Anybody familiar with the UK system of finding work will know how hard it is especially in today’s climate.
Last year I was put into an agency that supplies work to “teachers” and “assistant teachers”.
This was all done through the UK system using “Restart” and the “Jobcentre”.
I want to stress from the outset that I have no qualifications or training as an assistant teacher. Which is what makes my experience even more crazy.
But nevertheless I started at the end of the first full week of January 2026, and this is what happened.
Thursday
My first class was in the morning, and was my first real taste of being an “assistant teacher”, with a class of about 6 or 7 children with different physical, mental and learning difficulties.
The morning involved singing along to songs, and then a trip to the Forest School garden area. I had a little boy that I took around the garden outside, and this lasted I think, for about 30 mins (it was a very cold day). When we came back inside, I was told to go to the classroom next door to help out.
It was mostly supervising the children, and helping the other “assistant teachers”. Then playtime came and we went out into an area of the school yard that was a small area with a gate on one side (this was to separate the older children from the younger, I think), and was a small school yard full of things for the children to do. After this it was lunchtime, and I had a 30 minute lunch break.
The afternoon came around and I was told by a member of staff that I was needed in a different classroom. And was swiftly taken along to the new classroom, and quickly found a seat next to a boy that I offered help to.
The class was doing circuits. I helped the boy next to me, and got involved as much as I could.
After this lesson the children went back to their form class, and were told about an activity they had to do for another day.
It came around to home time, and I helped the teacher and assistant teachers put the children on their buses home.
I got a message from the agency asking me to go in on Friday, and I gladly accepted. I thought my first day had gone okay.
But things were about to change.
Friday
Friday was a totally different kind of day to Thursday.
I was placed in another classroom, again with no experience or qualifications for “assistant teacher”, and was expected to know what I was doing.
Except this time it really was a teaching situation.
I was put in a class with children that ranged in ages and had varying physical, mental and learning difficulties.
Was told that each pupil had to do a spelling and memory exercise first. I was placed next to a girl, and was told to help her with this exercise.
Then came maths, which I know isn’t my strongest subject. This involved a page of images with coins in a jar, in which the pupil had to work out how many coins were in each jar and write down the answer below the image.
Bearing in mind I have no experience of being an “assistant teacher”, I proceeded, to the best of my ability, to teach this pupil how to do the maths exercise. The poor girl just stared down continually at the page looking absolutely terrified. At this point I thought I had failed miserably to get her to understand (but in reality had no teaching experience to get my message across).
I quickly put my hand up and told the other “assistant teacher” that I couldn’t get the poor girl to do the exercise, and we both did a swap.
I then moved to a young boy who was reading, who I happily encouraged and told him he was reading really well.
After this we went into a special room and did a lesson about time. The children could touch walls that were essentially interactive, and giant screens to learn about time.
We then moved onto music. It was after this lesson that things really started going wrong.
When I came out of music I followed two of the pupils thinking they were going back to the classroom.
They weren’t.
Panic set in, I had no idea where my classroom was.
I started to back along the corridor searching for any familiar “teacher’s” or “teaching assistants” from the class.
I spotted two of them at the end of the corridor with their coats on ready for playtime and just about to go out to the schoolyard. Nobody had told me it was playtime.
Again, I was left to my own devices, and it was assumed that I knew what time it was and what was going on, but I didn’t because this was my first day.
I searched frantically for the classroom to grab my coat and join them.
It must have taken a good 20 minutes before I eventually found what I thought was the right classroom and went and got my coat.
I then had to find the door to the schoolyard. I asked around for help. Eventually I found the door.
I discovered two familiar “teacher’s” who didn’t acknowledge me and were doing their own thing. There was no interaction. I was left standing alone, looking like a lemon in a schoolyard not knowing what to do. Feeling, at this point, really isolated and alone, and like no one cared what I did.
Playtime came to an end and I followed one of the “teaching assistants” back to the classroom.
Where it was the children’s snack time and time to watch “Newsround”.
At this point in the morning the “teacher” and “teaching assistant’s” were talking about the breaks. And nobody told me when my break was or even noticed that I was there.
At this point I felt overwhelmed as the feeling of isolation and being alone washed over me. When the classroom lights turned out, I started crying. This was the kind of crying where you have no self-control, and was all due to the feeling of isolation and loneliness I felt because no one was telling me what I needed to do.
I politely asked one of the “teaching assistants" if I could go to the ladies toilets. By this time tears were streaming down my face, and that was when it really dawned on me that I was put in a job with absolutely no “teaching assistant” experience, and into situations that were totally alien to me, and just expected to get on with it.
When I reached the ladies toilets and attempted to calm myself down, two kind ladies brought along the admin staff member who was in charge of supplying staff to the school.
This lady was calm and understood my situation, took me along to a room where I had a cup of water to try and calm me down.
She asked me if I wanted to be moved out of that class, and I said yes, because at this point I was embarrassed.
She gave me a new lanyard and fob.
And I was taken to another part of the school, that was in an outside building.
And yet another new and unique situation, with new faces, and was then told to go along to the food hall and help out there.
As the day progressed I was becoming more and more disorientated, this was because I had been upset, but also because I had very little time to get used to my new surroundings.
I got to the food hall, which, as you can imagine, was full of noisy children. I sat down next to a little girl I had to watch, and was then told to go on my lunch break.
Again I was still disoriented and I had to find my way out of the food hall back to the building outside where my coat and bag were situated and then come back into the main building and find the staff room.
I thought I had 30 minutes but I’m sure it was less.
I eventually found my way back to the entrance and back to the building outside. Grabbed my rucksack, went into the main building, frantically searching for the staff room.
There were two doors with a staff room written on them, but it was the second one which was the real one.
By this time my lunch break was reduced to about 12 or 15 minutes. I ate as much of my sandwich and guzzled down water I had with me. Quickly went to the ladies toilets and got back just before my lunch half hour had finished.
Again this class was totally different to any of the classes of children. These were all young children with varying physical, mental and learning problems. About an hour or so was spent with a children’s programme on in the background and the children racing around.
I discovered Friday’s were assembly days, so the “teacher” and “teaching assistants”, myself included, went along to the assembly hall.
When we got into the hall I realised to my horror that I was going to be sitting on the wooden floor. I hadn’t sat on a wooden floor in years. It was agony, as I tried to keep my eyes on the little boy sitting next to me.
All of the other staff members were sitting, and looked like they had no problem. Me, on the other hand, I hadn’t sat on a hall floor in forty years.
Throughout the assembly I was wriggling and writhing around the floor in agony. That was another embarrassing situation to add to my list.
At the end of the assembly we all made our way back to the classroom with the children.
Where I was given the simple task of laminating and sticking some things into the children's workbooks.
I discovered the children’s day ended by about 2:45 pm.
The other staff members started leaving, once it came to home time, leaving only a few staff members, myself included, left. The time was now past 3.15 pm which was when the school was finished, and nobody told me to go home.
It got to 3.30 pm, and by this time I was really flagging, and I said is it okay for me to go home, and was told yes. I quickly picked up my rucksack and grabbed my coat and got out of there as quickly as possible.
Note: On both days I was in the school I arrived at 8.30 am, a quarter of an hour before the day started. And on Friday left at 3.30 pm which was a quarter of an hour after the school day finished.
When I got home I was exhausted emotionally and physically, and burst into tears, explaining everything to my dad. Over the weekend I started to feel unwell, and by Monday I had a full blown cold, cough and started vomiting.
On Monday I was told to pass on my concerns and see if the school could accommodate them.
This was crazy because I knew that being an “assistant teacher” on supply, it was the other way around. And that the whole idea of the job was to be moved to where you're needed, whether it be from classroom to classroom or school to school.
I knew I wasn’t cut out for this kind of work because of the isolation, loneliness and disorientation I had felt over the two days I’d worked.
As the next week progressed, so did my cold and it started to feel more like the flu. By Wednesday 14th January, I made it clear to my job coach at the job centre that my physical and mental health had been greatly affected and that I wasn’t suitable for this kind of work.
He told me that I had been put into Decision Maker and could have my Universal Credit sanctioned.
By Friday I woke up with no voice, no energy, coughing and vomiting, and my mental health at rock bottom, thinking what have I done wrong?
It has been just over two weeks, and I’m still exhausted, coughing, have no voice, and anxious about whether my Universal Credit will be sanctioned.
I would love to hear anybody else’s stories that are similar to mine, and the whole crazy system we have in the UK for getting people back into work no matter what the cost is.
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