Making the move

14th January 2005, 12:00am

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Making the move

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/making-move
Your job and career questions answered.

I’m a primary teacher with an undergraduate degree in psychology. How easy would it be to move into teaching this at AS-level? Would my current qualifications be enough or would I have to retrain?

There is nothing to stop you switching to secondary teaching, but your certification to teach is unqualified. However, the bare regulations are not the only things to consider. Firstly, few secondary schools are likely to have enough psychology to fill a complete timetable. What might you teach for the rest of the week? Secondly, you have a psychology degree, but have you kept up to date with the subject since graduating? Thirdly, you are no doubt an experienced primary school teacher, but are you prepared for the shock of dealing with older students in a post where you don’t have the contact with just one group for the whole week? Might the desire to retain this working with a group be the reason you have focused on AS-level teaching? I am not suggesting you don’t make the move, but that you should be able to explain why you want to make a change, both on your application and in interview. You will also be asked about motivating older students and assessment issues in interview so, even if you don’t undertake any formal retraining, some preparation would pay dividends. If you have not spent time in a secondary school recently, try and organise some visits before you make the move.

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