Teaching jobs: when to apply?

Hi

Wondering if anyone can help me.

I am about to start my third year in Primary School education with a QTS. I was wondering when people generally begin to apply for jobs. Some have told me you generally stay at the school you do your placement with however is there are a time period when schools are looking for graduate teachers.

I'm hoping to do some travelling over summer before I start as a teacher but I don't want to be away whilst the interviews/ inductions take place

Any recent graduates willing to share their experiences of getting a job after uni

Cheers

Reply 1

Findlay6

You can apply at any time, but you're 'allowed' to leave in January, April or July so that's when the influx of jobs will appear.

Reply 2

Pierson

A lot of schools advertise their jobs on eteach.com, you can set up alerts so that you receive emails whenever relevant positions are posted. The peak period for NQT positions is March-May, but there will be some schools recruiting earlier and later than this too. Some people on my course secured their jobs after just one interview in March but it took me three interviews across April and May to get mine. You can go travelling over the summer - this is a near dead period for recruitment since schools are closed! Your university will no doubt provide you with lots of advice and support over the next year regarding applications and the interview process, so don't worry.

Look into whether there is an NQT pool for your area. If your application to the pool is successful, any schools that are a part of this pool will consider you for jobs without you having to submit an application to them. You simply indicate your interest in their vacancy via the pool and they then decide if they want to interview you. In some places, like Birmingham and Suffolk, there are council-run pools and, in other places, there might be a pool run by a group of schools. In my area, it's the latter and I didn't bother applying because they were recruiting in early February and March, which felt too early to be interviewing for jobs. I shot myself in the foot by not going for it because they apparently gave every candidate very valuable feedback regarding their interview technique. Not all areas have pools, though.

Good luck with your final year!

Reply 3

jelly1000

Original post by total_foodle

Another recruitment website to look at https://www.tes.com/jobs/

As others have said, interviews won't be taking place during school summer holidays, you are unlikely to start before the 1st September (assuming you aren't Scottish) however you may want to go into the school before then to set things up.

Reply 4

S27

Most people on my PGCE were employed where they were on placement, however for a lots of reasons some haven't.

I would start looking on geneal websites, there will be peaks in vacancies as outlined above, but there is no harm in checking websites for jobs.