whats it like to teach in Oz

[jowalden100]

HI

I am going out to oz in August and i have an interview with WA education aurthority. Can anyone give me any advice on what its like to teach in australia, do you get a choice to move anywhere or are you restricted to an area. What are the children like? behaviour etc

any advice please good or bad

thanks

jo x

[pete.c]

Hi,

my friends are teachers, and for them after graduating from university they didn't get the schools of their choice. This is because regional schools are in desparate need of teachers and most Australian teachers want to teach in city schools.

So if you don;y mind teaching in regional areas you should get your first few choices of where to teach.

The following is also a timetable of the WA school terms:

Semester 1
Term 1
Thursday 31 Jan – Fri 11 Apr
Break
Saturday 12 Apr – Sunday 27 Apr
Term 2
Monday 28 Apr – Friday 4 Jul
Break
Saturday 5 Jul – Sunday 20 Jul
Semester 2
Term 3
Monday 21 Jul – Friday 26 Sept
Break
Saturday 27 Sept – Sunday 12 Oct
Term 4
Monday 13 Oct – Thursday 18 Dec

[kar-kier]

Can't say what it is like to actually teach in WA. But my husband, children and I are moving to WA on the Overseas Sponsored Teaching Program in January. We've been told you will have no choice in where you are put, and that the job is subject to you agreeing to work anywhere in WA. You wil definately not be put in or close to Perth (as someone else said, Oz born teachers want to work there, so don't need teachers). On the plus side subsidies are given the further you are from the city.

A couple of my friends have taught all over OZ (gap year after graduating) and they said that the never saw the behavioural problems that we see here (in Glasgow). Also been told that in some areas in the far north they start school at 5-6am, and finish for the day at lunchtime!

[pjmpjm]

Just remember that if you choose to teach in rural Western Australia, you are probably going to be living in a very rural area as well! I tell my US friends that WA is bigger than Alaska and Texas combined! (Look it up on Google.) This means there's a lot of very beautiful but very remote terrain in that state. My Australian-born son and my grandchildren lived down near Albany, WA for two years and I visited them there once. It's very lovely but very remote, located on the Southern (Antarctic) Ocean, a five hour drive south of Perth. Up in the northwest corner of the state, it's a tropical paradise, but also very far away from the rest of Oz. Perth is, I think, closer to Jakarta than it is to Sydney, and is statistically (I once read) the most remote large city on earth. (Its population is just over one million.)

Hope this helps!

from a long-time (35 years) US expat . . .