sen teacher/secondary teacher skills assessment help

I have been contacted by my visa people who have been informed that my application for a skills assessment as a SEN teacher will be unsuccessful. This is despite having a Masters Degree and 13 years experience. The reason they state is that I am unable to illustrate 45 days of supervised teaching practice as a requirement of the Masters degree (it isn't a requirement in the UK)

They are suggesting I ask for a skills assessment as a secondary school teacher.

The issue is that ,although I qualified and worked in a secondary school for the first 8 years of teaching , I have been a behaviour support teacher for the past 5 1/2 years and work for the local authority.

Therefore if I get through the skills assessment unsure whether I will have 8 out of 10 years recognised as a secondary school teacher.

So frustrating ...have skills for one and not the experience and not recognised skills (!) for the other but the work experience....

Any suggestions please........:mask:

Anybody? Has anyone got through Secondary Teacher Skills assessment but not necessarily worked as a secondary teacher but got work experience points? Somehow?

Don't really want to spend any more money if I have no chance of getting a visa at the end! We will go to New Zealand instead! :no:

Get the skills assessment for what you are qualified in (according to AITSL) and then you can get the teaching experience further down the line with DIAC, as they recognise 'closely related occupations' and all the different teaching (Pre-primary/primary/secondary/SEN) disciplines in the UK as 'teaching' and are interchangable - this is what I did, with Secondary and Primary school teaching. - I would also have used SEN teaching for points if I had needed the experience points, but we were very lucky with the changes this year. The points for experience can be some from your Secondary School teaching, and the last 5 1/2 as behaviourable support - it will be easier if you are paid on MPS/UPS (or leadership etc scales), with regards to assessing from DIACs point of view (imho) as they will go on things like wages etc, along with your job description in your contract and/or a letter from your current LA/School - the only issue I can see is if you are being paid on a non-teacher scale maybe, but even then it might not be an issue, especially if you have the contract and letter reference from employer.

Try not to stress

Teaching is teaching as far as DIAC are concerned it appears, just not AITSL!

Thanks that is really helpful. I don't think my visa people necessarily realise this.

I work as a behaviour support teacher for the LEA and support 17 schools with regards to children at risk of permanent exclusion. Ths includes infant, primary, junior and one secondary.

I am at the top of the UPS.

Do you think I should ask AITSL for the work experience part of their assessment?

Thanks so much for your reply. We have felt quite despondent today. Did you get assessed as one or the other and then use a variety of experience to get your points?:biggrin:

Sorry, can't really help with the work experience by AITSL bit as I got mine done just before all the changes, so they didn't have that option back then - I would look into if you can be skills assessed and work experience verrified for the Secondary school teaching, and also see if they can assess the work experience for the SEN alongside that - if not just get the work experience/skills assessment from AITSL, and then just submit the SEN teaching work experience to DIAC for points. I'm not really sure how it works now tbh with the changes, whether DIAC will accept any work experience proof that isn't from a skills assessment authority or not - but from research with AITSL with regards to assessing work experience without direct qualification as it were is an option, because if not then DIAC will just have to accept proof without AITSL's say so one would think.

I used Secondary teaching as my skills assessment, but my work experience was from Primary teaching - I only needed the basic 12 months in the last 24 months requirement, as I had enough points without using my teaching experience (indeed, they ignored all the proof I gave of any experience as I'd already met the points threshold). I would ask the LA to provide you with the job ref letter and get them to be quite clear about stating your 5 main duties being that of a 'normal' teacher in the normal setting of one classroom as it were, just including that its from ages 5-18 (or whatever). I guess it would be like a music teacher, or similar, in an all through school, which I don't think you could argue isn't a teacher

There wasn't even a little quibble or a single question about the fact I was applying under Secondary Teacher skills assessment and code, which was what my State Sponsorship was as well, and the fact that my work experience was from (quite clearly) a Primary school (the name of the school has 'Primary' in it lol).

Good luck, but its a lot less scary than it appears now, honestly Most agents don't know the first thing about emigrating as a teacher it appears, so don't worry about that - the number of people who have been told by various different agents that they will be fine with a GTP is scary!

Hi positive pixie

I don't actually teach as such anymore but advise although I work with individuals and groups at secondary. My job 'behaviour support teacher'is a sub division of AITSL Special Needs Teacher. However a teacher is a teacher is a teacher! At least in my opinion!

AITSL seem to be very strict. Want a detailed transcript of my PGCE. The Open University have provided a letter and also state I had 18 weeks in schools....even questioning that...seems they want the words 45 days of 'supervised teacher training' specifically included. The OU won't do anything more and I have submitted their transcript. The transcripts from Oz universities must be incredibly detailed!?!?

To be honest I thought a PGCe from a UK uni plus QTS would be enough!

I haven't read all the comments, but my oh got his skills assessment as a secondary school teacher after the change, and you need to show 45 days of supervised teaching practice - did you have teaching practice? If so you can just get a letter from your university to say that you did. good luck!

Oh sorry, just read your last bit, I think you really need the specific wording, could you get a friendly solicitor to write a formal request to the OU?

Hi thanks for the reply

I have spoken to the OU and hopefully will get it sorted. The letter they have already provided is very comprehensive but visa people concerned that it needs to be more specific (I think ''18 weeks of full time school placement during the course'' kind of does it!) I can understand OU stating they had provided enough on top of my transcript to be fair. How much detail do they expect in the transcript?

i have had good news this morning though as seems I can get the skills assessment as a secondary teacher and will get the experience points from SEN work as it is listed on the 'wanted' list. I really should by now be getting my head around all the terminology!!

Feeling less stressed today...it is a real roller coaster...just hoping i pass the dreaded IELTs. Results next week.

How much detail do they expect in the transcript?

 

 

Mine just had the module titles and how many credits each module was worth, alongside if I had passed or failed each module (for my undergrad it was what score out of 100 I had got in each module), so not a huge amount of detail really.

For all my references etc I've emailed people with the exact words I need as a quote in the email and asked them to use those words saying "that's how DIAC want it worded, so would appreciate it if you could use this wording". People generally do, as then they don't have to think themselves what to put (which I always find a nightmare when people as me to write them references lol).

Fingers crossed for the IELTS and hope everything else goes swimmingly

Hi, Sorry to hijack a thread!!

PositivePixie - am I reading your posts right when you say that if my skills are assessed for a primary school teacher and say for example that "primary school Teacher" is taken off the SA SMP (it's medium Availability at time of posting) that I could apply for state sponsorship under a secondary school teacher?? Although I have no experience with secondary kids and they will consider it?

Hi, Sorry to hijack a thread!!

 

PositivePixie - am I reading your posts right when you say that if my skills are assessed for a primary school teacher and say for example that "primary school Teacher" is taken off the SA SMP (it's medium Availability at time of posting) that I could apply for state sponsorship under a secondary school teacher?? Although I have no experience with secondary kids and they will consider it?

Sorry not been online for a couple of days.

Unfortunately not - you can only get SS for what you are assessed as ie if you are assessed as Primary School Teacher by AITSL you can only get Sponsorship under Primary School Teacher, however you can use experience from other types of teaching for the work experience portion. If you don't have any experience in another type of teaching then you can't use it for experience, sponsorship or anything else.