information on becoming a teacher

roisinr

Hi I am new to this!
I am really interested in going into teaching. Primary or secondary but I'm leaning more towards secondary. I am 24 with 2 children and am currently doing a fetac level 5 childcare with special needs course. I am looking for advice before I decide! Is it a lot of work and not much chance of a job after it? Or would you say to go for it? And also would the course I'm doing be enough to get me into college for teaching or would I need to do something else too?

mtoutlemonde

roisinr wrote: »

Hi I am new to this!
I am really interested in going into teaching. Primary or secondary but I'm leaning more towards secondary. I am 24 with 2 children and am currently doing a fetac level 5 childcare with special needs course. I am looking for advice before I decide! Is it a lot of work and not much chance of a job after it? Or would you say to go for it? And also would the course I'm doing be enough to get me into college for teaching or would I need to do something else too?

Afraid not. To be a teacher you will need a Honours Bachelors Degree and a two year Masters of Education. And to answer your other questions - yes it is a lot of work and there are no jobs.

RealJohn

mtoutlemonde wrote: »

Afraid not. To be a teacher you will need a Honours Bachelors Degree and a two year Masters of Education. And to answer your other questions - yes it is a lot of work and there are no jobs.

Do you technically need an honours degree? Granted, without one it's going to be harder to get onto a teaching course and probably harder to get a job but it used not be a requirement. A general degree used to be enough.

Edit - not that that helps the OP much since her course will still be useless in terms of actually qualifying as a teacher (though could potentially be beneficial to have).

endacl

roisinr wrote: »

Hi I am new to this!
I am really interested in going into teaching. Primary or secondary but I'm leaning more towards secondary. I am 24 with 2 children and am currently doing a fetac level 5 childcare with special needs course. I am looking for advice before I decide! Is it a lot of work and not much chance of a job after it? Or would you say to go for it? And also would the course I'm doing be enough to get me into college for teaching or would I need to do something else too?

A level 5 cert is a leaving cert equivalent. You'd be applying as a mature student, and would be competing with a slightly different field to the cao folks.

As mentioned, you'll need a degree in your chosen subject, although subjectS would be a smart move. You'd have to follow this with a post grad qualification in education. It's at least a five year commitment. If studying full time. At least. There are very few jobs, even short hours. New entrants get a crappy deal in terms of pay and conditions. Nice one, teachers' unions...

For I were in your position, I'd be thinking about which subjects I'd like to teach. I'd then see if they are in demand, and possibly think again. Then, when you qualify, and your kids are settled in school, would you be able/prepared to uproot everything to take a one year contract at part time hours on the far side of the country? Your competition for that job will.

Seriously, if I were in your shoes, I'd be looking at what give years full time study might get me in other fields. You could be very qualified in a field with much better prospects, both immediate and long term. If you like, you could always revisit teaching as an option then.

Disclaimer: not a full timer. 'Accidental' teacher. Happy with 2/3 of full time hours, wouldn't do it full time. Too busy at other things. The route I described is closer to how I came to it. Really hard to argue with only working 160 odd days a year for 365 days pay, though! I spend the rest if my time working at other stuff. I'd go out of my mind sitting around doing sweet fanny adams for three months at a stretch...

Alex Meier

It's an awful job.

Stay away from it.

katydid

roisinr wrote: »

Hi I am new to this!
I am really interested in going into teaching. Primary or secondary but I'm leaning more towards secondary. I am 24 with 2 children and am currently doing a fetac level 5 childcare with special needs course. I am looking for advice before I decide! Is it a lot of work and not much chance of a job after it? Or would you say to go for it? And also would the course I'm doing be enough to get me into college for teaching or would I need to do something else too?

Is there any link between your course and a third level course such as Early Childhood Education, which might be a pathway to further training towards teaching? It is probably worth having a chat with the career guidance teacher in your college.

joeharte123

The chance of full time work is very, very grim today. Coming out of college, postgrad equipped, the average pupil can be after 30 before they secure full time post as a teacher. This is after hopping from school to school subbing, covering maternity leaves and job sharing.
I like to refer to these teachers as the lucky ones. And by lucky ones I mean those that are recognised by the teaching council to teach Applied Maths, Physics, Chemistry etc.

The problem is essentially down to a huge oversupply of teachers. Hibernia can pump up to 600 graduates out a year through it's online servers (as opposed to a physical classroom). Maynooth, one the more established teaching training colleges takes about 100 every year. DCU, UCD, TCD, UCC and NUIG the same. And then the other colleges such as Pats in Tipp, Angelas Sligo also contribute. Your talking close to 1500 fresh, qualified, young people hoping to entering the workforce.
The only question I have is why these people are allowed to graduate with false hope of getting a job?
Like dentistry, pharmacy, medicine and other practitioner courses - can teaching not put a cap on the amount it takes into it's training colleges?

doc11

joeharte123 wrote: »

The problem is essentially down to a huge oversupply of teachers. Hibernia can pump up to 600 graduates out a year through it's online servers (as opposed to a physical classroom). Maynooth, one the more established teaching training colleges takes about 100 every year. DCU, UCD, TCD, UCC and NUIG the same. And then the other colleges such as Pats in Tipp, Angelas Sligo also contribute. Your talking close to 1500 fresh, qualified, young people hoping to entering the workforce.
The only question I have is why these people are allowed to graduate with false hope of getting a job?
Like dentistry, pharmacy, medicine and other practitioner courses - can teaching not put a cap on the amount it takes into it's training colleges?

Your forgetting about the thousands who couldn't even get into an Irish college and head over to the UK and arrive back expecting a job.

In fairness supply wise there are very few graduates this year as the two year masters started so no grads till next year(less students with worse academics). And supply from the UK has been curtailed with UK grads having to do their dip in the UK and from next year UK grads will need a masters in education to teach here. Thats forgetting about the ending of the practice were vast numbers of unqualified were allowed into paid teaching post (hence why DCU and hibernia course were run).

I don't see why limits should be set, if you want to be a teacher fire ahead and let a principal decide. A bigger problem are those who get a Degree and enter teaching as an afterthought.

joeharte123

doc11 wrote: »

Your forgetting about the thousands who couldn't even get into an Irish college and head over to the UK and arrive back expecting a job.

In fairness supply wise there are very few graduates this year as the two year masters started so no grads till next year(less students with worse academics). And supply from the UK has been curtailed with UK grads having to do their dip in the UK and from next year UK grads will need a masters in education to teach here. Thats forgetting about the ending of the practice were vast numbers of unqualified were allowed into paid teaching post (hence why DCU and hibernia course were run).

I don't see why limits should be set, if you want to be a teacher fire ahead and let a principal decide. A bigger problem are those who get a Degree and enter teaching as an afterthought.

The hard reality is not everyone's CV even gets to the principal's desk. Those that have taken the initiative to do a masters over the past 5 years to make themselves "more employable" have now be brought to a level playing field. Their effort is now cancelled out as the PME is the bare minimum postgraduate course needed to become a teacher.

I agree with you in one respect that anyone who wishes to become a teacher should by all means, fire ahead. But what about all the false expectations given to these hoping-to-be teachers? I don't feel it's fair to have a class of teachers spending 12,000euro to be told the best you can hop for is to cover a maternity for half a year.

An issue you raised about degree holders considering teacher as an afterthought is one of the major contributing factors how the workforce is so over crowded.
New B.ed course such as Mathematics/Science with education in Maynooth seems to be one way of tackling this problem.

evolving_doors

bit negative about late comers to the profession imo, it could be equally claimed that there are too many rushing into it from secondary!

Ya pays yer money and takes yer choice, if you think that there are full time jobs out there when you go into a PME then it shows you haven't a clue about what is going on in education. Unless youre doing it to emigrate or are ' of means' and prepaired to sweat it out for at least 10 yrs before being able to get any type of reasonable income.

Nobody owes you a living.

Spread the love

joeharte123 wrote: »

The chance of full time work is very, very grim today. Coming out of college, postgrad equipped, the average pupil can be after 30 before they secure full time post as a teacher. This is after hopping from school to school subbing, covering maternity leaves and job sharing.
I like to refer to these teachers as the lucky ones. And by lucky ones I mean those that are recognised by the teaching council to teach Applied Maths, Physics, Chemistry etc.

The problem is essentially down to a huge oversupply of teachers. Hibernia can pump up to 600 graduates out a year through it's online servers (as opposed to a physical classroom). Maynooth, one the more established teaching training colleges takes about 100 every year. DCU, UCD, TCD, UCC and NUIG the same. And then the other colleges such as Pats in Tipp, Angelas Sligo also contribute. Your talking close to 1500 fresh, qualified, young people hoping to entering the workforce.
The only question I have is why these people are allowed to graduate with false hope of getting a job?
Like dentistry, pharmacy, medicine and other practitioner courses - can teaching not put a cap on the amount it takes into it's training colleges?

Completely agree with you! Teaching has become such a shambles of a 'profession' over the last 10 years. The government need to tackle this issue- train teachers better and less of them. There are far too many teachers qualified. I work in very rural Donegal and we could have a new sub in for every day of the month. It's a disgrace that they're qualifying so many teachers but as long as they're making money, why do they care.

evolving_doors

Spread the love wrote: »

Completely agree with you! Teaching has become such a shambles of a 'profession' over the last 10 years. The government need to tackle this issue- train teachers better and less of them. There are far too many teachers qualified. I work in very rural Donegal and we could have a new sub in for every day of the month. It's a disgrace that they're qualifying so many teachers but as long as they're making money, why do they care.

But why are people still going for it?

spurious

Gebgbegb wrote: »

But why are people still going for it?

I suppose people buy into the 'it will all get better sometime' mantra that has been going for years.

There are always some stories about one person getting the mythical full hours straight from college and everyone thinks 'that could be me'. People still buy lotto tickets, even though they know they've more chance of being killed by a donkey than they have of winning big.

katydid

Gebgbegb wrote: »

But why are people still going for it?

I'd go for it if I were starting out today, because it's all I ever wanted to do, and I love it, even thirty five years on. And when I started, it was pretty bad, I spent ten years on the sub/part time circuit (with far worse conditions than today) but I remember my determination and drive back then. I took every job going, and never (well, hardly ever) despaired.

The difference, I suppose, was that the holy grail of a permanent pensionable job was always there. Not so today.