Not to burst your bubble or anything, but actually getting a teacher's aide job is really hard and the hours aren't great. I've worked most of this year as a TA while I was doing my teaching degree and it's very hard to get into a school. Schools can only employ teacher's aides if they have students that qualify for aide funding - so pretty much only students that have a dx of a learning disorder or something else that would qualify them, such as an ASD. Each year the school has to put in an application for funding for those kids and depending on how much funding that child gets allocated, determines how many aide hours each week they get which in turn means how many hours a week you get employed for. In some cases that may only be for 2 hours a day. And the going rate for a TA is about $27 p/hr. In our school of 315 kids, only 5 kids qualified for aide funding this year, despite another 8 kids needing it, but their problems weren't considered significant enough to get them aide hours. The role that I had was different in that I was more specialised because of my teaching degree so I was employed out of the schools own budget to take small groups of these kids that didn't qualify them and work in a small class situation. It was only for 3 hours per day, 4 days a week. It wasn't really worth it financially once I took out travelling expenses (luckily no childcare though), but I took it because it would give me a foot in the door for a teaching job when I got my teaching number and it did - because I got my casual teaching number last week and last monday I started a long term temp teaching contract till the end of the year. If it wasn't for where it could lead me, I wouldn't have done it TBH.
And the other thing is that most schools will already have their own teacher's aides that they would use on rotation because if a child leaves the school or no longer qualifies for funding from one year to the next, then you're out of a job. They can't afford to keep you on unless they have that additional funding there. I was extremely lucky to get to job that I did and for as long as I did considering where the money was coming from to pay for it. They don't have a bottomless pit of money where they can employ someone just as a TA unless they have an actual need for it. So my suggestion would be to do the course first before thinking of getting work - being able to walk into a school looking for work (because they don't advertise these jobs - I got mine because all my kids go to that school and I had already done prac placements there) with your course completed will give you a leg up over someone who hasn't done the course yet. And you have to be prepared for the hours to be unstable too - would it really be worth it to you to only work 2-3 hours a day for example?
But that said, I don't think you should put it in the too hard basket and decide not to do it because it is a very rewarding job and you will really enjoy it, but you also have to be prepared for the realities of that type of job too.
Yeah as Trillian said it definitely isn't easy to get into a school. I even rang 19 child care centre's to try and get placement when I was doing my Cert III and got no where because they are so flooded. That is when I started trying kindergarten's/creche's instead. With my Cert III I had to do 20/30 hours of the 140 placement hours working with under 2's.
I have been offered work next term at the Kindergarten where I did placement, but it is only 4 hours a week with their occasional care group. I did a 40hr week there 3 weeks ago, when someone went on a weeks holiday, and this week I am working 4hrs on Monday and a full day on Wednesday. But I don't mind having odd hours.
I worked as an aide in a preschool while I was studying my diploma. I was the aide for all the children who qualified due to a diagnosis so my hours varied each day depending upon who was attending. I worked about 3 to 4 hours a day, with about 15 hours a week. For me it was great as I was studying and it would be a fantastic job for someone with children in school.
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