Novice seeking advice RE Sec Teaching!

Amtmann

Hi,

Any secondary teachers out there? Basically, I'm looking for advice. I'm a 1:1 student (usually!) and will be entering 3rd Year at UCC next October. At the moment, I'm doing a Joint in History and Geography, but for 3rd Year I'd like to do a Single (50 credits) in History with only 10 credits in Geography.

Ultimately, I could see myself doing an MA in History, and then a H.Dip in education with a view to becoming a secondary teacher. (I can also teach CSPE).

This September I will be subbing in a local secondary school. I'm a little nervous, but I'll see how it goes.

So, I was just looking for information from teachers.

a) Is it a well paid job (considering the holidays and relatively short working day?

b) Is it easy to find employment considering my three subjects?

c) Will my decision to do a Single as opposed to a Joint next year diminish my employment prospects?

d) Do unqualified subs like me normally get paid for services rendered?

e) Would you recommend teaching as a career?

Thanks very much

Furet

RealJohn

a) It's pretty good but then, I'm not teaching long, I have nobody depending on me and no big debts.

b) It's not that easy finding employment at the moment regardless of your subjects. If you have any kind of level of Irish, you should do the ceard teastas. It's a 10 minute interview which qualifies you to teach through Irish and it widens your choices, though it will mean a lot of work if your Irish isn't that good when it comes to the actual teaching.

c) I doubt it.

d) Yes. You get paid more if you're qualified but all subs get paid for any official subbing. I think it's about E20 an hour if you're not a qualified teacher and about E40 if you are. I'm not 100% sure though.

e) If you have the right kind of personality, absolutely. You have to be patient and pretty understanding and obviously, if you hate kids then it's probably not for you but I love it. Then again, I haven't been doing it long enough to have grown tired of it yet.

Tom Dunne

Have a look at this thread also.

Not so much for the views on 3rd level, but more for the views on 2nd level teaching.

Trotter

RealJohn wrote:

d) Yes. You get paid more if you're qualified but all subs get paid for any official subbing. I think it's about E20 an hour if you're not a qualified teacher and about E40 if you are. I'm not 100% sure though.

Unqualified rate (people without a H.Dip) is €38.01 an hour at the moment. So.. say you do 4 x 40 minute classes in a day, that means you get roughly €101.


Some days you could be lucky and get 8 classes, other days you could have a class at 9 and another at 3. You only get paid for your time spent in class.

spurious

Don't make the mistake of thinking the only hours are in the classroom.

Trotter

spurious wrote:

Don't make the mistake of thinking the only hours are in the classroom.

How do you mean? As a sub, for the last two years, I get paid for my hours spent in the classroom only.

Yes there are supervision hours etc, but its rare that an irregular sub would get any of them and even at that you might get 1 - 3 hours a week.

spurious

Yes that's what I meant - you only get paid for your hours in the classroom - you don't get compensated for the hours of preparation, correction, evaluation, interminable meetings, IEPs, SDP meetings, etc.

Anyone who thinks teaching has 'short hours' will get a bit of a surprise in most schools.

Amtmann

Guys, thanks very much for your help thusfar. Tell me, when you're qualified and you only take say 4 or 5 forty-minute classes per day, do you only get paid for those?

Also, I've been hearing discipline has gone out the window in the past few years; I know when I did the Leaving in 2000 teachers were not averse to giving you a piece of their mind and evicting you from class. Is this still the case?

Trotter

Furet wrote:

Guys, thanks very much for your help thusfar. Tell me, when you're qualified and you only take say 4 or 5 forty-minute classes per day, do you only get paid for those?

Also, I've been hearing discipline has gone out the window in the past few years; I know when I did the Leaving in 2000 teachers were not averse to giving you a piece of their mind and evicting you from class. Is this still the case?

When you're qualified and appointed as a fulltime teacher, the hours thing goes out the window and you're paid a salary for the year.

If you're qualified and a sub, then you get paid by the hours spent in class. The hourly rate for a qualified sub is about €5 or €6 higher than without the dip.

I've noticed a big change in discipline over the 3 years I've been teaching. It has certainly got harder to manage because you are now no longer a figure of authority in my view. Any student can tell you where to stick it and not a whole lot will happen them. Yes they'll be suspended, so if its a nice week weather wise, they get to go to the beach. Its tough for a rule breaker alright!

I think its a societal shift more than a classroom behaviour problem. Im sure the Gardaí and other people in the front line of society would tell you that theres a big change for the worse among parts of our adolescent population.

I dont want to tar all with the same brush though, there are many many decent young people out there, and some people are an absolute pleasure to teach.

RealJohn

Trotter wrote:

I dont want to tar all with the same brush though, there are many many decent young people out there, and some people are an absolute pleasure to teach.

It's like any area of life. There will always be bad apples. And like in every other area of society, it's becoming harder and harder to deliver discipline to those who need to be disciplined because they're all hiding behind "human rights" with their lawyers on speed-dial.

Amtmann

RealJohn wrote:

It's like any area of life. There will always be bad apples. And like in every other area of society, it's becoming harder and harder to deliver discipline to those who need to be disciplined because they're all hiding behind "human rights" with their lawyers on speed-dial.

I've been hearing plenty like this alright, and to be honest it's putting me off teaching a bit. How is discipline enforced in class now? Does every teacher have their own discrete method, or is there a school regulation code that simply must be followed regardless of its ineffectiveness?

RealJohn

I think it's mostly down to the individual teacher. Establish your authority from day one and you'll be fine. You can't afford to get friendly with them until you've got them completely convinced that one way or the other, you're the boss.