to want DP to let me go on this course?

[Desperateretrainedmumof3]

I retrained nearly 2 years ago but haven't got a job. We're really struggling with money, we could even lose the house.

Anyway there's a course which teaches you how to get interviews for the field I retrained in, it costs £50 and is based in London (we don't live in London so travel costs but a return train is £20 then tube costs so maybe £80 total?

DP says its snake oil, taking advantage of people's misery, but it's totally legitimate. I feel so unsupported by DP. AIBU?

I think you've had a run of bad luck OP. Renting for a while isn't a bad idea. Friends of mine did this for a few years, then bought a bargain house in a nice area later on when he and his wife were more stable.

If renting, could you consider renting nearer a city or larger town? There may be more options there?

Harry I know you're trying to help, but I know things can look so simple on here, but they're just not. Moving would mean my husbands jobs, kids schools, friends ... I've made my family sacrifice enough.

To be honest with our credit score and lack of money we'll be lucky to camp under a bridge.

If you have worked as a TA previously, then please go & volunteer at a local school and get the confidence back because you've got experience, truly you will get a TA job at the very least. How about exam invigilating? Have you actually contacted any supply agencies to see what work they do have available, you may be surprised? You don't have to take what work they offer, you tell them what you are wanting. If you want a NQT post fir a minimum of a term then they may well get you that.

Omg I give up, I do.

Op, I am an experienced senior teacher. The course may be great but if your goal is to use it to help get a teaching job then it's a mistake. I can only reiterate what others have said about you needing up to date experience. There isn't time in schools to take a risk on someone who can't evidence they are able to do the job without an enormous amount of support.
There will always be people you are competing against who have excellent applications, which is what the course is for, plus solid experience regardless of the form.
Perhaps teaching isn't a doable career for you. As others have said it's certainly not a job which fits around children. What would you do if one of your dc were ill and their childcare wouldn't take them?
I would also question why you had done seasonal non education related work as your only recent experience. Yes, it was to pay the bills but it doesn't tell me it was because you enjoy working with young people.

What about volunteering at youth clubs in the evenings?
Good luck.

I worked as a TA 9 years ago, no NVQ or anything, I can't volunteer as I've a 2 year old and no one to look after her and I CAN'T DO SUPPLY I'VE BEEN TRYING FOR 2 years and there isn't a way it will work!!

I know teaching isn't doable, that's why I said, we're selling the house, it's really distressing giving up on a career I was passionate about and losing the house already

TBH, it does sound a bit as though you have given up & honestly, teaching only works if you are in a positive frame of mind, you really do need to sell yourself and feel confident. Even after a summer holiday I feel apprehensive having a class again, two years with no experience seems an awfully long time.

Op, things are obviously very difficult for you and it's clearly not doable for you to pursue teaching at the moment hence referring back to your first post, it isn't worth spending a weeks worth of food shopping on.
Your focus needs to be on the here and now. What about night work?
When I first started teaching we got by with dh working nights and I worked days and we swopped over in the morning and evening. It was horrible but meant no childcare costs.

But you don't need to give up on your career. Have you phoned any agencies? That is free to do & I think you may be surprised.

Being qualified as a teacher trumps an NVQ _ schools will be delighted to get a qualified teacher as TA rates, honestly they will. Secondaries also advertise for cover supervisors - again an agency might help get this sort odf work.

If you have a 2 year old and qualified 2 years ago then this isn't a new reality for you surely. A potential employer will wonder why you had a child around the same time as qualifying and then took two years out. Is it doable for one of you to work nights? Otherwise maybe it is better to rent as a mortgage may not be the right thing at the moment with so little income into the house.

Sorry things are difficult OP.
Will you have some equity after selling the house? If so, I would suggest putting aside some money just to fund childcare (say for 6 months) so that you can then start putting into practice all the advice people have given you here (getting experience through volunteering).

Good luck!

Don't thinkof it as giving up, shelve it for a few years.
Concentrate on surviving the next two years with minimum damage to everyone.

OP I don't think anyone on here is being nasty or asking for any more detail than they think they need in order to be able to HELP you. It isn't a case of them being nosey, they just feel that they need the full details in order to be able to give appropriate advice.

I retrained as a teacher a few years ago and had to do so via an OU course to get my degree, then GTP. While I was doing my degree I got a TA job at the worst school in the area, one of the 10 worst performing schools in the country. People were literally walking away from the interview and one of the interviewers had to leave halfway through the process to go to hospital as a pupil had hit her and broken her arm. It was a horrible job but I took it. Plus I did breakfast club and after school club, then went straight to a bar job after school every day and weekend and then at 11pm I got home and did my degree work. I had to keep the bar job through my GTP as well and yes it was awful but I needed to do it to get the experience and also keep a roof over my head and run a car.

I also gave up a lot of school holiday time to go on school trips with the local secondary which then liked me and offered me a GTP placement.

The GTP school saw how much I wanted it and the head created me a job before I'd even qualified even though he got a lot of flak from the governors for it as it meant he'd overspent on his budget for a teacher the school didn't actually need. But it just goes to show that it is bloody hard to break into teaching. I didn't have DC at the time and it nearly broke me. So to be in your position must be really disheartening OP and I do feel for you.

Good luck in whatever you choose, I do think that experience is what you need but it may be that you are able to better commit once your youngest is at school/nursery.

By the way, there is a LOT of money in schools at the moment for intervention in secondary Eng/Maths, and you don't have to be a subject specialist to do it, just have QTS. It's paid for out of pupil premium money and our school employs 4 people to do 2-3 days a week of 1:1 intervention - could you enquire about that? I think they get about £25 per hour and can timetable their own hours. It's not something which was advertised so you'll probably need to approach schools to enquire.

RedHelen, she said that she'd tried for TA posts and not got them either.

OP, I feel for you, money problems are shit. I live in rental, in a nice house. It needn't be awful- and you are right to do what you have to do to keep going, you will pick yourself up again.

In terms of the work in your area, if it is a rural area, there may be few jobs anyway. I would think about doing (if you live in an area like this) social care or elderly care for the next few years until your littlest is at school before trying to get back into teaching. You can often work shifts, weekends, or I had a friend who did two nights a week so that she didn't have to pay for childcare.

I also think you have to be realistic that you probably couldn't work a teaching job with three small children without any back-up whatsoever if your husband is out all the time. Even if you have a childminder, if one of the children is sick it's a nightmare, although you can get cover in secondary schools, it's very difficult to juggle all of these balls at once. I do a similar job but in the HE sector and I find managing children's illnesses and after-school care pretty difficult in truth. I rely on family and the odd help from a neighbour- but it sounds like you don't have that around you.

Good luck, think of this as a temporary dip rather than a full on hurtle to the bottom. I would probably do anything that doesn't require childcare right now (as nursery plus two sets of childcare before and afterschool every day will cripple you financially anyway) and know that in a few years, things will be better and you can go into the classroom later in life or in a different capacity.

Oh desperate I really feel for you. Thinking about having to sell your home is incredibly stressful. Have you been in touch with Shelter about your options?

It sounds like you're hoping against hope that there's a full time teaching position out there which is within your reach in the short term, that would solve your financial problems and meet your ambitions.

I think however you need to split these two things out - from all the advise you're getting here it sounds very very unlikely you'll get a teaching post in the short term and most of the routes to gaining the experience and networks you'll need are understandably very difficult for you right now.

It feels like you would be better off putting teaching to one side in the short term and focussing all your attention on getting back on a financially even keel. When your youngest is a bit older and you can focus more of your energies and time to it the opportunities should start to open up. Do not feel you have failed yourself and your family - I think you need to reset your goals for now: short term = finances, long term = career.

One it is hard to get a TA job unless you are already known to the school and are currently volunteering in some capacity. Very difficult to get one cold with no recent or current experience. Standards and expectations are very high.

Op, I feel for you, I really do, but honestly truthfully people on here have bent over backwards to try to help. They're not criticising. They're offering expertise for free in an area that you were planning to pay for training. As a general rule, teachers are helpful people - it's what we're paid to do - and that's what people are trying to do here.

It sounds like you and dh are getting close to a plan - moving, renting etc. Have you discussed how this move could be engineered in favour of your teaching options? E.g by moving towards a larger town or near public transport? Will your two year old be eligible for his free 15 hours of nursery by next Sept? That will free you up for supply or volunteer work very soon.

Also, have you considered volunteering at weekends or evenings? (when dh is presumably available to look after dc?) For secondary school applications the school will want evidence that you work well with teenagers. That doesn't need to be in schools. It could be at a youth group, some kind of advocacy work, etc. Most local councils have lists of volunteer places and I bet there would be some with teens near you.

Oh bum...just had a horrible thought...does the rule still exist about completing NQT within a certain time of PGCE? Not sure how long it is though :(

Don't know where that "one" came from.

Yes, I though evening/weekend volunteering would be a good start. Could eventually lead to paid work too.

I'm not going to give you grief OP - it's very hard to get into teaching. Without knowing what happens when you apply [do you get interviews at all? If you don't then it's your application that needs looking at. If you do then it's your interview techniques that need looking at] - it's hard to advise properly.

I did go on a free course delivered by an experienced recruitment blokey and I took the tips he gave me, and got the next job I applied for. But if I tell you those things you are going to go off on one at me as the only thing you wanted to know was whether to go on the course or not.

We do not know whether it would be worth it or not, as we don't know where the sticking point is. And if we knew, then people could actually help you rather than winding you up.

So either you realise that we can't make that decision for you because we don't know the reason you aren't getting the jobs, or we help you as much as we can without knowing the reason. We can do little else.

No one has asked for intimate details; just a bit of understanding about how you came to be in this situation. Your more recent posts explain a lot. The teaching issue isn't the key factor here. The key issue is that you spent quite a few years as a SAHM and then your partner got made redundant, and could only find work on a lower income. Now those circumstances are really bad luck, but I'm afraid not untypical of what's happened to many families over recent years, what with the recession, job cuts, pay freezes and rising living costs.

It's clear that you expected to turn things round by retraining, but maybe you weren't given clear enough practical guidance on your post grad course. I suspect most of the other students were younger and completely mobile, and therefore stood a greater chance of employment. It would have been helpful for the course leader to really talk through with you the prospects of you walking into a permanent job within commuting distance of where you already lived. Or maybe they assumed you would have researched those aspects. The bottom line is: you're not operating on the same baseline as all Those other students who qualified as history teachers alongside you because I suspect most of them have been willing to move, and to take temporary contracts. If you aren't in a position to do that, then clearly you stand less chance, and no amount of brilliant courses on interview technique is going to change that. These other candidates no doubt have great applications and interview skills- plus the ability to move around and take whatever contract comes up.

Anyway, you can't change the past, so what you need to do is make yourself as employable as possible for the future. You've got your house on the market which is a good first step. I cannot recommend strongly enough moving somewhere less rural where the job opportunities are greater. Yes it means moving out of your neighbourhood and the children changing schools. Many of us have been there, done that, for our careers. If you weigh it up and decide you don't want to make those changes then that's your call, but you can't say people haven't offered practical advice.