How do I career swap to become a P.E teacher?
I am in my final year of service in the armed forces, and very keen on becoming a P.E teacher. I have good GCSE grades but would now like to study. Academically, I have nothing P.E teaching wise, so I am basically starting from scratch.
I have got off my own backside and emailed several universities asking about the process I would like to undertake, but all seem to have just threw a generic, ‘come to us’ email back at me, and not mentioned he exact route I should be taking. So I thought I’d pose th question here in hope of a real, un-biased answer.
Does anybody in the wonderful world of fluther have any experience in the area of retrading to become a teacher?
And, also provide an insight to what teaching is like and the route I need to be taking?
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I am not a teacher, but my understanding is that the majority of physical education teachers teach other subjects in addition to physical education, so it would be safe to assume you would be required to obtain a Master’s Degree in Education. Although, not all states require a Master’s Degree, instead they might require a minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree and a teaching license/certification issued by the state. I would certainly look into your state’s teaching requirements, and go from there. Good luck!!
I can probably answer your question but I need a little more information—Are you in the States? If so, each state has different requirements for certifying teachers. Some states are more difficult than others.
Do you already have a BA? If so, in what?
Get a network going, maybe someone you are currently deployed has a relative or friend that is a P. E. teacher.
Contact that person that is in P.E. and ask them to give you:
1) Advice
2) Information
3) Referral ( for more networking )
@linguaphile
Ahh, I’m a short journey over the pond in the U.K. This was my main concern with posting on here…whoops!
@Tropical_Willie Thank you very much for the advice. As I say, its just an interest at the moment, which I’m keen to follow up on.
Obviously I don’t know much about the UK educational system, so what I would suggest is finding out whether PE jobs are available, and what you would need to do in addition to becoming a PE teacher to increase your marketability.
The reason I say this is—PE teaching jobs in the US are not as plentiful as they were 20 years ago. Many PE teachers I know also teach another subject, or have included recreation, recreation therapy and outdoor education (Vision Quest, etc) in their tool bag so that their ability to find a job they like. Some even get training in basic sports medicine/physical therapy. They also get coaching certificates to pad their resume.
Look online at 3 or 4 universities’ PE education programs, look at the coursework required (if it’s no listed, call them for a list of the classes they’ll require)- that’ll give you an idea of what you’re looking at in terms of schooling.
Call the teacher licensing or certifying unit (if you have one) and ask what they would require to license you to teach. If they tell you to go elsewhere, ask for a list of “elsewhere.” (I haven’t yet seen a teacher licensing unit that’s willing to be helpful- they’re usually really close-mouthed about helping people, grr!!) In the US, each state requires different things—
Ask, ask, ask… you don’t want to do more work than you need to do to get to where you want to be. Good luck!!!!
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