sub teachers, when not working what do you do..?

carl-sagan

hey guys,
just out of interest, what do you do when not getting work. Ive been lucky in the past in that ive always had a pretty sready flow of hours and classes but of late things have slowed down a bit. Ive never applied for unemployment benefit? im pretty sure i can do that for the days i dont work..


Do many of you carry second jobs? Im 23 by the way and have been subbing for over a year.

Dionysus

Carl,

I've only had those two days subbing that I mentioned on the other thread. Today I just applied to do the 4 week CELT TEFL course in Dún Laoghaire, starting on 5 January for 4 weeks as I figure that will come in handy for making money in the summer. I don't know how I'll pay the €1050 course fee yet but I'll work something out. So that will keep me occupied, and it'll be good for putting on my CV when applying to schools for teacher training positions for the next year while doing my PGDE in UCD.

I'm also checking all the main employment websites, and thinking of doing a computer/information technology course as there is very good money offered in, for instance, answering IT customer queries. Even the Microsoft Training Course will allow you to earn €50 per hour. I'm also awaiting my viva voce so I'm perusing my thesis regularly and will have to start working on an index for it shortly. Basically, I'm in limbo of sorts until that it sorted out.

I doubt there will be any more substitute teaching for me before Christmas.

Rosita

Dionysus wrote: »

Carl,

I've only had those two days subbing that I mentioned on the other thread. Today I just applied to do the 4 week CELT TEFL course in Dún Laoghaire, starting on 5 January for 4 weeks as I figure that will come in handy for making money in the summer. I don't know how I'll pay the €1050 course fee yet but I'll work something out. So that will keep me occupied, and it'll be good for putting on my CV when applying to schools for teacher training positions for the next year while doing my PGDE in UCD.

You seem very confident of getting summer teaching in TFL. Have you ever seen any such positions advertised? It seems a huge amount of money to shell out without an virtual guarantee of employment during the summer, so presumably your confidence is based on research of the situation?

It just seems to me that these courses are churning out graduates at a level that could hardly all gain employment, especially during the summer when one presumes some regular school-teachers with such qualifications will also throw their hats in the ring.

Tom Dunne

Dionysus wrote: »

I'm also checking all the main employment websites, and thinking of doing a computer/information technology course as there is very good money offered in, for instance, answering IT customer queries. Even the Microsoft Training Course will allow you to earn €50 per hour.

Um, completely off topic, but I would take this with a wheelbarrow of salt. Not to mention the mind-mumbing aspect to technical support. A word of warning - do some research on the IT Certification forum before you sign up to anything like this.

My background is Information Technology/IT Support.

Esmereldina

Rosita wrote: »

You seem very confident of getting summer teaching in TFL. Have you ever seen any such positions advertised? It seems a huge amount of money to shell out without an virtual guarantee of employment during the summer, so presumably your confidence is based on research of the situation?

It just seems to me that these courses are churning out graduates at a level that could hardly all gain employment, especially during the summer when one presumes some regular school-teachers with such qualifications will also throw their hats in the ring.

Summer TEFL in Ireland tends to be a pretty huge business - I found work no problem this summer in a quite reputable school and had several other offers of interviews that I didn't go to in the end. Work is never guaranteed of course but I'd say your chances can't be that bad!

In my own case, I did have several years of summer/part time EFL teaching, but there were at least 2 other newly qualified teachers in the school I taught in. The majority were primary and secondary teachers though (some newly qualified so with no real experience).

Overall though, I'd say you'd have a fairly good chance of summer work - I'd just be a whole lot less optimistic about finding work all year round or at least enough work/work that pays enough to live on and offers job security.