to think that taxpayer funded schools SHOULD use qualified teachers?

[TalkinPeace2]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19017544

So Academies are now free to leave our children to be taught by cheap unqualified people
potentially jeapordising their chances at competing with the best in the world
just because the Dfe is determined to break the unions and the LEAs, not because of any sound educational reasons.

"Teacher training does not however necessarily include that much on classroom management"

It certainly includes more than zero theory training and zero experience in a classroom.

All I know is that my dad is a world-leading expert in his field (Crystallography) but a very very poor teacher indeed - and he has always known this.

So when he worked as a senior lecturer at his university, he focused on supporting the PhD students (supporting research and its people is a strength of his) and left classroom teaching to others as much as possible - because he knew he would be crap at it.

Expertise and teaching ability are two completely different skills. DD2 is at an Academy primary school - I will be keeping a very close eye on them, because this is a development I am very unhappy about.

I do like the patronising and damaging quote at the end of the article about PGCE students:

Once teachers are in the school, they have a reduced teaching timetable to allow them to spend time observing other good teachers and are actively mentored. By the end of the year, they are, in our view, better trained than any PGCE student.

Having a reduced timetable to observe good teachers and being actively mentored.............just like on a PGCE course? Everything he has outlined there is precisely what happens on a PGCE course.

For comparison - are the teachers at Eton, Harrow, Westminster qualified?

I am a mentor for PGCE and GTP, and I spend a lot of time on classroom management.

I think cover supervisors are great. If I am off, I would much rather my class be taken by one of our CSs than most of the supply staff we get in. Long term absence is different, and we have moved lessons around to cover most classes ourselves when that happens.

We have unqualified teachers input school too, for vocational subjects, and they are good teachers.

This has been the case for as long as I have been teaching. Unqualified teachers in state schools are not new.

Juliascurr
I have no idea.
But if the parents at those schools do not like what they are getting they can vote with their feet.
In state schools which may be the only one in a location, it is morally wrong to take such chances with the children of parents who may not realise there is a problem until it is too late.

Unqualified teachers are subject to the same performance management (now appraisal!) procedures as qualified teachers.

If it's not covered, then it's equally zero for theory and one shouldn't assume all those unregistered as UK teachers lack classroom or other teaching/coaching experience. but even if they do, they're in the same position as those arriving in a classroom on one of the newer schemes.

Don't get me wrong, I think that qualification is generally a good thing. But I also think a school can decide for itself whether or not to employ a particular individual based on everything they can offer (ie empower the school/HT/SMT not rely on red tape).

I can't believe teachers are denying there is a problem with how things are now. How bad do things have to get before they will hold their hands up and admit culpability?

I'm about to start a PGCE in secondary English and feel like I'm watching some kind of Dickensian/Orwellian satire in the government's attitude towards education.

As someone who has worked in schools for 4 years (as a one to one LSA for students with SN/SEN) I would also like to strongly challege the idea that top sets need qualified teachers more then middle or lower ability sets. If any set can cope with an "industry expert" style teacher (not that any student should ever have to cope!) it is a top set. Lower ability students have an even greater need for a very wide knowledge of teaching techniques and styles, as well as classroom management strategies (as well as SEN strategies etc), to enable them to access the curriculum, keep them engaged and on track (I am speaking broadly of course)

fallen - yes, unqualified teachers are get appraised. But what about the children they teach meantime? If someone's passed their PGCE, at least you know they can't have been an utter loss.

I think so many teachers just go by whatever they are told by teacher training and have no real aptitude for thinking for themselves

So you're saying that one year of training informs a 30 year career with no further thought?

I would not call Teach First teacher training, Edith. I do agree that current ITT courses need to focus more on behaviour management and SEN though.

It's ludicrous and Gove is an idiot. That is all.

Can I just point out Denise that the reason the govt won't include the NUT in pay negotiations is because we REFUSED to sign the agreement that allowed unqualified staff to take classes. We actually fight for decent state education for all students. Can't really see how our campaigns to improve attainment for black boys, sen students and improve teacher training are 'perks'.

I don't think Denise has a very high opinion of teachers - or much knowledge of education.

"Can I just point out Denise that the reason the govt won't include the NUT in pay negotiations is because we REFUSED to sign the agreement that allowed unqualified staff to take classes."

Was that a principled stand for quality education or a self-interested attempt to create a closed shop?

You decide!

Closed shop!! What, like hospitals, accountancy firms, courts of law etc etc etc? Ridiculous.

Saying that unqualified teachers can teach in academies is just another way to devalue the profession. Gove has a very low opinion of teachers, and this is just further evidence of that. He is sending out the "everyone can teach" message, which is thoroughly eroneous, but is believed by a great many people. It's yet another way to demoralise those of us who are working very hard to give children an excellent education, whilst simultaneously trying to battle with the endless changes and initiatives the current government is throwing at us.

Teaching is not easy. Not everyone can do it. It needs training and relevent qualifications. Those of you saying "I don't care whether they are qualified as long as they can do the job", how do you propse this is tested? Do you let any old person teach a class for, what, a year? Two? And if they then can't do it, they are out of a job? What about those two years' worth of DCs who were the guinea pigs? I agree that there are flaws in the current system, but at least the PGCE gives student teachers the opportunity to develop teaching skills with the support of an experienced mentor.

Teachers have the image problem that EVERY adult has been to school and MOST adults have raised children.
So we all think we can teach.
We are mostly deluding ourselves.

I would like EVERY person in charge of a class of children to have done at least a year of study specifically to teach them how to teach.
BUT
the flip side of that is that the Unions have to admit that some people are just crap and others burn out - so schools should be allowed to make those who can no longer hack it leave.

"I can't believe teachers are denying there is a problem with how things are now. How bad do things have to get before they will hold their hands up and admit culpability?"

What are you waffling on about?

Since the dawn of the human age, people have been whining about the so-called golden eras of the past when all children were silent, polite, perfect geniuses who could spell perfectly and calculate all mathematical problems without fault.

There are Roman texts where the authors complain about the "youth of today" who seem to be so much ruder and badly educated than they remember being at their age.

Things aren't bad now. Not unless you read the Daily Mail and believe their lies. Quite the contrary in fact. Children have an incredible array of skills now, children who perhaps would have been neglected before. We have a range of tradesmen in my family in the older generations and many of them can't read or write to the degree that my class can now. Thank goodness things have changed for the better.

I'd say the biggest problem with the current education system is the overwhelming burden of parenting that we are supposed to accept as part of our job. Children can't wipe their own arse? Don't worry, that's what the teachers are there to teach them to do! Children eating a Mars Bar as their lunch? Don't worry, they need the energy.

Talkin - I agree with you.

There needs to be a more robust, and, crucially, quicker, way to move people on. That said, it shouldn't be a case of a HT "deciding" that someone is crap and getting rid. Sometimes, coaching, mentoring and monitoring can turn someone around - just like in any other job. The key is to identify someone who is floudering quickly, get intervention in place, and then, if necessary, have some kind of system for getting rid. That's not there at the moment, and, IMO, should be.

Evil
Up to a point.
There are times when the face does not fit.
So if heads get rid of people who WILL fit in somewhere else then both parties may end up in a better place.
What MUST NOT be allowed is blacklists of teachers - as frankly some heads are shite too!

All private schools I know of employ qualified teachers.

The PGCE and similar schemes are a perfect way of filtering out anyone who can't hack the pace or the hours, or who just decide that they don't enjoy it/aren't good at it.

I'd love to know why the government thinks these people can't just do the training like the rest of us have.