Teacher’s workplace guide

10-09-2008 11:27

The Insiders.

Getting a job is how you avoid living the rest of your life surviving on baked beans and rainwater.

It’s also a life-affirming, fun time, providing you enter the right job for you. The Insiders is your passport to what some of the most popular careers are really like.

From Teacher to Police Officer to Doctors, and more, we give you the lowdown on the highs and lows of the job, with need-to-know insights from those on the inside.

These guides, and the accompanying Insiders show, are your first step into the arena of work, and about a million times more helpful than an apathetic chat with any careers adviser.

Let’s go to work! Rewarding and nerve shredding in equal measures, becoming a teacher is about far more than a two month summer holiday. In fact, short of dressing up as a superhero and saving old ladies from muggers every day, teaching is one of the noblest things that you can do. Parents are entrusting their little tykes with you for up to eight hours a day and it’s your job to ensure that they don’t ultimately end up standing in the rain mumbling ‘Any Spare change’ or perched on roof of a building with a note that begins ‘Goodbye cruel world.’ If you’re good, you can shape children and help put them on the right path to a happy, fulfilled life. teacher.

Get involved. Before you even start thinking about training, get a feel for dealing with kids by finding work with the age group that most interests you. You could teach swimming lessons, coach a football team or help out at a youth club or playgroup. Better still, if you’ve got a mate who’s a teacher then ask if you can sit in on a class. After watching thirty screaming 10 year olds wrestle with their art projects, you might feel a little differently about your career options. Well, not poor exactly, but teaching jobs are notoriously low-paid. Heads of departments and head teachers can make a decent salary to be fair, but you’ll start around £20,000. In certain subjects, however, there can be generous ‘golden hellos’ when you start your first job. Think a couple of grand though, rather than a soft-top beemer. Once qualified, the easiest way to find a teaching job is to look in the paper.

Remember that teacher you had who ran out of the class screaming never to be seen again? It happens a lot, and you’d be surprised how many jobs are out there. Most schools recruit during the summer holidays but there’s plenty of jobs available year-round. The Times Educational Supplement (TES) comes out every Friday and lists jobs for all areas of teaching. TES Jobs is also available online at www.tesjobs.co.uk