A Teaching Assistant is a person who aids a teacher within a class in many ways. There are various different kinds and levels of teaching assistant Careers offered, and here we are going to check out some of them. I have performed some research on becoming a teaching assistant as it has been among my Career ideas for a while now, and I have also finished a course and achieved a level two qualification. Here I want to share my own experiences and findings when hunting for New careers linked with this role, to see if I can assist people who may be considering this amongst other Career ideas.

There are 3 levels to the Teaching Assistant qualification, each advancement supplying you with an improved possibility of getting a job. Only acquiring the level 1 qualification will not give you much chance of getting a job as a teaching assistant – make sure you go for at least the level 2 course, but always go for the level 3 course if you have the opportunity. I had to choose the level 2 course as at the time I undertook the course as the level 3 was not offered in my area. I do quite often see advertised Teaching Assistant posts that only require level2. Level 3 however, will of course improve your chances, open up access to jobs that need level 3, and also encourage a better salary.

When becoming a Teaching Assistant, it is worth knowing that a great deal of the work presented is working with children with special educational needs, as these are the areas where the added help is most likely going to be needed. The benefit of this is that these Teaching Assistants do generally get paid more in comparison to a Teaching Assistant that is assisting in a standard mainstream class. However, the job is generally more challenging as you can end up having to cope with more difficult situations. Having experienced it myself however, I would say it is definitely worthwhile – for my course the work experience I undertook was within a schools special educational needs class, and whilst I did find it challenging, it was also good fun, and the children were great to work with, if sometimes difficult! Teaching assistants generally work in primary schools, but can also work in secondary schools, and higher education establishments like colleges and 6th form schools.

Once you become a Teaching Assistant, your average beginning wage will be approximately £14,500, although this does improve with experience. However it is worth knowing this figure is pro-rata – Teaching Assistants usually do not get paid for the time off through the school holidays, so you ought to make sure you take that into account when first starting out. Generally speaking, the older the children you work with, the higher the level of wage you will receive. You should have loads opportunities to develop your skills outside of school time, and you may think about doing a part-time degree to become a Teacher, if you find you like the job a lot.