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 think anyone who fails to use a spell check when applying isn't really interested.

I'm in a similar boat as a secondary teacher.

Except I am only 33. I get overlooked and told I am over-qualified (honest schools will say I am too expensive) because I have been working for 10 years and I am therefore on the upper pay scale. They prefer cheap NQTs.
I'd happily work for less if I could get a permanent position but it doesn't work like that.

Marking my place, will be back later.

Lots of interesting points, snowball is correct, I have told all supply agencies I would work for the same daily rate as an NQT, they have told me its against the rules. Santaisananagram, made the point that at my age it was a career risk to go oversees. I don't see that at all, I learnt to speak basic Mandarin, at a time when there are more Chinese students applying for University in the UK , I am also able to work with and teach in an EAL setting as I underwent an intensive course in Shanghai as I had 17 nationalities in my class, 4 of whom where non English speakers, moreover I had to learn to use the british national curriculum in an inventive and relevant way, added to which, after 9 years in my previous school in the UK, I was becoming a little complacent, as do most teachers in long term positions, this was the main reason I wanted to move on, to challenge myself and up my skill set. My skills are even more relevant to inner city uk schools than ever before.

Feenie! I think on any job application it looks lazy if you have rubbish spelling/grammar/presentation... Surely even more so for teaching jobs. In a way your posts make me feel a tiny bit more confident as at least that is something I know I can do properly.

Maybe lots of the rejected applicants were just applying blindly for all jobs so they could continue getting JSA? [straw-clutching emoticon]

The career risk is that there are now more teachers than positions

True but an NQT is not going to have the experience or perhaps the qualifications that I have, more importantly all NQTs need to be mentored, hopefully by more experienced teachers, I know I was and it was a fantastic way to learn and progress in my chosen profession, who will mentor NQTs and students if not experienced teachers such as myself?

Sorry but you are being very naive as far as the job market is concerned. Yes you have lots of valuable skills and experience but schools aren't in a position to pay for that experience. This year schools in my area had a negative budget increase (that's political jargon for cuts!) I teach in a school with lots of experienced (expensive) staff but we are very much a rarity.
I know schools where the most experienced teacher has 3 years of teaching including their NQT year

One of the areas I find tricky to deal with as an experienced teacher is the speed and huge range of changes in teaching and learning expectations.
Within a year, the planning, style of lesson provision and emphasis changes.
Knowledge I gained three years ago is now irrelevant, as is the planning and often the language.
I feel a yearly brain wipe would be a useful tool.

I use a shredder it's less invasive

Do you also get a strange sense of deja vu as 'new ideas' roll around again, repackaged with a shiny new name?

We let most of the more idiotic ideas pass us by and held onto what we knew worked so often it's a case of "well we already do that"

Have been involved in shortlisting.

We have to shortlist 'to a budget' as we have the money we have (tiny school). In general we don't recruit NQTs, as the time needed to mentor them from very valuable experienced staff, and the money to cover extra non-contact time, almost outweighs their cost advantage. Instead we tend to recruit people on their first job move if we can.

As previous posters have said, we reject anyone with poor spelling and grammar (take care with run-on sentences and comma splicing). We also reject anyone who hasn't visited the school and who hasn't written a really targeted application letter.

That usually cuts our applications pile from 150+ to about 20. From that point on we look at specific points related to the job specification. Perhaps part of the problem is that although you bring plenty of 'nice to haves' you may not tick all the 'must haves' for each job? Would targeting the very few jobs in which e.g. basic Mandarin or overseas experience are absolutely necessary be a better job search strategy than applying for 'general' teaching jobs where your lack of recent UK teaching experience and examples of where you have encountered recent initiatives etc may count against you?

It is possibly also worth noting that this issue is not unique to teaching. A 40-something middle manager, recently returned from working overseas, would find it difficult to find a job in many industries, especially those which change rapidly. 'I have valuable skills from working overseas, and I am older and have more experience' will often lose out against 'I'm young, energetic, and do exactly the same job in the company down the road'.

In teaching it IS exacerbated by the fixed pay differentials, but this is not the whole story. I think that the messageis that you will have to accept that you will have to market yourself that much harder, will have to be more focused in your job search, and must justify your higher pay in an extremely targeted way rather just saying 'I'm more experienced so I'm better'.

For example, there must be some schools where speaking Mandarin is a genuine asset - which schools take a lot of Chinese pupils? Or, if you believe that your work with EAL students is your best selling point, reseach schools with high EAL numbers and apply to them, explaining exactly how YOU, and only you, can accelerate their progress over and above that which other teachers could achieve (though only 4 non-English speakers in a class is a relatively small number in that type of school, tbh). You cannot get away from being more experienced and thus more expensive, so you will just have to find roles which ONLY someone with your specific experience could fill, to justify that extra cost.

Look at it from the school's point of view - if they can get someone ALMOST as good for half the money, why shouldn't they? Your marginal benefit doesn't justify the huge marginal cost. If you can show that, for that specific school, you would be worth every penny of that marginal cost, you will get the job.

Glama, the supply agency my DH works for pays all its teachers the same. It's Concorde in Cornwall.

I have been in this situation recently after having my children. There are hardly any jobs out there, with hundreds of applicant for one post. I worked for a supply agency that paid a flat rate and worked for three months for bugger all pay. I got lots of repeat bookings. Chatting with the secretary helped here, they are the ones who do the booking. Eventually worked so much in one school that I lobbied for a maternity cover, got it and worked out my supply contract. I am now employed at my rate. Someone else will be going on maternity leave soon and I will be doing their cover, plus PPA. I was lucky, but I feel I earned my luck by being prepared to do anything.

As far as the NPQH goes the government plan to scrap it
As head teachers are not required to have a teaching qualification, it means that non-teaching staff, without a NPQH, could become state school head teachers.

Glama, I would agree with Humphrey that with 150-200 applications per role is standard for a primary teaching job at the moment there are a LOT of people out there who aren't getting jobs!

is = as

I sympathise OP. I'm now stuck in my job. (I know - at least I've got one!) I'd love a change, but I work part time and my salary for 3 days is roughly equivalent to an NQT's. If I was making the choice, I know who I'd go for!

I just wanted to agree with teacherwith2kids' post and say that as a middle to senior manager with 15+ years experience, if I were to leave my job I would also struggle - especially if I had a year off or abroad. It's a tough market out there for everyone.

However I do feel for you, it must be tough, but you will find something by persevering, it will just take a little while longer than you had hoped. Good luck with your job hunt, you've had some good advice on here!

Sorry to hear this but it's pretty well known in teaching that once you go abroad it is VERY difficult to get back into mainstream education.

What tends to happen is that ex-pat teachers carry on the international teachers career route or teach in private schools.

Sorry that you didn't get very good advice when you decided to jump off the UK career-bandwagon.

Thanks Snowball3 , but it seems so unfair doesn't it? Also, how about teaching assistant roles? Can teachers go for them on teaching assistant pay instead of MPS?

It's the reality I'm afraid.

I've just gone up to UPS3, which is as expensive as a classroom teacher gets.

I'm pretty good, but if I went for a different mainscale job now, a school would be choosing between me, or a bright young NQT + an ETA.

Or they could buy a couple of dozen computers, in the first year. Or exclude three or four nightmare students...

I'd struggle to convince a new school that I'm worth the extra £££s tbh.