Teaching Assistant Advice Wanted

emmy05

good luck with the youth work, im sure this would open many more opportunities for you, sorry i cant help you about the course youre mentioning though x

autismmum

no the only t.a courses are 80 hrs in classroom alongside college, in fact most local education authorities have thier own preffered course at thier own preffered college, here you need to do a cache or edexcell any others are not as good, i did a degree but its not neccesary but voluntry placements are. sorry

lindsaygalaxy

hello

I am planning to be a primary teacher too, have my interview in a few weeks for the GTP, which is where when you have a degreem you can do an intensive 1 year course where most of your time is spent in school.

Could you do a part time college course to train as a TA?

I also volunteer with the brownies and at a school one afternoon a week, which i fit around work.

Do you have any relatives with children at school? If you go by volunteering a little at their school, it may help to get a job there.

Or look out for jobs as a luchtime controller or something office assistant as all will help you see how a school is run and get you to know the staff better.

continualdiamond

I personally would volunteer 1st, if you could. I did this back home (Australia) after i was qualified and this is how i ended up getting jobs. When i moved over here im sure my volunteering/qualifications helped, but i wouldn't say it helped for every job. Example being a TA left and they hadn't filled in the post, so i had the job for 3mths, when it then came to advertising for the job again and i had an interview, i had confidence thinking they'd keep me on. They didn't.
I have now worked at my current school for 4 years. I applied for the job as an outsider, didn't get it, but was asked to come in on 'supply'. Its a special needs school and supply turned into weeks, months, terms of supply. Eventually a full time contract came up and i had to apply again and this time got it. Im a grade 1 and on just a tiny bit over £15,000. Most our TA's are grade 1's, a few grade 2's and then a tiny amount are grade 3's, but that is due to the nature of the school, TA's double the amount of teachers at our school and grade 3's run PPA time with grade 1/2's supporting. We have excellent opportunities for further study all paid for by the school and a few TA's at the minute are studying alongside working to become a teacher and we have 1 teacher who is paid as unqualified while she studies at the same time.
It's an excellent job and i love what i do, its soooo rewarding. I wish you the best of luck as it is a hard field to get into. But like when i missed on my job after i worked for 3mths, it gave me the confidence to keep applying and get experience of job interviews and eventually it paid off.

scat

There are always lunchtime supervisor posts available where I work. An hour in the middle of the day for min wage doesn't really suit many people! Also there's a them and us mentality between lunchtime staff and teaching staff. Not saying that's right but in my experience it certainly exists. Not really the way to go if you want teaching experience.

thepinklady

Thank you so much to everyone that has replied - I really do appreciate your help.

I am going to look into the brownies - I think i would love doing this. I wanted to join the brownies when I was little - my mum wouldn't let me though.

Today i've been looking at universities ready for next year - found a few i like. Hopefully once i have started my degree i can join a school for one day a week.

eagerbeaver24

Why not try an online course, or a distance learning course (like this one here: http://www.inst.org/teaching-assistant-courses/become.htm)? Of course there is no teacher better than experience, so you could practice what you learned afterwards in the "real world". You could volunteer in your community, or in a nearby center to build your confidence.