Male SNAs

steolynch

hi i am a male sna. i have my junior cert and i have a college cert. i passed all of my subjects..got excellent references of my work experience i wont mention were..but since i have finished my course which is about a year now i have applied for over 80 sna jobs through emails and through post and out of all them i have only ever recieved two emails back .both saying i didnt get the job....which is fair enough....but i have a 5 year old boy and a 8 year old girl who needs a sna in her school and i bring them to school every morning ..but i find it interesting that there is not one single male teacher or sna in this school....the only male is a care taker....this is not the only school..why wont primary schools employ men especially if they have boys in the school..we can relate more to them play.

rainbowtrout

steolynch wrote: »

hi i am a male sna. i have my junior cert and i have a college cert. i passed all of my subjects..got excellent references of my work experience i wont mention were..but since i have finished my course which is about a year now i have applied for over 80 sna jobs through emails and through post and out of all them i have only ever recieved two emails back .both saying i didnt get the job....which is fair enough....but i have a 5 year old boy and a 8 year old girl who needs a sna in her school and i bring them to school every morning ..but i find it interesting that there is not one single male teacher or sna in this school....the only male is a care taker....this is not the only school..why wont primary schools employ men especially if they have boys in the school..we can relate more to them play.

I can't comment on the number of men opting to become SNAs but very few go into primary teaching in comparison to females. It's not that schools won't employ them. Also there have been huge job cuts in the last few years, so there aren't as many positions available. Many of the SNAs you are up against may have more experience or could even be qualified primary teachers who can't get teaching jobs.

Many SNAs got their qualifications through completing Childcare PLCs with the relevant SNA module. We offered Childcare over a number of years in the school I work in and didn't have one male student. We didn't even have any enquiries from men about the course.

TheDriver

Also remember a lot of SNAs have more than a junior cert, they have a leaving cert, college degree and also the sna cert. There is a lot of experienced SNAs out there today and competition is fierce and very very little of them are male. Unfortunately anyone I have come across that is male hasn't been anywhere near the mark of other applicants.

byhookorbycrook

Primary learning support teacher here.
A few years ago, SNAs were granted almost on a whim, but with all the cut backs all of that is gone and no child has an SNA that doesn't absolutely need one. Not many men go for an SNA job, like primary teaching it seems not to attract men

Toto Wolfcastle

I have moved some posts to a new thread to avoid people replying to the posts that were posted in 2008. Please do not bump 3 year old threads.