Last week you reported that many of the Welsh primary teachers who qualified last year have not been able to find jobs (“Trainees left high and dry”, TES Cymru, October 8). I am one of those trainees who has not yet started induction. The article, however, suggests that people like myself will not undertake supply work or move to find work.
This is not true of all graduates. It took a lot of courage to go back to university, aged 45, and do a postgraduate certificate in education course, but I enjoyed it immensely and feel I have a lot to offer any school.
My enhanced clearance application was “lost” for months, meaning I could not take up any offers of employment until the January after I completed my course. And there are very few jobs in this area.
To take up the points in the editorial, I am not in a position to move house, being a single parent with children in GCSE year, A-level year and final year at university. This would be far too disruptive for them.
I regularly do supply work in Monmouthshire and in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. So two years on from graduation, I am in my final term of short supply. (I got an extension from the local education authority on the regulation four terms) and facing the prospect of leaving a career I waited 20 years to join. Oh for a knight on a white charger - with a contract in hand.
Avril Seabury Wayside Cottage Llandogo, Monmouthshire Opinion 23, more letters 25
