Holiday jobs for teachers
While school holidays is packed with family, sun, relaxing and recuperating before the new school year starts, for relief teachers this usually means a time for tightening purse strings and can be quite stressful as you have limited to no income over these 6 long weeks.
We’ve surveyed a large list of relief teachers in the same boat to see what their top tips and tricks are on staying afloat over the school break and have outlined the top holiday jobs for teachers into a handy list below!
1. Create and sell resources
Chances are, you have downloaded resources from other teachers at some point and you may have even paid for it. You can benefit from this too! You have nothing to lose by taking your fantastic resources that you’ve created and selling them online on websites like The Alphabet Tree (Aussie site with resources aligned to the Australian curriculum) or Teachers Pay Teachers (an American site that has Aussie sellers selling) and even teacher Facebook groups.
Resource seller tips and tricks
- Free easy-peasy, drag and drop graphic design sites like Canva can really help put some flare into your lesson plans.
- Want to do a quick course on becoming a great resource seller? Check out this site.
2. Become a tutor
Many students use the end of year holidays to take some extra lessons or to try to get ahead in their learning. There are multiple ways you can get involved with tutoring, either in person or online. There are multiple online tutoring companies that connect you with students.
For tutoring in person, put an ad in your local newspaper or put up a post on social media. I bet you will be surprised at the interest this generates – someone is bound to know someone else who is looking for a tutor for their child. Tutoring is not only helpful to the students, but is helpful for you too as a teacher. It helps to keep your head in the game so to speak, and can lead on to tutoring work once school goes back as well.
3. Sell your things
The school holidays provide a great opportunity to have a tidy up around the house, getting rid of things you no longer need. Rather than throwing them away, find them a new home and make some money at the same time. Gather up your unwanted things and head off to your local car boot sale, hold your own yard sale or take some pictures of the items and put them on online. Sites like Gumtree and eBay have great success and there are endless Facebook pages and marketplaces to buy, sell and exchange, specific to your local area.
4. Rent out your house on Airbnb
Planning on going away this summer? Rather than leave your house empty, rent it out on Airbnb! Alternatively, if you are staying close to home and have a spare room or two, there is the option to rent out private rooms too. Airbnb is a highly successful and trusted company where insurances cover you should anything go wrong – it’s a fantastic way to make some extra money to put towards your own holiday.
5. Get creative
The school holidays are a perfect time to get out your arts and crafts. Candles, wall hangings, and artwork sell amazingly well on sites like Etsy, Gumtree, Pinterest or even Facebook pages. Take advantage of all those other teachers surfing the internet in their spare time too and make some teacher or classroom specific items.
Doing this with a friend can be lots of fun and two minds are better than one when it comes to creativity. You could even head down to your local farmers market and set up a stall there too.
6. Nanny or Summer Holiday Programmes
Summer holidays can leave working parents scrambling to find people to look after their children, or holiday programmes to keep them occupied. For nannying, sign up with a nannying company online or put the word out that you’re available with friends and family. Summer camps and holiday programmes are often looking for experienced teachers who are already qualified and have the required background checks. Look for local programmes in your area and get in touch with them.
Many child care centres see a spike in the number of kids during the summer and sometimes hire extra help over this time too. Teachers are a perfect fit and already know how to effectively handle group learning situations.
7. House and pet sitting / dog walking
Many families head away over the summer holidays, leaving both their precious houses and much-loved pets behind. There are many websites for each but put the word out locally too! House sitting can be a nice break away from your own home and pet sitting is an easy way for animal lovers to make a few extra bucks doing something they love.
A great house-sitting website you can sign up on is Happy House Sitters or you could advertise on Gumtree to avoid having to pay anything to a house-sitting agent.
If you’re interested in just the pet-sitting aspect, then dog sitting site MadPaws is a great way to connect with local dog owners who are going away over the holidays.
And then there’s straight up dog walking, which is becoming quite an industry with many busy pet owners paying companies daily to collect their dogs to go for an hour of exercise and socialising.
A great site to connect with owners is Paw Shake. Sign up as a dog walker, create your profile and wait for the requests to come in.
8. Become a driver
Companies like Uber are ideal companies to work for. You can earn money on your own schedule while driving and meet interesting people along the way! Talk to your next Uber driver about how to get involved and do some research to check the need for drivers in your area.
There’s also SheBah which is a ride sharing platform like Uber, but for women passengers and drivers only.
9. Odd jobs
Summer is a great time to be outdoors. If you like getting your hands dirty whilst getting some exercise at the same time, put an ad up online for handyman or handywoman work. People are always screaming out for someone else to mow their lawns, weed gardens, clean their windows or house and more. Perhaps your elderly neighbour may need a hand too. Be sure to carefully screen people before accepting a job at their place.
You can sign up for an account at Airtasker and even the new housekeeper app Jarvis to find local jobs in your area – there are countless opportunities on these apps.
10. Special events and concerts
Summers always see a huge increase in the number of special events, shows and concerts around the local areas. Being casually employed is a great way to not only make some extra money, but have fun and see something you may not have seen before whilst doing so.
There’s an app for basically everything these days and there’s one for this too. Set up a profile on the site Partistaff and start applying for event jobs.
