To want to leave mainstream teaching and become an EOTAS/EOTIS tutor?

[Brimstonebutterfly]

I am currently a secondary English teacher, and I'm really struggling with burnout and workload. I want to leave, but at the same time I don't want to completely give up on teaching.

I have a vague idea of becoming an EOTIS/EOTAS tutor for children with SEN who can't be educated in a school setting. I have a fair amount of experience working with children with SEN, but I know very little about how EOTIS works.

I wonder if anyone has any experience either working in this capacity or having a child receive this provision, and could tell me a bit about it?

Is it basically like private tutoring, except you're hired and paid by the LEA? Do tutors have to teach all subjects, or are the children given different tutors for different subjects? I'm confident I could teach other humanities subjects as well as English, but I'm not sure about Maths and Science!

Is it something you can do full-time? I assume each child only gets taught a few hours a week, but would there be enough demand for me to work full-time or nearly full-time? Say 30+ hours? (I am in a fairly large city in the North, if that makes a difference). Is it generally a long term thing or is it something children do short term before returning to school?

Thanks!

You don’t have to teach all subjects

yes it’s like private tutoring.

some students have it long term (often autism or similar) while for others it is shorter term - illness/recovery etc.

there’s also AP type provision for students who a violent etc on school premises so are given tutoring off site. They’re usually ok 1:1.

can be a lot of travelling

Thanks! I don't mind travelling.

ds2 had an EOTAS arrangement with home tutors for four years with five different tutors over that period. In the end very successful but the initial 2 tutors had to be patience personified to get him to reengage with learning after the trauma of his previous experiences in school. Children with an EOTAS arrangement by definition are hard to teach so you have to have patience in bucket loads and lots of flexibility to meet their needs.

It worked best for ds when each tutor taught a different subject but there was some push for them from the agency to cover more e.g. maths and science by the same one.

From the tutors perspective there was lots of travelling to do ( I think most of ds2's tutors lived at least an hour away from us). Other disadvantages were no guarantee of how many children they would be allocated to teach or conversely pressure to take on more children than perhaps they were happy with. You also have to be happy going into someones home to teach bearing in mind that often SEN has a genetic component so interactions with the parents might be not as easy as you might think.

Despite, or probably because, ds2 was so difficult to teach initially, I think his tutors got a huge amount of satisfaction when he engaged and got his A levels. So definitely some positives from the role.

That's really helpful, thank you! I'm so glad that tutoring worked out well for your son; that's fantastic he got his A-levels! I would be fine with covering a few subjects, I've covered some lessons in other humanities subjects at my school. My worry was that one tutor would be expected to teach every single subject, and my maths and science just aren't strong enough for me to feel comfortable with that beyond primary level. I have some experience with children with SEMH needs, so I feel fairly confident with that aspect.

This has some info about EOTAS. https://sentutors.co.uk/what-is-included-in-eotas-packages/

https://www.ntas.org.uk/
This is the company I have worked for, for 10 years now. I have been very happy with them.
It’s a nationwide company (I’m in Cambridgeshire). You can choose how much you want to work and can almost always get a full time table if required. Teaching takes place either at home, a local venue or online (I have just started a case using Google classroom - it’s great). It’s a zero hours contract which means you can have flexibility and the rates of pay are, in my opinion, pretty decent.
Definitely worth looking into.

Thanks! What subjects do you teach?

I do this, 3 pupils a day for 2 hours. I love it. I feel I make more of an impact compared to when I was a classroom teacher.

I work through an agency. I teach Maths but my English teacher colleagues sometimes teach things like Health and Social care, PSE, media studies, cooking. It depends on what subjects the students want to study however they all have to do Maths and English.

Thanks! That's good to know. 🙂 Do you have a lot of flexibility to tailor your teaching to your students' needs and abilities? I'm getting more and more frustrated by the rigidity of the National Curriculum.

Thanks I'll have a look! 😊

I decide which topics I teach but I have year 10s and 11s so I focus on passing the exam. We are encouraged to adapt lessons to the students' interests, so I've done lessons on cats with one of my students.

The students welfare is more important than exam results and we're encouraged to chat and play games too

I have messaged you @Brimstonebutterfly ;-)

To get enough work you'd probably need to work for an agency. In our area there is always a need for these tutors but it is still difficult to get a good number of hours consistently. Some LAs have Service Level Agreements that say things like if a student cancels with 24 hours notice you won't get paid. Individual EOTAS and Section 19 can frequently change, fall through, collapse etc due to the type of child you are working with.

There is a chance you would need to teach multiple subjects as many EOTAS or Section 19 packages are not as comprehensive as to specify a tutor for x hours English, x hours maths etc (even if they should be!).

I don't want to be stigmatising, but children with SEMH who can stay in mainstream are not usually on the same level as children with SEMH who require EOTAS. The children I know who have had these packages, some carry quite significant risks including quite serious violence. Agencies get referrals for children who have been known to carry weapons (although they usually turn these down).

You will likely make a LOT more money on much better hours as an EOTAS tutor though and you could end up teaching children your specific subject who are academic and willing to learn just highly anxious in schools.

A colleague of mine does this - she’s employed by an LA and has a variety of students, most who for different reasons don’t attend school. Some are PX, some have SEMH needs. All are quite complex. In reality she often doesn't teach them as they refuse to come out of their bedrooms. In that instance she has to stay for 15 minutes and is then allowed to leave. Some days she doesn’t see any of her students! She still gets paid though. All the students have to have an adult present during the sessions and this can be difficult, she ends up having to manage them as well as the student.
She earns on average £35 an hour plus travel expenses.

Oh yeah, be prepared for lots of the children refusing to come downstairs, or awkward interactions like not speaking a single word and staring at the floor or meowing like a cat or hissing at you etc.

Thanks, this is all really good to know!

Depends on the child. Main focus is English and Maths, but adapted to the interests of the child. For example, I am trying to make Maths and English all about Roblox for one young boy, as that is the only thing that will make him engage.
I am left to my own devices to be honest (we are trusted to plan appropriately), so always incorporate things they enjoy too. We play games in between learning activities. Lots of creative activities if the venue is appropriate. Sometimes cooking if there is a kitchen. A lot of the young people do Entry level or functional skills English and Maths so it really isn’t that difficult.

That sounds great. 🙂