Ask a teacher a question:

Chemical Burn

I am not a teacher, but I think we should have a consolidated thread in which we can ask questions and teachers will ask (delete if it's a silly idea moderators).

I have a few questions:

I have a degree which I THINK is recognized by the teaching council. What course should I do in order to become a qualified secondary teacher? There are masters in Education and other courses called HDip in Education

If I opt to teach at a private institution such as Gormanston College, do the teaching council rule apply? As they are a private school and can set their own rules.

(Clichéed, I know) but important, how much should I expect to earn at the beginning?

If I do the HDip, how easy / hard will it be to get a job? Will I be able to get one in my locality, or would I have to be willing to relocate? Would I be able to get a job in my old secondary school?

If I have an Irish teaching degree (HDip, or whatever), can I take it to the UK. (ie, Northern Ireland, as I live not so far from the border).

I am passionate about my degree and I love teaching and helping and guiding people, money is not important, just job security.

Thanks folks

Hermione Granger

Im nearly 100% sure you need to do the H Dip unless you have a degree in a specified degree for teaching like Liberal Arts etc in which the Dip is built in . . . (I'm not a teacher by the way just thinking of pursuing it as a job)

LizT

Moved to Teaching & Lecturing, you should get more answers here

Karpops

Chemical Burn wrote: »

I am not a teacher, but I think we should have a consolidated thread in which we can ask questions and teachers will ask (delete if it's a silly idea moderators).

I have a few questions:

I have a degree which I THINK is recognized by the teaching council. What course should I do in order to become a qualified secondary teacher? There are masters in Education and other courses called HDip in Education

If I opt to teach at a private institution such as Gormanston College, do the teaching council rule apply? As they are a private school and can set their own rules.

(Clichéed, I know) but important, how much should I expect to earn at the beginning?

If I do the HDip, how easy / hard will it be to get a job? Will I be able to get one in my locality, or would I have to be willing to relocate? Would I be able to get a job in my old secondary school?

If I have an Irish teaching degree (HDip, or whatever), can I take it to the UK. (ie, Northern Ireland, as I live not so far from the border).

I am passionate about my degree and I love teaching and helping and guiding people, money is not important, just job security.

Thanks folks

Firstly, there is no such thing as job security in teaching. Contrary to popular belief, it's the least secure of the entire public sector. Only a very lucky few get permanent, pensionable careers within the first few years, and that's declining with all the cutbacks
You can do a teaching qualification in Trinity, or sign up to the PDE on www.pac.ie, and select UCD, Galway, Maynooth in order of preference, but that's changing from a 1 year to 2 year course. DCU do a two year part time course. An MA in Education doesn't actually qualify you at all, weirdly enough!
Private schools require qualified teachers, even more so because parents and boards of management want the best teachers possible. Private schools are also partially funded by the state and still have to answer to the NCCA and Department of Education.
How much can you earn at the start? About 36 euro an hour, but you would need a 2nd subject to get proper hours, and very few schools are advertising full time positions at the moment, best you might get would be a. 8-14 hours contract. Yes, you can teach in UK schools but there are little to no vacancies up north, not much better than here anyway! Sorry, this looks so negative but that's the honest truth, teaching is reeeeally tough at the moment.

Banjo String

Did you hear about the cross eyed teacher?

He couldn't control his pupils.

Chemical Burn

SamHall wrote: »

Did you hear about the cross eyed teacher?

He couldn't control his pupils.

Thanks for the lovely AH response.

Canard

I have a question or two as well.

Do your subjects influence your chances at getting employment? I'm considering teaching and my joint major is going to be in French & Spanish, which are both more studied than German and Italian and any other languages at 2nd level, as far as I know. Would that make it easier to get work, or would something like French & German / Spanish & Italian (i.e. one less taught one) be better for making you stand out?

Secondly, when I was in school there were teachers allowed to teach subjects which they weren't qualified to at all (that's not meant to sound bitter, they were the best I ever had, moreso than the qualified ones :P) - but has that been done away with? I'm learning some German too and plan to get as good a level as I can through electives in college and self-learning etc, but I won't be able to teach that at all, will I? I don't really mind since I just like the language, but it'd be handy to know what the story is there.

Thirdly, and this one is really just aimed at actual teachers I guess, do you like the job? Did you always want to do it or just kind of end up in it? What's it like overall?

Karpops

Patchy~ wrote: »

I have a question or two as well.

Do your subjects influence your chances at getting employment? I'm considering teaching and my joint major is going to be in French & Spanish, which are both more studied than German and Italian and any other languages at 2nd level, as far as I know. Would that make it easier to get work, or would something like French & German / Spanish & Italian (i.e. one less taught one) be better for making you stand out?

Secondly, when I was in school there were teachers allowed to teach subjects which they weren't qualified to at all (that's not meant to sound bitter, they were the best I ever had, moreso than the qualified ones :P) - but has that been done away with? I'm learning some German too and plan to get as good a level as I can through electives in college and self-learning etc, but I won't be able to teach that at all, will I? I don't really mind since I just like the language, but it'd be handy to know what the story is there.

Thirdly, and this one is really just aimed at actual teachers I guess, do you like the job? Did you always want to do it or just kind of end up in it? What's it like overall?

Subject choices - definitley!! Maths and languages would be way more in demand than others - subjects like English, Geography, History and Religion tend to be oversubscribed so the job market becomes that bit tougher for those teachers - me included

I have heard of teachers doing a subject they are unqualified to teach, yes but only to a certain point - like some teachers I know are doing part-time degrees as well as teaching full-time, so they might get a 1st year class in their part-time degree subject to get them properly to grips with the curriculum. I've f**k all qualifications in Maths so I couldn't just go in and start teaching Trig to a bunch of Leaving Certs or anything You might be okay with German actually, since you don't need a degree to know a language (it could be your own second language) but the more fluent you are, the better. If you've given oral preparation (you can sometimes volunteer to do this for school students) or grinds, even better. I'm not an expert on languages though

whiteandlight

No more off topic responses please



You need to have at least 54 credits (rumoured to be increasing to 60 credits) of degree level appropriate subject material to be qualified to teach it. You cannot teach a subject you are not qualified for except under exceptional and increasingly rare circumstances. You must also have completed the 2 year PGDE.

Yes there are some subjects that are more in demand than others. However there is a big proviso to that. No subject is in demand at the moment. There are few to no teaching jobs available in Ireland and the situation is deteriorating year on year. More and more qualified and experienced teachers are out of work or on part time contracts looking for full employment. New entrants have very little potential to ever get a foot on the ladder-particularly if Croke Park 2 is implemented. Large numbers of our teachers are teaching abroad as they cannot get work here. During the boom it was taking Secondary teachers an average of 7 years to get a full time job (ASTI), you can probably double that at this stage after all of the cuts.

Unless you really, really want to teach this is not the career for you, particularly if you are looking for job security and a decent wage. It does not exist except in the rarest of circumstances for new entrants.

Miss Lockhart

Expect to spend about four or five years subbing casually (a few hours here and there, not counting towards security) and then probably another four to six years before getting part time CID. Then the rest of your life hoping your timetable is topped up with concessionary hours every September, but never being able to rely on a full pay cheque from one year to the next. That's if you're lucky. If you're not, then expect to struggle to pick up more than a few days subbing a year and then find that your extended gaps of unemployment increasingly count against you so you are even less likely to get work.

That's the reality. Teaching is now a part time profession that is next to impossible to fund a normal family life with. Management bodies are determined to split full time jobs into bits of hours.

Subject wise you'e probably more likely to pick up maternity leaves and a few contracted hours in Home Ec, French and Irish, but a proper contract for full hours is still highly unlikely.

dory

A teacher fresh out of college will mostly likely make €13,000 - €15,000 a year based on the new salary scale and the fact that most grads start on 12 hours (if they're very lucky).