Teaching, Child Care & Library
Teaching
If you relate well to children and young people, enjoy working with others, are enthusiastic, creative and a good ‘all rounder’, then you might like to work in schools.
Other teaching roles are available in community education, sports & recreation centres for example.
Training & qualifications
Teachers in Australian schools need degrees, but Certificate III and IV qualifications are available for many support roles, such as:
• School Information Technology Support Officer (Private School) — Certificate III in School Support Services
• Disability Support Assistant — Certificate III in Government (School Support Services)
• School Laboratory Technician — Certificate IV in Government (School Support Services).
Community education roles and qualifications include:
• Community Education Officer — Diploma of Community Education
• Relationship Education Co-ordinator — Diploma of Relationship Education.
Trainers
Trainers share their practical workplace experience, knowledge and industry skills with apprentices, trainees and other employees. They work in many different industries including nursing, engineering, hairdressing, business administration, multi-media and information technology. Some trainers work on-site, in registered training organisations (RTOs), or move into general training roles in human resources (HR) departments.
Training & qualifications
To work as a trainer, you first gain your industry qualification and experience in a vocational area, then link this with a teaching qualification.
The Certificate IV in Training and Assessment qualifies you to teach nationally recognised courses.
Qualifications are also available for training roles in sports, fitness and outdoor education, such as:
• Fitness trainer or personal trainer — Certificate IV in Fitness
• Outdoor recreation — Certificate III in Outdoor Recreation (Multiple activities).
Child care
If you enjoy working with children – helping with their daily care and encouraging their personal development – you may be interested in the child care industry.
You’d need be able to communicate well with family members, know how to apply first aid and ensure children’s health and safety.
Rapid growth in the number of child care centres – and more women returning to full or part-time employment after having children – has meant increased demand for qualified child care workers.
Child care workers may be employed in the following:
• Private Long Day Centres
• Outside School Hour Care
• Vacation care
• Community Based Long Day Care Centres
• Family Day Care
• Hospitals
• Women’s shelters.
Child care centres are community, government or privately run. Family Day Care involves self employment – you look after children in your own home.
Working with Children Check
Keeping children and young people safe in the workplace is part of your broader responsibility as a teacher or child care worker. The Working with Children Check (WWC) is a comprehensive criminal record check for people working with children. It requires that people who work or volunteer in certain child-related work apply for, and pass, a WWC Check.
Training & qualifications
Sample roles and qualifications include:
• Child Care Assistants – Certificate III in Children’s Services
• Child Care Team Leader – Diploma of Children's Services
• Out of School Hours Care Co-ordinator – Diploma of Out of School Hours Care.
Library
If you’re interested in helping people find the information they need, organising information resources and working with new information technologies, you may be interested in library and information centre work.
Work environments vary: you could work in community information or children’s services, in regional or remote areas, in cities around Australia and overseas too. Roles include customer service, backroom indexing and cataloguing, research and retrieval. You could help people use online journals, indexes or the internet; organise children’s book readings, stack shelves, repair damaged books or update online databases.
There are opportunities in public, school, TAFE or university libraries, state or parliamentary libraries, business, government or corporate libraries. Museums, archives, media organisations and cultural services have library or information centres too.
Your job may vary according to the size and type of library. In a large library you may specialise in a particular area such as online or children’s services, while in a small library you’d be involved in a wide range of activities.
You may be rostered to work evenings and weekends to provide customer service after-hours.
Training & qualifications
Librarians need university degrees, but you can qualify for various library/information assistant roles with Library services Certificates II, III and IV.
Certificate III in Government (School Support Services) would qualify you for work as a school library assistant or aide.
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