The ball is rolling...

It's finally happening!!!!

In the last two days I have received three phone calls to offer me work!! Turns out that a little sucking up is a great way to get work. I went around to all the schools that I initially handed my resumes into and just refreshed their memories of me. Turns out it was a great idea as two of the schools mentioned to me that was the reason I got the work.

I hate being a suck up though....so cheesy and brown nosey.

The next step is to develop resources that are easy to pull out and use.

Watch this space....I'm planning on sharing.

My First Month of Casual Teaching EVER!!!

Well, I guess I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Jaime and I finished my university degree last year. This means that 2013 is my first year out casual teaching...eeep!

I am the type of person who likes a challenge and often find myself biting off more then I can chew. Well, once again I challenged myself by moving out of home for the first time into a completely new area. Whilst this may not seem like a challenge for some, coping with a major life change such as moving out can be quite a struggle. Fortunately for me however, moving out was fun and exciting and I'm loving my independence. 

The challenge however, was realising that through moving to an area 2hrs away, I would have to start over with making connections and networking with the schools. In Sydney, I had strong connections and good relationships with all of the teachers I had collaborated with during my professional experiences. 

It's now the end of Feb meaning that school has been back for a month or so and I'm not going to lie, I have had very little work. By this I mean I have had one day of teaching. Spending most of my time at home bored out of my mind can cause some people to go mad (I nearly did). However, I was determined however not to let this get me down. I have many friends who were casual teachers a few years back and they kept saying to me 'Term 1 is always hard for casual teachers'. 

However, over the last two weeks, things have started to turn around for me. My boyfriend mentioned that I was a primary school teacher to the receptionist at his work. This is all it took for my networking to begin.

I began tutoring for this lady who then gave my number to a friend who also required a tutor. This little bit of tutoring enabled me to gain a small income each week. 
Not knowing the area also made it hard to find schools. I attempted googling schools in the area but as many of the schools in rural areas are so small (3 classes), many of them were not listed on google maps.

This very kind lady therefore wrote out a list of schools in the area for me and suggested a specific school that her sister in-law was the current assistant principal at. 
I handed my resume in at this school yesterday and received a call from the office lady of this school this morning offering me two days work next week.

I suppose the moral of this story is support and networking comes from the weirdest of places sometimes. In this case my boyfriends receptionist. Don't give up and keep building those networks. It takes time but I know that I'll get there soon.