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.

"However what you get coming out of PGCEs are a lot of not very clever people, with poor critical thinking who have bought into a lot of guff about the importance of paperwork."

And where are you getting that particular not-very-clever nugget of information from?

That's certainly not my experience of PGCE courses, either through my colleagues or students I have mentored. I don't know anyone who has been taught the "importance of paperwork", quite the opposite.

Many PGCE courses are now taught at Masters-level. Is that not clever enough for you? Must all teachers have PhDs too?

You only had to watch Jamie's School to see that just because someone is very clever and good at their subject, it doesn't mean they can teach. Classroom management skills learnt through ITT are just as important as good subject knowledge. How are you meant to teach if you can't control your class effectively?

I have a feeling that most teachers who are dismissed probably have excellent subject knowledge. It's all the other bits of the job that they can't do properly.

My least effective teacher at school had amazing knowledge (PhD) but we never got the benefit of his expertise because he couldn't get us to be quiet and stay in our seats.

Gove is an idiot.

Indigo - re SEN kids being taught by TA's - I have a massive problem with this. There's research showing that TA's don't improve educational outcomes overall because the children they work with are missing out on teacher input.

My DS has aspergers and had a TA working with him one to one for much of last year, as set out in his IEP. She was so dense and unkind. Very unfortunate as they're rarely both these things.

I worked with a group of Teach First candidates in a very tough inner city secondary school. They came in thinking they were going to show us how it was done, by the end of the year, one had had a breakdown, one had been 'let go' due to incompetence, one left and only one completed his training but said it had been the worst experience of his life and went off to do law. Teaching is bloody hard and an utterly thankless task.

I would not say pupils are being "taught" by cover supervisors. A cover supervisor is not supposed to teach

No, they're not, but there are plenty of schools where this rule is abused.

Oh, and in the schools I worked in, kids were being taught by TAs, the school secretary's daughter who wanted to be a teacher, the head's mates as well as cover supervisors and Teach First recruits. One of the TAs teaching GCSE maths had formerly been the school dinner lady .

A school should have the flexibility to employ people as teachers who do not have teaching qualifications as long as they pay them a teacher's rate.

So a talented TA could teach classes, but only if paid as a teacher. A TA being paid a TA rate should not be used as a teacher.

If the PGCE makes for much better teachers, they will have no problem competing with people without the papers.

But this flexibility must not be used to cut wage bills by putting unsuitable, incompetent people in the classroom.

... and it's not due to not being able to recruit. There are hundreds of newly qualified teachers who can't get a first job and loads of supply teachers (fully qualified) being asked to work as TAs (on their wage) due to a lack of positions. I am so glad I am out of teaching when I see what has become of a once noble profession. Every dog and his dick thinks they could do better (although I'd like to see them try with some of my bottom sets :) )

'But this flexibility must not be used to cut wage bills by putting unsuitable, incompetent people in the classroom.'

• but it is! Of course it is! Why else do you think the academies etc are doing it? And when all the new academies run out of money (which they will in the next couple of years) TAs etc are going to be the norm. Another practice gaining popularity is teachers teaching a 'lecture' style lesson to about 100 kids at once with a couple of TAs running around doing the floor work.

Wake up and smell the coffee people! Between academies, free schools and government cuts (and weak unions) - the education system is going to utter shit.

Plenty of supply teachers being asked by agencies to go and teach on a trial basis without pay as well...

It's all about cutting costs.

It's very clear what the government is trying to do to our education system.

Academies don't have to recognise or negotiate with unions either.

wolvesdid -

And that's where this gets really interesting.

Because the in theory (unless you are a qualified teacher with a patch to protect) it would be a good thing to increase flexibility in hiring. There are lots of different ways to be a good teacher, and the current system is not necessarily the best.

But the reality may be (and by your telling is) that what is happening is that the flexibility that allows Eton to hire brilliant candidates who would be excluded from applying to a comp is being used to allow academies to save money by using TAs as teachers.

I don't want to see pupils being taught by people unqualified to be there, but that doesn't mean I care very much whether they have a PGCE.

it's the pupils in poor areas who'll suffer - not the kids at eton. apologies for lack of capitals, i've a child on my knee. also - i do care about cheap labour being used as a substitute for qualified teachers which was why i and most other teachers joined a union.

But why would they be 'excluded from applying to a comp' AThing?

I decided, in my late 20s, that I wanted to go into teaching. I did a PGCE.

Who are these amazing potential teachers, & why can't they just, y'know, get qualified?

If I started appplying for work as an accountant or a chartered surveyor or a barrister I'd be expected to obtain the necessary professional qualifications.

Doesn't matter how brilliant I might potentially be - it's how you a) give people the necessary training & b) weed out the deluded & the dodgy.

I can agree that my PGCE was crap, & new teachers I've worked with recently are all the better for doing more time in the classroom & less being lectured, but that really isn't a reason to get rid of QTS.

talkinpeace very good point

us proles have no choice, no control
as you probably guessed, my question was rhetorical
I bet the top public schools have qualified, supervised staff

"Who are these amazing potential teachers, & why can't they just, y'know, get qualified?"

EXACTLY.

Evil and Badgers talk a lot of sense.
I have a very good degree, a PhD, lots of published papers and books, had delivered lectures across the world on my research.
I did a PGCE, which started to teach me how to teach, and after a lot of slog on my behalf (and all the people who mentored me as an NQT and beyond) I am now, very good at my job as a teacher. Very little of my previous academic excellence has been of much use teaching, apart from obviously for my A level sets (and even then only for part of the spec).
The best two teachers i have run across in the relatively few years i have been teaching had a) a third class honours, or b) an OU 2.2.
They instinctively knew how to explain things, their classroom management was outstanding and so on.
Poor teachers at my current school are managed out, but it would never be obvious to any parents or students this was occurring.
I would be very wary of any teachers that have no teaching qualifications, you do need to learn how to teach.

Yes, wolvesdid, I totally agree.

Low pay for teachers is not something I support.

My suspicion of compulsory qualifications for teaching remains.

Unions are great when they are fighting for pay and conditions, less so when they are trying to protect members' interests by creating barriers to entry to a trade/profession.

I wonder how many of the posters who know/know of brilliant non-qualifed people working as teachers (I refuse to call them teachers because, er..they're not) would be as sanguine to go to a brilliant non-qualified surgeon? Thought not.

It's a sad sign of the disesteem in which teaching is held: think mums' army, pensioned-off soldiers, bankers, and all the other people who were going to sort out those feckless teachers. Of course the government is only interested in saving money.

Having a qualified teacher to teach them is an entitlement for our children; not closed shop shenanigans on the part of the unions, as ludicrously suggested upthread.

MrsSchadenfreude you cannot equate tutoring with teaching a class. You just can't. When tutoring you are doing one to one with a pupil who is motivated to learn, if only because his/her parents are putting the pressure on.

Dealing with a class of 30 children who are all different, some of whom may have complex needs or very difficult home lives is a completely different ball game. I've tutored and been very successful, and I am under no illusion that I can teach a class.

I don't like the idea of qualified teachers not being needed for the bottom set/being needed more for the top set.

If children are struggling they need good teaching. It's not necessarily easier teaching less able children, is it? Or do they just matter less?

(julia, I know of non-qualified people teaching in public schools. But I agree, it's not a really big issue given they have a choice.)

Why shouldn't a head teacher be allowed to hire someone as a teacher just because they don't have a PGCE?

If the training is so useful, so utterly essential, then they wouldn't want to.

But what if they do want to hire someone with particular knowledge, a certain gift for explanation, unusual skills, and train them on the job?

Why should they not have that option?