Can some of you please give me some info on peri teaching i.e. are you bound by set times or days, is it good pay, is it rewarding, do you get enough work? Anthing else I haven't thought about, particularly advantages and disadvantages.
Thanks.

It varies form county to county. Some are hourly paid (typically £17-20 round here), but of course that only covers the hours you teach. I visit 16 schools a week, 6 of these for between 30mins to 45 mins, several at 1 hour. The driving time between schools, the signing in/out and setting up add up to about 12 hours or more, not
explicitly paid. I actually teach (get paid) for about 20 hours, but its a full time job in that I am out from 8am-4pm 5 days a week, + saturday morning, during term time. There is no job security - If a parent decides to stop their lesson, you don't get paid, and recruiting a replacement pupil isn't easy or quick. I think most music services give contracts - - mine says I am expected to work for eg 15 hours, only 10 of this is guarranteed and pensionable, the rest is 'additional hours' ie like overtime, doesn't count towards pension or holiday etc.
So in answer to you question, there are lots of disadvantages.

ON the other hand, I like the 'flexibility' - I am required to provide 10 lessons per term, and within reason I can take days off and reschdule my teaching if I need to. It cannot be done in 10 weeks of course, I always have to work every week of term, but get paid for the 10, because each of my 16 schools has it's own programme of INSET days, school trips, school plays which means none of the 10 weeks is the same, and in any one week somewhere will not want me. The 'free time' is mine, but often its inconvenient as I am 25 miles from home, and can't use it well. Is it rewarding - well generally yes, although it has it's moments! Financially you are a full timer on part time pay, but to an an extent you are your own boss, you are in control of each lesson, and can choose your own materials and teaching style. It can be lonely - I often don't talk to colleagues from one end of term to the other, so you have to able to cope with that!

This sounds pretty tough to me. I also work as a peri, doing about 35 hours in 5 schools & 3 music centres (mid-afternoon/evenings & Saturday mornings). The least amount of time I spend in one place is 2 hours 20 mins, but it's often 4 to 5 hours. I'm hourly paid, but the rate is a bit better than the one you quote (but would be lower for someone just starting out). Our pay has recently become pensionable & we work officially 11 weeks per term, although I find I usually have to do more than that to fit the lessons in - I'm not actually obliged to make up lessons if there's a school trip or INSET day, but it's advisable to keep the goodwill.

There never seems to be a shortage of pupils & I've always got plenty of work, often a waiting list. Parents are required to give half a term's notice if they want to give up & I don't find many do give up, it's mostly a case of children leaving the school & there are usually new ones coming along.

I enjoy the work very much, although it is very tiring. I have to work very long hours to make a living - there's quite a lot of extra time that isn't paid, such as driving, planning, setting up, reports, concerts, exam entries etc. We are free to use our own methods, but are monitored by managers & are expected to attend INSET every term. I think availability of work varies a lot from area to area & also depends on how popular your instrument is. I think I'm lucky being in an area where music is valued & that I teach a popular instrument. I do see a reasonable amount of my colleagues, which is nice & I tend to make friends with the school secretaries who arrange everything.

sorry - I was a bit negative there, but I do teach mainly a minority instrument (cello), so my work is very fragmented. When I am not irritated by the hours of travel and the disproportionate admin to teaching time, I do mostly enjoy my job. It is very varied, and most of my pupils are lovely. Recruitment is often easier when you teach a more popular instrument - I can replace my piano pupils fairly easily, but cello is not cool, and tends to drop off sharply at Secondary, because of the logistics of school buses.

I do get the short straw - working in 16 places. It can make things like concerts a bit demanding - I usually get asked to help with at least 2 or 3 at Christmas, and again in the summer. These things are 'unpaid' but I don't think the schools and parents always understand that a 3 hour concert in a school (25 miles away) where I normally only visit for 30mins per week is quite a big demand. I am a parent too and have to attend my own children's concerts/productions. I couldn't do this if all 16 schools asked!

As for being tiring .... It is so much easier on the day when I only have 2 schools (3hours + 2 hours) than when I have 4 or 5 x 30 mins, with the attendant lugging of bags and kit through carparks and corridors!

In terms of support - 90% of school secretaries/receptionists are wonderful - and they are my only adult point of contact most weeks. My area is mainly rural (hence the long drives) and mostly 'affluent' although I do have some tougher schools.

One of the hardest things about being a peri is that you rarely meet the parents (except at the school concerts or exams!) and are discouraged from giving out phone numbers etc. So dealing with books, practice, exams etc is much harder than in private tuition, as is getting your ethos across. Also, the parent may be charged £30 per hour, via the music service, and may assume that you are being paid that much! Some parents find even £25 per term (for subsidised group lessons) is too much, and resent being asked to provide a book or pay for an exam as well. There is an educational mission here (many parents had free lessons at school - those were the days!) and peris are often at the blunt end of this, which gets a bit wearing!

I didn't think you were negative, just making the best of a very tough situation. I would find 16 schools extremely difficult. It's certainly much more difficult for minority instruments, but so sad that cello should be a minority - where would we be without cellists? I don't think any peris are paid what they're worth, compared to class teachers, but it's much worse when you have to go to so many places for such ridiculously short times.

I find most peris are very dedicated & hard-working - people just don't realise how hard we work. Although you can make a living, it's not much for the level of training & qualifications & I think most peris (like most musicians) work more for love than for money. I enjoy the work, but if I could afford to buy a suitable house, I'd rather work at home.

Thanks for all your feedback. I had thought it might be a slightly easier option than private teaching, as I often struggle to find pupils, but I guess not. With a 3 year old, working those kind of hours are fairly out of the question anyway. I had a pupil came to me from a peri at school, and she stopped with them as they kept falling asleep in lessons. At the time I thought this was terrible, but I'm beginning to see why it ws happening now!

When my children were very young I worked privately. Then I was asked to do some lessons at a local prep school 5 mins away by car. I now do 3 lunch times there which has the disadvantage of breaking up the day, but it is very close to home. There are one or two other schools in the area where I would like to teach given the opportunity, but I feel it's only worth it if it's really close to home (borne out possibly by the experiences of other posters). At the school where I teach, we are employed as visiting teachers so do not have to worry about parents paying for lessons since they pay the school, but we have no pension provision, and are sort of integrated into school - we do have the opportunity to talk to the other instrumental teachers, the head of music and office staff which is very pleasant.

I prefer doing this to teaching adults privately during the day since I found that the adults I had either arrived extremely early, or were very chatty people and therefore the lessons went on a bit.

When my children have grown up and gone, I shall have to think seriously about whether I want to be tied to term times. We have to provide 30 lessons per academic year and while we start off ok in the autumn and spring terms, it can get a bit tight in the summer with outings, sports days etc etc. That said it is possible to have a little bit of flexibility within the year.

I would find 16 schools extremely difficult
Yes - so would I.

I have just been offered a morning a week at a (fairly) local school on a peri-type basis - mainly because the local music service have not so far been able to offer them a teacher (although they have peris from the service for other instruments).

I have been totally freelance for the past few years so will find it interesting to work in a school environment again. The school is allowing me to bill them direct which sounds ok - will see how it goes. The extra work is quite welcome and came out of the blue. Have to get used to squeezing a lesson into 20 minutes !

I am toying with the idea of applying to a local music service as a peri but I'm not sure if it would work out. I am doing quite nicely at home with a decent number of pupils so I don't want to 'rock the boat' by taking on too much, and end up too tired to teach (or still on the road home!) at 4.00 in the afternoon. More money, holiday pay and teacher pensions are great but I've learnt peace of mind is just as important if not more so (if circumstances allow a free choice in the matter!). I would probably prefer maggiemay's opportunity to work in a local school for one or two days a week. I had a similar position for five years and I was very happy there.

The other thing that puts me off applying is having to ask people for references all the time. The on-line form asks for three! It's fine if you have a recent previous employer/s but it is very difficult if you are self-employed to locate suitable people. I have approached professional parents, other piano teachers, OU tutors and course mentors in the past (for the PGCE etc) but it all gets a bit wearing after a time!

In our music service we only work as many hours as we want & we arrange our own timetables with the schools (& don't have to take on any schools we don't want to). So you wouldn't have to travel anywhere you didn't want to, or at an inconvenient time for you. It might be worth at least discussing with your local music service, even if it meant waiting a while for a suitable vacancy. Or you could approach the private schools, who might be happy to have you for a day or two. We don't get holiday pay, by the way, although they claim it's included in our hourly rate.

That's useful info Bev - thanks I am almost on the border of two county music services where I live so plenty of opportunities to choose from. I guess there are pros and cons for each - peri music or private schools. A compromise might be to offer my teaching directly to a state primary or secondary nearby. All the other main schools around here are at least 30-40 mins drive away, which might make timetabling difficult, even if the schools are flexible. However, I need to sit down, write up some letters, sort out my CV and get something done about it if I am going to expand my teaching one way or another!

That's what I did when I moved into this area. Within a few days, I had 4 days of after-school teaching lined up - 2 days each at two local primary schools, both within walking distance of my home. The Heads of both schools jumped at the chance of being able to offer an after-school activity that didn't involve any work for them!