Hi,
I don't know if this is possible but here goes - My daughter has trainer and worked as a secondary school teacher for the past two years. she has finally come to the conclusion which everyone has suggested to her that she would be more suited to teaching at Primary level.

She loves the younger children and has had some experience with them in the past. the question is : How will she go about changing age groups. Will she need to re train? I know that this can happen and some teachers realise that they are more suited to a different age groupfrom the one they trained for.

I would really like your opinions on this and it anyone can point us in the right direction, that would also be great.

thanks
Sunshine

I can't comment on your query sunshine due to lack of knowledge, but I've moved your post out of the EYE-Profile so that you might get some more useful feedback.

It was a difficult one to place - but I thought the 'Professional Development' part made this forum the best place!

Maz

Hi, I did the move in the other direction, from primary to secondary. I didn't retrain as such, just applied for jobs and stated my case. I did however have great references and a very good degree result which I think helped me.

It used to be that to do primary, you had to have studied X number of hours of the different subjects so that you could teach right across the curriculum. I'm not sure if that applies anymore.

Your best bet is to contact the TDA (teacher development agency) they will know for sure. I suspect there might be some kind of conversion course you can do.

Just a word of warning - there are far fewer jobs in the primary sector which is something worth thinking about before she makes the move. Get her to look at the jobs market in her local area to see whether there are vacancies in the kind of schools where she'd like to work.

Hi,
Thanks so much for the reply. We contacted the teacher dev. agency and they say she is qualified to teach in Primary. Its as you say, just put forward your case and reasons.

thanks again
Sunshine

Hi sunshine, there are quite a few teachers out there who trained in one age range and then taught in another without retraining.
By far the best way to get the experience she needs would be to think about supply work. However this may not be the choice for everyone if she has a permanent post at the moment for example. Very often doing a long term cover gives you the experience (and reference) to be able to make that leap. It may be worth checking out what the supply situation is like in your area.

Your daughter may have to take the plunge though because with more teachers around than jobs in many parts of the country, I would imagine most schools would not really seriously consider a secondary trained teacher (unless they want a specialist in a particular area?) if they a dozen or more applicants from primary teachers on their desk.

Just thinking aloud though, in some parts of the country there is still a shortage of teachers so if she is prepared to move, then she would stand a much better chance, particularly in the inner cities where often teachers move on very quickly
and posts are more difficult to fill.

Good luck with her decision, I hope she makes it