Need some classroom experience?

How many times do you go for a job and they say “Sorry if you have no experience then you’re not going to be suitable” or “We are just after someone with a little more experience” and you end up screaming “How do you expect me to get the experience if nobody is going to give it me”. Well I used to feel that it didn’t matter how many qualifications I had because what I don’t have is experience so why did I waste 6 years of my life studying when I can’t get a job because of all this lack of experience business!! I have friends with degrees and masters and they can’t even get a job, what more do you want, surely these people with a great education will cope with being taught what to do. Is it because it’s cheaper to employ these people with no qualifications or is it simply that they can’t be bothered to train these intelligent people?

Well fear not my fellow blog buddies things are looking up, and the thoughts of me wasting time getting a good education and studying something that I a naturally talented at went straight out the window when I heard about Monarch Education Recruitment http://www.monarchrecruitment.co.uk/teaching_jobs/
I had a good moan to my Mum about work as you do, and as she is a teacher she told me to “stop moaning and do something about it and look into Monarch”. Her school use’s Monarch to supply her school with cover teachers frequently and many of them work for the school full time now. So on the net I went and found out that they are literally on my doorstep and have lots of work. I posted my CV as instructed and the next day I received a very friendly phone call where I wasn’t actually dreading the “How much experience do you have” as I have some experience teaching in high schools, I was actually dreading it turning on me and asking what qualifications I had as I knew that I would need QTS and I was far from it. So, the question came and it was fine! I couldn’t believe it, I really did think that on this occasion it didn’t matter what experience I had to teach the subject that I pride myself in the fact that I didn’t have my degree was going to hold me back and it didn’t.
I went for the interview and provided them with evidence of my qualifications up to now and they were particularly interested in my Trinity Award as it is a Level 6 and with no degree (yet!) this is the best they’re going to get. I also told them about ideally what I want to do with my future and straight away they told me all my options. So I can be a Teachers Assistant for now and get classroom experience. Best of all I can pick the hours I work, the key stage I wish, the days I work, the schools I want and guess what the pay is good too. Obviously being an agency they do take a small cut but I want classroom experience and I’m not fully qualified and I have the choice to work it around my other work, I literally jumped at the opportunity and I’m sooooooo excited about it. I was also informed that if a school happens to like you then the chances of being accepted for a full time job (once qualified) is far greater than those they haven’t seen teach before.

If you really want some classroom experience then I would suggest checking it out as writing to schools in my area practically begging for them to give me classroom experience didn’t sound fun. As my specialty subject is dance I did worry that I would be limited, however experience in a school doing anything right now is appealing and if the school knew about my training I’m sure they would use it to their advantage as well as my own.

I’m really looking forward to it as I feel that I am going to learn a lot from watching all the teachers that I will be assisting and feel that I will get more of an idea of what it is I think I want to do. I also think that it will make me appreciate my level of training as I can only help me with gaining my experience.