As a teacher age and experience are no longer seen as economically viable!

[Glama]

I am a primary teacher of 23 years experience, both in state and independent schools in the Uk and recently an Independent school in China. I have taught from Nursery to year 6, and have lectured part time at a North West University for 4 years.

On returning from China, and applying for UK jobs, I find that the term
" overqualified for the position" constantly crops up. On further investigation into the supply market, I find that due to economic restraints put on LEAs by the current government, schools are employing newly qualified teachers in the morning, they cost less than a more qualified teacher, and in the afternoon, splitting classes or putting in a classroom assistant to " supervise" them. The position is the same when applying for permanent jobs, few of which are currently advertised on TES, the teachers job site. It saddens me to see all my qualifications including SEN and EAL, not being utilised, purely due to economic restraints. Is this sour grapes on my behalf? No, I have had my opinion confirmed by two careers advisers, one of whom works with the Department of work and pensions, and privately by two local authority headteachers, who are friends. I am not the only highly qualified teacher in this position, sadly I now know at least 4 others, who like me feel they are at the top of their game and have their best teaching and learning years ahead of them, however, because our qualifications and experience equals a slightly higher rate of pay, we are unlikely to be employed in order to pass on our teaching expertise. Instead, we have been advised to retrain! I will if I have to, but what a waste of 23 years experience doing a job I love and am excellent at.

Still I hear that a certain poLe dancing bar in Blackpool is looking for "over 50s" dancers, I wonder if my hips will cope with that retraining programme?

I am sorry you are in this position. I find it outrageous that they are telling you that you are over qualified. it smacks of ageism. There are laws about that aren't there?! In my experience they will always find a reason about why they gave the job to someone else so you are kind of stuck applying and filling in applications.

Out of interest what are they telling you to retrain in?

it is economics and i'm guessing you are more than 'slightly' more expensive than an nqt.

i guess you could offer to work for a lesser salary if you're that keen to get back in?

when i moved back to my hometown i was shocked by how many unqualified teachers were in ft teaching posts here - now they really are a lot cheaper. goodness knows how much cheaper the schools have stooped to since i got out of teaching.

It has been suggested the Civil Service! I know, the government made 4000 redundant not so long ago, seems they got their sums wrong!

That's terrible. I thought overqualified was a term used for people like you going for a job in a supermarket! But an overqualified teacher, how is that even possible?

I hope to be an NQT in about 5 years (I will be 30ish) and I wouldn't expect to have a hope in hell against someone of your experience.

An experienced teacher can cost twice as much as a NQT so some schools with tight budgets employ only NQTs.

As to the supervision by Classroom Assistants I wonder how parents would feel if they realised their children receive no teaching on an afternoon and are in fact just child minded half the day I'm not sure how the schools get away with stretching the law in that way

it's not overexperienced - it's too expensive. as mrz says the OP could be twice as expensive as an nqt and much of her training/experience may not be needed by the school advertising.

It is probably needed but a school that will allow pupils to spend half their day being supervised isn't going to worry about teacher expertise /knowledge

if that is happening.

i can understand though that a school advertising for a classroom teacher that already has senior and experienced staff with expertise in the same areas as the candidate will not be able to justify paying twice the salary they need to in this climate.

sorry to say but the teaching overseas was a career risk at this age and stage in your career. a high paid position is always going to be harder to find than a low paid one and an expensive teacher is obviously safer staying where she is or having another role to go to. going overseas was a risk.

hang in there and i hope the right post comes up soon.

incidentally there seem to be zero jobs on tes for my area these days. glad i'm not looking for a post.

there seem to be hundreds of primary teachers applying for a single post if my experience is anything to go by and to be honest it's difficult to find a suitable candidate from all that choice when short listing ...

A friend of mine only got QTS a couple of years ago and is already supervising a student

Didn't realise the difference in pay was so big, I must admit.

Are they really only using TAs EVERY afternoon? I could understand once a week.

So mrz if you had a massive list of applicants, and would not be able to go through every form in detail, what would you use to narrow it down quickly? What would instantly make you chuck one away, or put it on the short list?

I'm assuming you don't just pick out of a hat :o

When I shortlisted for a teaching post recently, it was easy to get down from 183 to 40 just going on punctuation and spelling alone.

Same position here Glama

I keep wondering if it is legal to leave the current salary section of an application form blank and let them decide for themselves how much to offer you!

People specialising in non-core areas are even worse off than you though

Can you carry on with professional training? Try volunteering alongside doing an nvqh? Then apply for head of year, deputy, or assistant headships?

I was wondering if that might be a huge factor feenie :o

Is it worth approaching the governors at the schools you are interested in working in?

Could you maybe try and set up a small pre school or something? Never tried so don't know how hard it is or what sort of money you might make.

Similar position Feenie
We excluded all applications with spelling and grammar errors which left surprisingly few to read in detail and we struggled to find candidates who had read the job specification when writing their supporting letters.

I have every sympathy, OP. Children's education is suffering as a result of this.

In my last year of teaching in a two form entry junior school we had three positions come up when there were three retirements. Each of these was filled by an NQT. The children suffered as a result. I would be the last person to blame it on the NQTs, but it was true. And all because of money

Out of interest, is there a limit to how many NQTs a school can have? Every time a teacher leaves at my school we employ an NQT but we've never had to employ more than one person in a school year.

Oh, you've just answered my question Aries!

Teachers cannot be paid a salary lower than their current scale point whether they want to be or not. So offering to take a reduction in salary to secure a post is actually against the "rules"

The governor I shortlisted with, who is an ex-head actually got shirty with me and said 'we're not supposed to be marking them'.

I may have ranted slightly at the suggestion that a teaching candidate's application should be anything short of flipping PERFECT but at least she didn't argue after that.