Thanks Meli. That does help some. I am surprised to hear that there isn't as great of a need for special area teachers. I have always been a special education teacher or now a dyslexia specialist. Dyslexia is under the general education program in the state of Texas. I do have certification in general education for grades 1-8, but have not actually taught in general education or any specific subject area. Although, as a dyslexia specialist and special education teacher, I teach mostly reading. So, are there jobs for reading teachers or language arts teachers? Does bluewave offer many jobs for elementary teachers? Thanks.
Nicole |
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Hi Nicole,
Special education just doesn't seem to be an area of short supply. Like in the States, they can't hire in foreigners for positions for which there are qualified and willing British applicants. You know how it goes. Countries can't undermine their own work force by recruiting abroad.
I'm not sure about the primary school positions. Ask the folks at Bluewave... |
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While I'll still maintain that there are jobs, I'll agree that here aren't as many as in the US (seemed like a SPED degree there could guarantee a job?) . . . But I will remind you that if you don't register, next year you'll surely be right where you are now! :-D So give it a try at least. You have nothing to lose.
I think one reason that there isn't as much shortage/need here as in the US is that there isn't the same philosophy that ALL special-needs children need as much support. The philosophy differs. Hard to explain, but I'll try . . .
1) Had a conversation with an Assistant Head the other morning about this. She told me that the Local Education Authority (our county, here) only need make sure that one local school meets the needs of a student (whether their disability is physical or otherwise). So if they want to go to a school closer to home, or with friends, the county is not required to make sure it has facilities that they need, etc. If it works out, fine, but if not, they made that decision. So that might mean, for example, that they can fit all autistic/Asbergers students into one school instead of in the 5 upper schools in town. Apply that to everything and you'd find money saved, but also fewer staff needed. Compare that to where I worked in the US, where every child had the right to be educated wherever they wanted, and receive full services. So that way of doing things would reduce the need for high numbers of special services personnel. The budgets are far tighter here, as any teacher will agree.
2) Some of my supported students receive support for a few lessons each fortnight. For example, out of seven English lessons, they might have an aid helping a group of them for 3 lessons, and no one to support them for the other 4 lessons. Others get no support; it is determined far too often that the teacher can meet their needs. From my US experience, that differs -- there, if a student needs English support, they need it in ALL English lessons, and they receive it.
3) We have kids who come here not speaking a word of English, but there is no trained ESL/TESOL staff. The kids just go into the classroom and get on with it. For one student in our school (of 1200 pupils) a teaching assistant (not trained in language or ESL) pulls him out of class and tries to help him; I know of no others who get any ESL help.
I'm not trying to be demeaning about the school system here, but just explain the differences.
Does this make any sense? I hope it gives you the gist of what I'm trying to get across. Different way of doing business means perhaps fewer SPED teachers needed?? And it differs on both ends -- GT might have a monthly group activity, but that's all.
Bottom line: teachers in the classroom are expected to be able to differentiate for all levels, in every lesson, except perhaps in the most severe cases.
Oh, and on that subject, we are expected to coordinate with and plan for the assistants in our classrooms as well -- apparently they can't just come in and figure out (as all students do) what's going on -- we're suppsed to plan for them, meet with them ahead to go over the lesson, etc. (That part really gets me cranky! LOL! They're educated, employed adults and can't figure out what we're doing and how to support the students? Give me a break. During my QTS work I had to keep proving that. I should not have gotten started on that!)
Best of luck -- apply, and see what there is!
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