Should the DfE be offering £26k bursaries to train as a Classics teacher?

noblegiraffe and LadyLance - agreed, it's far from ideal. But just putting it out there that there are School Direct, University-affiliated PGCE trainees who do give the schools they are in "a year of teaching" (for better or worse). IMO it's also unethical to be training a Classics trainee if they are the only Classics teacher in the school. (But it did work out in the best interest of Classics and the school in the example I gave.)

RhymingCrickets I might be wrong, but I think that's arguably not meeting the requirements of what a school should do for a School Direct Trainee. In my opinion, that's exploiting trainees, especially if it was not a salaried School Direct program.

Regardless of the bursary situation, I don't think that's ideal at all.

You don't 'get a year of teaching' out of PGCE students

Often, you do. Many PGCE students on School Direct courses teach the same number of hours as an NQT. Some have taught unqualified for years, too, or have moved from teaching (qualified) in a different country.

Not that this is necessarily a good thing, but I know of one school that hung on to Classics by its fingernails by employing bursaried trainees to teach (along with other subjects to fill their timetable) the few Latin lessons it could offer. At the time it could not afford or provide work for a full-time employed Latin teacher. But after two years in a row of A-A* GCSE grades in non-selective classes, it's now got funding to do A level and can keep employ a Latin teacher properly. (Shame it was so results-driven.)

How does the government get a year of teaching out of them?

I sort of accept the private sector saves the government money (although I'm not convinced all private schools deserve charitable status). However, I do think allowing the private sector to exist means that lots of committed and intelligent parents lack an interest in the state sector.

At the very least they get a year of teaching out of them, often with subjects other than classics.

The private sector saves the Gov £s per pupil every year.

Yes, I agree, based on the government figures from @noblegiraffe. Have enough funding to train sufficient numbers for the state sector (allowing for dropouts/career changes etc). Those in the private sector can train through the Buckingham route anyway.

It does really look like they are funding teachers training for the private sector =/

They're actually spending just under 1.8million if there's 69 trainees, which could perhaps be better targeted elsewhere.

RhymingCrickets Sorry I wasn't clear on that. I meant that because teachers are not high earners the student loan will never be fully repaid and will be wiped after 30 years. (There are a few circumstances where teachers get their student loans paid, such as teaching MFL in a coastal school ).The student loans since 2012 are higher but repayments are lower than the old ones. My DC will both end up with £55k+ in student loans.

Hax Gosh, I did not know that about not needing to pay back the loan if staying in teaching. (Wish I had done as back when I trained I paid my fees out of my bursary, and money was v tight with rent, childcare etc!)

Clavinova that's such good news about the north.

Classics For All is also big on helping nonspecialists be able to teach Latin (because whether or not trainees are staying in state schools after training, there is a shortage of specialist Classics teachers - I truly don't think it's unreasonable for the govt to continue offering this bursary). That is a help but I wonder what will happen with the new GCSE requiring all students to do literature. Tall order for a nonspecialist.

RhymingCrickets Don't forget the bursary is not taxable and they can also get student loan for the £9000 fees plus living expenses, which, if they stay in teaching they'll never repay.
I doubt they would get paid the taxable equivalent of say, £39K in the private sector as starting pay as an unqualified teacher.
My DC is training in the North East. All his fellow secondary trainees have got bursaries and all have got jobs lined up for next year. All that is apart from those who dropped out early on in the training. They were mainly older career changers and mainly primary school trainees.

Clavinova I think those scholarships are government funded but administered by the RGS, just as the Maths scholarships are gov funded but awarded by the IMA. Interestingly the current trainees are the last to receive the amount all in one year. Future recipients will have some held back for up to five years.

I see that the Royal Geographical Society are offering scholarships for new Geography teachers;

The Society is delighted to be working with the Department for Education to run the RGS-IBG Geography Teacher Training Scholarship programme for trainee geography teachers

These prestigious scholarships will provide outstanding trainees with significant financial and professional support. Our 2018-19 scholarship includes £28,000 tax-free funding and a wider range of additional benefits including: training events, access to materials and resources, Fellowship of the Society and membership of the Geographical Association, networking opportunities and other support to complement teacher training

Obviously Music and the Arts are well supported outside of mainstream state education at specialist centres.

If you actually explore the Latin for All website, you'll see that there is drive to introduce Latin/Classics to the North and Midlands as well:

classicsforall.org.uk/our-grants/case-studies/

Bradford, Blackpool, Leicester, Coventry etc.

Sidney Stringer Academy in Coventry was awarded a grant worth £6,370 by Classics for All to introduce A-level Latin for seven students and to make Latin GCSE a permanent option in the curriculum. The grant will also go towards introducing Latin literacy for 30 pupils in Year 8; beginners’ ancient Greek to 15 current Year 8 pupils; and a Latin course for 210 students in Key Stage 3. The Sidney Stringer Academy is part of the West Midlands (Coventry) classics hub

The school in Croydon, South London has '44/112 pupils taking Latin in Year 9' after a 25 year gap.

To pick up on where these jobs are, only yesterday the news was full of concerns about the North and educational standards. And , yet, £26000 bursaries are being offered for teachers predominantly training in London and the SE. I think all of us agree this is likely to attract a certain calibre or type of graduate - so these potentially highly intelligent (not the same as a brilliant teacher but at least the education is sound) graduates are going to be largely taking up positions in schools in the area which isn't meant to be a government focus!

crickets, I know our school is worried about the consequences of curriculum reform at GCSE. Another reason why they were willing to introduce classics at my school was the appeal of the level 2 qualification. It's such a shame but I really don't think classics, only recently introduced in many state schools, will survive.

Each training provider keep their own statistics of where their trainees end up : I would imagine it is pretty hard to find detailed overall statistics , but certainly any training programme is seen as 'requiring improvement' if the lion's share of its leavers don't pass through to first posts in state schools, which was why some universities got rid of their classics PGCEs.

So given the absolute lack of any requirement to stay in the state sector, why does anyone think that these trainees won't be looking at the relatively abundant private offering?

I just wonder why, if open to teaching in private schools, they would opt for the bursary training in the first place when they would almost always be better off financially going straight into a private school, either remaining an unqualified teacher or with a view to doing the Buckingham PGCE, sponsored by their school on top of their salary.

But I don't know this. Does anyone know if/where we can find statistics about PGCE leavers' next jobs?

Thanks Nobel, am giving your opinion a lot of thought, and have nothing further to add to any comments I have already made.

I accept that most are private as their salaries are undisclosed. But if 30 private schools want them I just think its fair to give state schools the chance to offer it.

Thanks for those stats, @noblegiraffe.

One thing is that the "GCSE" exam most state schools have used, WJEC Level 2, has carried the same number of performance points as a GCSE but is not officially a GCSE and does not count for some stats (which may or may not be the case with your link).
Also, there's a push for introducing Classics at KS2/3 so we won't have seen that reflected in GCSE stats.

(I think numbers for GCSE may well go down now though because now that there have been curriculum reforms. From this year the above-mentioned exam will no longer count, and I doubt many state schools will feel confident about getting through the material in the new GCSE in the teaching hours they have. That's another issue.)

Certainly I wouldn't use terms such as "surge" to describe it; just that I do not think demand is outstripped by supply at the moment, and the places are being advertised because they can be filled.

Yes it says a few are Independent but no way to know for the rest and I am not googling them all individually.