Supply teaching is an excellent option for many qualified teachers wanting flexible work. It can be a good way of ingratiating yourself to a new school, or a great opportunity to earn some extra money. Whatever stage you’re at in your teaching career, supply teaching is an option that can be beneficial. Here are some of the ways supply teaching can help you:

• Added flexibility. Supply teaching gives you the ability to choose your own schedule. You can accept work on the days you want to and have a break from teaching if you need some time to yourself.
• Easy integration into a new school/ area. If you’re moving to a new part of the UK, you might find it easier to get supply work. This will help you get to know the schools in the area and to have an idea of where you want to work. Alternatively, if you want to work in a specific school but there are no openings, you may be able to get temporary supply work there. This is a very good way to meet the people in charge and make sure they remember you.
• Allows you to cut your hours. If you are close to retiring or want to work part time around other commitments, supply work could be the ideal option for you.
• Presents a new challenge. This can be perfect if you want to try something new and get some more experience. Working in new schools with different pupils every day will help to make you a versatile and well-rounded teacher.
• Helps you to learn. If you’re a newly qualified teacher, you may want to consider supply teaching to get as much experience as possible. It will help you to learn how to work with different groups of students in many different environments.

Think about the benefits of supply teaching, and consider it for your next teaching career move.

Over the years school trips have become more and more educational. Previously trips were often seen as a holiday with a few educational tasks thrown in but many schools realise that for a trip to be successful there needs to be a good balance and although the trip need to be fun, it does need to be highly educational and have set targets which they want the students to take away from the trips.

Planning is essential when it comes to educational trips. As a teacher you should always try and carry out the trip yourself first prior to taking students. This will allow you to map put your day or week etc. to allow you to give the students the best opportunities and to partake in activities that will help them.

Risk assessments are also very important when taking children on trips and need to be considered carefully as you are taking over responsibility for children in a place that they and you may not be very familiar of.

Over the years, the way children are taught to read and write has changed. Historically children were taught the names of the letters and had to memorise how words were spelt. This was then changed to children learning the letters more by sound and recently this has changed again so that now children learn the pure sound of each letter so they can spell words out.

As a parent, it can be hard to get your head around phonics, the new way of teaching letters but there are some great YouTube tutorials that will run through how to pronounce each letter. There is also something called Jolly Phonics, and a song that will help young children remember what sound each letter makes.

If you are struggling or worried about how to assist your child with their leaning at home, then why not arrange a meeting with the teacher to ask for help and advice.

With the new school year about to start it is vital for parents to realise the importance of attendance at school. Prior to school the child may not have attended a nursery or child minding setting or if they did it was often the parents’ choice to take them out of the setting as and when they wanted to. With school, you are not supposed to take your child out of school except for illness or very specific circumstances such as death of a close relative.

Many parents do not like to be told when they can and cannot take their child out of school, especially when it comes to holidays. Holiday prices are so inflated over the school holidays that many parents simply cannot afford to go during these times. Taking your child out of school for a week or two may seem the easier option but can have detrimental effects on their education in the long term.

When your child goes to nursery or school you should try and keep in touch with the progress they are making. You will often be encouraged to attend parents evening to discuss your child’s learning and behaviour but this may only happen a few times a year.

If you want to have more regular updates on your child’s progress then many schools have a system that you can opt in to that will allow you to share information on a web portal, photos and work completed can be uploaded and sent to parents to keep them in the loop as to what the child is doing at school.

Many schools also have a learning diary which again can be accessed and completed by schools and parents to share information. Reading with your child every day will improve the progress they make with reading, writing and spelling and their overall education.

If your child attends nursery you may already receive a sort of report on a term by term basis which will explain to you what tasks your child can complete and what you may need to work on with them. This will give you an idea of their level in terms of education but may not touch much on their behaviour. Behaviour can have a lot to do with how well a pupil succeeds in education. If the child is bored or the work is too hard then they will most likely become easily distracted and often play up.

If you can grab 5 mins with the team leader of the nursery class, to ask how your child is behaving at nursery it can allow you a true insight in to what is happening in the classroom and if there are any behaviour issues you may need to address at home.

The education department has been in the news a lot recently as over the past twelve to twenty four months there have been a number of rather large changes that has had a large impact on teachers and students.

The bench mark for where pupils are expected to be at for their learning has risen meaning that teachers are now getting told that they are marking work too high in comparison as to the expected levels the children should be at. A school can be chosen at random to be moderated. The moderators will come in and check the levels the teachers have selected for their pupils, if the levels are too high the teachers will be made to re-evaluate their decision, but if the grades are too low then the school can be seen to be under performing. Neither is an ideal situation and it may take a while for the true balance of this to be corrected.

When in any job it is vital that you have the correct tools and equipment to carry out the task in hand to the level it needs to be completed to. In some jobs it may be physical tools that you require in others it may be software that is needed or even physical training. Without these, we can easily stumble and not complete tasks needed or complete them to an inadequate level.

For example, a receptionist may be required to take calls, pass on messages, and divert calls and record information that is being left with them on a system. Without an adequate customer relations management software package this may be very hard. If messages are just left on pieces of paper on desks, it is easy for them to get missed or thrown away. If the company invests in a software package to allow all of this functionality then the receptionist will be able to communicate with other members of staff more defiantly. This will not only reduce issues with customers not being contacted back but can also mean that the receptionist can do the job quicker.

When in employment you may have a review with your manager or the owner of the business. Some companies do this religiously every 6 – 12 months where as other companies only do it when it comes to deciding if an employee contract should be renewed of when they are looking to promote or dismiss members of staff.

Even if you are in a role where reviews are not carried out very often, this should not stop you from carrying out your own internal review of your performance at work.

Why not take some time in the evening to sit down and write a list of what you think you are good at and the areas you feel you need to improve it. Once you have this, concentrate on the areas of improvement and look at ways in which you can achieve this. It may be that you need extra training or simply more opportunity to practise it. If that is the case then why not approach the management staff and speak to them about your ideas.

If you are trying to look for teaching jobs in Cardiff, there are certain things that you need to know. Being aware of these things will significantly improve your chances of getting hired as a teacher in any of the educational institutions located within the city. Because it’s the tenth largest city in the United Kingdom, Cardiff is home to four major universities, 98 state primary schools, and 20 state secondary schools. This is not to mention the presence of other educational institutions like independent schools such as St. John’s College, Howell’s School, and Llandaff Cathedral School. In a nutshell, there are dozens of schools in the city where you can apply for a teaching job.

The most important thing you should remember when looking for a teaching job is that your credentials should match with the requirements of the school. This is especially important if you are going to apply on any of the four major universities in the city. Each university has its own unique set of requirements when they are hiring new teachers. What you need to do is study these requirements then try to create a resume that caters to such requirements. If possible, get in touch with someone who currently teaches in the school and ask for tips. (more…)