Mumsnet Talk

The Open University courses in education require you to be in school for 5 hours a week, either paid or as a volunteer.

It was my local adult college with one evening session per week. You needed to have 8 hours in a classroom. Enforce they changed the criteria

The next college is too far distance wise I think. Although I will look into it (I don't drive).

I will definately keep my placement going till July (and then see if they want me again if I am not working as it all looks good on the old CV!!)

I have to say magnificunt I do love your name

Is there another college you could apply to, e.g an adult college? They may have different criteria.

I have just started a level 2 course and need to be in a placement for a minimum of 6 hours, this is at an adult college.

When I applied at the main college, the criteria for a level 2 course was the same (6 hours voluntary or employed), but for the level 3 course it was 6 months experience or being actually employed as a TA.

Oh yes I do know what you mean

Most of the jobs state specific qualifications (but admittedly I have not looked at loads and have only had a browse today).

I would not not apply iyswim because I don't have a qualification yet..

I guess the advantage of being in 2 separate schools on a regular basis is that I might get to hear of vacancies before they are advertised and yes, they will know me

Yes I know what you mean. But if a job comes up either at your volunteer school or your dcs school you will stand a decent chance of getting it because they know you already, even if you don't have any qualifications. Experience of working in a school is a massive advantage. Unless the job advert states that qualifications are an essential part of the person spec, I would apply for all jobs in any school that appeal to you. Can you tell that this is my specialist subject?

Thanks

I forgot to say that I also read with yrs1, 2 and 4 weekly in my DC school.

I just think that in the current climate there is competition for each TA job so I might need to be more formally qualified I have looked at the jobs advertised in my local area and it does seem that way.

I think that if you have experience in a school either as a volunteer or in a paid capacity, you could still apply for TA jobs. It's not essential that you have any qualification. Most of the TAs I know don't have any formal qualifications.

I know there have been loads of posts on this before

Now that my youngest DC is in school full time I have thought about becoming a TA.

Last June when I first looked into it, the course I wanted to do at my local college required that you had a placement in a school for 6 months before able able to start the course, so I duly sent out my CV (as I wanted it separate from my DC school really) and was really pleased to get a placement in a reception class and started in September.

However I have contacted the college and now the criteria has changed and you now need to be employed by a school for 10 hours a week.This is not possible as I am a LP so need to be working full time.

So now I am thinking of doing an online course (NCFE). But I have read (looking at other threads on here) that they are worthless.

Is that because they don't need you to have a placement??

I am going to keep my placement until July, so will that make a difference?

Or are there any other online courses that are better?