To ask if you think secondary teachers should have achieved top grades in their subject area

[Teachersshouldbeclever]

I genuinely wonder how, if a secondary teacher was unable to achieve the top grades when they sat their subject, if they are able to teach their students the skills needed.

Or is it a case of the cleverest students actually surpassing their teachers' knowledge and expertise?

And yes exactly top grades do not necessarily mean top teacher. Can you imagine Sheldon (The Big Bang Theory) trying to teach a class of year 7s!!??!

I don't even have a qualification in the subject I teach. My degree is related but I've had to learn a lot of new stuff. I did however get high grades in the subjects I did study so have found it fairly easy to teach myself. I also have a passion to want to be the best teacher I can be. I have no interest in working with the high fliers and discovered I have a talent (I hate that word as it makes me sound big headed which is the last thing I am) for teaching those who struggle.

There are so many other factors than the grade you got in the subject you teach - teaching skills are so much more than just knowledge of a topic.

I would hope that they had top grades, yes. However, given a choice between and inspiring, motivated and knowledgeable teacher or a mediocre teacher with poor grades I know who I would prefer my DCs to be taught by.

OP I do not know how I did not spot this before but your name is terribly goady - you do not "wonder" you have actually started this thread to deliberately piss a load of teachers off as if they did not have enough on their plates - shame on you! hoists judgey pants

Some of the best secondary teachers I know got a third in their subject at Uni. My GCSE English teacher didn't even have a degree (had a certed), didn't stop her getting fantastic GCSE results year after year.
It is easy to improve your subject knowledge but much more difficult to learn how to 'teach'.

Teaching is a skill, so is passing an exam in a particular topic. These are both skills, but different skills.

This is more obvious when you consider top athletes, tennis players etc all have coaches who would lose any game to the people they are coaching, or be beaten at whatever sport.

I got a first in my undergrad degree. My best friend got a third. I was a shit teacher and quit during my first year. She is a brilliant teacher, who inspires her pupils and gets impressive results.

I genuinely wonder

Given your choice of name changing I think I ceased engaging at that point.

The coaching analogy is very apt. There is an old Irish priest Colm o' Connell ( from memory) who is one of the best athletic coaches on the world. He had never been an athlete but he was such an inspiring man , with a deep understanding of the sport and a genuine love for the athletes he coached. He has created several amazing champions including 800 metre record holder David rodisa. Whilst lots of great footballers never made the grade as coaches. Alex Ferguson was never a world class footballer but he was a far better coach than Kevin keegan. Respect the skill of teaching as something beyond the grade in a subject( I am not , nor married to a teacher)

I have a 2:1 in my subject from a good university, and am in my seventh year of teaching and have always been considered a good teacher by colleagues and students. My A-levels however were shocking, and in the subject I teach I got a very low grade, due in part to my parents divorce, my apathy towards school, and my discovering boys and nightclubs! I don't think my 'blip' between the ages of 16 and 18 should be held against me since I achieved well at university.

So DDs worst A level teacher is the one who went to Oxbridge and hasn't got a clue and doesn't want to know how other people (ie his students) learn. The other teacher of the same subject is way better and DD's grades reflect this.

Having top grades in your subject does not in itself make you a good teacher.

What is important is the knowledge that a person has in the here and now. A teacher who did badly at A-level may well have worked hard since and improved their subject knowledge.

There are other attributes other subject knowledge that make a good teacher. There is no point in being a top physicist if you can not commuicate that knowledge or get the kids to behave. Teachers also need good people skills and to lead.

I can't be arsed to read through the whole of such a goady thread but the OP can congratulate herself on pissing off even more teachers in the midst of the biggest exodus of teachers from the profession there's been in a long time.

I know others on here have mentioned this but it's worth saying again: most schools can't even recruit, let alone people with top grades. Retention of good staff is a real issue.

So fuck right off with your sneering and goady opinions, OP. Or maybe see if you can get accepted for training yourself and do a better job.

Ah, loads of people have already said it.......

I suspect there is a direct correlation between the intelligence of the teacher and their failure to understand any child below the top set.

I worked in a Teach First school for five years. We used to get through our new student teachers at a ridiculous speed. I've lost count of the amount of times I've had to pick a weeping Oxbridge graduate off the floor and tell them that, no, most Year 10 students don't have an inbuilt passion for Milton and that, infact, if they're going to be teaching the bottom set, they might like to start by explaining capital letters.

I have two Masters degrees. They have literally never been relevant to my teaching. In fact, I could probably scrap my degree as well. It's my teaching qualification I need for my job.

I think you have to remember that the adult person teaching the class, has progressed from when they were 18 and doing their A Levels. They are not the same person and it would be a mistake to dismiss their ability to teach because they didn't do outstandingly well at school or university. Failure to achieve at school/uni can happen for a variety of reasons, not all of them to do with intellect!

I have average A Level results and an average degree. I was the first person in my family to go to university and we were struggling financially. I received very little advice or support when I went to university - my school wasn't great and my parents were out of depth and couldn't advise me. I was literally on my own. I was homesick, worried about money and woefully underprepared for what I should be doing at uni. Of course I wasn't going to do as well as someone whose circumstances were better and I met a boy but lets skirt over that.

By the time I finished my PGCE, I was amongst the best in my class. I became a decent teacher.

As an aside, some of the brightest people I know, have no formal qualifications. I think it is a mistake to write people off on the basis of their grades.

Being interested in the subject you teach, having the ability to communicate that subject to all pupils and being willing to constantly learn and improve are more essential to good teaching than outstanding grades imo.

I very much doubt there is any such correlation. Certainly not in my experience.

I do prefer teaching more able students and teach in a very academic school, but although I am an exam passing type, I don't find it hard to work out what it feels like to struggle with a subject - there are plenty of things I am hopeless at, such as team sports. I hate this assumption that intelligence=lack of empathy. In my own experience the most important attributes a teacher can have are sacks of patience and a very robust constitution. I really like the coach analogy. I often teach students who will surpass my achievements (or already are). It doesn't mean I've nothing to offer them. It is immensely gratifying and enjoyable to teach students who ask you questions you have to go off and research the answers to, or to hear them explain something in a novel and insightful way.

I have a sodding Oxford degree and was a scholar whilst there. I am now a teacher and a very good one. Most of my colleagues have got at least 2:1s from Russell Group universities and could easily have gone into more lucrative careers - the so-called high flying careers you mention. But frankly I thought when I end my days I would far rather know about my subject than have a brain full of crap about corporate tax law.

And in my job yes you do need to be clever. I get really annoyed when people say all you need is patience. That is such a load of bollocks.

well, OK, I'll bite.

I was super clever at school - top of the top set in a very selective grammar.

Then I spent my University years engaged in sex'n'drugs'rock'roll & came out with a rather embarrassingly crap degree. I worked in industry for several years before wandering into teaching - not my degree subject.

These days, they wouldn't accept me onto a teacher training programme with my Richard in the wrong subject, but somehow I blagged my way in in the mid 90s.

I was a rubbish teacher initially. I really, really knew my subject matter - I just had no idea how to communicate it to bottom set year 9, given my fuzzy memories of being taught it 20 years previously in a class of super keen clever biddable young ladies. I reckon it took me three years to become a decent all-round subject teacher, & it was the toughest learning curve I've ever experienced.

Starting out now, I'm pretty sure I'd be one of the 50% of trainee teachers who are gone, expense of training them wasted, in those first three years.

Despite my rubbish paper qualifications in my subject, no-one has ever been able to fault my subject knowledge - I invariably used to get 'outstanding' for that bit in observations & was very much acknowledged as the department smartarse. I do have a very genuine passion for my subject & am a proud 'lifelong learner'.

Overall, I'm a good teacher, with a track record in the UK of getting my students very creditable results.

Now? I'm teaching abroad, having been welcomed in to a promoted post with open arms. It's a great job for all sorts of reasons which I've talked about on here before - I appreciate it's not an option for everybody, but it's certainly been the most positive thing I've done in years.

My old job (at a very over-subscribed & successful UK school)? Still vacant.

The bright young NQT I mentored last year? Emailing me for contacts overseas so she can escape too. She has a very sensible medium term plan which is pretty much 'keep head down, get a couple of years' UK experience as still well regarded by international schools, head abroad with bf for much more lucrative teaching opportunities, live cheaply overseas & save for a house deposit for a couple of years before getting out of teaching altogether'.

So OP: a) no, being a bit of a cleverdick doesn't make you a fabulous teacher, necessarily; b) actually, not every successful teacher has 'top grades' in the subject they teach & c) as everyone else has said - there's a chuffing great recruitment & retention crisis in UK teaching.

Until the t&c & the culture change, you simply aren't going to be able to insist that potential teachers have 'top grades'.

You seem to be fondly assuming that the profession is crowded with amiable time-serving dimwits job-blocking a host of top graduates who are desperate to crack on & do the job properly.

You are very very wrong about that.

Messalina has a good point. It pisses me off when people assume teachers are thick / not academic enough to get a high powered job in the city.

The ability to pass on knowledge in an interesting way is more important. I remember having two history teachers for a level. The first got a first from a oxford college and i seriously never understood anything he taught. (We had terrible marks for the whole class at the end of first year). He was replaced by a guy in my second year who like me had dyslexic and my love of history begin. His teaching of american history was the main reason i went to american to see gettysberg and follow down to richmond. I can hear his love and interest in the subject and random facts still come back ever so often. I dont use history in life now apart from a patient comes in with knowledge and we get chatting but ive been left with the interest in history. He is still the best teacher i ever had! apart from the amazing result i got from his teacher he left me with a love of history.

I do think teachers now are amazing as the paperwork and politics they have to put up with now...

Please bear in mind my dyslexia when reading what ive just written. Patient comes in with knowledge is badly phased....interest in a subject maybe...

I didn't say all you need is patience, but cleverness combined with patience is not going to help with communication, any more than top grades by themselves will.

The ability to pass exams oneself does not necessarily translate into the ability to teach.

Worry more about how good they are at leading the pupils into understanding
than what exams they themselves took

My degree is irrelevant to what I do now.
If I decided to become a teacher should I pick something in which I have a degree or something I've worked at for 28 years?