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?

Ah yes. I find 6 is about the cut off for 'helping mum pick the blu-tack off old display work' as a holiday treat...

Just wait until they are older, then they come back into their own! I've had my eldest son CRB cleared, he now helps run the Bikewise scheme, accompanies school trips and runs an after school club as well as "volunteering" in class

Mine are older and have done the volunteering in class bit which is why neither want to be teachers

Mine neither, he wants to join the police!

Having said that my daughter's friend wants to do her first teaching placement with us

I'm afraid it's budget cuts. I'm a governor, and our school is really up against it because we are lucky enough to have a very stable staff team. It should be cause for celebration to have so many dedicated, talented and committed teachers - but in financial terms we are struggling because of what HR departments call 'pay drift ' - as in each year you get a pay award and become more expensive, after five years you suddenly have a much bigger bill across the board. Honestly, last governors' meeting we were staring down the barrel of a gun, asking ourselves 'do we really have to sack every TA and hope half the senior team leave?'. Fortunately we've been able to avoid that - so far. But I'm not looking forward to the next meeting, in just a week's time. I don't think our school would recruit a very senior teacher with 23 year's experience - not that we wouldnn't love to have you, but we just couldn't afford you.

You are simply too expensive, I moved school when I was about to go onto ups and even then I was considered expensive for by current job and had to be twice as good to justify my expense.,luckily I was .

They will also be thinking, she is older and therefore less willing to be moulded, she has been out if the country and therefore is our of touch and she nay also go off again leaving us recruitment costs.

I teach quite a few children who want to be teachers, sometimes they are the children of teachers , particularly if their parents are very happy in their job. Sometimes though they are put off by watching the realities of the job.

As others have said there are simply more teachers than posts, so it is even harder than usual to get a job .

OP are you looking to work in a Blackpool school? They are on a very tight budget or in the res so the reasons to avoid you will be greater.

Having said all of that it is not impossible , we have recently employed a few very experienced teachers who have been abroad

Well, we haven't had a payrise in two years and are getting 1% next year so wages aren't exactly rocketing up! In this scenario teachers at the top of the pay scale are actually more "budget stable" as they are no longer progressing up the pay scale and aren't getting any more expensive, whereas those lower down are still getting their increments!

Haven't read all the thread, but wanted to add that if a TA has a HLTA qualification then they are qualified to teach a class! My ds's teacher works a 4 day week and on the 5th day they're taught by the TA, so 20% of their teaching is done by an unqualified teacher. This stinks, imo, but it is legal.

My dh and I have 5 DC. Both of us were teachers,me in comps and dh in HE.All the DC said they would never teach but 3 became teachers very successfully and 2 love it. The third has moved into educational publishing. The other 2 are an accountant and a psychologist. I taught abroad for 3 years then had another couple of years at home with DC. I was able to get back into teaching but I was only 34 then and it was in 1978. I bet I couldn't do it now.

As someone thinking about jumping off the bandwagon and going for an overseas post in a few years I am getting worried.

Teacherwith2kids, I am surprised at rejecting people if they have not visited the school. I have only ever visited a school once and that was only possible because I was not working. If I requested a day to visit another school it would not go down well.

I wouldn't reject someone who had not visited the school. Often short listing takes place before candidates are invited in... but a visit can provide lots of "inside information" to tailor your application to the school ethos/requirements

Maybe not of much help, but would you consider tutoring? More and more parents especially in areas with Grammars are resorting to private tutors to ensure that their kids' education is up to scratch.

The 'need to visit' requirement is quite common for primary schools round here. When I was job hunting, I was once shortlisted without visiting the school (and told that I was the first person that they had ever done that to - but then they rejected me for being 'less committed to going the extra mile for the school' so it did count against me in the end!). I did also encounter a school which only invited shortlisted candidates to visit, but that was only one.

We offer a number of 'after school' visit times as well as lunchtime visits and perhaps one during school time, with each visit usually attracting up to 20 people, so probably get 100 or so people through for each vacancy. The head spends a good deal of time talking about the school, the job etc (it's not a 'straightforward' school) and also casts an informal eye over the candidates.

Maybe it is different in secondary school, as I have said I have only visited once and I have not known of people visit a school i have worked in before applying

We would be really unhappy to have 100 people we have no intention of employing visiting the school every time we advertise a vacancy. Only those who are short listed are invited to look around.

I think visiting can be really useful for a candidate. A couple of times I have visited and then decided not to take it any further - better not to waste my time and the school's time if the fit isn't right.

In my opinion the best way to handle the process for a primary post is:

Advertise online with a detailed job pack available to download or receive by email. Don't just give out the LEA form and a standard teacher's job description - include a staff handbook, detailed job description, timetables, SEF and any other info that might convey what it would actually be like to work at the school.

Offer visits, but maybe restrict them to one or two pre-arranged times so that candidates come in a group. However, offer the opportunity to ask questions of the head or member of SMT.

The first round would be an observed lesson for shortlisted candidates

Those who are succesful in the lesson are invited back another day for the interview and any other selection tasks.

My mum and sister are teachers. My sister is currently working abroad and when my mum returned from working abroad she went into teaching EAL to adults and advertised herself as a tutor.

I am not a teacher but in my experience as a parent who has sent my kids to 3 schools, state primaries seem to have very experienced teachers in Y5 and Y2 and pair NQTs with very experienced TAs in years like Y1 and Y3.

BranchingOut. Interestingly, we do EXACTLY what you list, except that the list of what we send out is less extensive than you suggest...(we do have quite a lot of stuff on the webiste though, and would expect candidates to have a good look at that)

I too struggled to get back into teaching after time out after DD born and following my service husband overseas -7 years in total. It took me 2 years to get something which used my extensive skills prim and sec teaching + SEN LEA work +PRU's and self funded PhD too. I undertook supply in many roles as well as short term contract work, but annoyingly kept falling at the final interview hurdle- even in jobs where I had done the role on supply!! In the end I have achieved a role within an LEA where experience is expected and so the fact i'm on UPS is not a big factor. I got so demoralised whilst trying to get a job and kept my head above water and my self esteem intact by tutoring for the OU.
What hindered me??? A combination of time out of the UK system, lots of different experience so no clear links to what schools wanted and a lack of networking with the right people- sad to say but this was the big thing and now I am in a role which I love, I shamelessly network.
Good luck with your job search X

I think unfortunately even the supply route is becoming closed off now. Maybe this isn't widespread but I registered with a couple of agencies and found that they had real issues with the fact that my short career break of ONE year, following on from maternity leave, meant that I didn't have 'current' teaching references. Never mind that I had extensive experience and two great references from my last job and a previous job! No matter how many times I explained that I hadn't been working during that year, they couldn't seem to understand it. Voluntary work references were not acceptable either. Apparently, along with the safequarding requirements, there is some kind of accreditation process that supply agencies can go for which means they have to get 'current' teaching references from all their candidates - a rule which they applied fairly rigidly and without much logic.

Thankfully i now have a post outside teaching, but don't rate my chances of being able to return even if I wanted to.

it is hard for women in all areas to get back to work after time off with kids branching - you'd think a year out looking after your children was fairly normal and accepted and there'd be ways round things but i struggled even when i was trying to do some voluntary work because they needed two up to date references that i obviously didn't have.

what's also buggering the supply route here is this classroom supervisor role that has been created whereby they can pay someone to be in school full time doing cover at the rate and qualification level of a TA. then only long term cover goes out to supply and qualified teachers. i rang to enquire about a cover supervisor position before i realised this because i couldn't understand the pay details - it seemed to say about 10k pro rata (ie minus holidays!) but i kept thinking it had to be a mistake but it wasn't. that was the real pay for doing cover lessons full time, day in and day out with unpaid holidays that you'd struggle to find work in for just a few weeks at a time.

imagine doing secondary cover lessons full time for less than ten grand a year? for those who haven't worked in secondary believe me cover lessons for teenagers are no fun especially when you are covering for poor teachers with low standards of classroom management who leave really poor cover work.

i think at this rate you'll be able to teach with an nvq in childcare for ten pence an hour.

Op, I think you are very much needed in China. Maybe go back if you are fine with the traffic?