Does anyone know anything about jobs in education?

[flowerfairy]

Have been a teacher for 13years now and after ds was born(5 years ago) returned to work part-time, got made redundant, got a temporary job that has lasted 3 years so far! But hours being cut again from Sept. Have had 1 interview out of the many jobs i have applied for, feeling redundancy and upper pay scale maybe putting off employers. This has equalled a lack of confidence and am now wondering if it's possible to move into teaching assistant role? Does anyone know what would i need to do to change into this role into school-retrain, get NVQ qualification? Please help.
TIA.

[scribblehead]

Don't lose confidence I bet you're a great teacher. You're probably onto something with the UPS thing. Also with the recession I expect less people will be leaving teaching for greener pastures and more people will be applying. Could you do some supply teaching? My sister does supply and works most days. Sometimes she does supply as a teaching assistant and sometimes as a teacher.

If you did want to get a teaching assistant job I wouldn;t think you'd need new qualifications although first aid might help. you might have to convince a school you were serious and not going to run off after the first teaching job you saw.

[Kizzipoppet]

In theory, there is no reason why you couldnt apply for TA roles if you met with their selection critera - which would be very likely with your wealth of teaching experience. However, be warned, the salary would be a probably a massive drop!

There is a NVQ type TA training course you can do, but this is not generally essential (unless they specify on their person spec for the job), although often boosts your commitment to the job / knowledge / experience longterm.

Have you thought about tutoring in your subject privately? Tutors get about £25 per hour vs a TA which might get £8 per hour. However, if you were to secure a TA position it would give you a fairly secure job for longer term, rather than contract / interim teaching contracts. Or some larger schools might have more Cover Supervisor or Senior TA Roles which would pay more and be more in line with your teacher experience.

I agree with Scribblehead, keep your confidence up and fingers crossed you get more teacher hours / contract.

All the best whatever path you go down / continue on.
Bear in mind working for local govt as a TA would entitle you to a good pension ie they would contribute 19% on top of your 6% - which makes good financial sence in the longrun.