Academies to be able to hire non-union, non-PGCE teachers

[longfingernails]

The legions of unionised mediocrities who labour under the mistaken assumption that they are adequate teachers simply because they wield useless PGCEs and have the (ludicrous) "qualified teacher status" will be further sidelined. Yet another feather in Gove's cap!

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9433002/Academies-given-power-to-hire-unqualified-teachers.html

The way he is ripping up decades of left-wing nonsense in education is a joy to behold.

[Feenie]

God yes. Can't wait until they get rid of doctors' certificates too, silly unnecessary bits of paper that they are. Who needs qualifications to practise medicine, fgs? Pah.

[Cloudminnow]

I don't want my children taught by unqualified teachers. Why are PGCEs 'left-wing nonsense'? It would seem that Gove is the one spreading 'nonsense' (right-wing or otherwise).

[Denise34]

PGCEs are more about paperwork than actually proving you can teach. I think this is a good move by Gove. The teachers unions need to be brought down a peg or two.

[Cloudminnow]

How would bringing the unions down a peg or two improve the standard of teaching? If a teacher is good it doesn't matter if they belong to a union or not.

If PGCEs are meaningless paperwork, how would schools decide if someone had the potential to be a good teacher or not? Why would the experts in their field want to be teachers anyway, and if they did, why would they be reluctant to do PGCEs? (they would surely put the 'meaningfulness' back into the qualification).

[Feenie]

PGCEs are more about paperwork than actually proving you can teach.

Bollocks it's 10 months of non-stop teaching - which admittedly is a lot of paperwork also, but that's because day to day teaching involves lots of ridiculous paperwork.

Do you think 'hang on - do I actually know what I am talking about here, or am I going to say something idiotic in my ignorance again?' to yourself before yo u post about teaching, Denise? Because reading the last few staggeringly ignorant DM fuelled comments in the last few days, I am guessing not.

Once again, it is QTS that qualifies you to teach - NOT a PGCE. A PGCE is the route some teachers choose to qualify. But there are many others.

[c4rnsi1lk]

denise do you have a PGCE?

Gove has done this because he wants to bring about change to teacher's terms and conditions along with messing up their pensions.

[rosabud]

How can teachers be "born not made"? Perhaps a certain type of personality is pre-disposed to be a good teacher/ doctor/ police officer/ architect/ nurse/ circus acrobat but they couldn't possibly do it without being shown how. Teaching is not about standing in front of a class of kids and telling them all the facts you know about Maths/ French/ History etc, it's about planning and structuring the methods to convey the knowledge you possess to all the hundreds or thousands of different individual children you will come across in your career. You need to be shown how to do that!! You can't just be born understanding it, that's hilarious!

[Feenie]

I might ditch teaching - I reckon I was born to be a train driver. I'd be fantastic, I reckon.

[YoulllWinGoldOneDay]

Any school can hire an non-unionised (as opposed to unqualified) teacher can't they? I thought that the closed shop was illegal? That said, most teachers will join a union for their own protection. God help the unqualified teacher with no union who faces a false allegation of abuse or something.

[YvyB]

I have a PGCE (and yes, it was a whole academic year of teaching children PLUS doing all the paperwork that goes along side AND reading up on the educational theories and psychologies to give us an understanding of how the brain receives, processes and stores information BEFORE writing essays that were assessed in order to ensure our own understanding of how children learn was sufficient to allow us to take responsibility for educating children). I have been teaching for 17 years (full time, core subject, state secondary school) and have supervised many PGCE students during that time. I am astounded that ANYBODY, let alone the minister responsible for rasing standards of education for our children, could think that doing away with this qualification (or equivalent routes to QTS) will improve what is happening in our classrooms.

Whilst some of my PGCE students have undoubtedly had a natural aptitude for teaching, NONE of them have automatically known how to assess and level students' work, NONE of them have had the automatic ability to monitor and help 30 students simultaneously and NONE of them would have been able to navigate their way through the absurdly complex paperwork that goes along with the job without considerable training and guidance.

Surely we (and I'm writing as a parent now) should be insisting on GREATER rigour and training - and possibly an increased rewards package to ensure the very best graduates are attracted to teaching - to ensure our children get the most skilled practicioners possible? It shouldn't be up to teaching unions to argue this point; it's about time every parent in the country stood up and said that our children deserve better.

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

Feels completely sick that someone has just viewed the last 9m of my life. The most gruelling, the most stressful 9m of my life as meaningless paperwork.

Yes there was a lot of paperwork. 80% was necessary to do the job of teaching and would be done as a teacher. The other 20% developed my understanding of a teachers roles. 100% had value IMHO.

[knitknack]

Hear hear Ivy!

[c4rnsi1lk]

Totally agree with yvy.

[longfingernails]

Feenie The idea that "educational theory" is necessary to teach is preposterous. That the left even consider it on a par with the highly technical training necessary to become a doctor shows up the fallacy of their thinking immediately.

What Britain desperatly needs is more people with real life experience - and fewer Guardian readers - becoming teachers. For example - our military, businesspeople, retired engineers, classical musicians, ...

I certainly agree that the best graduates should be wooed towards teaching YvyB - but the point about truly superb, highly motivated people is that they cannot stand mediocrity, and thrive with competition. Individual contribution is to be celebrated. The domination of undistinguished and humdrum second-raters in education can be directly attributed to unionised/left-wing attitudes within the teaching profession, where it is next to impossible to sack bad teachers, and next to impossible to fast-track superstars.

The domination of the left in education is being furiously disputed in every possible way, for the first time that I can remember - and it is truly exciting to have someone putting pupils first.

[longfingernails]

And remember - this is combined with Sir Michael Wilshaw at the helm of Ofsted, the fightback against the endless dumbing down of exams with everyone and their dog drowning in A*s, the free schools revolution, the recognition (at least from Gove, if not Lib Dem lentil munching do-gooders) of the utter inadequacy of GCSEs, universities setting A-level syllabuses, the blow after blow hammered down on the militant NASUWT and the NUT, and so much more!

Cameron has been a dismal and disappointing Prime Minister in so many ways - Britain desperately needs a Thatcher rather than a Heath! But the Gove education reforms, together with Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms, are genuine achievements of this government - though neither go nearly far enough (for example, the benefits cap is set at an absurdly high £26k per household!).

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

Hmm...and how do you think people with real life experience become teachers?...oh yes we do a PGCE...

[Leithlurker]

My you sound a very strident individual Long, I should not think it takes people long to figure out where your coming from.

So since Black and white is your preferred colour scheme can you tell me how some random person who knows a lot about geography and fancies a spot of teaching will be able deal with pupils with SEN?

I also wonder how those people will feel when all their peers are trotting off for their in-service days to underpin their knowledge and their practice? No point them going is their it will mean nothing to them.

Last I presume you agree with the idea that those without PGcE or recognised teaching qualifications will be paid less, receive worse conditions of employment, will be easier to hire on temporary contracts. I am guessing here I know but you come across as someone who would have no problem with those things? So how would you continue to motivate those people when day in and day out they are being treated as second-rate workers? Do you think most of the enthusiastic but untrained will last more than a year being paid less for doing as much, or putting up with the same hours, stress, forced working out of school time?

John Browne and his school days eh?

[longfingernails]

The left can sneer all they want. No amount of sneering can overcome the simple fact that the ideas and ideals I support are being implemented, many in irreversible fashion - whilst the failed ideology they espouse is being cast onto the bonfire of history.

[Feenie]

Feenie The idea that "educational theory" is necessary to teach is preposterous. That the left even consider it on a par with the highly technical training necessary to become a doctor shows up the fallacy of their thinking immediately.

Please show me where I said educational theory was necessary. You are presuming, entirely erroneously, that just because I believe that a qualification is necessary to teach, then I must also believe that theory is also necessary.

I don't. I think that the best routes into teaching rely on practical based, professional courses, like GTP and, actually, PGCE.

To make a leap from that to thinking 'sod it. why do a qualification at all?' is insane. I would love for you, or anyone else who thinks teachers can teach with one click of their fingers, to teach in my class for a day - I can guarantee you wouldn't last a lesson. It takes training - practical based being the most useful - but training nonetheless.

And since 50% of teachers already leave within 5 years, given the current terms and conditions, how long do you see these military, businesspeople, retired engineers, classical musicians lasting - without proper training? And come to that, if it only takes 10 months - with a degree - to complete a PGCE (which is mainly teaching based, with bugger all theory, despite what the DM may have fed you) then why aren't all these people you mention applying in droves?

What's stopping them?

[Leithlurker]

Come, come, you must do better. You may have little problem with comprehension but your inability to logically argue your case, using where appropriate references to sources of information to demonstrate how you can lay out and conclude a well researched and logical argument lets you down.

Not good enough to assert things because you "think them", address the questions asked, do not just launch in to your own ideology. Using "I" is a sure fire way to announce to the examiner that you are not suitably prepared to deal with the subject. Take it back look at the questions again and have another bash?

[YvyB]

I agree that our exam system needs an overhaul but let's not forget that the privatisation of exam boards and the drive for 'competition' in league tables has directly influenced the grade inflation that has occurred over the past decade. Sadly, this may well have initiated a 'race to the bottom' in terms of genuine pupil progress.

However, I fail to see how making a professionally accredited qualification mandatory for teachers is worsening this situation. You cannot teach effectively if you have no understanding of how a developing brain works (it's another of the body's organs after all) and learning to deliver a complex curriculum to a wide range of abilities takes time and practice. The PGCE allows young teachers to gain this experience and knowledge whilst under the supervision of both experienced teachers and academics in this field. It also seeks to ensure that no pupils are disadvantaged by being taught by someone wth no experience.

In terms of 'truly superb, highly motivated people' needing 'competition' in order to 'thrive', I would suggest that perhaps teaching is not the career for this type of personality. There is no place for your own ego in the classroom and the achievement of every child is a team effort that starts at least twelve years before they receive their GCSE results.

Surely the best way of ensuring ALL our children are taught by teachers who not only have strong academic qualifications of their own but a true understanding of how children learn plus the professional qualities needed to manage a classroom (e.g. organisation, meticulous planning, clear understanding of assessing pupil progress plus a confident knowledge and experience of a variety of strategies in order to help even the most disenchanted students make progress) is to insist that every teacher has received and been assessed on a nationally managed and recognised programme of training?

(By the way, I am also a classically trained grade 8 flautist - I trust this qualifies me as a 'classical musician' as well as a highly qualified and experienced teacher?)

[EvilSynchronisedDivers]

Long - your ignorance is staggering.

Gove puts pupils first? Hahahahaha. Or do you mean a different Gove?

[poorfoxyloxy]

yeah, lets just scrap training for teachers, and bring back the workhouse too while they're at it!!!

[poorfoxyloxy]

insert sarcasm smiley with my last comment!!

[Olympicnmix]

Having unqualifieds means they haven't done their PGCE/GTP which is not full of left-wing theory but is in-school based training, following a degree, that shows them how to put together a lesson, how to assess, how to keep discipline of a class. It's a baptism of fire that weeds out the chaff. There is also the following Newly Qualified year which does exactly similar.

I don't know any rabid lefties in my school. Do you know why we belong to a union? It's insurance from litigious parents and weak heads who don't follow employment law.

There is a good reason for getting unqualifieds into school and it's tied to Gove's 'leaked' campaign to bring back the 'Gold standard' of O Levels. That's fine for the top 40%-70% (% vary according to what source you read) but what about the rest who'll be in a system funded and designed to fail them? Hence there needs to be heavy investment at school level in vocational training. You need people like mechanics, engineers, bricklayers etc to teach who won't have the necessary current qualifications to deliver these subjects.