wolvesaussie

Thanks wolveaussie. How did your girlfriend get on?

Good, shes half way her first year of teaching now.. enjoying the first day of well earned holidays. Shes become a maths/science teacher which seems to be the way here. Full time perm job and shes happy.

Can anyone recommend any good websites for looking for jobs in the Melbourne area? I am registered with SEEK job alerts and TES Australia. Looking for term 1 starts for Secondary Biology/Physics.

Hi my girlfriend was a biology teacher hunting for jobs this time last year. Three main resources,

* The state government website with the state school jobs in

* http://www.independentschools.com.au/ with the private school jobs in

* The Age Newspaper on a Saturday.

* seek had very few jobs on it..

Hi

 

I am new to this thread and was wondering if anyone has advice about Chemistry/Science teaching in the Melbourne area? I am have been granted PR and am the main visa applicant and main breadwinner...

 

Thanks

Hi my girlfriend came out at as science teacher end of last uk school year. Landed a full time permanent job in a private school starting jan 2014. She is really enjoying it so far. She applied for aprox 100 jobs interviewed for about seven. There are not many straight science jobs most are maths science. I think this went against her when applying. Shes now teaching maths and science to year 7 to 10. From what we have learnt many of the 100 jobs probably had someone in post already so they would be unlikely to hire an outsider. Good luck u will enjoy it..not so much red tape better kids no ofstead more freedom in what u teach. These are things girlfriend likes.

We had less pressure on us than you would I guess. I had already lined up a job from the UK so we already knew we had some money coming in. This enabled my girlfriend to do volenteer work in Schools from August until she got the job in November, working in two different schools one state one private. Just to get an idea of what australian teaching was about, she was just a free teaching assistant basically but I think it looked good at interview that she has been doing these things

Working holiday should be ok here in Melbourne for suply teaching. I have met a few english/Canadian and americans doing supply in inner Melbourne on WHV. Picking up regular work... Not sure if it could be used as an avenue to stay longer tho, probably better looking at other visas

I think from Memory you could go onto the VIT site and download some sort of form, I remember my girlfriend getting her head teacher to fill it out. They had to demonstrate how you had met the standards for registration or something like that

It would be nice if other recent arriving teachers came back and posted how they got on that might give people an idea instead of relying on people who have been in australia for ages..

I only know of two newly arrived teachers, both doing ok... first one my girlfriend, Science, now Maths/Science, arrived Augusted, secured full time perm job in Nov with a Jan start, now one term done and loving it.. had to move to Geelong from Melbourne but not so far. Applied for about 80 jobs i think it was with about 6 interviews.... Never had to teach a lesson in any interviews state nor private...

The other, a friend of ours, came in Jan which was a bad time as all jobs already taken, had to do other work for 6mths (non teaching), got a temp contract at the start of term 3 which lasted 2 terms in Melbournes west... Then for this year he had to head rural went up to to the Murray River for a new job is an Economcis/business teacher...

HI Rachel you can go direct to being fully registered by the VIT, my girlfriend has been. However we currently trying to work out what she needs to show to maintain this

I think this Australian Cv business is a bit over blown. I applied for jobs in the UK and Australia with the same Cv. (not teaching). However if you ask Smart teachers they will provide you with a template for a CV. They did so for my girlfriend

Quick update from us, my girlfriend is one week short of completing her first term as an aussie teacher, she has enjoyed it. Quick summary, kids are better behaved, shes finding it a change (challange) how interested the parents are, shes always getting email from them asking what can be done for them to get better marks, questioning detensions etc... her collegues back in the UK are bricking it because the Science deparment is having some sort of OFSTEAD review so she is happy she hasnt got to worry with that rubbish anymore. Shes is gradually adjusting to being a Maths teacher (she was science only but they dont have many Science only jobs here).. Its back to England next week, a joy of being a teacher is always the holidays so we plan for her to go back once a year. Salary wise she went from aprox £24,000 to approx $70,000 which seems pretty good.

Out of interest, how does this earning your stripes in the bush work? If you go to an interveiw and say I am currently working in the bush do they legally have to appoint you over another candidate they may have liked better at interview?

I disagree we kept a spreadsheet of jobs applied for most were in October.

Apparently not, my girlfriend found out during her volenteer work at aussie schools that people can quit just like a normal job give a months notice and be gone. So there is more chance of a job here outside of the main recruitment windows than there is in the UK

We were lucky with timing the only issue we had was making sure we got granted the visa before the resignation date, Her school had a very strict far in advance list of dates for resigning for the following terms. I suppose they couldnt have stopped her but needed good will of school to help with Australian teacher registration process

Aug-Nov is the main time, I would say Oct was the busiest time so maybe if you get here Oct 1 you will be ok, but I would recommend being here in September if you could. Really the timing is perfect, you finish up school in July in the UK then head on over in Aug or beginning of Sep right to the main job season.. Dont come Jan 1

I suppose though you could always apply as if you were in Australia and hopefully by the time they call you for interview (3 weeks?? later) you actually will be.

I arrived in Sydney on Xmas Day. I was lucky as I arrived on my girlfriend's 457 visa, her company paid for agents and visa fees. I've gained provisional accreditation to teach in NSW and I am awaiting accreditation from the CEO (Catholic Education Office), I applied 1st week of Jan and I'm still waiting.

 

I haven't got much teaching experience (2 years as a Secondary History/RE teacher, 1 year as Coordinator of PSHE), so on paper not a bad CV for my first 2 years.

 

I've applied for 15 job and nothing. I received a handwritten letter from a Principal which said something along the lines of, "Very impressive CV, you've put a lot off effort in but we don't want to take your application any further"

 

I've been in contact with SMART Teachers, I'm registered but they said I've arrived at the wrong time of year and that supply/cover will pick up in term 2.

 

In a nutshell, the feeling I'm getting is there are too many teachers and not enough jobs(In the majority of subject areas). A bit of a sweeping statement, I know. There does seem to be more maths/science jobs.

 

Luckily my gf is "keeping me", I am going to continue applying but eventually I'll have to get a job (ANYTHING!) because I'll go crazy

 

Good Luck to you all (you may need it)

Hi, thats bad news but surely you have picked the worst possible time to arrive and start looking for work. All the jobs for the new school year are sorted by end of November so I cant imagine there are many jobs going around in Jan. My girlfriend had to apply for nearly 100 jobs (it doesnt take that much effort most have the same key criteria to address) but your problem will be there wont be that volume of jobs at this time of year. Also teachers apparently are really good at turning up for work in term1 so supply teaching in short supply. Good luck with it all.

I have a friend who also arrived in Jan as a teacher and couldnt get anywhere mainly due to the time of year, he had to wait till half year break to get a position.

You know what u could do, as a kept man, do volenteer work in schools, my girlfriend did that she arrived in August the best time to find jobs but at the same time as applying she was volenteering in a private and a public school, getting some insite into Victorian schools and it went down Very well at interview

Thats really good, when she started at the aussie school I told her to ask if they had something like that, they said no and became really concerned because they thought her had been "brought up" like that and would be expecting it.. all the teachers have been there forever so probably have everything covered themselves so dont think about new teachers, especially ones who dont know the curiculum that well , so far not much of her UK stuff has been of use.

If anyone has some Australian Curriculum science / Maths lessons you could share so I can take her out cycling that would be great

Here is one for you teachers I have never understood maybe you can shed some light. I know a lot about visa/teacher registration tho I am not a teacher. The reason for this is my girlfriend is a teacher, but I did all the work researching, because my girlfriend was too busy lesson planning.

I work in IT, I write code to solve problems, I then save that code for others to use in future if the same business problem comes up in future. Why dont teachers do that? why do you need to spend hours lesson planning. Why is there not a filing cabinet or a folder on a computer somewhere which already has all the lessons ready prepared, which have been honed and improved down the years. If you want to tinker with it you can, make some changes and put it back for the next teacher... why dont you do that seems so selfish to me.. and my girlfriend spends ages we could be out enjoying the aussie sun doing exectly what the teacher the previous year did..

Her new School in Aus is exactly the same as in the UK, no one shares resources.. whats the deal? Surely the school having a bank of "perfect" lessons which have been tried tested and improved over time is the way to go, not my girlfriend making it all up from scratch the night before when she is tired as shes got 7 others to do?

Yeah there job is just to say u can use teaching to apply for a visa basically. If u have another way of getting the visa u dont need them. If u came on working holiday visa is another example. U have the visa already so u just need to register with the state teaching body.

Was going to ask the same thing! What visa are you going on? And have you had your teaching qualification assessed by AITSL?? You'll need that as a minimum before you can do anything else

Actually it depends on what visa ur on. My girlfriend didnt have to go via AITSL As she ona partner visa. All she needed to do is register with VIT

You not going to quit then and try your luck? People advised us to see if we could get a year off with the job held open in the UK. She asked but head said because she was a science teacher they would have problems getting another job science teacher on just a year contract so they refused her. Head did say though it would have been different if she taught in a different subject. Her school had a fairly high turn over so the head said that if it didnt work out in Aus then contract her on return and she may be able to sort something out

Its not impossible to line something up in advance. There was someone on here who did it when I was first looking for info.

Yeah it was fine for us as I had secured a job in advamce so wasnt lots of presure. Going at that time also gives u the chance of a term four contract

I would say best time is u finish up uk school year then head over in august. That's what we did sep to nov was when most jobs advertised for following year

my girlfriends sitting at the dinning table with me marking her brain dissection kids work. Shes been turned into a Math/Science teacher as well strange how they do that here