Primary Teaching - Mature Applicant

sanj2408

Hi all,

Ive recently decided to do primary teaching as a mature student. I did my leaving cert 6years ago but was twenty points short at the time even though I have all the required grades. I plan to apply for 2010 but am wondering - is there anything I can do in the meantime to increase my chances of getting in?

byhookorbycrook

lots of voluntary work with children, plenty work on Irish are the two things that most spring to mind.

In my opinion

sanj2408 wrote: »

Hi all,

Ive recently decided to do primary teaching as a mature student. I did my leaving cert 6years ago but was twenty points short at the time even though I have all the required grades. I plan to apply for 2010 but am wondering - is there anything I can do in the meantime to increase my chances of getting in?

Improve your Irish conversation skills, discover the revised curriculum, that's about it. I qualified a number of years ago having gone to Pat's as a mature. Do me a favour though if you do make it onto the course mix with the class and leave the front 4 rows in the lecture halls vacant. It always sickened me to see matures in the front seats asking stupid questions so that they would be noticed!

Best of luck

sanj2408

Thanks for that guys. I want to do an Irish course to brush up on it. Can anyone recommend one I could do?

messygirl

hiya gael chultur in templebar have weekend courses but if you google conversation classe they mighthave one in your area, there are a few around cork that meet every two weeks,and its two euro

recently went for the b.ed interview for pats (didnt get it) but they focus on experience withkids (check out volunteeringireland.com for volunteering vacancies with kid/youth projects) skills like sport or music, so if youcoud join your local gaa club, and community involvement.

i would start with a grammar book like grameir an draoi by elizabeth wade and yvonne o toole and get an irish oral book for l.c because they are exactly the type of questions you will be asked! start listening to rnag and watching tg4, you have over a year so you should be ok,

applications come out in february/march and have to be in by april, so use the time to brush up on the extracurricular. the forms stay the same too so take a look at marking scheme and what they are looking for and think about how you could improve your application form in a way that screams PICK ME PICK ME! best of luck!

happyoutscan

In my opinion wrote: »

It always sickened me to see matures in the front seats asking stupid questions so that they would be noticed!

Probably because they were mature enough to do so without worrying about the childish opinions of some of their class peers.