Not sure what to do....

Almo

Abroad is a big place . Anywhere in particular?

In the schools I taught at you would be welcomed and supported as a new teacher in that people would help you find things/tell you about the students/give you tips and advice on the difficult students and possibly share materials. Some teachers are very possessive about materials because they take a lot to develop and it's very frustrating to teach a lesson only to find that your co-teacher has used one of your signature activities!

But, none of the schools I taught in would look over your lesson plans etc for you. All of the stuff I mentioned in the paragraph above would be largely informal, there were never any formal help sessions etc for new teachers although there was ongoing professional development for everyone.

This might vary and perhaps some schools will have formal support for new teachers, I don't know.

megan01

If I were you:

If you have the money to go abroad, then I would go now.

If you don't have the money, I would
a. Move to the 350pm place with the nice clean quiet person. This means you
- dont feel like you are invading your parents and sisters space as you put it
- have more opportunity to socialise with someone new, and their friends and new neighbours etc.

b. Find a new job. Ideally maybe as a teaching assistant? Your current caring role will help towards this. Or maybe another caring role with another company? Then get the weekday volunteer job you talked about.

c. Look up on here all the possible ways to save your money and to cut back, so you can move quicker abroad.

d. You say 'abroad' have you thought more about where? Have you thought about Spain? It's not too far away, lots of English speaking people, great weather, friendly people, great culture.

e. You could look into bringing your pet with you? If not, you can advertise rehoming it in your local newspaper, shop windows, etc, or with your local pet rehoming centre.

June_Cambridge

I agree Magan01, that is exactly what I would do. There will probably never be a better time to go for it. Good luck

top_drawer_2

Thanks for all the advice. I definitely want to work abroad but I am worried I won't find anywhere suitable this year. I've never been particularly good at interviews as it is ....

Almo wrote: »

Abroad is a big place . Anywhere in particular?

This might vary and perhaps some schools will have formal support for new teachers, I don't know.

I'm willing to go almost anywhere there is a position/setting that is suitable for me, I can be fussier once I have a years worth of experience.

I have seen a few adverts for NQT's, the position I mentioned in Russia (for IH) were advertised as offering support in all aspects. However, advice from people on more specialized forum was that Russian learners know their grammar and can be "challenging" for someone such as myself (or in fact for anyone, apparently).

megan01 wrote: »

If I were you:

If you have the money to go abroad, then I would go now.

d. You say 'abroad' have you thought more about where? Have you thought about Spain? It's not too far away, lots of English speaking people, great weather, friendly people, great culture.

e. You could look into bringing your pet with you? If not, you can advertise rehoming it in your local newspaper, shop windows, etc, or with your local pet rehoming centre.

I definitely want to go abroad and September would be ideal. However, I need to find a position suitable for me .... not as easy as you would think considering everyone starts out as a Newly qualified CELTA holder.

I can afford the flights although large down payments on flats/rooms could be problematic but not impossible.

I want to find Augustus the right home; I feel dreadful that things have altered so much. I never imagined I would ever want to work & live abroad as it seemed out of my abilities not that long ago. But I think I could or at least I would like to try it.

Funky_Bold_Ribena

top_drawer wrote: »

I'm scared of being friend-less; work tends to fill a lot of time and being off has let out a lot of the feelings of lonliness.

You are so scared of being friendless that you drive them all away. Try not being scared of being friendless and you will seem less desperate and more friendly.
People don't want to carry desperate people; and if they do then they are not the sort of people you want to be friends with. People want to be friends with people who are ok inside their own skin and happy to just 'be'.

Richard53

I would add that you nearly always regret the things you didn't do, rather than the things you did.

Make a plan for what you would really like to do, and go through it asking yourself "what's the worst that could happen?" Almost certainly you will find that it's far less frightening than you think. And if things go wrong - you'll cope.

I spent the first half of my life being over-cautious (a product of a strict upbringing) and I now kick myself for missing all the wonderful opportunities that I had, which are now not open to me. I had a big change of heart in my mid-30s, decided to go where my heart took me, not what I thought my dead parents would have wanted, and I have been far happier as a result.

Good luck.

top_drawer_2

My parents have gone away camping in the UK last week and half-term week and rang on Monday to see if they could leave my sister (who has a learning difficultly) with me for the majority of this week. This is pretty much a repeat of my teenage years; I spent 4-5 nights a week babysitting her between the ages of 11 onwards until I moved out.

Frankly my sister is a pain. A product of my Mum's lack of attention, interest or negativity towards her. She is demanding, selfish and behaves inappropriately and spends most of the time in her room (banging around, playing loud music) only coming downstairs to glare at me on occasion to check I am still here/watching TV. She lacks any skills to do anything as my Mum insists she is incapable of anything i.e making a bed/washing up/tidying her own room (although she has been proven wrong in the past on all counts, my Mum just can't seem to encourage/praise her). When I (dared to) want to go out (I had very few friends so few opportunities), it was an enormous intrusion on their drinking time.

This is in part because they want my nephew to stay with them (my other sisters child). Over the last few weeks what I already knew has become increasingly obvious; my Mum is just not interested in me in any way. She has no idea what I do for work/who my friends are/what interests I have etc. She is wrapped up completely in everything the second sister does - helping to care for her horse, children, running round doing jobs in town for her. Her name seems to be permanently preceded by Poor xxxxx - she's not well/skint (terrible money manager).

I feel really resentful that after years of saying that its because I live away and don't drive now I'm here I still don't have much contact-relationship with my family. When I pop in on my sister there is very little in the way of conversation. My Mum even seems to want to discourage any friendliness with my sister and she isn't particularly interested in me (but does keep mentioning Oh but its a lot of money to pay in rent) and it does make me wonder as to her intentions.