Advice Please - Adult Education to Secondary Education

[Gilda152]

I work for an employability programme and am working with a lady who is a post 16 qualified teacher, who wants to transfer her skills to secondary education. She is currently out of work and wants to pursue this. I have no idea where to start researching what this entails - can anyone point me in the right direction at all?

Does she have QLTS or other post 16 teaching qualifications? My knowledge might be out of date but I think with QLTS she could apply much like any other candidate with QTS. Whilst academies and free schools don't have to employ staff with QTS, most have it as an essential criteria.

The next consideration would be what subject she wanted to teach. If she's English or Maths based, especially with a degree in those areas, then she would probably find it fairly straightforward to convince a school that she's a strong candidate. Without a degree in those areas, she could still be viewed favourably for intervention groups in English and Maths, essentially teaching the students who would likely become post-16 resit groups.

If she's hoping to teach an options subject at GCSE or A level then she might have a more difficult time demonstrating she's as strong as someone who has secondary experience. An 11-18 school might want a KS5 Psychology teacher who could also offer KS3/4 science for example, but if she's wanting to find a job teaching History then it's a tough market out there with few jobs.

The final thing off the top of my head would be that she needs to get some experience in a secondary school, preferably more than one in different contexts. Secondary is very different to post 16 from what I've heard from friends. From my friends, they say GCSE English in a secondary school is brilliant compared to post 16 English Language resit and functional skills. Others find that they prefer the more informal relationships of teaching just A Level in a large 6th form centre so find that KS3 is something they don't enjoy.

Thank you, I really appreciate that response and it's given me a lot of clarity. I've got a meeting with her tomorrow to get a few more details of where she is at, so I'll be able to talk it through with her a lot more succinctly with the info you've given. Many thanks :)