to want my child's teacher to understand how apostrophes work!!!

[intothenever]

DD is writing things like 'She live's in a house' and has been taught that the plural of potato is potato's! I am getting really pissed off!

As a senior teacher my job is very much driven by data.

I sometimes suspect the people who are think teachers don't need mathematical skills are people who don't understand the difference between maths and arithmetic, and believe that since the invention of Excel and the pocket calculator you might as well close down all maths education.

In a industry where the price of admission to any even vaguely management-related job was a good STEM degree, I saw some frighteningly ill-conditioned and ill-founded spreadsheets being used to make decisions. I would be surprised if education were any better, and the frequency of Ofsted reports in which school end up in special measures because of insufficient progress which the senior staff and governors did not notice (the "overly optimistic" judgement that gets made so frequently, especially of primaries) tends to support that argument. A lack of confidence with data, and an inability to understand basics of what constitutes an argument based on evidence, is rife in education: if that were not the case, utter nonsense like "VAK learning styles" and "brain gym", both charlatan rubbish based on no evidence but drenched in "truthiness" (and, just for pointeshoes, both backed by "educational theorists", too) would not have taken such strong hold in our schools.

A teacher needs to understand data as that can be used against them by SMT.

It's easier to get consistent pass rates with a larger class as each child is worth less percentage points.

I heard someone get told off because their A* to C pass rate had dropped from 100% to 50%.

He had 4 out of 4 pupils who got A* to C in 1 year. 2 pupils out of 4 the next year.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Only on MN, can asking teachers (yes, teachers, FFS) to be intelligent and academically comptetent be seen as elitist, and not necessary, and not an essential part of their skill set.

And in teacher training colleges, where actually being able to teach is a very minor part of the training, behind a load of wishy-washy, poorly-evidenced "theory" that is mostly, as the Pauli once remarked, not even wrong.

Nobody here has claimed that teachers shouldn't have attained GCSEs in maths and English, have they?

Nobody here has claimed that teachers shouldn't have attained GCSEs in maths and English, have they?

Not in terms, no. But the heartwarming stories of people who would make marvellous A Level English teachers (in passing, just how many teachers have jobs such that teaching A Level in their primary subject is all, or indeed most, of their timetable?) were it not for their dyscalcula keeping them out of teacher training don't appear to make a terribly nuanced distinction between B and C.

I would have no more problem with an English teacher who wasn't great at arithmetic - which to my mind is fairly analogous to spelling for a maths or science teacher - than I would with a science teacher who made the odd SPaG error.

Being unable to interpret information effectively however is something else entirely. If you can't do that you shouldn't be managing anything, let alone children's learning.

Friday and La Queen - you have just put into words what I've been trying to.

I'm relatively new to MN and can't believe how a post on a thread about badly behaved kids, low standards among teachers etc etc can be seen as being ageist, disablist, childist, discalculist - I could go on and on.

As you rightly say only on MN

Just received a parcel from my sister and thought of this thread! She is a primary school teacher and the parcel is addressed to "The Brown's".

Brilliant LaQueen

I would have liked to be a doctor and my daughter would have loved to be a vet but we weren't clever enough - fact, so we settled for something within our academic range and got on with it.

Before we get carried away I suspect it is a select group of posters who want to see teachers with mediocre qualifications.

Friday, Laqueen etc, you are so right!
To those of you who commented about older teachers making mistakes, I have to say that in my countywide travels as a supply teacher, I have been appalled at basic errors being made in written documents etc. Mainly, I have to say, made by younger teachers. I potentially have taught them as infants, reflecting possibly, the continual changing goalposts re literacy teaching requirements. On the odd occasion I have politely pointed out an error if it is glaring and totally unacceptable. On each occasion I was met with astonishment and disbelief that the said error was in fact an error.
I stand by my original remarks that it is totally unacceptable for teachers not to have a good/excellent working knowledge of basic literacy and numeracy. Apostrophe usage is basic. Sometimes I have to double check the correct usage of who/whom , due to/owing to etc, just as sometimes my doctor double checks his book for correct dosage when issuing a prescription. I am a Key Stage 1 teacher and expect my literacy skills to be as secure as a Key Stage 2+ teacher.
Hope I didn' t make any glaringly obvious grammmatical errors in my post- I will blame the tools, ipad, if so!

Being a tiny bit silly now, I think!

I certainly don't think bs in English and maths are too much to expect from teachers though, and nor do I think it is ok for teachers not to understand basic grammar.

Nor am I very keen on the reflective practice notions about 'facilitating learning', of which I have heard much in the last year. I don't lecture because I'm really good at facilitating learning: frankly, I qualify for my job because I know more than the students about the stuff I'm trying to teach them, and I try to do that in the best way I can. Of all the current practice and theory, tutor-as-facilitator seems to me the most dubious.

All that said, I still don't think that red-penning all over a six year old's writing is the most useful or productive way to help move the child toward perfect spelling and grammar. The fact that a teacher doesn't do that does not equate to the teacher just not knowing, necessarily.

Yes... and, despite my reservations about some theory stuff, though, I have taken on board in the last few years that over-marking is as bad as not marking... I try really hard not to edit and correct everything: what would be the point in just writing myself an essay? I'm looking to give constructive feedback that will 'feed forward', and offer formative comments which students can actually work from next time. So while I'd get twitchy leaving some things unremarked, I don't edit everything: it does work better. Just as not red-penning all over a child's work is also more likely to be helpful and productive: they can't amend everything all at once.

I know plenty of KS1 teachers who won't touch upper KS2 because of the demands of the curriculum. I also know some KS2 teachers who don't have the knowledge to teach some of the harder stuff.

All that said, I still don't think that red-penning all over a six year old's writing is the most useful or productive way to help move the child toward perfect spelling and grammar.

I don't think that's the point. I think the point is that a teacher should make a conscious decision to not point out mistakes, with a basis for that decision. They should neither not know that it's wrong, nor shrug their shoulders and assume that the plebs no-one cares about spelling/grammar anyway.

And when a teacher does point out a mistake, that act of marking should be unimpeachable: they should not make corrections that are themselves wrong.

Oh yes, I entirely agree with what you just posted Friday, but there have been posts suggesting that children should be picked up on every error until they get it right, and that's what I was thinking. Also that when teachers don't correct everything, it's worth bearing in mind that, more than likely, that will be because of a conscious decision, and not because they just don't know.