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

Our bog-standard comprehensive has started to offer Latin one lunchtime a week. Unfortunately, the time they've chosen clashes with the chamber orchestra.

I may be wrong, but I suspect the pupils who would like to do Latin overlap quite a bit with the ones prepared to play classical French horn for 45 minutes at lunchtime.

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Classics always seems a bit of a hobby subject to me.

Lets not forget education should be about USEFUL, UTILITARIAN, CAREER subjects. God forbid out kids actually derived pleasure or enjoyed any of it.

Classics always seems a bit of a hobby subject to me. Like music or Art Philistine here Hugely clucked about by Grammar school parents of potential medics.

A hobby? Latin and Greek?

Just to clarify: a pp said her DH was earning 4 x as much as a new teacher. Crudely I calculated this as £100,000. This is where the figure came from. Not that lots of teachers are earning this. The Executive Head of DNs Academy is earning £150,000. I have no doubt she has a certain amount of stress but of course some deal with it better than others.

Noble: you have, on other threads, continually talked about deprived children that you teach and how their life opportunities are limited. I think you protest too much and you are very negative so tend to agree with pp above.

A new Maths teacher can get more than £23,000 and think of that huge bursary!! 60 hours a week for 38 weeks is 2280 a year. Not all of this is contact time and lots of people would settle for this when the career progression can be very quick. Many get DHead now in early 30s and be a Head before 40. He just has to see the bigger picture. There are more opportunities for salary progression in teaching than in nursing.

Classics always seems a bit of a hobby subject to me. Like music or Art Philistine here Hugely clucked about by Grammar school parents of potential medics.

I have a DC with a first in Maths doing Maths teacher training. He definitely fits into the category of enthusiast new recruit. He also accepts that his earning potential is far lower if he follows a career in teaching. The bursary/ scholarship has no strings attached if they choose not to stay in teaching and it's also not taxable. They can still get student loan for the £9K fees. That means that he is considerably better off in his training year than he will be as an NQT.

The workload is huge though. Easily 60+ hours a week. Average that over a year and it eats well into the long holidays. I accept that lots of careers require 60 hours a week. Working every evening and at weekends. Just not for a teachers pay of £23000.

Maths bursaries are being staged from next year, presumably because so many have failed to stay in teaching. I suspect that training recruitment of Maths trainees will be lower as a result.

It costs the NHS £230,000 to train a doctor. It's been suggested they should repay that if they leave the NHS within 5 years.

I'm working through Minimus Mouse with my dd (when either of us can be arsed). Knowledge of Latin helped me with MFL and history.

Weald of Kent Grammar School opened its annex for up to an extra 450 pupils in September 2017 - Latin not on the curriculum for this particular school but who knows where the next one will be...

On a more (serious) note - Latin is actually a very popular outreach project for many private schools keen to show their public benefit;

www.schoolstogether.org/projects/classics-outreach-project-with-local-schools/
www.westminster.org.uk/partnerships/educational-partnerships/
www.colfes.com/community
www.thomas-s.co.uk/Latin-Outreach-Programme
www.stpetersyork.org.uk/st_peters/academic/issp

Also, Classics for All Foundation
classicsforall.org.uk/
Recent grants:
classicsforall.org.uk/our-grants/directory-awarded-cfa-grants/

My medical student child finds having Latin gcse very helpful. She immediately understands posterior and anterior, etc. There are a lot of Latin terms in use.

noble is correct Clavinova - no new grammar schools just bigger PANs where an existing school goes down that route for extra funding.

Our grammar doesn't teach Latin sadly. DD4 is thinking of having a go at applying for Classics ab initio, simply because she saw a poster on the wall of her sixth form centre explaining what the degree encompassed - it ticks every box for her but still a real shame that she hasn't had any opportunity to try the subject at school.

So Latin is only important then if you're a Tory voter or go to a private school? What a depressing attitude. It is the foundation of many languages in Europe and helps massively with understanding our language and its meaning and origin, as well as many others. It would be a sad day if Latin ceased to be taught at all.

Ha, ha, you have forgotten about the new grammar school policy already - they will need more Latin teachers!

is that how much you think teachers are paid?

No, but it's what some teachers seem to think every other "professional" is paid!

The Headteacher at Bingley Grammar School was interviewed by the BBC regarding his decision to move Music GCSE to an after-school activity (it's still on the curriculum for Years 7 and 8);

Mr Weston said: "Last year we had two or three kids in class and now, having moved to our new system, we've got 25, which is more than we've had in the last five years"

"We've had no complaints from parents."

He said the introduction of the "nominal" charge was "nothing to do with funding, it's really allowing our kids to have an extra GCSE at a time that suits them

Mr Weston rejected the suggestion that some children would be priced out of studying music saying support was available for those unable to pay

He added: "We are paying 99.9% of the bill. The GCSE cost is not £5 a week, it's significantly more than that"

Oh, and a nurse. More stressed than any of us, in fact!

The idea that you do not teach subjects like Latin is just a race to the bottom

This is right.

My DS is applying for a Classics degree, and was lucky enough to have done both Greek and Latin at A level. We were concerned at the time he chose his A levels that he was limiting himself, but his head of departments assured us that graduates had no problem finding employment. Indeed applications for Classics degrees seem to be increasing, with even Oxbridge offering Classics degrees with no previous knowledge of either language.

The study of Classics is not just about the languages. The subject covers ancient history and the development of civilisations. It includes the development of philosophy and rational thought, ethics and morals which should govern our behaviour in a society.

It includes the first ideas of how laws should be formulated, identifying concepts of justice and keeping order in society, forming the basis of a political and legal systems which have pretty much prevailed for thousands of years.

Classical thinkers introduced the concept of rhetoric, the ability to think and form a strong argument in debate or discussion. Theology and religious beliefs are also scrutinised by the Classics, as are the very first principles of how to educate the next generation!

Classical writers provided us with the first novels and plays (that have survived in written form).

IMO all these things are incredibly important and valuable to teach children at school, they are the very roots of so much of our own culture, and if there is a shortage of Classics teachers then yes, it is worth this bursary to encourage more into the profession.

I have often been very depressed by your (numerous) posts noble, criticising, almost sneering, at some new effort to try and improve the educational outcomes of children. You work in a deprived area I am guessing, but underlying your posts is always the feeling that you think the pupils who come into your orbit will never amount to much, and your expectations of what they are capable of achieving are pretty low.

If teachers have that attitude, it’s no wonder the pupils have no respect for education, and don’t believe that it can offer them any benefit for their future.

The idea that you can earn £100,000 pa easily elsewhere and have no stress is almost laughable. What job pays this with no stress?

I did not say 'no stress', I said "less stressful" [than teaching]
Plenty of roles are less stressful than teaching, even very highly paid ones. All my family are in computing, apart from three teachers. I know which are most stressed.

Why the fixation on £100k?

I'm not fixated, I'm confused. How exactly does this statement relate to schools teachers in any way?

"The idea that you can earn £100,000 pa easily elsewhere and have no stress is almost laughable"

School teachers don't earn even close to £100,000 so what is the relvance to this thread?