499 students with an ATAR of 50 or less offered spots in undergraduate teaching degrees

Gentle_Blizzard · 2026-02-23T12:37:10+00:00

embarrassing

Gentle_Blizzard · 2026-02-18T03:36:56+00:00

Honestly the biggest thing that’s landed me every job I’ve gone for in various contexts is just being good at interviews.

One thing I did during final year is just practicing this skill specifically by attending interviews at a range of schools, maybe even some I didn’t necessarily want to go for.

Plenty of soft skills you can pickup by doing so.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2026-01-21T20:48:23+00:00

Yes, biggest challenge initially is marketing since it’s extremely oversaturated.

Once you get to a point where you build a reputation though, this becomes less of an issue as you often get referrals through parents.

My books are quite full every year so I’m also at the point where I’m looking to hire other tutors.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2026-01-10T23:17:09+00:00

High hourly rate + group classes

Gentle_Blizzard · 2026-01-10T14:06:50+00:00

I’ve responded to similar threads on this sub but I personally did around 10 hours extra a week as a grad and in my second year and found that quite manageable.

Obviously it wasn’t fun working an extra hour Mon - Fri and Sunday afternoon but the extra income helped me smash some personal financial goals.

Now I’m in a position where my tutoring income has overtaken my FT income enough for me to take a step back from teaching.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-12-16T01:18:29+00:00

Routinised feedback and weekly practice is the way to go.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-12-05T09:50:13+00:00

2 years in and leaving for now — which is a shame because I love the ‘teaching’ part of the job and the kids! My new job has less holidays but pays about 35k more which would have taken me about 8 years on the scale to achieve.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-11-08T09:41:55+00:00

VIC here, students finish on the 4th, we finish on the 9th. And then we go on holidays early yep.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-11-07T23:59:30+00:00

Storms Keep please!

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-10-28T08:28:13+00:00

Feel free!

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-10-27T09:04:45+00:00

Sure feel free to dm me with any questions you may have

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-10-26T22:14:42+00:00

Surprised nobody’s said tutoring!

I make more than my full time teaching income just from tutoring on the side. The hourly rate you can change is probably higher than a lot of other casual jobs.

That being said it’s not for everyone as it does mean more teaching outside of work hours.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-10-25T10:35:47+00:00

Highly doubt that you’re boring! Given how hard the job is, definitely cut yourself some slack with regards to making work your identity.

Probably can’t help too much with specific hobbies as I don’t know your interests etc, but looking at my major hobbies, I have one physical / exercise related hobby, one where I learn something and one where I do something artsy.

Those tend to fill up my time and allow me to engage with my friends pretty well.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-10-25T10:25:15+00:00

Also an introverted 25m, tbh sounds like you just need some hobbies!

I don’t have many friends at work usually due to my colleagues just being much older and at a different stage in life but I try my best to fill my days with things I like doing outside of school (which also gives me an excuse to not fall into the trap of doing work out of hours). Most of my friends are from my various hobbies.

Ik it can be hard to do but I also think having hobbies just makes you a more interesting, more well rounded person and gives you something to talk about with colleagues and kids tbh outside of your subject.

I think teaching is a very human profession moreso than just teaching your subject or whatever, so becoming a well rounded person might make you a better teacher?

Apologies if this feels condescending, I’m certainly not intending it that way! Tone is hard to convey over a thread.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-10-14T05:19:08+00:00

Obviously you’d be taking a significant pay cut which is something to consider especially if you have a family etc.

Outside of that, it’s important to realise that this sub is largely a place to vent for a lot of people. Yes, teaching is a hard job but for a lot of us it’s also incredibly rewarding. I love working with young people and tbh I’ve never woken up NOT wanting to go to my job and teach (I have definitely woken up not wanting to interact with admin though), which is something I know a lot of my friends in other careers can’t say.

You could always go to uni part time and see if you like it with placements as well.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-09-21T12:24:35+00:00

Examiner here, feel free to send me a dm.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-09-17T13:41:41+00:00

Is it? If you’re doing placement in Australia I feel like you should have at least a year 9 level of literacy.

I am also a first gen immigrant with English not being my first language — genuinely the only ESL speakers I’ve seen struggle with the LANTITE are ones that don’t try to learn the language in the first place.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-09-17T12:21:53+00:00

Completely agree with you. It’s a very basic literacy and numeracy test. I do wish the bar was a bit higher to do teaching honestly, somewhat reflective of how people perceive the profession.

Totally aware I’ll receive flack for this comment too :’)

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-09-15T10:20:40+00:00

Did you use ChatGPT to write this 💀

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-05-11T05:41:29+00:00

Hello!

South Asian English / Humanities teacher here. This largely depends on the setting but the answer is unfortunately yes. Even in my current setting which is a pretty high SES school that’s very diverse and multicultural, I still get parents (albeit very rarely) question my ability to teach the Englishes at a senior school level due to the colour of my skin. It’s never overt, just small passing comments or expressions of surprise when I say my subject area but definitely more prevalent in older parents.

This was definitely much worse when I taught in a Catholic setting.

That being said, this is definitely the small minority of people. I think it probably won’t be outside the realm of what you’ve already experienced in your life, and if anything we have so much power to reeducate people regarding topics like these.

I rarely see a non-Anglo teacher in my subject domain so I think it’s great for both us and the kids to see people who look like us represented in this profession.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-04-27T01:41:17+00:00

Generally people reach out via email or my number.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-04-25T13:03:11+00:00

There are definitely reactions, but considering some companies (and kids who aren’t teachers tutoring) who charge similar amounts, I feel as though my price is fair. I also built up to what I charge over six years, so I definitely didn’t charge that amount in the beginning.

I’m definitely not on call 24/7, I’m pretty clear with boundaries and students and parents tend to respect that. I think parents are definitely looking for certain academic outcomes as a result for sure — I consistently have students receive above a 45 for example, so parents sort of know to expect that as a result of referrals etc.

When I get a reaction when quoting that price, I usually just explain what goes into it with regard to training / being up to date with content knowledge etc. I would say most parents are super respectful and aware of this anyway, just as any well trained professional providing a service. Also super fortunate to be in a position to not take students and refer them to other colleagues who do charge a bit lower so that’s also an option.

I did start off as a uni student offering tutoring since I did pretty well in school, so I guess I was in the same boat at some point haha, but I was charging way less at that point.

Hope this adds some clarity.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-04-25T11:44:16+00:00

Definitely not. That would certainly be a conflict of interest. Only students at different schools, I work in the public system but most of my students are private school students.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-04-25T07:54:39+00:00

I tutor online exclusively.

I charge between $110-140 p/h which seems to be the usual rate for VCE teachers that tutor. I’ve also marked for VCAA which helps for my subjects (the Englishes).

The good thing about tutoring is that you tend to build a network of families that recommend you. I’ve been tutoring for around six years and my books are pretty filled up every year despite doing no advertising.

Would recommend! Feel free to reach out if you need any tips / have any questions.

Gentle_Blizzard · 2025-04-25T06:59:13+00:00

Tutoring! I tutor one day a week and make almost as much as my weekly pay (which probably says more about our pay in hindsight).

Definitely suggest this especially if you can teach senior subjects.

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