Roll Up Roll Up Teachers Wanted! (jobs.tes.co.uk)

Member Name: HS28

Product:	jobs.tes.co.uk
Date:	10/05/09 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Jobs, Resources, Forums, Articles and its Free

Disadvantages: Only the Trolls in the Forums

Jobs.tes.co.uk

**Not Just a Jobs Website**

The TES is the Times Educational Supplement and TES online and is a brilliant tool for teachers and student teachers or wannabe teachers. In fact if you are not a teacher it is still a good site as the forums have lots of questions and debates and there are the current articles from the paper on here too.

Traditionally the TES was in paper format and is produced by the Times. It came out every Friday (still does and will cost you!) and is the essential guide to teaching vacancies and always have great articles in it on recent government initiatives and focus stories. Every teacher who was job hunting would require this on a Friday and I found my first job through the TES.

It evolved into the TES online as most newspapers have done so. This change to going on the web has been very beneficial to teachers. For now the TES Online included the Job Section that was in the paper, it includes articles from the paper too. New things online and not in the paper are a bank of resources that are shared if logged in and also a Forum.


**The Jobs Section**

As I said earlier if you want a job in teaching this is the place to look. The TES paper is out on a Friday but you can get a sneak peak Thursday if you go online. The search tool for job hunting is great and offers advanced options to really focus your search whether that be by job role, type of school or location etc. Although I am perfectly happy in my job and secured a nice promotion I still like looking on the TES and the job section in my subject and also area where I live to see what is going on.

The jobs generally have 2 weeks deadlines but it is a case of applying pronto as schools generally short list quickly and perceived quick responders to be more willing. As an aside in teaching we ordinary teachers have to give notice of half a term so say you want to leave at Christmas you would have to put your notice in at October 31st. The final deadline of the year is May 31st if you are wanting to change schools for the September. Often there will be links to the schools website and some jobs will have job specs up while others require you to contact the school. This was an invaluable source as a PGCE student and every week I would be on to see what would come up. PGCE students tend to have to start looking from the January and jobs are generally advertised saying they accept NQTs (cheaper to hire as new teachers-fresh faced and dopey eyed) or Established teachers (who cost more money!) That is a downside of teaching as the longer you stay at a school you rise up through the payscales and become expensive so to move jobs can be expensive for the new school on a tight budget!

Note the jobs section it is not just teaching jobs in secondary schools as it includes primary schools, independent schools, further education colleges and teaching jobs abroad (dreaming of a move to Dubai!). There are also non teaching jobs on here and job links to exam markers etc. Schools do not always use the TES as the advertising can cost a bomb so sometimes they will just use their own website, council website and local papers so you should check those out too.


**The extras - The Forum**

Well dooyooers if you thought some dooyoo people were pedantic about reviews and spellings you want to go over to the TES forums. I have found the forums to be an insightful place especially as an NQT and scrolled through questions and topic threads. I have never left a question or spoken in a topic discussion though. Part of this is because they are so darn picky and pedantic and often will be narky about your full stops and commas instead of the issue. In the main most people are supportive but there are some nasty trolls on there. Also some people are so argumentative and trolling the threads that they then twist the story into actually being about them. There are also people who are obviously working for TV programmes or papers and pretend they are parents or doing studies to try to get a reaction to controversial questions.

Like I said though there are some great benefits to this and most sections have a resident person who will answer specific questions for you. So if you have had a bad day you will often find someone else went through that and see what helpful responses were given or strategies to help solve the issues. What to do with year 9 is always a popular question in the behaviour section. The forums cover lots from subjects to ofsted inspections, behaviour, NQTs, Students, Seocndary, Primary, Personal, Health etc. You can read the forums without logging in but would need to join to contribute to them.


**The extras - The Resources**

This is more of a recent addition and is developing well. You need to register to use and log in and people will often share good practice and resources. This is good if you are looking for something that you are planning. This is free where as you get some churners in the forums who try to link you back to their sites to sell you stuff. I am registered with the site and I look through the resources section as some good practice is shared on here and the documents as easy to download and adaptable to suit your own needs.


**The extras - The Paper section**

I have never really used this section but it holds the most recent articles and archive articles in here which are from the TES paper and magazine. So you can still read the hottest issues in the recent edition in this part of the website. There are also links with the subscription of the paper copy of the paper.


**Overall**

So overall this is a brilliant Jobs website but it is much more than that and an informative site for teachers and well worth a visit at least once a week to find resources, browse resources. I always look at the jobs section every Thursday night excited to see what is going on in my region or subject should I ever wish to move on! (Which I doubt I will at the moment as in schools once you settle it is hard to leave and start all over again in a new school!) Most importantly is the site is free in comparison to buying the paper version and a superb tool for the teaching profession. Save your Quid or so from the buying the paper and splash out on something else!

www.tes.co.uk will get you into the overview of the whole site or you can go straight to the jobs section at www.jobs.tes.co.uk.

Summary: A Fantastic Site for Teachers looking for jobs, resources or needing advice