Does anyone teach in FE?

[Elephantofsurprise]

I am looking at some jobs in Further Education and I would like to hear what it is like. What is the work load like? How do the holidays work?

Do you need to have experience in FE to apply I have taught primary and High Education.

They pay advertised is below the teachers pay scale is this expected?

Any advice would be welcomed.

Hi.

I worked in FE for 10 years. They operate on lower pay scales than mainstream education but I cannot say that the workload was less than in the Sixth Form Colleges that I worked in previously.

Just as throughout education, everyone is overworked and underpaid and you still have the pressures of OFSTED inspections but with generally weaker students.

i taught BTEC in FE as well as A Levels and I would say that there is less pressure on results. There weren’t really the expectations that were placed upon us in Sixth Form and with BTEC, everything isn’t just on the final exams. As I was in the latter part of my career, I found that to be something of a relief.

i don’t regret my years in FE but it’s a personal choice. You’ll teach better students and be better paid elsewhere but it’s a personal choice.

Less pay. You might have teaching hours from 9.00 - 5.00 five days a week so more prepping at home.

Discipline - well in theory only students who want to be there are there but in practice it isn't always the case and you cannot put students in detention.

More freedom in how you teach things though and no picking anyone up on uniform, they can come in full goth, in shorts, skirts any length and somehow male students and teachers are not distracted.

You will probably find yourself teaching something outside your speciality but I think that happens in schools.

Depending on the FE college there can be perks such as cheap car valeting or cheap bread made by catering students, even cheap hair cuts and massage.

I am so pleased to have some responses. I currently teach in a university ( where I am going to be made redundant) .

We have a 9-6 teaching day ( which does not work well with childcare). I have taught such a wide range of things in my life that this is a strength of mine.

My local college has a higher education department that teaches the subject I lecture in but the vacancy is teaching at level 3 which I have not done before.

Go for it @Elephantofsurprise I much prefer FE to school teaching.

I've taught in FE for 9 years but now in HE. My husband currently teaches in FE.

He moved from SEN teaching into FE for less stress. He is now less stressed. He is paid less but never has to stay up to midnight prepping lessons, yes the students are in 9-5 but you have time off teaching to prep when they are on placement etc. You will need to take part in open evenings and interviews sometimes on a weekend. Holidays are not as good but he tends to work from home over summer prepping, planning and it works out fine.

FE worked for me at a certain point in my career as it was flexible. I dropped my hours up and down for the 9 years I was there and stayed there those 9 years because it worked around kids. Now I'm in HE and earn much more than husband but glad his stress isn't taking over our lives.

Are you - and the other posters - in England? FE lecturers here in Scotland are on 50k after three years, you automatically move through the payscale points, and it's equal to teacher pay within a few hundred pounds.

Edit - we get 62 days holiday. 65 if you signed the original contracts.

I've been in FE for 12 years now and I love it. Yes it's hard at times but what teaching job isn't?

A major bonus for me is I can count on one hand how many times I've taken work home out of my hours. I did spend one year in a secondary school in my early career and watching teachers arriving at 7am and leaving at 5pm with a stack of books to mark in their own home was awful. That's not the life for me.

I'm (probably) a lifer at my college and I love the work.

This is very positive. Sadly I am not in Scotland ( I am Scottish but live in England) so would not be on the better pay.

I've worked in FE for 20 years.

I love the teaching as i am in a department where the students want to learn.

However, the pay is not good and in my team, most of whom have been in the department more than 15 years, no one is on more than 34,000 a year. Most of them are probably on around 32,000. Well qualified and good teachers.

I rarely take work home but this is probably due to experience more than work load but I do think the work load is less than schools.

FE can be level 1 to degree level.

You need to come to Ireland! FE teachers earn the same as secondary teachers with same holidays (4.5 months off). 22 hours teaching per week with prep hours fitted in between those hours - this year I work 9-4 3 days a week, 11 - 2 and 9 - 1. I've been in FE for 25 years.

My aunt worked in FE and moved over from secondary school and she was a fully qualified teacher.
As above she enjoyed far less pressure and stress but said it's a different cohort and with with some challenges from sen or home life.

However what did frustrate her was sometimes a lack of awareness from her colleagues on teaching. You can move to fe from an industry which is encouraged, however you don't have to have any educational background.
This means people with no sense of safe guarding, sen needs and everything else that gets drummed into teachers.
They have an expectation to work towards a qualification within several years.
She said they have no comprehension of what "differentiation" means and no concept of how to adapt teaching to a particular cohort.
As a professional she found this frustrating, she has retired now and really enjoyed it for her last stint but was incredulous at the standards of some of the "teachers".
For this reason she also doesn't support pay to match properly qualified teachers.

Hello there,

I am a careers advisor at an FE college and if you're considering teaching in FE, go for it! The beautiful thing about working at a college is, you can teach your subject specialism without a teaching qualification; many colleges will put you on a Level 5 teaching qualification. Level 5 Diploma Teaching (FE Skills).

Please note you might be tasked in teaching Level 1, 2 and 3 BTEC, T-Levels and potentially Access to HE, with that comes workload e.g. marking and prepping outside working hours.

An advantage for teaching in FE is, teachers may be eligible for bursary/grant depending on subject, please see link for more information; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fe-funding-initial-teacher-education-ite-bursary/fe-ite-bursary-funding-manual-2024-to-2025

It is also good to note, the number of 16-18 is on the rise across the country (UK) and potentially you might have close 35 to 40 kids in your class (speaking from experience)

Happy to answer any queries you have, please drop me a message.

@TaffetaRustle on the contrary I taught in FE for 9 years and had repeated OFSTED graded 1 lesson observations where 'adaptive teaching' as it's now called was inspected. As did all my colleagues.

Maybe they do things slightly differently in FE and my colleagues came from industry but they certainly had strong teaching skills. To not support a decent teaching wage for her colleagues sounds a bit shitty tbh!

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