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?

Teachers do need good subject knowledge. Plenty of ways to demonstrate that other than their having got good grades in school.

Agree with PPs - current recruitment and retention crisis not helped by expression of views like the OP. If people aren't careful, soon their won't be enough teachers, acceptably qualified at GCSE and A-Level or otherwise, to teach their kids. In some places there already aren't!

Well obviously many children will surpass their teachers' knowledge and expertise. It's obvious that none of our own achievement levels are limited by that of whoever taught us! I don't agree that top grades in the subject are necessary. However, of course it would be best if the best candidates went into teaching. This would be best achieved by offering good pay and conditions. Lots of able people just wouldn't consider teaching because they can earn more elsewhere.

Anybody watching 'Educating Cardiff'? The headteacher there left school without any qualifications at sat her first GCSE in her 20s.

I'm not sure there is a degree in my subject, people who teach it often have an NHS background, more often than not in nursing.

The teacher who taught me maths and computer studies had a degree in chemistry. Back in the early 1980s there were very few people with computing degrees, but he husband had worked int he industry for 20 years and she had taken an interest, done some programming, I'm not sure anyone else in the school had even touched a computer.

Yes you need subject knowledge, but you also need to be able to teach. A good teacher can teach anything they, themselves, understand.

Sigh

Another 'teachers are all idiots' thread. I really do wish all the amazingly clever people who look down on teachers/think they could do it better would go and do the training and try it for a while. That might help the recruitment crisis.

In Scotland, all teachers (Primary too) have to have at least a 2:1, plus Higher Maths and English. Whilst this is not obviously enough to satisfy the OP, it can hardly be classed as underachieving educationally.

I don't think teachers are paid well at all
I think it's another issue that needs to be addressed

My dept is largely staffed by people who have A grade A levels in our subject. There's 13 of us (v big school, English so core subject) and we are all good teachers, most excellent. But. Only a handful of us have a degree in the subject (mine's in American studies, lots of drama degrees, etc.). Some of the best teachers I've ever worked with bombed their A levels. And there is the recruitment and retention crisis discussed above. Top grades indicate cleverness and ability to study but do not predict understanding of pedagogy.

mustbemad Respectfully, you are the one talking bull. I have searched for the document and it is £30.000 not £35,000. It is a ridiculous sum. Pay teachers better and improve their working conditions instead of paying students a huge sum to start a course which less than 50% end up still doing the job 5 years later.
www.gov.uk/government/news/top-graduates-to-get-up-to-30k-to-train-to-teach-core-subjects

Um lulu, note themail date on that. No one has yet received 35k it was announced in October this year, and will come in during the 2016/2017 academic year. I would also imagine that these scholarships will be few and far between! Hoist by your own petard I think......

They've been offering 20k+ to train as a maths or physics teacher for years.

Being able to teach is most important. My kids do best with those that have a flair/ passion for teaching .

Very smart does not = good teacher

£30,000

longtime I said from September- I can read. I know when it starts. Stop being ao snotty.

I know they have been offering incentives for years. £30,000 is ridiculous. I am a Deputy Head in a big secondary school- teacher recruitment; numbers and quality, is one of the biggest issues facing education. On top of where we are now, there will be 650,000 extra children in the system in the next 10 years.

50%+ depending on whose figures you take- of those who qualify to teach leave in the first few years becayse of workload, stress and work-life balance. That is what the government needs to address if we want high quality teachers.

So to conclude; most people believe that good qualifications are actually detrimental to those who teach.

Even those who believe this is not the case don't think qualifications matter.

Does it need to be a graduate profession then?

It's not enough though is it. Someone with a first in physics can easily get a job in the city starting on 45 k and moving up fast. It's one of the reasons why we have a recruitment crisis in areas of research and engineering, as well as skills shortages in other industries. Highly qualified people are being attracted by city mega bucks, or abroad.

Again, when you say "good qualifications", what do you mean? Because your OP seemed to be referring to school qualifications, and now you are talking about degrees.

Yes, teachers should be graduates. And being clever is a big advantage in teaching. But, of course, other things are also very important, and being clever is not enough.

Sorry lulu, it's early and I may be being defensive cause of the divisive nature of some posts on this thread.

OP.. I pointed out earlier that teachers are more qualified than the majority of the population and that this is a appropriate thing. Your post suggests top grades are needed in specific subjects in order to deliver them effectively. A great many people have rebutted that, yet you have simply rephrased your own question...

So to conclude; most people believe that good qualifications are actually detrimental to those who teach.

I don't think that what people are saying at all. The point is that if you're a teacher, there's no point in having the greatest subject knowledge if you lack the skills to teach. The ideal is a balance between knowledge, expertise in teaching as a skill and an interest in the development of young people.

I taught history and I did very well indeed in exams. However, it's such a broad subject that it was utterly impossible for me to have in depth knowledge of every part of the curriculum until I had been teaching it for a while. I doubt there's anyone alive who knows all the history ever. I expect it's the same for other subjects.

Anyway, why not just explain your agenda here and give the slyly disingenuous questions a rest?

There are always posters on this sort of thread who drag up the "fact" that teachers who are academically bright are basically borderline autistic or can't relate to students below the top set. We had a direct correlation between academic ability and crap teaching mentioned earlier.

I've got what would be classed as top grades and I find this as deeply depressing as the assumption that soneone without a first is too thick to teach well. I was asked in my Pgce interview if I was too clever for teaching (which is a really daft question that betrays what people on education really think of teaching as a job).

Just because you haven't been in a particular academic situation yourself doesn't that mean you can't possibly relate to someone that is. If you can deliver really great lessons that inspire and challenge the kids who will get A's, why isn't it possible to apply those skills to bottom sets? I have pupils who will get an A* with no work at all. I have others who can't add 2 and 2 and get the right answer. I do well with both extremes because I care about the kids and I know what to do with them to help them make progress. That has nothing to do with he good I was at my uni subject-it is how good I am at teaching.

Teaching well us about having the right subject knowledge and knowing how to get the kids to understand and apply it. That isn't limited to either having a first (or not having a first) depending on your stance in the argument.

I think B or A grade students make the best teachers.
Many A* students don't know what it is to struggle to grasp something and many C grade students just don't grasp enough but a B/A border experience seems the best foundation.
What's most important though is the teacher training and how good they are at TEACHING not at maths or French or whatever.

How do you even know what grades your teachers got anyway? I have no idea where mine went or how they did.

museum do you think it is possible to start teacher training never having struggled with anything at all in your life? How is it that my high grades actively makes me a worse teacher than someone with lower ones? My students certainly wouldn't agree with you.

This thread epitomises the UK's social attitude to teaching I think.

Threads on doctors are full of "medicine attracts the best and the brightest and medical school lasts 5 years instead of 3 like other degrees, so doctors should get paid more than the rest of us like the demi-gods they are"

Threads on teachers seem to deliberately forget that secondary teachers have done at least 4 years of university (first degree and post grad teaching qualification) and many teachers also have a masters in Education or another subject. There is an automatic assumption that teachers are second rate academically - plenty of teachers have all top grade A levels and 5 years of uni behind them, but simply by being teachers they are not "the best and the brightest" and they get pity at best - rarely any respect at all.

I was a primary teacher so had to be a jack of all trades. And I actually found the things I'd been rubbish at, at school - maths and science - became amongst my favourite things to teach because I had struggled with them too, I had more empathy for the kids and a better grasp of why some things in it seem illogical or hard.

For OP.... I had an A in O and A Level English - at a time when As weren't handed out like sweeties so A* didn't exist. And I got a Distinction at S Level - I was told afterwards the highest grade for the examining board that year (I went to a shit comprehensive as well - all my mates at uni had failed the S Paper and went to fee paying or grammar schools....) And I got a degree from a prestigious university at a time when only 10% of people even went to uni. I taught English very well. I taught maths and science - far better.

You become a good teacher by understanding how kids learn. Someone who has never struggled to grasp anything, will be clueless, frankly.

Reading back this thread, it reminds me of something our Course Leader said when I was doing my PGCE.

"Everyone thinks they're an authority on education - because they once went to school. But you don't tell a brain surgeon how to do his job because you've been to the doctor's...."

That was true in the late 80s when I qualified. And it's true now.

No, I think what it takes to be a good teacher is a passion and commitment to seeing children learn, and the intuition to find ways to make it happen. 'High flyers' can also have these qualities, as can ones who struggled. I do think it should be a graduate profession (like in Scotland). We don't have TAs teaching classes here. There does have to be a certain educational standard.