Teaching Assistant Courses: A Great Route Into Teaching

Discover why teaching assistant courses make for a great way to get into teaching, thanks to factors like the wealth of experience you’ll gain.

Teaching is difficult, especially for NQTs (Newly Qualified Teachers). It is an unfortunate fact that these days due to the rise of the private Academies in the UK, many schools are putting NQTs in charge of unruly classrooms, despite their lack of knowledge in dealing with children.

If you’re looking to get into teaching, rather than allow yourself to get pushed straight into the deep end, it is best to start gradually and gain some experience through a couple of teaching assistant courses before you become a teacher. In this article, we will go through why this is a great route into teaching.

Taking It Step By Step

One of the hardest parts of being a newly qualified teacher is that you’ll encounter a huge range of challenges on a daily basis that are all brand new. Dealing with these can be stressful, but you’ll noticed that your more experienced colleagues can deal with these effectively. Teaching assistant courses are a great way for you to test the waters in a teaching career without having to deal with the additional pressures of ofsted inspections and needing to meet targets.

In a teaching assistant course, you will learn to deal with children and how to ensure they behave correctly, meaning you can become confident with this aspect of the job prior to learning about how to keep children engaged with learning, planning lessons and such like.

Gaining Experience Dealing With Children

For some additional experience dealing with children alongside enrolling to teaching assistant courses, consider applying to volunteer positions that involve managing children. This does not have to specifically be related to teaching, but instead could involve volunteering at a youth club, a scouts or guides club, or at outdoor activity centres. This will teach you how to motivate children and how to engage them in activities. Many teachers who start off their careers like this find that the extra experience allows them to recognise different types of behaviour among children and how to deal with them effectively.

Learn How To Handle Troublesome Children

One of the best things that teaching assistant courses can teach you is that troublesome children need to be dealt with in a distinct way. this can be difficult to master if you are a newly qualified teacher because at the same time you will need to keep the rest of the class engaged as well as make sure they are hitting their targets.

As assistant teachers mainly deal with the kids and keep them motivated, you will gain plenty of hands on experience in this area before you need to think about other educational goals that the teacher generally deals with. It is a good idea to supplement teaching assistant courses with practical experience working at a local school so you can put your newfound knowledge into practice!