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Andrew Lochhead, travelling teacher
By Andrew Lochhead
I believe obtaining full registration is a passport to teaching throughout Scotland and beyond. I successfully completed my probation year and was then in the tough battle for permanent jobs; I started my second year teaching on term-to- term supply work and realised I had a fantastic opportunity to fulfil one of my dreams and travel around Australia and New Zealand. I opted to travel around Australia and aimed to teach in New Zealand.
Before I left Scotland, I started the four-step process of obtaining teacher registration for New Zealand. After a few months I was registered allowing me to teach in any New Zealand school! The New Zealand Teachers Council recognised my teacher registration from Scotland which made the process easy.
In January I left Scotland with my rucksack and a pen drive with my CV on it hoping for the best!
I travelled through Australia (which was amazing) for over a month and landed in Auckland, New Zealand with no idea if I was going to get any work at all!
In my first few weeks in Auckland I contacted two supply teaching agencies who supply schools with teachers - similar to local councils here with a bank of supply teachers. Every school in New Zealand recruit their own teachers so as a registered teacher you can canvas round schools for work. I started the process of knocking on doors and waited for the phone to ring.
After a few weeks I started to get single days here and there through the agencies and one school phoned me for a day of supply and then asked me back for a few more days the following week. I was delighted when the same school offered me a three-month contract with a split timetable of physical education (my subject), health, social studies and New Zealand studies. I reminded the depute head that I had no experience of three of the subjects and he reassured me that if I could teach I could teach anything.
The three months were unbelievable and developed my teaching ability. The physical education was natural with the other three subjects being a challenge. I have gained knowledge on drugs and alcohol (health), Polynesia (social studies) and volcanoes in New Zealand (New Zealand studies). I had time during the Easter holidays to travel around New Zealand (which is beautiful) and also completed a sky dive and bungee jump - a must-do for travellers.
I have now returned to Scotland and transferred some of my new skills into my teaching and have knowledge to integrate into the health and wellbeing aspect of the Curriculum of Excellence.
I believe the process to gain full registration in Scotland and the Scottish education system has a positive status around the world and schools recognise the standard of teaching they will get by employing a Scottish qualified teacher.