Primary School ICT Technician to Primary School ICT Teacher

[SteveR]

Hey all

I wonder if anyone has been in a similar situation as me.

I am a ICT Technician in a primary school and have been so for nearly 5 years, and I am looking at my options to progress.

During my time here I have been dumped into giving ICT lessons countless times due to teachers being ill or not confident enough to each a particular lesson.

So I have been looking at what it would take to become an ICT teacher. I have been told I would need to go through all the same hoops as a person looking to become a newly qualified classroom teacher, which means 4 years training and studying including getting a degree.

The thing is I don't want to become a classroom teacher, I will not be teaching anything apart from ICT.

Has anyone else done things differently or gone down another route?

[CHR1S]

Its written into my contract that I "partake" in some ICT lessons in the infants school (How many other NMs have this?).
I find it quite enjoyable but I would never take it any further than that, so I think its personal to you.... would that be fullfilling enough for you?

[apoth0r]

I was in a similar situation, I think at the end of the day it's a money issue, can you weigh up the costs of putting urself through a degree and PGCE for the sake of a few quid. Would the primary then be able to afford you if you did?
I would personally opt for the HLTA, that can be funded by your school and give you the relevent experience in teaching good lessons, it will save many years of your life for something that may or may not appeal to you after those 3/4 years.

It's a tricky decision and I would by no means rush into it!
Good luck

[jcollings]

This may be of interest to you if you already have the entry requirements and you can find a school willing to buy into it

Registered teacher programme - Employment-based teacher training - TDA

Other than that you could do a degree part time with someone like Open University then you could work at the same time. After that you could do a 1 year PGCE.

I think if you want to specialise in ICT then you'd need to become a secondary teacher. From what I understand primary teachers may have a specialism but will still teach across the whole curriculum.

I've done a fair bit of ICT in primaries and loved it too. I thought about qualifying as I love the idea of teaching a range of things.

[jcollings]

I was in a similar situation, I think at the end of the day it's a money issue, can you weigh up the costs of putting urself through a degree and PGCE for the sake of a few quid.

It's a lot more than a few quid though. Unless the OP is very well paid in his current role he could do very nicely by becoming a teacher. There is also then an excellent career path open to him.

[witch]

Private schools don't have to have degree qualified status: the local very posh school has the NM teaching IT for this entire school year as the previous IT teacher left them in the lurch.

A part-time degree is probably your best route - after all, you don't have to do it in education-related subjects, you could just study something you have always loved and do the PGCE afterwards

[tsky]

I went through the Graduate Teacher Programme which was a hands-on paid route into teaching. Depends what your LEA runs - might be able to look at different routes in via PGCE, GTP, SCITT etc. paid for by yourself or by your employer.

[apoth0r]

What i'm saying is the cost of doing the degree vs actually wanting to follow that path after doing it. Yes a degree is great whatever you decide to do, but just make sure before jumping in

[beeswax]

I feel the problem you'd have with a primary school is that although you specialize in ICT you'd be expected to teach over the whole range of subjects, though of course with in depth knowledge of IT there'd be an "expectation" that you take on anything ICT related.
I assume that you already have a decent working knowledge of IT, after all, it's what you do, so I would suggest taking a teaching degree, though if you only want to teach ICT you'd probably need to move into secondary education.

[SteveR]

Thanks all for the replies

Its written into my contract that I "partake" in some ICT lessons in the infants school (How many other NMs have this?).
I find it quite enjoyable but I would never take it any further than that, so I think its personal to you.... would that be fullfilling enough for you?

Hi Chr1s. Yes I do enjoy taking the lessons (I am not being big headed) but I feel like I can do a better job than most the classroom teachers can, purely because of the amount of time and experience I've gained by being in and around ICT lessons for nearly 5 years.

My problem is I do not get paid to do the teaching, teachers get paid a hell of a lot more than us techies and it is unfair for the job to be dumped on us. Lately it has became so bad that I now refuse to go up to the front of the class and give inputs/teaching.

I was in a similar situation, I think at the end of the day it's a money issue, can you weigh up the costs of putting urself through a degree and PGCE for the sake of a few quid. Would the primary then be able to afford you if you did?
I would personally opt for the HLTA, that can be funded by your school and give you the relevent experience in teaching good lessons, it will save many years of your life for something that may or may not appeal to you after those 3/4 years.

It's a tricky decision and I would by no means rush into it!
Good luck

I was thinking about the HLTA the time taken to get to become an NQT is just too long and not the route I'd like to go down. Another wall in my way is that my GSCE grades in english and maths aren't up to scratch, this will also be a problem for most courses.

It's a lot more than a few quid though. Unless the OP is very well paid in his current role he could do very nicely by becoming a teacher. There is also then an excellent career path open to him.

Like all/most techies working in primary I get paid peanuts! So money is an issue and it is one of the driving issues that is making me look at my options to progress. There are times where I ask myself if I should cut loose from primary because as beeswax says ICT in primary is normally covered by classroom teachers.

After a chat with the deputy head I can see there might be ways of me moving up within the school. So shall see what pans out over the following months.

Anyone heard or been on an EDI course? Linky

[apoth0r]

I'd be interested to find out a little more about you and your plans for the future, give me a message mate and we'll have a chat sometime over the next week or so.

Cheers

Steve

[grumpy_git]

I feel the problem you'd have with a primary school is that although you specialize in ICT you'd be expected to teach over the whole range of subjects, though of course with in depth knowledge of IT there'd be an "expectation" that you take on anything ICT related.

Although I work in a secondary school, when I was in a kid at primary school we had a class teacher, but then specialists came in for PE, music and cookery. (Early/Mid 1990s so the limit of ICT was an Acorn at the back). Does this still happen?

[Andie]

There are primaries that have specialist teaching staff - mainly for music, IT and PE. But it seems to be done mainly on a school-decision basis rather than LEA wide. I was in the same position as you are a couple of years ago. I was then offered HLTA with a view to teaching ICT. However, I chose to turn it down and instead asked if I could lose the TA bit of my job and concentrate on the techie bit. I had already seen the work needed just to do the HLTA, and how that person was now planning and delivering lessons and used as a supply teacher without any of the financial status of a fully fledged teacher - working unpaid lunch hours, etc. I don't have the urge to teach, though I do worry about what some teachers are teaching in ICT. I am only part time, and being offered the HLTA helped me to decide which bit of the job I really felt was for me: techie or teach. But be careful about going down the HLTA route. Do you have other HLTAs in the school, so you can see how they are treated and ask about pay?

[StewartKnight]

I'm doing only 2 years of a 3 year degree course (due to my experience) which includes QTS. My course is BSc (Hons) Secondary Education ICT with QTS. They also do primary courses but not specifically in ICT.

We're living off a student loan, which is hard, but worth it in the end.

[jtuerena]

My advice to you Steve is, don't do anything you don't get paid for. If they want you to teach ICT set yourself up as a self employed teacher.

Hey all

I wonder if anyone has been in a similar situation as me.

I am a ICT Technician in a primary school and have been so for nearly 5 years, and I am looking at my options to progress.

During my time here I have been dumped into giving ICT lessons countless times due to teachers being ill or not confident enough to each a particular lesson.

So I have been looking at what it would take to become an ICT teacher. I have been told I would need to go through all the same hoops as a person looking to become a newly qualified classroom teacher, which means 4 years training and studying including getting a degree.

The thing is I don't want to become a classroom teacher, I will not be teaching anything apart from ICT.

Has anyone else done things differently or gone down another route?