Help needed please! Secondary Teaching info

sprocket1978

Hi everyone
I have been all over the internet searching for information on this matter and i am exhausted with dead ends,im praying that someone can advise me.im hoping im in the right place..
I have an BA Hons in Fine art and am hoping to get my Hdip in Teaching this year, my plan is to finish college,do a years experience then apply for my visa to emigrate to OZ.

I have a few questions,sorry this is so long

1 :The school year, what happens during the summer,are teachers still "employed" with the school? I need 12 months experience in 24 and as the school year covers Sept to June,does that mean i would have to be re-employed the following year and work the two full years in Ireland before i would be able to apply for my visa?
(I am concerned i may get stuck in a vicious circle of being employed 1 yr and possibly loose out the next and have to start from scratch again etc)

2: How many paid hours a week do secondary school teachers work? I am hearing a maximum of 22, but surely that cant be true?
I need a minimum of 20 per week for my visa but im worried that a new teacher may work considerably fewer initially.

3:Also i know im probably fooling myself thinking i will get work straight away in this climate but does anyone know what chances i actually will have? Will a move to England have to be on the cards?

Please please please if anyone can help me at all with these questions****
Thanks a million**

rainbowtrout

sprocket1978 wrote: »

Hi everyone
I have been all over the internet searching for information on this matter and i am exhausted with dead ends,im praying that someone can advise me.im hoping im in the right place..
I have an BA Hons in Fine art and am hoping to get my Hdip in Teaching this year, my plan is to finish college,do a years experience then apply for my visa to emigrate to OZ.

I have a few questions,sorry this is so long

1 :The school year, what happens during the summer,are teachers still "employed" with the school? I need 12 months experience in 24 and as the school year covers Sept to June,does that mean i would have to be re-employed the following year and work the two full years in Ireland before i would be able to apply for my visa?
(I am concerned i may get stuck in a vicious circle of being employed 1 yr and possibly loose out the next and have to start from scratch again etc)

2: How many paid hours a week do secondary school teachers work? I am hearing a maximum of 22, but surely that cant be true?
I need a minimum of 20 per week for my visa but im worried that a new teacher may work considerably fewer initially.

3:Also i know im probably fooling myself thinking i will get work straight away in this climate but does anyone know what chances i actually will have? Will a move to England have to be on the cards?

Please please please if anyone can help me at all with these questions****
Thanks a million**

1. If you are employed on a 1 year contract, you are employed for a calendar year say from Sept 1, 2010 to Aug 31, 2011 - that is how you get paid for the summer. That would generally be seen as a year's experience. I'd imagine it's the same type of set up in Australia. All schools have holidays so you couldn't possibly be teaching continuously in any country. So 24 months would probably be two calendar years, two contracted years in a school.

2. 22 hours is a full teaching week in Ireland. It's more than enough, you'll use your free classes to prepare, correct work, and possibly do some supervision/substitution of other classes if you are involved in that end of things. But you are right, you would essentially need a position on full hours for your visa, unless you did subbing as well and your principal puts that down as hours for you. Most positions when you start off won't be on full hours as you guessed. You might only get a contract for example for 14 hours.

3. If you have a degree in Fine Art I assume Art will be your only subject. I have no idea what the job prospects are for Art, but for schools that do offer it there is generally only one teacher as it is a choice subject. There may only be full hours available in a big school. Don't rule out a year or two in the UK if it means the difference in getting your experience for Oz or not.

sprocket1978

Wow thanks a million for the quick response, so helpful,

Looking forward to getting started, i just wanted to clarify with you if i could,

Are your paid hours your actual classroom teaching hours =(Max 22), and the other hours of work (prep work, correcting, lesson plans etc.) are in your own time and unpaid?, (that's a lot of unpaid hours!)
How many hours are you actually in attendance in the school? Sorry I just want to be super sure.

Yep, art teaching is the route I am taking,really glad of the info you passed on about specialised subjects, I'm 32 now and may be a number of years before I manage my 12months in 24 but desperate to get to Oz asap.:)

Thanks a million again

rainbowtrout

sprocket1978 wrote: »

Wow thanks a million for the quick response, so helpful,

Looking forward to getting started, i just wanted to clarify with you if i could,

Are your paid hours your actual classroom teaching hours =(Max 22), and the other hours of work (prep work, correcting, lesson plans etc.) are in your own time and unpaid?, (that's a lot of unpaid hours!)
How many hours are you actually in attendance in the school? Sorry I just want to be super sure.

Yep, art teaching is the route I am taking,really glad of the info you passed on about specialised subjects, I'm 32 now and may be a number of years before I manage my 12months in 24 but desperate to get to Oz asap.:)

Thanks a million again

Contracts in teaching are simply for teaching. Obviously you are expected to do the necessary to fulfill your teaching hours whether that be prepare classroom materials ( I imagine there's a fair bit of this in art), photocopy, correct homework etc etc. You do that in your free classes. This is often where the media slant comes in 'teachers only work 22 hours a week'. Not true. We get paid based on the hours we spend teaching in the classroom, but realistically it's not any different from a regular working week. You do spend time outside the classroom doing other stuff. Whether you choose to do that during free classes or at home in the evening is up to you. It's also subject dependent.

Teachers are not required to be at school during their 'free' classes. If your first class of the day is at half 10 you don't have to turn up until half ten, but the reality is many come in to do some work before they start class. I suppose it depends on your workload really. If you happen to have a day where you have no classes in the afternoon and you finish at 2pm, there's nothing to stop you going home at that time. Take the 22 hours timetabled as a jumping off point I reckon. Aslo realistically if you don't live beside the place you work, you're not going to be going home during your free classes during the day, you're in from your first class until your last one.

sprocket1978

Thanks a lot for all the help, i really cant believe i got such a quick reply,its my first time on this site and iv been trawling around the web for info for quite a while.Its quite daunting to be launching into the teaching world but im a lot more informed now.
Fingers crossed i get my 20 hours relatively soon,will send you a postcard from oz
Best of luck***

forestfruits

Just a thought but to ensure your as employable as possible Id check out if you can teach any other subject along with art so as you can get as many hours as possible when you start out. Be prepared to do a fair bit of subbing work- non contracted cover- covering sick days etc- so long as its department paid (which it should be these days, rather than paid by the school) it should count towards your actual teaching hours. Contracts are few and far between in all subject areas at the min!

Good luck

kittex

sprocket1978 wrote: »

Yep, art teaching is the route I am taking,really glad of the info you passed on about specialised subjects, I'm 32 now and may be a number of years before I manage my 12months in 24 but desperate to get to Oz asap.:)

Thanks a million again

Just a note re: visas for Oz. I am 32 and applying for my PR this year, having worked here for what will be 2 years by the time they complete the process.

You need 120 point to come independently. I am 32 and only just make those 120 points as I will have 10 points from Oz working experience. You need 3 years experience in the job your visa is for to get the full points for the job.

(This 12 in 24 thing you have heard? Are you mis reading the 2 years required for registration with their teaching bodies? This is not a work rights things, it's just recognitions and your teacher training year can count towards it. In which case you only need 1 year training (PGDE) plus 1 year as a probationary teache. But you need more for an independent work visa.)

In 3 years time, with a PGDE and 2 years teaching experience behind you you'll only have around about 100 points. that's assuming teaching is still on the list for required occupations.

You will need sponsored by a state, employer or relative at this stage.
If you are sponsored by a state it is likely to be on the condition that you come to **** hole backwater in the middle of nowhere, as that's where they need teachers and all their sponsorship is conditional on that.

I've been in one of those **** holes for the last 18 months and believe me, it's difficult.
Just a warning!

rebel10

forestfruits wrote: »

Just a thought but to ensure your as employable as possible Id check out if you can teach any other subject along with art so as you can get as many hours as possible when you start out. Be prepared to do a fair bit of subbing work- non contracted cover- covering sick days etc- so long as its department paid (which it should be these days, rather than paid by the school) it should count towards your actual teaching hours. Contracts are few and far between in all subject areas at the min!

Good luck

Just to let you know, I'm an Art teacher, have looked into teaching other subjects, but the Teaching Council have advised me I am not qualified to teach any other subject. I was looking at Jnr Cert history, was told i would need a degree, they are clamping down big time, which is fair enough. I have seen so many cases of people being employed as Art teachers in the past because they have an interest in Art but not qualified, I blame the schools for their ignorance and lack of understanding of the Art curriculum. Wouldn't happen in England where Art is compulsary as it is seen as crucial for the development of a childs intelligence

Some schools may give you hours to teach Sphe so as to make up more hours for you, however it completely depends on your school and principal. Best of luck, along with Business, it is one of the hardest subjects to find work in teaching:(