DC’s teacher didn’t go to university.

You need the subject knowledge. The end.
The reason we have lots of teachers without this is because teachers are leaving in droves.
I have a masters in my subject and have had to take over the planning for another year group as the original teacher did not know what she was doing.
You have to know your subject so you can answer questions-especially from higher year groups. Kids quickly work out if you don't know what you are talking about.
Partly the reason that good teachers are leaving is the lack of respect that we see demonstrated here; the idea that anyone could do it and you need no special skills.
You see this in no other profession.

Quite a few of the teachers at my school didn't have teaching degrees, but they did have PhD's in the subjects they were teaching. Some of the sports dept also played their sport professionally.

They were all good teachers, passionate about their subjects and great at passing that passion on to their pupils.

no it really isn't the norm. Very few now will actively recruit someone without QTS and if they do they put them on a training route straightaway. I entered the private sector 20 years ago and was chosen over three men with the "right pedigree", tweed jackets and Oxbridge degrees. In modern private schools which is a competitive industry with very tight margins, we simply cannot afford to have substandard unqualified teachers. A lack of degree is actually less of a problem - as others have said, there are many other routes to subject knowledge and to maintain that it is the only way to have "top tier education" as @3CustardCreams maintains is just wrong.

Well known an out private schools.

When I started my career in higher education some though certainly a small number of the lecturers did not have PhD’s and many had not taken any kind of formal teaching qualifications. Policy changes meant a cert of teaching in higher Ed had to be taken or something like that, some who had been around and teaching for years got it by default. My friend took early retirement from a RG University two years ago and he had no PhD. Doubt very much that would happen now.

Yes, I’d be very concerned about that because it means that the teacher is teaching the kids the formula for passing the exams rather than how to think, formulate and test their own ideas.

The kids will do well in the A’ levels sure, but come very unstuck on a degree course if they haven’t learnt how to think for themselves.

Ok, but it is the norm in Private schools and no, it’s not a good thing that they’ll choose someone with the right ‘pedigree’ over someone with a teaching qualification.

We have standards for a reason.

An excellent teacher is an excellent teacher. Sounds like she has essentially been trained ‘on the job’. If the teacher wasn’t capable I would understand your concern.
Please don’t confuse having a degree with being clever. Lots and lots of educated fools around. It has never been easier to get a degree ( as long as you can borrow the money to pay for it).

Looking back at my own and others' experiences in becoming teachers I think that the old teacher training colleges were a good route into the profession.

Many lecturers, if not most, had been teachers. They knew what they were talking about. There was also pay progression - unlike today.

The tutors may not have been at the academic pinnacle of their subjects - but it's more important learning HOW to teach children to count unto 10 in French than to be able to count unto 100 yourself?

Current routes in often seem to lack varied experiences in different school. You learn in one, perhaps two - and may be good in that one/type but not experienced in other situations.

I suspect the poor retention rates may have something to do with this?

Literally millions of childen across the Uk are being taught by TAs. So what? They are "teachers" too - as in - they teach! and you learn more about teaching by doing it than by studying it, so they have effectively had the same training as a teacher.

The only difference is that it sounds like "Mrs Jones" is being paid appropriately for her work, which many TAs are not.

I am no fan of private education, but don't see a problem here, at all. There are not enough teachers. Very few schools in the country are not carrying vacancies. This school has filled a teacher vacancy with a very suitable candidate who may well be doing far better than a low grade teaching graduate, so what is the issue?

Is Mrs Jones a good teacher? Is your child making good progress? Is your child enthusiastic about going to school?

If the answer to these questions is yes, I wouldn't raise it with the school.

I have two degrees (including one in a core school subject) and literally none of the content is relevant to primary school children. In fact, one of my degrees is directly relevant to the profession that I now practice, and even then, almost none of what I studied at university is relevant to what I do now. I've learned almost everything on the job.

I don't know what pathway someone like Mrs Jones would have taken to end up teaching children without a degree, but I would imagine that almost everything you actually need to know to teach primary you learn on the job, not at university.

Up until you found out she didn’t have a degree, what was your opinion of her?

I don't really see what you can do about this. The school clearly isn't unable to recruit qualified teachers so they have gone for what seems to be an acceptable alternative. This is the way teaching is going unfortunately, most graduates with other options are unlikely to choose teaching so schools are having to become more flexible with who they employ.

Why didn't you research the school properly before choosing it? Our school provides resumes for all teaching & exec staff.

More to the point, is she a good teacher? What are the results like? Do the dcs engage with her and enjoy the topic?

Seems like you've no idea how to get a teaching Job. A teaching degree is only one way.
There's other possibilities too like teacher training through the school like Mrs Jones has done.

I don't see the issue. If she's a good teacher it doesn't matter how she got there.

Subject knowledge is important, as you suggest. Having a degree is not a proxy for subject knowledge.

That’s not good enough when you are paying ££ premium for top tier education. I don’t want to take a chance on the hope that this woman has read around proficiently enough in her free time. Sure anyone can do that, but in this context a parent should be guaranteed this teacher knows the basics of what they’re talking about. With a structured degree you are also introduced to viewpoints that you might not have considered/angles you haven’t thought of. Just being liked and able to control a class is irrelevant as an English teacher if you don’t know your subject.

you know that private schools often employ untrained teachers

Do we know that? It's not my experience. I have taught extensively in both state and private. I am not aware of anyone in private without QTS. Honestly, I don't think our parents would accept it. A teaching qualification should be the minimum you expect when you're paying. My HOD wouldn't consider anyone without QTS - and as a shortage area subject, we struggle to recruit.

Yes, I hear this too. There are parents who have paid for their children to have these advantages and yet still have to pay extra for tutors. (I had a colleague who supplemented his state school income by tutoring private school girls for their Higher English exam.)

I've not heard what happened to the teacher featured in TES, but I imagine that they're no longer at any school private or otherwise, since they were actually struck off the register: it wasn't simply the case that they failed. I've never heard of anyone being able to return to the register unless there was a mutual agreement to a temporary suspension.

To this day, I can't figure out how they managed to obtain a reference for a job at the private school: they certainly didn't get one from their previous employer. I suppose they must have persuaded someone with the right connections to give them a character reference. I wouldn't have wanted them anywhere near a child of mine.

It is perfectly acceptable to question the capabilities of a teacher who, on the face of it, does not appear qualified.

I was taught by a teacher who wasn’t qualified in that specific subject. She asked me to stop asking questions in class. I went on to study the subject at university - she had misunderstood a number of the core concepts.

I wish my parents had raised it with the school. Teachers aren’t Gods - it’s okay to question them.

You don't know that this teacher doesn't know that. Can people only read and learn at a uni? Most arts degrees, including mine, have minimal contact hours and certainly don't cover all authors that a teacher might ever need to know. The syllabi books get updated and changed all the time.

If you read any of the many many threads about private schools you will know that there are just as many reasons for sending your child to one as there are threads! (And just as many total misconceptions about what those schools are like, can offer and do). Getting to Oxbridge is actually not high on most people's list. The OPs teacher sounds amazing. The lessons are good, the kids like her and are learning and she gets good results. Would you honestly prefer a PhD who knows every aspect of classic literature but has no idea how to relate that to teens? Or to shut down twatty boy in the corner who is trying to derail the lesson?

Yes, definitely raise it.
Then they will know you're that parent

I never said there was anything wrong with Hilary Mantel. She’s great. But it would be a problem if that was the only thing the teacher had read. Chaucer was an example. You can substitute that with any other author of your choosing. I would not be happy sending my child to a £19k+ a year private school and their English teacher wasn’t aware of the merits and criticisms of Dickens, Hardy, Austen,Brontë sisters etc. What on earth are you paying for?

Well leaving aside the fact that all the post-grad historians I know rate Mantel as a writer who's done her research, you are just making random casual statements now that have nothing to do with the OP. Sadly Chaucer gets taught to no-one now at secondary level and any Oxbridge English candidate would be expected to have done extensive independent reading of their own. Also, it's pretty rare, if not unheard of, for a student to go through 7 years of secondary school with the same teacher for one subject. You're reaching now and making straw man arguments.

That wasn't unusual in those days, but the teacher training and certificate ensured that the person was qualified. There are still some people teaching in Scotland who qualified via previous experience or college diplomas, but they still had a teaching qualification obtained at one of the teaching colleges.

There were some non-certificated teachers still around in the 70s and very early 80s, for practical subjects but that was phased out. (No teacher training at all.) I had a relative who spent one year as a peripatetic teacher of PE in primary, round in the late 1960s.