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Advice: Switching from teaching primary to post16

Hi everyone,

I've recently completed my PGCE in Primary Education, and to cut a long story short it has been a crazy year both personally and professionally. On a personal level moving house, and caring for my mum whose health has took a bad turn, and professionally in terms of being placed in schools that weren't supportive of students.
It has really drained me mentally, physically and emotionally and my confidence has took such a hammering I've found myself questioning whether teaching in primary is right for me. I've just lost that spark for teaching in primary. I still want to teach but after some consideration I'm now looking at teaching in Post 16/Further Education.

I'm soon to be 29, my undergrad degree is in Nutrition and i'm also a qualified personal trainer, youth worker, and sports coach. My passion however is in nutrition and fitness and would love to teach in colleges/sixth form and potentially lecture at university.

I do have some concerns. 1) If i don't complete my NQT year in primary within I've years i will lose my QTS (Although I've been told you don't need to do an NQT year in post 16, and you don't always require QTS, but it is desirable).

I was just hoping to gain any advice from anyone who works in FE/Post 16, or anyone who has switched like i'm thinking of doing.

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Regards,

Scott
Reply 1
Do you already have some experience of the post-16 age range? (either way you had better stop saying/writing 'had took' if you wish to teach any age group :tongue: )

You don't lose your QTS if you don't do your NQT year immediately (the five-year thing is a bit of a myth) but as you say, it's always useful to have.

Nonetheless, I'm sure that someone better informed than I will be along shortly to respond in greater detail.
Original post by Cliffy94
Hi everyone,

I've recently completed my PGCE in Primary Education, and to cut a long story short it has been a crazy year both personally and professionally. On a personal level moving house, and caring for my mum whose health has took a bad turn, and professionally in terms of being placed in schools that weren't supportive of students.
It has really drained me mentally, physically and emotionally and my confidence has took such a hammering I've found myself questioning whether teaching in primary is right for me. I've just lost that spark for teaching in primary. I still want to teach but after some consideration I'm now looking at teaching in Post 16/Further Education.

I'm soon to be 29, my undergrad degree is in Nutrition and i'm also a qualified personal trainer, youth worker, and sports coach. My passion however is in nutrition and fitness and would love to teach in colleges/sixth form and potentially lecture at university.

I do have some concerns. 1) If i don't complete my NQT year in primary within I've years i will lose my QTS (Although I've been told you don't need to do an NQT year in post 16, and you don't always require QTS, but it is desirable).

I was just hoping to gain any advice from anyone who works in FE/Post 16, or anyone who has switched like i'm thinking of doing.

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Regards,

Scott


I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I don't know how feasible this would be. Not only would colleges be unlikely to hire you, jobs are already sparse in post-16. On top of that, fitness related subjects are notoriously competitive.

To have a realistic chance you'd have to do another pgce, in my opinion. Primary doesn't give you any experience of that age range at all, so although you'd have the QTS, I can't see how you could compete with other applicants.

And you are correct in saying you don't need to have done an NQT nor have QTS.

I hate being negative. Maybe start with trying to get some observation experience or something? Even getting a support role in a college would give you experience of the environment which you could use to your advantage with jobs.

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I'm with Airfairy unfortunately. The hard truth of it is that you can quite easily (I'm told!) go from a Secondary PGCE to Primary teaching but it doesn't work so well the other way round as you won't have the same subject specialist knowledge as those with Secondary QTS. Also, there would be very hefty competition from more experienced, better qualified applicants.

What I would say however, is not to completely write primary teaching off just yet. I'm sorry to hear you've had bad experiences in your schools but it's key to remember that schools aren't all the same and you may just have been very unfortunate to be placed in such schools. I would at least shop around for jobs, visit other primary schools and go from there. If nothing else, as you say, get the NQT year out of the way. You can normally tell if a school feels right for you just from visiting or from interview days! :smile:
It's going to be a much lower level qualification than your pgce but maybe you could do a pttls type qualification (it's now called level three award in education and training). Just to show that you're interested and aware of some aspects of the sector. You can do the qualification distance learning with some companies where you film a micro teach session and send it in.

It might just be a way of making a job application to a college look less random and more focused.

.....

I have my level 3 award in education and training now and really want to do the level 4 certificate in education and training in September. I hope so much I don't get a nasty shock in struggling to find jobs afterwards. I only want to teach part time in a college, ideally afternoons and or evening courses.

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