Anything but JSA

Voyager2002

The obvious suggestion would be to train as a primary school teacher. It sounds as if you have the personal qualities, and you don't need spectacular 'A' level grades: what you have should be all you need.

CHARDONNAY_3

Thanks for all the replies.

I did my A-levels in English, History & Sociology and my grades were D,E & C respectively. My mum had cancer at the time, I was holding down a part time job & I began spending more afternoons in the pub drinking, than attending lessons, as it made me feel better at the time.

I'm doing an NVQ for teaching assistants alongside my voluntary work & I am really enjoying being back in education this time round & I would defo like to do other courses in the future.

I've considered teaching, but there's so much paperwork involved & jobs are becoming increasingly harder to find, so I'm not sure it would be worth all the time, effort & expense involved in training.

Home-tutoring is something I would consider, I'll have to look in to that, as well as researching whether child-minding is in demand.

novazombie

saintjammyswine wrote: »

If you are on JSA for over 6 months and over 25 there is training available free of charge. The Job Centre call it Work Focussed Training and will usually be run by a local college or group of colleges. If you speak to your advisor next time you sign, the courses are usually short courses such as First Aid / Health & Safety / Food Safety type courses but depends on local college offers. Some areas in the country extend this to 18-24 yr olds as well but depending on where you are it is likely to be over 25yrs only. Dont worry, there is always something. Dont forget that as you have been on JSA for 6 months plus any new employer will be eligible to claim £1000 from (i think) DWP, £500 on start and £500 after 6 months. Good Luck.

What about a full time training course and you still get your JSA money?

tsimehC

novazombie wrote: »

What about a full time training course and you still get your JSA money?

No chance unless it's one from the Jobcentre Plus. By full-time training, I'm assuming you mean +16 hrs/week.

CHARDONNAY_3

I'm aware that I can't do a full time course while on JSA, altho I'm still waiting to hear about work focused training from JC.

Don't think I'd want to go to uni full time, as I'd end up with a load of debt & can't really imagine being back in the classroom with a bunch of 18 year olds.

looby75

CHARDONNAY wrote: »

I didn't realise the JC gave you any financial support to set up your own business, I'll have to ask for more info at my 6 month review, as that could be an option. I would like to work with children, so perhaps I could look into child-minding?? Not sure what else??

I'm based in the North East & while it's much lovelier up here than 20 years ago, the recession has hit pretty hard.

I live in the north east too and I know that in some areas there is a serious shortage of childminders so depending on where about you are it could be a fantastic option for you

CHARDONNAY_3

Looby - could you tell me what areas of the North East are in demand or how I could go about finding that out for myself?

looby75

Well I know there is a serious lack of childcare in the Durham area, where I live.

Have a look at this site http://www.childcare.co.uk/ and type in various post codes around where you live, it gives you a pretty good idea of what childcare is available, although it's not always totally up to date. When I type in my postcode 2 of the childminders it brings up I know no longer childmind and have asked the council to remove them from the list but they haven't so are included on these kids of sites, it should give you a good idea of the local situation though

Truegho

Do you still have to attend the jobcentre fornightly or weekly if you sign off JSA to go the self-employed way and claim the £50 they offer to get you going? I HATE signing on, and am considering self-employment myself as there are just no jobs in my area.

Mr_Falling_Star wrote: »

If it really is anything other than JSA than there are a awful lot of care and administration Jobs out there still. Banks seem to be taking a lot of customer service staff as well

Self employment could be good as well, if you sign off to go the Job Centre will pay you £50.00 a week for sixteen weeks to get you going. The trick is coming up with a good idea so concentrate on what you are good at, for instance the girl next door did a bang up job of cleaning my house while babysitting (she got bored bless her), so I have suggested she looks into S/E and if she does I will be her first customer and book her for a hour a week to sort the pit that is my flat out

Look at what you can do, not what you can't

Horace

Truegho wrote: »

Do you still have to attend the jobcentre fornightly or weekly if you sign off JSA to go the self-employed way and claim the £50 they offer to get you going? I HATE signing on, and am considering self-employment myself as there are just no jobs in my area.

Last year the jobcentre did something called New Deal for Self Employment (I think they have changed the name of it now and have no idea what it is called), at that point you could attend (in my case the local chambe of commerce) each fortnight to go through things associated with setting up a business and then would have sign to say that I had attended and this was passed to the jobcentre. You are effectively signed off the dole (to fiddle government figures) and your dole money becomes a training allowance and you used to get (I have no idea what it is now) an extra £15.38 a week support towards your business.

I signed off 12 months ago and get working tax credits of £50 a week which is less than dole money and self employment hasnt been easy, jobs don't fall into your lap you have to find them and it can be an expensive business having to pay for stuff on a credit card all the time...eg. advertising, domain names, etc and then you have to submit self assessment forms to the tax man (thankfully I have an accountant to do that for me).

To get onto a New Deal programme you had to be over 25, on the dole for more than 6 months and you could get on the programme a bit sooner if you had a disability.

If you want to be self employed you need to think whether or not your business idea is a viable one.