Careers Brief - Education Support (Teaching Assistants) FdA
Overview
Your part-time Foundation degree in Education Support (Teaching Assistants) will have provided you with both a nationally recognised qualification at a higher education level and evidence of your ability in your field. You will also have the opportunity for progression onto an Honours degree programme.
Education and social care are among the largest employment sectors in the UK and opportunities are buoyant. However, to progress your career, you will need to be prepared to do further training and preferably be mobile.
Before deciding whether to continue on to complete an Honours degree, take time to review your career plans, as alternative applied training courses might be more appropriate, particularly within the allied health and social care professions.
To gain a qualification to enable you to teach in state maintained schools, you will need to achieve qualified teacher status (QTS) through initial teacher training (ITT). You would normally do this either through an appropriate Education Honours degree or a one-year postgraduate course following completion of an Honours degree. You will need to consider the age range and/or subject you would like to teach. School-based training schemes and even on-line study might be an option.
Apart from the knowledge and experience of work with children and young people gained from your employment and training, you will also have developed additional effective transferable skills. Key personal skills such as: team working, time management, written and verbal communication, giving presentations and IT.
For an overview of the industry sector, go to National Guidance Research Forum for 'LMI Future trends' and 'Sectors covered'.
Go to the website links below to find out more.
To consider a wider choice of careers use Prospects Planner and other tools listed in the Career Planning section of this Careers Guide.
Further Study
With success in your Foundation degree, you will be able to apply for a Top-up degree or transfer onto an Honours degree.
Top-up degrees are designed as direct progression from Foundation degrees to achieve an Honours (or Ordinary) degree. Entry point onto an Honours degree would depend on your grades, experience and overlap between courses.
To search degree courses, go to www.ucas.com/ (UCAS - Universities and Colleges Admissions Service). Use the university/college links for course details.
To search degree courses which also provide qualified teacher status, check under the subject title of 'QTS'. These could be BEd courses or BA or BSc with QTS.
You will need to use UCAS to apply for courses. Contact the Course Tutor of your chosen course to find out your position, before you make your formal application.
Find out how much this will cost you. Where is the funding coming from? Go to the university/college links for information on costs and finance and to the section on Financial support for additional help.
If you aim to make your career as a school teacher and have not taken a degree course with QTS (Qualified Teacher Status), you will need to apply through GTTR (Graduate Teacher Training Registry) for a PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) course at the beginning of Level 3. If you were born after September 1st 1979, you will need Maths, English and Science at GCSE grade C or above or equivalent.
Check out the government teacher training site www.tda.gov.uk/ for more information.
With a good Honours degree (First or 2.1), you may progress onto an appropriate higher level Masters and/or PhD doctorate. This could be to develop your area of study to a more in-depth academic level or to gain other specialist training.
For information on postgraduate study and finance, go to the national online directory at www.prospects.ac.uk/study.htm .
Useful Links
www.prospects.ac.uk/starting_out.htm
Graduate Prospects - national careers website for HE students studying in the UK:
Drop down 'Job sectors' and click on 'Teaching and education'
Training and Development Agency for Schools - teaching and support staff roles
Graduate Teacher Training Registry - applying for postgraduate teacher training courses
http://nextstep.direct.gov.uk/
Next Step careers site - go to sub-headings 'Planning your career' and 'Job Profiles' for section link 'Education and Training'
TES The Times Educational Supplement - key source for current education news and jobs
The Guardian - key source for current education news and jobs
UK local government jobs
Teaching opportunities in the independent sector
Community Care magazine online - includes jobs and employer search
British Association of Social Workers - information and jobs
Working in the NHS - find out about careers in the NHS in England and look for jobs
Go to the Employability section of this Careers Guide for additional help and advice with making applications.
