Any FE College Lecturers out there?

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Any FE College Lecturers out there?

3 posts & 3 voices | Started 2 years ago by mavisto | Latest reply from Rona

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mavisto - Member

I'm looking for a new challenge and was thinking of applying for a lecturer vacancy at a local college.

I have previously started a PGCE to teach Secondary, but after a couple of periods of teaching practice I realised that teaching 'children' was not for me. I have been a mentor in various jobs and have run some training courses (which is one of the reasons I thought teaching might be a good choice) but these have always been with adults.

Is teaching at a College of FE sufficiently different from a secondary school? I feel that I want to educate and hopefully make a difference but with people who want to learn and not just to a bunch of teens that don't really want to be there.

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

Posted 2 years ago #
rusty trowel - Member

'I feel that I want to educate and hopefully make a difference but with people who want to learn and not just to a bunch of teens that don't really want to be there.'

This unfortunately can be the case with lots of them. EMA payments don't help matters and the fact that parents can claim child benefit if little Jimmy is in fulltime education is also a factor.
The introduction of the 14-19 diplomas means you probably will be teaching school kids anyway.

It can however be pretty rewarding teaching the more eager students and the more mature ones.

Also depends on the subject you intend to teach, and the type of students the subject attracts.

Wages aren't great, but not that bad either depending what you're used to. Loads of holiday too, including xmas and bank holidays i'm getting 49 days this year.

Loads of unnecessary paperwork and all the internal politics from working in a large corporation. Un-realistic targets and a LOT of importance placed on the money side of things.

We get a pretty high turnover of staff, not so much in the lecturing side, but the support staff.

Don't know if that's a help or scary sounding. It can't be that bad or i wouldn't have lasted 6 years so far

Posted 2 years ago #
Rona - Member

I used to teach at an FE College and had two very different groups of students - nursing students, who were amongst the most motivated students I have ever come across. They were a joy to work with, paid attention, asked sensible questions and really seemed interested. The other group of students were doing an HND in Biological Sciences and they couldn't have been more different - most were disinterested and just seemed to be in out of the rain - quite frustrating. I think you're right that the level of interest of your students can make all the difference to how rewarding the job can be. I never felt attracted to teaching in school, since at least in further/higher education, if the students don't really want to be there, then they are (generally) adults and that is their responsibility rather than yours.

Hmmm, don't know if this is very helpful!

Posted 2 years ago #

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