Secondary School Teaching in Perth Info required

[purplelady]

Hi,

 

My Husband and I are hoping to have our 175 PR visas very soon, and are headed to Perth in December.

 

My Husband is a Secondary School Teacher - Head of PE at a large school here in UK with 11 years experience.

 

Can anyone give us an idea how easily he may find work? Whats the current situation for teaching in Perth - is PE in demand at all or do you think we may struggle? Is there any chance of us being in the Metro area or will he have to go rural first - and stupid question, how rural is rural? (Im a city girl and starting to panic!)

 

Any info anyone has on the subject would be very very gratefully received,

 

Many thanks in advance x

[purplelady]

Any info at all from someone in Perth would be great! ;-)

[Quoll]

First of all, is he 4 year trained? Because all teaching jobs in Australia require that. He should get his qualifications verified by Teaching Australia Skills assessment for migration and then registered by Western Australian College of Teaching

 

Getting a permanent job will not be easy - there is a bit of a misconception that Australia doesnt have enough teachers. It has quite enough just not exactly where they are needed to be. So if you want to live in a "nice" place with beaches, coffee shops, good schools for the kids etc then unfortunately so do all the other teachers and so there is huge competition. In rural and remote areas they have more difficulty filling positions because no one wants to live there - someone on here recently got posted to a place which definitely doesnt float their boat but which needs teachers desperately. For a city girl it would probably be a nightmare on wheels.

 

There are rural areas which are more palatable and you may want to look at them. He may also want to look at private schools - especially private boys schools. Otherwise just expect a fair bit of relief work or maybe short term contracts until you can get your foot in the door. OTOH he may just get lucky and walk straight into a job.

 

Good luck

 

Edited to say, the Perth folk are only just waking up so they will be along soon no doubt

[ali]

I'm not a teacher so don't know how difficult or easy it is to get a job, but know that sometimes posts revolve around how many children enrol at that school. My sons teacher in primary last year desperatley wanted to stay and still didn't know if she was 2 months before the end of the year (she moved to another school). Hopefully someone in the profession will be able to give you more information, or perhaps the dept of education. As Quoll says, rural can feel like the middle of nowhere here and personally, i'd feel quite lost and isolated if that wasn't really the experience I wanted from Aus.

[Guest greengables]

Quoll's advice is good....make sure you organise the registration with WACOT before you get out to Western Australia. Getting your recognition and registration can take months so arranging it before departure is important if you want to be able to work on arrival. Hopefully you have all the forms and are onto this already...if not then pop onto www.wacot.wa.edu.au to find out what to do.

In terms of jobs they are expecting that lots of new graduates will not be able to find a teaching job in Perth in 2010 and I would imagine it will be difficult to secure a permanent teaching job in Perth. However your husband seems to be highly experienced so should hopefully be able to pick up either regular supply teaching or a contract position. The thing with contract roles in Perth is that you often only have that security for a term at a time, never knowing if you will be in the same school or looking for a new job the next term. It's also reasonable to expect that even though your OH is a PE teacher he should be prepared and ready to teach in other subject areas as well....it's very common in to spend a large proportion of your timetable teaching outside your specialist area.

If you are prepared to go rural then the prospects for more secure roles improve but rural would be incredibly tough for a self confessed city loving girl and may undermine the reasons for coming out to Aus in the first place. Personally I couldn't teach in rural WA....that is completely personal and I know others love it but if you like the buzz of city life you are not going to find it out there (and to be honest Perth itself is already going to feel small and less cosmopolitan than a large UK city)

A few agencies supplying relief teachers to schools seem to have sprung up in Perth recently so it may be worth making some early contact with a few to get their impressions on the likelihood of regular supply and contract roles popping up. Also you can try the old fashioned method which is putting together a professional looking CV, couple of outstanding refs/testimonials and copies of your WACOT reg and physically get in the car and drive around to the local schools to say hi, drop off your pack and to let them know you would be very interested in relief teaching and contract opportunities at the school.

Good luck!

[purplelady]

Thank you very much for those replies, it was exactly the info we required.

 

Yes Paul is 4 year trained and has had his skills assesed by Teaching Australia as part of our 175 application.

 

With regards to registering with WACOT Paul is keen to do this asap but it looks like we need the 175 visa approved first to show he is eligible to work?

 

Luckily we have booked a 3 month reccie around the whole of Australia which we leave in September for - we will not be seeking work until early 2010 so hopefully that will give us time to do the registration with WACOT once visa approved.

 

Perth is definately our first choice as we already have friends there but the reality is I will go to any city in Oz - as long as its a city!

[ErmintrudeMcMoo]

There is usually plenty of relief work going - register with a teaching agency such as Class Professionals (that`s who we use) - once you get your name known at a school then if you are good they will request you specifically. The one thing with WA is that next year for High Schools we have the half cohort coming in (they changed the start of the school year several years ago and the catch up is that intake for Yr8 in 010 will be less as it is only half the usual size) there has been a big outcry from the union as normally the amount of staff you have is dependent on the amount of kids enrolled (in state schools anyway) I know in our school teachers are being encouraged to take long service leave next year in order to accomodate the fewer enrolments without letting staff go (as the following year the figures are expected to pick up again to normal levels).