Any Skills for Life/basic skills teachers out there? Please come and talk to me about your job

[jobwoes]

I'm thinking about training as a Skills for Life teacher specialising in numeracy and would love to hear from people already working in the field. Particularly I would like to know how easy it is to find a job as an unqualified teacher after doing a Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS) course, and what the demand for numeracy tutors is (I know several years ago they were in demand but maybe that has changed now?). I know that many basic skills teachers work part-time, especially to start with. What are other pluses and minuses of the job?

[Canigotosleepyet]

Hi I'm interested in this too! Anyone?

[herbaceous]

I want to know too! But in the literacy area. Ironically, all the information I can find about this is so badly written I can't make head or tail of the qualifications required, job prospects, etc...

[jaspercat2002]

I am a relatively new adult tutor so will try and give you a snapshot of my experience so far.
I work in community education for local government and actually started as a relief teaching assistant and have since done the PTLLS course and now teach a few different courses, including functional skills maths and english.
I am planning on progressing to a DTLLS course but unfortunately I will have to fund this myself, and this year all local courses run on days that I already teach.
Now I have started teaching there is as much work as I want to do available. I am not sure whether I have just been lucky though. I am asked to deliver more numeracy than literacy, despite my degree being in English, so I would say numeracy tutors are more in demand.
Pluses for me are that it's really good fun, very rewarding and fits in beautifully with school hours.
Minuses are that I am on a hourly contract so am not paid for any preparation time (and I put in lots of preparation hours). This also means holiday pay is built into my hourly rate and I therefore don't get paid at all during holidays. Paperwork is a pain too!