Ex forces members as schoolteachers, (Panorama tonight?)

[GabbyLoggon]

Are they being unreasoable?

Its a government idea copied from America
(suprise, suprise)

Training ex forces members to be schoolteachers (It has always been open for them to do that.)

Is it a gimmick? The trouble is Cameron learned from Blair the art of regular publicity stunts.

So it is difficult to know what to take seriously.

What do the teaching profession think of it? "Gabby"

If they are really suggesting 6 wks that is tosh.

Acanthus: it's the same as "Teach First" which puts fresh graduates into the classroom on the same 6 weeks. "Teach Next" uses the same model for any and all who switch to teaching mid-career. It's not just for ex-military.

What worries me most about this thread is the belief that teacher training is so lacking in quality control that unsuitable individuals end up in the classroom, and that schools appoint unsuitable people - very scary given the comments about over-supply of qualified teachers at present.

How should teacher training and appointments system be improved to ensure that the unsuitable (regardless of prior background) are weeded out?

Yes, definitely. How they can expect the best without tighter controls I don't know. However I do know teachers without great degrees who are brilliant, be a shame to lose them. Perhaps a lengthier entrance process? Observe applicants teaching more, more in depth subject knowledge and aptitude tests, perhaps obligatory enhancement courses for those who do well with the pupils but not so well on subject knowledge or something. Is a tough one.

I found it very easy to get in teacher training, as did DH. We're both very well qualified/educated though I guess. I mean, the process wasn't as lengthy and tough as you'd imagine.

Higher salaries? Yes please!

One concern I have re the American military schools is that I remember seeing a documentary a while back re the high number of black boys from poor backgrounds dying in Afganistan due to them naturally progressing from said schools to become cannon fodder. There were concerns,dp remembers said prog but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

There is no way on earth any of my dc would be going to the school featured with the cadet force but I have options and would simply move. Most of the parents from the school featured won't have any options and will be forced to send their kids there,said kids will probably be more likely to go into the military due to few other options and school influence,also a misguided view that it'll be just like their school.

I find it concerning,a cynic might say it would be ideal for the gov kids off the dole and plenty of cannon fodder if the same was to happen here. The cadet force aside if schools such as these improved results so much so that uni entry rates increased for kids from such backgrounds I'd be slightly less critical. The programme was very vague though,no data, just some bloke wandering around with an A4 pad nodding earnestly.

Can you please stop calling the armed foces "cannon fodder" - you have no idea how insulting that is.

Given the redundancies about to hit the Forces, about 30,000 personnel in total and more to come post 2015, I don't think recruitment is on their minds particularly.

Oh right, so the six weeks is before the first in-classroom training starts? That sound a bit more realistic.

Personally I don't think a PGCE gives enough practical experience to teachers. I don't think teacher training effectively delvers methods for classroom control in an academic sense either (it's a got it or not scenario) and it doesn't select on the basis of whether people are any good in class the majority of the time.

But then I'm of the opinion that we don't need hugely academic teachers, we need teachers who can teach, regardless of what subject they're teaching. A better test would be to make a prospective maths teacher try and teach a geography class, or an English teacher go into a biology class. It's often not about what you know but how you communicate it. Far too often very academic people shine in the essays and are only adequate in teaching practice which has a knock on effect of producing teachers who are essentially ill-equipped to actually teach.

Given some of the insults hurled at teachers on this thread Offline I don't think you need to be so hysterical. The phrase has also been used previously,nobody is calling military "cannon fodder" it's just a turn of phrase used to describe vast numbers of young boys dying on the frontline.

Scary where exactly are the redundancies hitting, are they reducing frontline soldiers?

I haven't read the thread cos it's got too long and I know this isn't entirely relevant to the op but in a previous life I once had a meeting with Nick Gibb, Minister for schools when they were in opposition.

He said that he would rather have graduates from Oxford or Cambridge go straight into teaching without a PGCE than people from other "lesser" universities with a PGCE.

Of course Ex servicepeople might make good teachers, but they might make bloody awful ones. Schools need more support if they are going to be extending the number of teachers being trained in house.

I don't think teachers in general have been insulted. Specific groups/instances of poor teaching have been highlighted as has the systemic failure which is NOT the fault of teachers but to do with poor management and government meddling going back years, leaving teachers with their hands tied.

Generalising the military as cannon fodder is a whole different level of generalised insult.

I think the Govt. should head hunt high calibre ex-forces officers and put them into running schools as school managers, rather than necessarily as teachers (or as teachers if they want-whichever).

I honestly think so many more failing schools would benefit more from having the fabulous leadership skills/budgeting skills etc found in very high calibre officers who are used to dealing with hundreds of 'employees/soldiers', tricky situations and huge budgets.

Unlike some HTs who sometimes have their own agenda, forces personnel do things because they know they have to and to meet the end target. I'm only speaking of some HTs I've known and see how they work, not all HTS before someone says I'm making blanket comments. Look at how well run private ed schools are for example.

My post was re the attitude in the US towards said black poor boys ie nobody was that bothered about the vast numbers dying and there was a view that they were getting regarded simply as "cannon fodder"- not right but a point the programme in question was raising. Nothing wrong in discussing an important issue,if this is the case one shouldn't discuss any unpleasant turn of phrase.

"There is no way on earth any of my dc would be going to the school featured with the cadet force but I have options and would simply move. Most of the parents from the school featured won't have any options and will be forced to send their kids there,said kids will probably be more likely to go into the military due to few other options and school influence,also a misguided view that it'll be just like their school."

Why on earth do you think that your dc would HAVE to join the CCF? Are you really silly enough to think that EVERYONE in the school HAS to join? Those parents who are 'forced' to send their kids there have the same choice. The children can join the CCF IF THEY WANT TO; if they dont want to, they dont have to.

You have been told this time and time again, but you are just not listening are you? Why not?

(and as for USA, sadly 'black poor boys' as you put it have always been high on the casualty lists - its to do with deprivation and nothing to do with the schools they attended)

IB, my dh doesn't see me as inferior, he wouldn't have lasted 25 years with me if he did.

Mila - the redundancies are coming from all over - and the Army will be hit again post 2015 and the supposed withdrawal from Afghanistan. Every one is potentially in the sights of the redundancy boards from Commodores to junior rates. They are looking to make huge savings by slash and burn.

and if they do join the CCF, they can leave if they want - it's their choice.

Lt that isn't what the prog I saw was saying,the military schools played a part too.

Also you may not have to join the cadets but the culture will permeate the entire school. There was also a huge number in said cadets(filmed standing miserably out in the snow) and not sure I'd want my kids pressured into joining due to being a minority

IB, obviously the previous head teacher must have been lacking in common sense or they would have had a reading scheme and the other things you mention.

The school I went to had a cadet unit and a couple of my friends attended. They aren't in the forces now and there was no permeation of the cadet unit through the entire school at all. In fact, most of the other students (the majority in fact)always kind of saw the cadets as geeks and weren't pulled in to the cadet ethos at all. It was just an after school club thing on a Friday if you wanted.

Vintage was the school you went to run completely by ex military?

I am not hysterical. I politely asked you to refrain from using a derogatory term.