Teacher no longer requires 12 recent months work experience for a visa?

[jubbs]

Hello. I am just finishing my PGCE and looking into the process of emigrating to Australia. I have been advised by an agent that I can apply as soon as I have finished my PGCE and do not have to work for a year as I previously thought. Can anyone confirm if this is correct?

Thank you for your help.

[wolvesaussie]

hi im not sure if that's true or not but it sounds like a bad plan to me. surely you should do your qts year here as well so that u can teach in uk if u decide to come back. I think u only have five year's to complete that. we are moving over soon with my teacher girlfriend everyone in here is very negative about teaching outlook as far as jobs go. if thats true I think moving without qts year would be unwise. good luck with your move

[jubbs]

Thanks for your reply. I am not too concerned with my NQT year as I will not return to Britain to teach.

 

Can anyone please confirm if I can apply for a visa once I have finished my PGCE without having to work for a year as a teacher?

Thanks.

[Del70]

Are you training to be a Primary or Secondary School teacher?

[Kay Bhatti]

I guess the bottom line is that your points total should add up to 60. May be your points add up to 60 without experience. Just do your math and try to get an 8 in each band of IELTS.

 

Scenario I

If you are completing PGCE I guess you must be 25–32 years old. If so you would get 30 points for age.

If PGCE is commensurate with an Australian Bachelor Degree you can claim 15 points for education

IELTS 8 overall 20 points

 

30+15+20 = 65

 

Scenario II

If you are completing PGCE I guess you must be 25–32 years old. If so you would get 30 points for age.

If PGCE is commensurate with an Australian Bachelor Degree you can claim 15 points for education

IELTS 7 overall 10 points

?? Partner qualification 5 points

?? State nomination 5 points

 

30+15+10+5 = 60 or 30+15+10+5+5= 65

In my opinion to claim points for experience you still need recent experience.

 

If my understanding is wrong about any of the above-mentioned points please correct me.

 

The following is the requirement on the website to claim points for experience.[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]Skilled employment outside Australia

 

At least three but less than five years (of past 10 years)[/TD]

[TD]

 

5

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]At least five but less than eight years (of past 10 years)[/TD]

[TD]10

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]At least eight and up to 10 years (of past 10 years)[/TD]

[TD]15[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]

Skilled employment in Australia

 

At least one but less than three years (of past 10 years)[/TD]

[TD]

 

 

5

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]At least three but less than five years (of past 10 years)[/TD]

[TD]10[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]At least five but less than eight years (of past 10 years)[/TD]

[TD]15[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]At least eight and up to 10 years (of past 10 years)[/TD]

[TD]20[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Edited April 4, 2013 by Kay Bhatti

[wolvesaussie]

make sure u check the requirements to register to teach in the state u want to move to as well

[Sammy1]

Jobs are very scarce over here. Unless your PGCE is in secondary Maths, you would be extremely unwise to try and move here without any experience whatsoever. You will be competing against hundreds of unemployed Aussie trained graduates as well as experienced teachers.

Each state has different requirements for registration, so it is importatnat to contact them to see if your qualifications are suitable.

[jubbs]

Thank you for your replies, I am training to be a secondary school ICT teacher and am 38 next month. If I can't get a teaching job when I get to Australia, presumably I can do other work until I find a teaching job?

[flag of convenience]

I'm sorry but I cannot see how a just qualified teacher, with no experience can obtain a visa when the teaching job market is in the doldrums.

[wisey26]

Thank you for your replies, I am training to be a secondary school ICT teacher and am 38 next month. If I can't get a teaching job when I get to Australia, presumably I can do other work until I find a teaching job?

 

Yes you can. If you get a permanent residency visa you can work for whoever you like, doing whatever you like for however long you like wherever you like. But I agree with everyone here, the job market here is tough. I moved to Melbourne in January from the UK and I teach 3 subjects - Economics, Business Studies and French - , with 7 years UK experience, and I haven't been able to find anything. I actually began looking for work in September last year, and although i did well in some interviews, I was told I lost out on two occasions to someone who not only had many years Victorian experience, but who was also an examiner in the subject. It is extremely competitive here, And I haven't even been able to find relief work. Having said that, one thing going for you is that you will be relatively cheap to employ due to your lack of experience. There is almost nothing being advertised in jobs at the moment and that will be the case until September when schools know what their staffing needs will be like for the following year and begin to recruit.

[wolvesaussie]

sorry to hear that wisey if u had your time again would u have come in august after uk school finishes. thats our plan allows her to be in aus in the main transfer window

[wisey26]

sorry to hear that wisey if u had your time again would u have come in august after uk school finishes. thats our plan allows her to be in aus in the main transfer window

 

Yes I certainly would have. The fact that some schools made the effort to call me on an international call and interview me and provide me with feedback afterwards shows I was taken very seriously. Some of them even collected references from my school after rejecting me (for future possible relief work presumably, I never did ask why), and so I think if I was there to present myself and sell myself and my skills face to face it would have given me a better edge.

 

International phone interviews are very awkard due to the time lag on the phone, it takes like a few seconds for the sound to reach the other person, so we kept on interrupting each other, then long silences waiting for the other to speak etc. I also did not have the time to polish my application and research the Victorian Curriculum extensively as i was dealing with the pressures of a full teaching workload at work in the UK at the time, meanwhile if I had come in August and spent time doing nothing but job hunting and learning about the Victorian Curriculum full time I would have been much better prepared, and in my opinion I'd have a job by now. But who knows for sure.

 

In the end I never had the opportunity to come this August like I wanted to do in an ideal world, because i recieved my visa during the summer holidays last year and I had to validate it by mid June this year or lose it, so i was forced to emigrate before this August. I had to leave at Xmas. Some might ask why didnt I come, validate and then return to the UK and emigrate later, but if I did that I would lose the generous luggage allowance airlines provide when emigrating.

 

Good luck and my advice is for you to start learning about the education system of the state you are going to. You will be coming at the best time of year (relatively speaking) for jobs but you will still find it tough and you will be competing against many, many people. Your letter of application ( don't know where you are going, but and they are done completely differently here in Victoria compared to the UK in terms of structure, length and content...5 pages long for a start!) and CV will have to really shine for your application to stand out. You will need to hit the ground running in August - December because come January, when schools are fully staffed for the new year, plus the fact that all the employed teachers are nice healthy and fresh from a nice long summer holiday, plus the fact it is hot ( so no sick teachers taking time off and therefore providing you with relief work) the job market will be dead until September time, and that applies for all of Victoria, not just Melbourne. (Victoria is one of the only, if not the only, state that does not offer a remote teaching financial incentive..that alone should tell you that there are loads of teachers all over the place here )

 

I only speak for Victoria, I have no experience of what it is like in the other states.

[Chall77]

Everyone who migrates will be starting at the bottom of the Aussie payscale so you have to ask yourself if you get there, are you bothered about teaching? I can understand wanting to get there before you turn 39 and it doesn't matter about having experience if you score points but I would be wary about not completing your NQT year first. I did a PGCE and to be honest, I don't think they are worth the paper they are printed on and I found the first few years very tough and that was with the luxury of living at home. The minute you graduate you will need a document check done with AITSL so at least have that ready because as other on here will tell you, it can take an age. Whatever you decide though, all the best of luck with it.

[rossendale]

Yes you can. If you get a permanent residency visa you can work for whoever you like, doing whatever you like for however long you like wherever you like. But I agree with everyone here, the job market here is tough. I moved to Melbourne in January from the UK and I teach 3 subjects - Economics, Business Studies and French - , with 7 years UK experience, and I haven't been able to find anything. I actually began looking for work in September last year, and although i did well in some interviews, I was told I lost out on two occasions to someone who not only had many years Victorian experience, but who was also an examiner in the subject. It is extremely competitive here, And I haven't even been able to find relief work. Having said that, one thing going for you is that you will be relatively cheap to employ due to your lack of experience. There is almost nothing being advertised in jobs at the moment and that will be the case until September when schools know what their staffing needs will be like for the following year and begin to recruit.

 

All going well with visa etc we intend to be in Melbourne next August.

I worked with an agency in Sydney many years ago and I always had work of some description.

Are you saying there is little or no CRT work? How have you managed?

[wisey26]

All going well with visa etc we intend to be in Melbourne next August.

I worked with an agency in Sydney many years ago and I always had work of some description.

Are you saying there is little or no CRT work? How have you managed?

 

I have managed because I live off my savings, plus I have worked outside of teaching...I have picked up casual work here and there doing a variety of unskilled and semi skilled jobs. I am lucky that i do not have a wife and kids to support, it is just me. But I will say have not had one day of relief work since moving over. You will learn that you will have to be flexible here, because even if you do get work, it is all contract based, so when your contract is up.

 

Now I will admit this was partly my fault. I moved to Campbellfield, which is about 12 miles out of Melbourne CBD because the rents here are very cheap. However some employment agencies didn't like the fact that i was not "central." I also do not have a car, which employment agencies dont like at all...in fact some wont even sign you on for relief work unless you have a car. And those that do say you are limiting your options by not owning a vehicle. So maybe if I lived central, and had a car, i possibly may have had a few days relief work. But it would have been very little, if any. I've been on professional development courses to retain my teacher registration and the aussie and brit teachers there, even the centrally located ones all have a similar experience to me, those lucky enough to have found relief work tend to only teach one or two days a week.

 

And all employment agents are unanimous in saying that, as a new relief teacher (those that have good experience with schools are an exception as they have built a relationship with the school and if they are good the school will call them up) Dont expect any work in term 1 and beginning of term 2....work only starts to come in halfway through term two onwards, and then term 3 is busy. If you get work term 1 then thats fine but dont expect to, and don't plan your life expecting work in this time period. If you dont believe this, try emailing a few of them yourself directly and ask. So you can only expect regular relief work to come in from end of May onwards.

 

To be honest, I have begun seriously looking and applying for permanent professional work outside teaching, because it is so tough here. You get all the disadvantages of the British System...overwork, bureaucracy, behaviour issues, etc...but none of the job security and employment opportunities of the UK and in all likelihood you will end up forced to work in a place you dont want to work (regional location)or school you dont like. If I am accepted into an entry level Human Resources or Recruitment Consultant position for a job in the city ( I have UK experience in this field), I will take it and give up teaching altogether, because there is actually more job security (e.g. permanent contracts, which you will not get in teaching), less stress in a more desirable location than teaching. That is just my view, sorry if I am depressing anyone but that is the reality.

[wisey26]

All going well with visa etc we intend to be in Melbourne next August.

I worked with an agency in Sydney many years ago and I always had work of some description.

Are you saying there is little or no CRT work? How have you managed?

 

I dont want to put you off coming to Melbourne...on two occasions during the very early days when i was still in the UK I almost got two jobs, via telephone interview, narrowly beaten by a highly qualified applicants, and there are other teachers on here who have managed to find Aussie teaching jobs from the UK through telephone interviews with private schools, so dont take my experience as the only experience. You may find work very quickly. But just be prepared for the very real possibility that you will find it extremely tough as the majority do, and have a plan in place for that...because if you dont have any plan B, then you will really struggle.

[rossendale]

I dont want to put you off coming to Melbourne...on two occasions during the very early days when i was still in the UK I almost got two jobs, via telephone interview, narrowly beaten by a highly qualified applicants, and there are other teachers on here who have managed to find Aussie teaching jobs from the UK through telephone interviews with private schools, so dont take my experience as the only experience. You may find work very quickly. But just be prepared for the very real possibility that you will find it extremely tough as the majority do, and have a plan in place for that...because if you dont have any plan B, then you will really struggle.

 

Thank you wisey26. An honest,no nonsense response albeit quite depressing for me to hear.

So....

live as close to CBD as financially possible, buy a car and do lots and lots of research.

Just hope my oh manages to get a job ASAP or the family adventure could be short lived.

[wolvesaussie]

get yourself a city centre flat they seem reasonable due to over supply. Melbourne public transport is good if u are only interested in travelling in or out of the city. going across suburbs is where it fails. one of the agencies we spoke to suggested living in north melbourne if u don't drive

[rossendale]

get yourself a city centre flat they seem reasonable due to over supply. Melbourne public transport is good if u are only interested in travelling in or out of the city. going across suburbs is where it fails. one of the agencies we spoke to suggested living in north melbourne if u don't drive

 

Three kids 6, 4 and 3! Car is a necessity. Not researched inner city living. Definitely not ruling anything out.

[milliem]

I concur

 

The teaching job market is dire in Queensland as well. I only saw 3 jobs advertised in the whole state. I applied for one of them and was super lucky to get it after only a few weeks in Oz. I hedged my bets though and started a real estate job just in case. I didn't stay too long there though as the manager was a prize tool.

There are two other UK teachers where I work. One of them was sponsored out of a sister school in Papua New Guinea on a 457 as they already knew her. The other worked there on supply for 6 months then they offered her a job. I was right place right time: term one was starting imminently and they hadn't found a candidate.

 

You will need money to keep you going for at least a few months just in case

 

Good luck

 

Millie x

[Sammy1]

Only 1 out of every 10 grads got a job in Queensland this year. 900 grads are without jobs in WA. That does not even take into account the number of experienced teachers that are unemployed.

 

I really believe that overseas teachers need to be extremely realistic about their chances of employment when they get here and have a lot of money in the bank to help them get through. It can takes months to get a job and as for permanent jobs, they are like gold dust. Relief teaching can be ok and fairly regular if the school gets to know you and this may lead to a six or twelve month contract if you are lucky.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Sammy1

[wisey26]

What really irritates me is why is teaching considered a shortage skilled occupation in Australia? There is no shortage! I had a look on TES online for vacancies in my subject areas of Economics and Business Studies - there are currently 160 vacancies for business teachers and 140 vacancies for Economics teachers in England THAT is a shortage! The Australian scenario misleads people into coming here thinking that there is a shortage and therefore that they will find work easily ( my visa was processed in about 6 months for Permanent Residency on the points I accumulated from teaching. ) and yet the reality is completely different. If I had known beforehand what is was like I certainly would have stayed in the UK until I found work in Australia, and so saved myself a fortune.