• News
  • Lifestyle
    • Recipes
    • Video
    • Lotto Results
    • Technology
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Sport
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Australian Times News
  • News
  • Lifestyle
    • Recipes
    • Video
    • Lotto Results
    • Technology
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Sport
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia
No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Lifestyle
    • Recipes
    • Video
    • Lotto Results
    • Technology
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Sport
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia
No Result
View All Result
Australian Times News
No Result
View All Result
Home Expat Life

People told me I was mad to teach in London schools, but I had the time of my life

Teaching in the UK vs teaching Down Under: it can breathe new life in to your career and expand your horizons.

Michael Day by Michael Day
09-01-2019 09:24
in Expat Life
Teach

Hawke’s Bay to London: I’m wasn’t the first teacher to make the journey and I’m pretty sure I won’t be the last. But after I’d been in the land of ‘pea-soupers’, top hats and Dickensian poverty (only kidding) for six years, I felt I was ready to evaluate my experience and draw some conclusions.

So after two years as a music teacher, what was the response of my (then) colleagues when I told them of my plans to settle in London? “Why would you want to do that?”; “You’ll get ripped apart”; “The kids are terrible”; “You’re mad” were some of the more encouraging comments!

Luckily, I didn’t listen.

Moving to the UK breathed life in to my teaching career

As for so many others, the decision to move to the UK was made easier by the fact I had family there: my parents are both originally from England and my brother lives here.

Career-wise, I seemed to have hit a brick wall. My problem was that I was struggling to find a job as a music teacher in my native New Zealand. My horizons felt very limited. For me, one of the main attractions of the English education system was the supply system whereby you can move from school to school in temporary roles, picking up new experience and ideas in a very small amount of time.

This could not contrast more with the situation back home. The system whereby each school – especially in rural areas – has its own own group of local teachers they can call on for supply cover meant that I was never going to get the kind of richness of experience that I was exposed to in England.

When I started teaching in London, I was learning all the time from the different schools where I worked: I was meeting new teachers every day, swapping lesson plans, building up my own library of resources. I felt really energised and stimulated by the new environment.

AlsoRead...

The best storage ideas for students

The best storage ideas for students

18 January 2021
Australians in the UK are putting their ‘Ozzie Mentality’ to work - and it pays off

Australians in the UK are putting their ‘Ozzie Mentality’ to work – and it pays off

17 December 2020

But what about the kids?

Well, what about them? Yes, there are challenging schools in London with challenging kids. But I’d taught in schools at home where there was no support to address bad classroom behaviour, where kids came from a very disadvantaged backgrounds and gang culture was prevalent. So no one can claim this is something that’s peculiar to London.

And when you consider that there are over 8 million people just in London, and they are from all over the world, of course you’re going to come into contact with a far more diverse population.

And how about the travel?

Coming to the UK can be a permanent career change. Or it can be the most fantastic OE with career development attached. As a supply teacher you enjoy incredible flexibility, you can have days off whenever you want, you don’t do any lesson plans or marking – the work is simply handed to you when you arrive at school.

And you can leave the classroom on a Friday afternoon, head for the airport and be in Rome – or Paris or Athens or Madrid and hundreds of other amazing places – a couple of hours later.

There’s hard work as well

But a word of warning: teachers in permanent posts work extremely hard in the UK.

Teacher training in England, too, is extremely demanding. Having observed a friend training in the UK, I’ve was struck by the fact that his workload was literally four times larger than mine was back home. And the amount of paperwork teachers have to do in England is, frankly, bananas.

A survey showed that 73% of trainee teachers in England had considered leaving the profession – mostly due to workload. But if teachers in the UK are being turned off teaching as a permanent career, the opportunities for supply teachers are even greater.

Sharing my experience

I ended up working for a teacher recruitment agency, helping people like me find the jobs they want and settle into new lives in the UK. I’ve had the time of my life – it seemed unfair not to help other share the same experience!

The agency Michael ultimately worked for was Prospero Teaching. If you you need information and advice about teaching in the UK, visit ProsperoTeaching.com

IMAGE: Stock image via Shutterstock.com/OksanaKuzmina

Tags: educationteachingteaching in London
DMCA.com Protection Status

SUBSCRIBE to our NEWSLETTER

Terms and Conditions

CURRENCY ZONE

Australian Forex

Don't Miss

SET FOR LIFE UK Lotto Results – Monday 25 January 2021

by Sonja Baartman
25 January 2021
Set For Life UK Lotto Results
Set For Life

Set For Life, £10,000 every month for 30 years

Read more

Three reasons why it is better to use compatible ink

by Alan Aldridge
25 January 2021
Three reasons why it is better to use compatible ink
Technology

Have you been considering compatible ink for a while but don’t know whether it is a better alternative to genuine...

Read more

Who is Alejandro Betancourt?

by Alan Aldridge
25 January 2021
Who is Alejandro Betancourt?
Lifestyle

Alejandro Betancourt is one of Venezuela's leading entrepreneurs, representing the country on the global stage in business. But who exactly...

Read more

COVID has brought Auslan into the spotlight, but it would be wrong to treat the language as a hobby or fad

by The Conversation
25 January 2021
Auslan is the first language of many Deaf Australians
News

The Deaf Society and Deaf Services reports enrolments in Auslan courses have risen by more than 400% since the pandemic...

Read more

Monday & Wednesday Lotto Results for Monday, 25 January 2021

by Sonja Baartman
25 January 2021
Monday & Wednesday Lotto Results
The Lott

There's big money on the line Monday & Wednesday, $4 million! Here are your Monday & Wednesday Lotto results for...

Read more

Low-paid British workers more than twice as likely to lose jobs

by Mike Simpson
25 January 2021
Image by Shutterbug75 from Pixabay
News

New study shows how the Covid-19 pandemic is ‘dramatically exacerbating inequalities in the world of work’ in the UK.

Read more

It’s not just cricket: Australia Day isn’t the commercial winner it used to be

by The Conversation
25 January 2021
Identity commerce
News

Australia Day used to be an obvious and uncontroversial occasion for brands to endear themselves to Australian consumers. No longer.

Read more
Load More

Copyright © Blue Sky Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
australiantimes.co.uk is a division of Blue Sky Publications Ltd. Reproduction without permission prohibited. DMCA.com Protection Status

  • About us
  • Write for Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact us
  • T&Cs, Privacy and GDPR
No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Lifestyle
    • Recipes
    • Video
    • Lotto Results
    • Technology
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Sport
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia

Copyright © Blue Sky Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
australiantimes.co.uk is a division of Blue Sky Publications Ltd. Reproduction without permission prohibited. DMCA.com Protection Status