Advice on teaching in colleges?

geek84 · 7 March 2014 at 10:34AM

Hi Folks

I am thinking of teaching adults or young people in their late teens at my local college.

I know you need qualifications such as PTLLS and DTLLS (as specified by the life long learning sector?).

My question is - after I obtain these qualifications, what would be my chances of getting a job? Will they be really slim since some colleges have either closed down or merged since the coalition government came into power? If I did go on to persue this qualification, what other work avenues could I go into in the event that I can't find a job in a college or adult learning centre?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

whodathunkit · 7 March 2014 at 10:53AM

What subject would you be planning to teach - do you have a degree or trade/professional qualifications?

saintjammyswine · 7 March 2014 at 11:04AM

Not many colleges have closed down and only a few have merged, usually the smaller ones.

I would suggest that you contact the HR dept. of your local FE College to find out their recruitment process.

Regarding PTLLS etc, many colleges will put you through it when you work there already so you are working towards under supervision.

There is a good chance of getting a job generally, although obviously this is dependant on local circumstances, even if it is on an associate basis.

anamenottaken · 7 March 2014 at 11:07AM

geek84 wrote: »

Hi Folks

I am thinking of teaching adults or young people in their late teens at my local college.

I know you need qualifications such as PTLLS and DTLLS (as specified by the life long learning sector?).

My question is - after I obtain these qualifications, what would be my chances of getting a job? Will they be really slim since some colleges have either closed down or merged since the coalition government came into power? If I did go on to persue this qualification, what other work avenues could I go into in the event that I can't find a job in a college or adult learning centre?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

I've not been aware of any local colleges closing down since 2010. However I suppose that some private sector establishments calling themselves colleges may have done so.

Do you have any experience of teaching adults already?

I was never employed directly by a college but did work for a number of years for one through an agency. (As a direct employee of a local authority I also worked in adult education for evening and Saturday classes.)

geek84 · 7 March 2014 at 11:21AM

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I do have about 2 months experience of teaching in a college - acting more like a teaching assistant. I also have the PTLLS qualification which is not enough to become a lecturer/tutor. For that, I need to have the DTLLS qualification.

However, I'm thinking that if I spend time & effort doing the DTLLS course, would I have a realistic chance of gaining worthwhile employment?

Magnolia · 7 March 2014 at 11:39AM

You have still not said what subject you would be wanting to teach!

If you are wanting to teach an academic subject then you would be expected to have a degree in that subject.

Many of the vocational subjects want you to be qualified in that subject to at least level 3 or higher.

It may be possible to do your Cert Ed or PGCE as a condition of your employment.

All colleges are different so you will need to research your choice of college as to what they expect from candidates.

geek84 · 7 March 2014 at 11:59AM

I want to teach maths up to GCSE level, or at least numeracy up to KS3.

Jinks_65 · 8 March 2014 at 12:46AM

You will also need a specialist numeracy qual then - even if you have a high level Maths qual - and despite the fact you will (this year at least) be teaching only Maths and not numeracy (a rose by any other name basically). I have a Level 4 Maths qual but am rarely used to stand in for Maths at Entry level (even though I'd like to) as I don't have at least a L3 numeracy specialism. My PGCE included skills specialisms, but that is now discontinued - however, the same sort of courses for a level 4/5 are run at many colleges, and some are run alongside the CTLLS/DTLLS. We do PTLLS where I work - I understand it might all be changing next year - but I don't understand what to yet!

However, the good news is that everywhere is desperate for numeracy/Maths specialists - you may well manage to find work as an unqualified tutor as long as you are prepared to gain the subject specialism and the higher level teaching one.

The other thing to bear in mind is that you will probably be teaching mainly 16-24s on apprenticeships - funding stuff - do you like this age band? You are better in a college I believe than at a training provider if you like this sort of group - some providers don't believe in quality education - the one I'm working at does, fortunately, but struggles to balance this with funding requirements and what I teach has changed each year - if not each term (sometimes each week it feels like!) due to attempts to bring the cash in to keep the place open and attempts to suit the student and the policy makers, as well as Ofsted - I also earn more answering the phone at weekends to supplement my p/t teaching contract - though this shouldn't be the case in an FE college. A lot of teaching contracts at the mo are fixed term - but if you get into a college, as a numeracy specialist you should be absolutely fine. If you're wondering why I seem to like the low paid work - I wanted to work with adults in the community (which I still sort of do enough of) and I also don't believe I could manage a classroom full of teens wondering why they have to learn English - as none of my students that age either like English or think they have anything to learn about English - just ticking the box to move on to better things innit!!

Funky_Bold_Ribena · 8 March 2014 at 10:59PM

It's not DTLLS any more, it's the L5 DET Diploma in Education and Learning. In order to get it you need to be teaching, hence people getting college jobs when they have the PTLLS and then doing the DTLLS/DET whilst they work. If you can't evidence the actual teaching hours and have 8 observations you can't get the qual.

http://jadesolutionsukltd.com/

Advice on teaching in colleges?

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