Becoming a teachers aide can be a rewarding experience, flexibility, time with children, and the ability to pick up and drop of the kids at work!
how can you beat that? well I guess not working at all could be pretty good, but then you would miss out on the fun experiences at school.
Through my experience as a teachers aide I have built relationships with all of my daughters peers, have made friendships with other parents and ensured a positive environment for my oldest daughter, and soon when my youngest starts prep I hope to be able to do the same again.
I started helping at school by simply reading the homework books with the kids in the mornings and realised that I enjoyed my time there so much that I wanted to make my time there a bit more permanent so I spoke to the school who recommended that I undertake some study :)
back to study I went, I enrolled with the Australian College of Teacher Aides and Childcare in a Teachers Aide Course and started off doing a Certificate III in Education Support, I studied online and found the material quite straightforward. I actually completed the first unit in the first weekend, They say you should allow 10 hours a week to complete the course in 12 months but I think that really it was more like 5 hours a week to complete the course in less than 6 months. They have a pretty cool facebook page which they update regularly Teacher Assistants Facebook.
The trainer was amazing, I didn't really need her input much for study as the course material was quite easy, but she gave really good feedback and more importantly was a great sounding board for helping with different scenarios at school (she was a primary teacher before training people in Certificate III and Certificate IV in Education Support / Teachers Aides.
Now i've completed my studies 'graduated' and got a job working in a school im looking forward to keeping up my blog with informative posts on my experiences!
Bye
OzTeacherAide
