Any Teaching Assistants out there......?

[detoxdiva]

I am currently on maternity leave and have been thinking about my long term plans as my children grow up and start school.

Am looking into working initially as a TA with the view to studying to qualify as a teacher in the long term.

Could any TA's out there share their advice with me about how best to start this - I have been researching home study courses for TA's to try and broaden my knowledge and give me a qualification to start with. Are these worth doing, and if so, which ones are recommended?

Thanks

A friend of mine did an OU TA course last year, and she is now half way through her PGCE, training to be a secondary school teacher. She already had a degree. Her TA course invovled quite a lo of work, but I think she enjoyed it, an it got her in schools (you need to be in schools to get the experience to write about, etc.) t see how she felt about it first hand.

I was a secondary school teacher, but currently working as a primary school TA and loving it. Haven't done any TA courses though.

Thanks Hulababy - yes I already have a degree so am hoping that I can also get my PGCE in a couple of years time once I have some TA and school experience under my belt.

Sorry, nothing helpful to say - but am watching this with interest as I am also thinking along these lines!

Will bump later....they're probably all at work !

I would look carefully into how much work there is in your area as there is a surplus of TAs in some areas. You can then compare yourself to what is out there and get experience/qualifications in the areas that are available.

(not sure if that makes sense?)

Ok, ime the best route into becoming a TA is volunteering in a local school in a class that is age relevant to the sort of post you would like.
Real classroom experience looks good on an application, and will give you an idea of what employers are looking for wrt your expected role in the classroom.

Thanks both for that - dd starts school in September so hopefully that will give me a link and help me along.

Bump

def get into schools and help out, first as a parent helper. our school recruited most of their TAs from this avenue - reading buddies/ extra hands/ library support, and it gives you a really good insight as to whether you actually really would like to be a TA/ teacher after all, lol.

if you are a grad though, it's also worth looking at the gtp - particularly if you have the support of the school you are volunteering at

for a TA, you have to get into a school, near us you have to do 12 hours voluntary work in a class for 5 months before you actually start the course,

Then about another year doing the course with the same hours