requirements for science teacher job

carlowplayer

have a degree in biopharmaceuticals and biosciences would that be suffficient for getting a job as a biology,chemistry or physics teacher?

Miss Lockhart

Have you a PGDE?

ETA that according to the TC list that degree would allow you to train to become a Biology teacher. Of course, as many have found, that list is often nonsense so take it waith a pinch of salt and contact the TC.

RealJohn

I would think biopharmaceuticals will allow you to teach biology and chemistry (though one of my colleagues has a degree in biochemistry and she had to argue with the TC to be registered to teach both but they did in the end). Like Miss Lockhart said though, you have to have a PGDE or equivalent one way or the other.

seavill

carlowplayer wrote: »

have a degree in biopharmaceuticals and biosciences would that be suffficient for getting a job as a biology,chemistry or physics teacher?

No. You need your PDE or PDGE or whatever they call it this week before you can be employed as a teacher

Inspector Coptoor

I have a Biochem degree & the TC only gave me Biology.

Any chance you could ask your friend how he/she convinced them to give Chem?

carlowplayer

RealJohn wrote: »

I would think biopharmaceuticals will allow you to teach biology and chemistry (though one of my colleagues has a degree in biochemistry and she had to argue with the TC to be registered to teach both but they did in the end). Like Miss Lockhart said though, you have to have a PGDE or equivalent one way or the other.

not to sound clueless but where would i get a pgde(NUI ?).how does it take etc. just like to know from someone in particular who has gotten one so i at least i have a clue of what would be involved

Benicetomonty

carlowplayer wrote: »

not to sound clueless but where would i get a pgde(NUI ?).how does it take etc. just like to know from someone in particular who has gotten one so i at least i have a clue of what would be involved

See sticky thread above for all PGDE information

mtoutlemonde

carlowplayer wrote: »

not to sound clueless but where would i get a pgde(NUI ?).how does it take etc. just like to know from someone in particular who has gotten one so i at least i have a clue of what would be involved

carlowplayer, you'll find all the required information here with links to the universities offering the PDE: http://www.pac.ie/main.php?inst=pe&ln=e

RealJohn

Inspector Coptoor wrote: »

I have a Biochem degree & the TC only gave me Biology.

Any chance you could ask your friend how he/she convinced them to give Chem?

Apologies for the delay. Only remembered to ask her today.
She said they only recognised her as a chemistry teacher initially interestingly enough but she said that it only took a phonecall to get them to recognise her for biology too. Not sure how much help that is to you.

carlowplayer

aside from my birth certificate what documents would i need to send in

RealJohn

carlowplayer wrote: »

aside from my birth certificate what documents would i need to send in

Transcripts of your degree and PGDE results anyway. Can't remember what else.

mtoutlemonde

carlowplayer wrote: »

aside from my birth certificate what documents would i need to send in

Is it for teaching council qualifications assessment? If it is you have to send your transcripts, copies of your parchments, course information. If it is for qualifications assessment you will have to fill out this form

http://www.teachingcouncil.ie/_fileupload/Application%20Forms/PPQA_02_75653204.pdf

Good luck.

tatabubbly

Are there many science jobs out there atm?

dory

tatabubbly wrote: »

Are there many science jobs out there atm?

Not at all. Lots of people on my PDE course were Science people because of all the industry people who'd gotten sick of labs and/or been let go. All I'm still in touch with are unemployed now.

tatabubbly

Thanks dory. i'll give it some thought. I'm in a school atm doing the science technician so I was just wondering..

Fizzical

tatabubbly wrote: »

Thanks dory. i'll give it some thought. I'm in a school atm doing the science technician so I was just wondering..

How's the job going, tatabubbly? Have you space to work in and are you busy?

bdoo

tatabubbly wrote: »

Thanks dory. i'll give it some thought. I'm in a school atm doing the science technician so I was just wondering..

That could be a golden opportunity, if you understand first hand what happens in schools even though not teaching it would have to put you in a good position for getting work.

If I were you I would register with the teaching council for the vocational sector, if I recall you ate working with a VEC?

tatabubbly

Yep I am. At the moment the job is fine, its hard as the teachers are busy with classes I feel like I'm surplus to requirements sometimes. They have no idea what to do with me so I'm doing my own thing and hoping for the best!!

Can you register for the teaching council without having a dip??

mtoutlemonde

tatabubbly wrote: »

Yep I am. At the moment the job is fine, its hard as the teachers are busy with classes I feel like I'm surplus to requirements sometimes. They have no idea what to do with me so I'm doing my own thing and hoping for the best!!

Can you register for the teaching council without having a dip??

I think you can still register for VEC but I think that ends in 2013. And registering with the VEC will limit your employment prospects.

tatabubbly

Well thats fine with me as teaching is a back up plan so far. I've gotten a few other job interviews for next week which I'll be going to. Its not internships but a real job so we will see. They want me to teach two students chemistry as they need it for medicine however I'm not sure how thats going to work

I feel very surplus to requirements atm. I think the teachers have no idea what to do with me. So far I cleaned out the store rooms and color coded the chemicals, haven't done any real work tbh, I feel like I'm doing a pile of grunt work for nothing.

Fizzical

Tatabubbly, is there one particular teacher who sorts out work for you etc?

The teachers may not know what to do with you, they probably never had help before. You're right to work on your own initiative. Maybe try something like this?

If I had someone like you, I'd ask them to list out the mandatory experiments for chemistry and biology with all the chemicals required for each, then ensure that all those solutions were freshly prepared and ready in sufficient quantity for the number of classes e.g. anion tests use a horrendous number of different solutions and it comes early in the course. Someone will tell you which are 5th year expts and which are 6th year. There should be 1 litre of stock solutions in each lab, always there, of 1M HCl H2SO4, 3 M HCl and H2SO4, and 1 M NaOH.

Then make a list of equipment required for mandatory phys, chem, biol and junior science expts and make sure it's all there and in good order. (Good idea to laminate these lists and have them available.) Make sure kits of equipment are in good order e.g. organic prep apparatus, distillation, prep of gases etc.

Ordering is a huge bugbear and the above should make it obvious which chemicals and equipment are in short supply - a list of these would be a great help to whoever needs to order.

In my school we're so busy scurrying around trying to keep on top of things that I could see that looking after a technician might seem like another job! But if the teachers see that what they need is magically there when they need it, it helps so much. That's when they'll be able to see the wood for the trees and your work could develop.

Sorry if all the above is telling you what you know already - I'm just so jealous! There is so much an expert hand can do to help improve and develop practical work in school. No way are you surplus to requirements!

tatabubbly

Thats true fizzicle, our school only teaches junior cert and leaving cert biology and agri sci. I might get started on them lists for each of those subjects starting with first year and working my way up.

There is no one who tells me what to do which is kinda bugging as some days I dont know what way to look..
It's very freeing bt a pain!!

But at least the back stores are clean, all the glasswear is nearly done and I've done the stock take, lol

I can get to ordering soon!

rainbowtrout

I'd love to have this luxury!!!

Over the years we have organised our prep room in alphabetical order and labelled the shelves. So it's easy to lay your hand on a piece of equipment or tray of lenses or whatever.

The other thing we've done ( I say we, but one of the other teachers has done most of the work, I have other duties in the school) is preparing ready made kits for common experiments.

We have a lot of heavy duty plastic trays like seed trays and then stacks of those plastic boxes that you get from chinese takeaways and have built up kits for various experiments.

E.g. I was teaching electricity today. All i had to do was go to the prep room and take the tray marked electrical circuits. In it are 12 of those takeaway boxes. In each box is a couple of wires, crocodile clips and a light bulb.

Tray next to it was marked 'Electricity, conductors and insulators' again with a load of takeaway boxes each containing a set of materials that can be used as conductors/insulators and next tray was those large 6V batteries. Take out three trays lay them out on bench, students work in twos, come up take a battery, a conductor/insulator kit and a circuit kit and go and make their circuit. replace everything in their boxes at the end. They can show me the contents before handing it back so boxes don't return empty and one ends up with all the crocodile clips.

We find this really efficient for the mandatory experiments but would work for any science experiment within reason. Over time we have built up a substantial number of kits for different experiments.

Maybe you could suggest this to the science teachers and see what they think. Or arrange with them on a friday what experiments they are likely to do the following week and have relevant equipment gathered and laid out so it's easy to grab.

Ideally, that's what I would like... to be able to lay my hand on stuff quickly at the start of a class, without rummaging for it because someone has put it elsewhere and to be able to take one box off the shelf and have near enough everything in it I need for my experiment.

To be honest, so few schools have lab technicians that they just don't know what they are supposed to ask you to do. You might have to suggest a few things, even if it is to keep yourself busy, but realistically if you get some sort of system going and the teachers see the merit in it and it makes their job a bit easier they will probably go for it.