A Closer Look At Supply Teaching Jobs

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Becoming a teacher in the United Kingdom requires you to be in possession of certain qualifications. Prospect students are expected to take a QTS, Qualified Teacher Status that allows one to teach within Wales and England. Students who apply for a BEd Bachelor of Education receive the QTS when receiving their degree. Other students opt for Postgraduate Certificate in Education instead of QTS that enables them to teach in the United Kingdom. Graduates may then look for supply teaching jobs to work on freelance basis as assistants for regular teachers. Most graduates practice as supply teachers before securing permanent teaching job. Below is a close look at supply teaching jobs and duties.

What is supply teaching? 

Supply teaching is generally short-term to cover holidays and sick leave. Supply teachers take the duties of absent teachers like running classes and following the directions left. Individuals wishing to work as supply teachers may sign up with teaching recruitment agencies and give them their qualifications and supporting documents. The prospects may also indicate the type of schools and locations where they would like to work.

Supply teaching jobs

Some of the duties performed by supply teachers discussed below:

Maintaining and organising classrooms- This is a duty beyond teaching and leaving the classroom as it was found. It involves finalising and working on projects that the students have been working on, reorganising paperwork and replacing the used materials and stationery. Work for the main teacher is left out and marked clearly with a sticky note to save him the hassle of haunting for it.

Preparing notes and reports- It is important for the full-time to know what was covered by supply teachers since they are temporary staff. This duty requires them to put down students grades and other achievements by the students in their daily notes for reference by the full-time teacher. The notes are then compiled into reports that are submitted weekly to the principal outlining the covered topics and the problems experienced. This allows the school to address any disciplinary troubles and determine whether the supply teacher is successful or not.

Preparing and instigating a discipline policy- The supply teachers are expected to prepare a discipline policy when working in schools without a standard policy on discipline policy. They are expected to put into to place their own discipline rules and inform their children. On the other hand, they must be willing to make their teaching style match that of the school policy.

Preparing class lessons and materials

A supply teacher is responsible for keeping in touch with the full-time teacher to know what to cover. In this case, they prepare class schedules with class works, project works and home assignments to make sure the children are busy. At times, they create flexible class plans to follow the plan of the absent teacher and engage the students actively.

Grading and marking 

This task is a major part of supply teachings jobs and it involves marking tests, examinations and normal class work or homework. The supply teachers can follow the policy of the school or the main teacher depending on the prevailing circumstances.

 

Becoming a higher level teaching assistant

Becoming a higher level teaching assistant can have many advantages and be rewarding. To become a Higher Level Teaching Assistant or HLTS you need to take an assessment whilst already being in a teaching assistant role. The government have stopped funding for this type of qualification but you can often get funding from your local authority or even from your school. If both of these options fail you can self fund the course yourself.

During the HLTA assessment you will need to show that you meet all of the HLTA standards.  First have to complete a training needs analysis and complete the process of ‘preparation for assessment’ to establish what you need to do to meet these standards.

To become a HLTA you should already be a teaching assistant, have the support of your school and head teacher and have funding in place. To enquire on how to become a HLTA you can first discuss your options with your head teacher.

Teachers strike across many schools throughout the UK

Recently certain teachers have gone on strike following the government’s recent changes to teachers pay and pensions. Almost half the schools in Wales and many more across England had to close last week following the strike of members of the NUT union. The strike was carried out after the new rules regarding teachers performance related pay and harsher pension packages were discussed by the government. Teachers are being asked to dig deeper to pay in to pensions and work longer hours.

This may have caused disruption to certain pupils and their parents but the union felt it was the only way they could display how strongly their members felt about the changes. Strikes have been around fro quite some time now and often do see changes made following on from the strike. Although some may see this as a dramatic way to get their point across it appears that often this action is needed in order to see change made.

Recruiting the Right Personnel

Recruiting the right personnel is something which you can never anticipate with one hundred percent certainty, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t take fair shot at it. There are a number of things that you can do, as either a business person, or as a recruitment consultant, in order to minimise the risk of employing somebody who hasn’t got what it takes. Most of it involves taking the time to fully vet your applicants to the job. This can mean both establishing the authenticity of their professional record (their CV), as well as performing an in-depth interview, going into as much detail about the role they will be performing. For the first one, this can be done through a variety of ways, such as, taking the time to authenticate their claims with people who will know. Whether this means previous employers, or perhaps their educators in school or university. Both of these people are honour bound to provide a legitimate assessment of the applicant in question. Having done this, your list should be smaller, and more manageable. This allows you to take a more in-depth view of the applicants, ideally with an extensive interview. Taking the time to ask for the input of the applicants before they take the job can reveal a lot about the way they work, and whether or not they are the right fit.

Going from a teacher to a Lecturer

Students may see teachers as completely different individuals to lecturers, and that’s because the job is actually quite different. Both roles involve teaching and marking but it’s the way that teachers conduct their work which is different from lecturers.

When you go from being a teacher to a lecturer, you’re essentially teaching a different age group. This form of education is optional and no university students are legally forced into higher education, s it’s their choice. School is not the same and it means at university you have more chance o teaching individual who want to learn, rather than those who don’t’. So in that respect lecturing can be easier.

In school it’s important to have the students under control, and you may not be able to send a way a student who misbehaves, in university, if a student is distracting they can simply b kicked out of the class, they are then wasting their university time and essentially wasting their money.

Lecturing can be more laid back to teaching, though I’m sure many lecturers will disagree, but the level of work is more difficult and your knowledge in a subject has to be at an extremely high standard.