how to get into teaching? (without going back to school)
Having spent the past ten+ years facing a computer screen I have decided to dedicate the rest of my working life to people. Nice thought, but how do I get about it?
I'm in my late forties, have changed directions a few times, needless to say that I have more skills than qualifications and that I do not have a proven experience of working in my new chosen field. As a qualification I have what I think is an equivalent to a foreign BSc, but I couldn't even tell if this counts as a degree. I have taught skills to people along the way through my different jobs, but this doesn't exactly make it to my CV. Finally, I only want a part-time occupation once I'm in, which I guess rules out a lot of options. And, no, I am not a parent, forget about mum jobs. The only positive is that I have been doing some voluntary work with kids since earlier this year.
I thought of becoming a teaching assistant, someone else said I could become a mentor, either way I know I'd be good at it (I would!) but... this is such a maze! I don't know the education system over here, but can't face going back to school for a year or more to study. Can I start somewhere and get training along the way?
Does anyone here know about the teaching world and could give me some advice?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by L F T Snowflake on
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Well most of my work was done in a voluntary environment, which is an entirely different environment to work in, but can be stressfull. There is a whole world of difference between working with children who only turn up because they want to and children who turn up because they have to. I have worked with the same children in both environments and the difference in the behaviour and attitudes when they are in the voluntary environment compared to the compulsory envornment is startling.
I would never describe the experience as 'rewarding' in the glowing sense that people associate with the word. What you do get is satisfaction. For example, the first female I ever brought into my previously all boys youth group is now its leader. Projects I started almost 25 years ago are still going strong and that sort of thing. and in teaching, suddenly getting a call from a now 22 year old you used to teach, because he remembers the film making club you ran at school and now runs his own youth film making club. Those are the kinds of things that you get satisfaction from. Thats where the satisfaction comes from.
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Well, there is a certain private school, that can be reached by carrying on along GL that has a wonderful reputation for things like sacking teachers half way through a lesson etc, etc.
I would personally say that if I could have just go on with the business of standing in front of a group of kids and teaching them WITH THE BACK UP OF MANAGEMENT if there were any disruptive ones, then I would have got a lot more enjoyment from the business. Sadly, that does not happen.
What also bugs you is the constant demand for reports on this, and figures on that - most of which end up as dusty files in the Deputy Head's office. The other thing of course is that your outside experience counts for absolutely stuff all.
I think the best example that came on a residential where I was asked to run a 'survival style' cooking activity. Now having been trained in survival skills by one Eddie McGee and a certain L Wiseman and having run winter survival courses for adults and kids since the late 70's, having to run an event like this in the middle of summer should have been a cinch.But no. Thanks to some utter plank from the senior management team, every time I tried to do something, it was 'you can't do that 'elfin safety'. If you are cooking on wood fires with inexperienced folk then you go veggie, so you don't get any meat cooking issues. But that was discriminating against meat eaters apparently. And so it went on, which was why I never offered my services to residentials again.
As I said, it wasn't all bad, but I ain;t half glad I am not doing full time teaching and now working with adults rather than children. I'd love to go back to voluntary youth work again, doing what I did in my last role which was working with 6 - 8 year olds, but I have too many other things to do with my time these days.
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Permalink Reply by Elisa Kaczynska-Nay on
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Brilliant. That just did it. Don't want it!
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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You could think about teaching at post-16 'post compulsory' level in a college ie Further Education. Nowadays you will have to be 'working towards' getting a teaching qualification but it's much less onerous at F.E. level, and can be done at the same time as working, though it will affect where you are on the pay scale. Unfortunately most of the interesting part-time adult courses have disappeared because of a mad Dept of Education need for everything to be about qualifications for getting work, not just education for its own sake, for fun, for fitness, for the joy of learning something new.
All 16 to 18 years old young people have to be in college now if they are not in work, as they can't sign on till they are 18, so there is plenty of work, but there are few new job openings as the trend for the past 2 - 3 years has been drastically to cut jobs, so those in jobs are staying put.
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Permalink Reply by ElleCarumba on
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You can teach in a private school without any qualifications at all. All you would need is a criminal record check.
Only state schools require Qualified Teacher Status (which normally comes from a degree/PGCE or more rarely on-the-job training).
I was a volunteer mentor in a secondary school for a couple of years- I wasn't aware of there being paid mentors in either of the schools I worked in. There used to be careers advisors in schools who had a mentoring role but I think many of those roles were scrapped.
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Most private schools now require a PGCE. Similarly with post 16, you have to gain a PGCE, my sister is a post 16 teacher and it is now expected, even at FE and even HE Level.
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Permalink Reply by Isabelle on
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Yes in theory you do not need qualifications for, say, a teaching assistant position. However in practice the jobs do go to people who have that training on their CV. Or lots of experience (back to getting a job in a state school first).
A nursery staff told me that a learning mentor is better paid than a teaching assistant, so there must be some (perhaps also the needs have changed since you volunteered). But I wonder if one has to be a teaching assistant first, then move on (via a higher level course).
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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You can teach in a private school without any qualifications at all. All you would need is a criminal record .
This is very true. And you can be sure that the Headteacher and Chair of Governors will have the longest criminal records of all.
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This is a very thorough reply, merci Thérèse. I know about the North of Paris (and the East!) because I come from nearby and can see how scary it'd be to Southerners ;). I guess you've seen the movie "Le Plus Beau Métier du Monde"?... "The Most Wonderful Job in the World" is a comedy about a teacher (Depardieu) who moves from a posh college to a Paris-suburb ghetto school – and eventually decides to stay (but that's a movie).
Going by what everybody says here, I doubt very much that I will go into this hell of teaching world. However I'd still like the experience of being a Teaching Assistant, perhaps I'll move onto being a Learning Mentor, perhaps I'll eventually teach art privately (long term and just an idea). Nanny doesn't appeal to me. I'm not looking for a full-time career, rather a part-time / flexible job related to children and education, even if it doesn't pay much and doesn't glow on my CV.
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Thanks, I'll look into this. I wasn't thinking of older kids, though have not ruled them out. At this stage I don't know where my heart lies in terms of age groups. I adore the 3-5y olds and find the young teens fascinating, but have not much experienced other ages.
I know what you mean about the qualifications madness. It's been like this in my home country for a long time and I thought the UK was so sensible to have a more 'human approach'.
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Sadly not.
It was quite interesting. in my final year at uni, the Security Services came on the Milk round (student recruitment) and so I thought, lets have a go. Let me tell you that the process of signing up to be a spy is an awful lot simpler than signing up to be a teacher. As I said, and I found to my cost, I think that the best route into teaching is by the Degree then PGCE route. I think that if one tries to go in by any other route, then you will end up being lead down loads of dark alleys.
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If you're strong with Maths, they more or less pay you to train as a Maths teacher.
But teaching it is different from being able to do it - i am 'good at maths' but wouldn't have a clue how to go about teaching it, I end up saying, but look this is obvious, why can't you see this pattern, because it jumps out at me.
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