Finding permanent teaching post - how difficult is it?

MmmmmCheese

Hi all,

My partner is currently on his final year of an arts degree in history and English and plans to do the PME afterwards for secondary teaching. From browsing this forum a little bit I've gotten a bit of a fright at all the posts saying that it could be years after qualifying that you get a permanent post. We're both 30 now and were hoping to get a mortgage in the next few years.

Is the situation still as dire these days? How long after graduating on average does it tend to take to get the permanent job (or does it vary widely based on luck?) Could you live decently off temping/subbing hours? Would you have to be open to moving far away to get a job?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

byhookorbycrook

With those two subjects,you'd be very limited.

MmmmmCheese

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

With those two subjects,you'd be very limited.

I get that for history but English? It’s a subject every student has to do so thought English teachers would be in demand?

Smacruairi

MmmmmCheese wrote: »

I get that for history but English? It’s a subject every student has to do so thought English teachers would be in demand?

Many many teachers have English as a secondary subject, myself included. I'd say we easily have 14 teachers on our staff who have English as a secondary subject, only need 7.

Iscreamkone

What subjects are the best to have?

Smacruairi

Iscreamkone wrote: »

What subjects are the best to have?

Home Ec, Irish, maths, Modern Languages in roughly that order.

dory

That's the most common combo of subjects. Lots of people with English degrees go on to do teaching. You could get lucky, but it'll possibly be mat leaves and career breaks for a few years, with other work during the summer. You'd have better luck in Dublin, teachers tend to want to move down the country for the lower cost of living.

If he can get a good level of Irish, some Gaelcholáistí struggle to find staff.

MmmmmCheese

Oh boy, not great news so. Thanks for the input everyone.

MmmmmCheese

dory wrote: »

That's the most common combo of subjects. Lots of people with English degrees go on to do teaching. You could get lucky, but it'll possibly be mat leaves and career breaks for a few years, with other work during the summer. You'd have better luck in Dublin, teachers tend to want to move down the country for the lower cost of living.

If he can get a good level of Irish, some Gaelcholáistí struggle to find staff.

Interesting, that would be a fluent level of Irish I’m assuming? That’s no easy feat.

History Queen

I'm an English and History teacher. Definitely an oversubscribed combination. My own story is I qualified in 2013, worked constantly in long term subbing roles from Jan 2013 (maternity leaves for example) until I got my own hours in Sept 2015, that job became permanent in 2017.

Things I did that helped, I applied to jobs in all 26 counties and tried not to have a gap on my CV even though that meant accepting short hours or long commutes (3 hours each way for 6 months!) I also rang after every unsuccessful interview (and there were a few) to thank the principal/board for their time and to respectfully ask for feedback, sometimes I got really helpfuladvice,sometimes I justspiketo a secretary who promised to pass my message on. Once I actually got offered a maternity leave job by doing this as though I interviewed for a year long contract and was unsuccessful, my ringing back impressed the principal and he offered me a mat leave that was starting one month later and short term subbing in the school until that started.

All of the above is just my story. I have been lucky (but have also worked hard to try help myself where I could) securing permancy within 4 years of qualification. I know people with the same or similar qualifications who took longer and some who were quicker, similarly I know some who still have not achieved permancy. There is no way of predicting when it will happen for anyone as there are so many variables.

Best of luck to him, it can be daunting starting out.

Eleven Benevolent Elephants

I would be qualified to teach chemistry and physics (that might qualify for JC science as well Idk) if I did the PME.

I searched jobs out of pig iron and they're rare as hens' teeth.

RealJohn

MmmmmCheese wrote: »

Interesting, that would be a fluent level of Irish I’m assuming? That’s no easy feat.

Fluent Irish? No, not necessary. Halfway decent conversational Irish would be plenty to get the foot in the door. Might need to improve to fluency to advance though, depending on the attitude of management.

No easy feat? How do you figure? There’s no shortage of resources for people who want to learn Irish in this country.

byhookorbycrook

RealJohn wrote: »

Fluent Irish? No, not necessary. Halfway decent conversational Irish would be plenty to get the foot in the door. Might need to improve to fluency to advance though, depending on the attitude of management.

No easy feat? How do you figure? There’s no shortage of resources for people who want to learn Irish in this country.

I disagree, if you would be teaching history through Irish, you would have to be able to have all of the subject specific vocabulary at your finger tips and be able to create resources for your students to a high standard.

MmmmmCheese

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I disagree, if you would be teaching history through Irish, you would have to be able to have all of the subject specific vocabulary at your finger tips and be able to create resources for your students to a high standard.

Yeah that’s what I would have thought. How can you teach a subject through Irish without being near fluent. And in response to the previous poster, of course it’s not an easy thing for someone with a poor enough standard of Irish to become fluent. Not impossible mind.

RealJohn

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I disagree, if you would be teaching history through Irish, you would have to be able to have all of the subject specific vocabulary at your finger tips and be able to create resources for your students to a high standard.

I didn’t say you wouldn’t need to be fluent to do the job properly. You don’t need to be fluent to get the job in the first place though. I know of plenty of examples.

byhookorbycrook

RealJohn wrote: »

I didn’t say you wouldn’t need to be fluent to do the job properly. You don’t need to be fluent to get the job in the first place though. I know of plenty of examples.

And I have plenty examples of the opposite view, so we will agree to differ.
I will say this though, would you feel the same about someone applying to a German/French medium school with only an average conversational grounding in those languages?

RealJohn

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

And I have plenty examples of the opposite view, so we will agree to differ.
I will say this though, would you feel the same about someone applying to a German/French medium school with only an average conversational grounding in those languages?

You can differ if you like, but either you don’t understand what I’m saying or you’re simply objectively wrong. I know several people, currently working in Gaelcholáistí, whose level of Irish is well below what can be described as fluent. Again, I’m not arguing that that should be the case. It definitely shouldn’t, but it also definitely is.

I’ve worked in Gaelcholáistí in several counties, and I would categorise my level of Irish as being good, but less than fluent, and in spite of that being the case, in all of the Gaelcholáistí I’ve worked in, there have been other teachers working there whose level of Irish was well below my own, to the point that some of them thought I was a native speaker (and I’m very much not).

So differ if you like, but it’s a fact, and it’s happening across the country.

RealJohn

MmmmmCheese wrote: »

And in response to the previous poster, of course it’s not an easy thing for someone with a poor enough standard of Irish to become fluent. Not impossible mind.

There’s no excuse for someone in this country who wants to become fluent in Irish and is willing to put the effort in not becoming so, short of them being the sort of person who really can’t get their head around languages (and they’re relatively few in number, I would think).
There are loads of resources, both free and relatively cheap (and more expensive ones too, obviously) readily available to anyone who wants to make the effort.

byhookorbycrook

RealJohn wrote: »

You can differ if you like, but either you don’t understand what I’m saying or you’re simply objectively wrong. I know several people, currently working in Gaelcholáistí, whose level of Irish is well below what can be described as fluent. Again, I’m not arguing that that should be the case. It definitely shouldn’t, but it also definitely is.

I’ve worked in Gaelcholáistí in several counties, and I would categorise my level of Irish as being good, but less than fluent, and in spite of that being the case, in all of the Gaelcholáistí I’ve worked in, there have been other teachers working there whose level of Irish was well below my own, to the point that some of them thought I was a native speaker (and I’m very much not).

So differ if you like, but it’s a fact, and it’s happening across the country.

I teach in a Gaelscoil and would be in touch with many different Gaelcholáistí , so again , we will agree to disagree.

In any case, let the OP apply and one of us will be proven right, the other wrong.

RealJohn

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I teach in a Gaelscoil and would be in touch with many different Gaelcholáistí , so again , we will agree to disagree.

In any case, let the OP apply and one of us will be proven right, the other wrong.

There’s no agreeing to disagree here. You’re wrong. I could name names, teachers and schools, right now. I’m not going to, for obvious reasons, but it’s simply not the case that Gaelcholáistí don’t hire teachers without fluent Irish. They absolutely do. Anyone who says otherwise is either wrong or lying.

Are there Gaelcholáistí in a position to refuse teachers with poor Irish? Probably. I imagine the likes of Coláiste Eoin/Íosagáin or others with big reputations have their pick of teachers too, but there’s a sizeable minority, especially around Dublin, who take what they can get. In fact, I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if it isn’t even a minority.

williaint

So you are convinced based on your experiences that every teacher working in a Gaelcholaiste is fluent in Irish? How do you measure fluency? Because if it's B2 according to the CEFR, then this is definitely not fluent. Of course they should be perfectly fluent, nobody is disputing this but I am not convinced this is the reality.

Similarly I don't believe primary school teachers all have (at least) a B2 level in Irish. I am of course not in support of this but whether I agree or not, it's the reality. I think denying that the level of Irish among many in education is not up to scratch, is actually quite detrimental to the language.

Mardy Bum

There are no oversubscribed subjects any longer.

Random sample

English and history is the most common subject combination on the pme, as others have mentioned. I certainly wouldn’t be holding out hope of a permanent job in the first few years after qualifying.

As for the gaelcholaistí, I think it’s irrelevant in this instance, with so many people having English as a subject, and so many Irish teachers having history as a second subject, I can’t see the above combination being of any benefit to a gaelcholaiste.