To be fed up that my child is being taught Biology, History, English etc by PE teachers?

[apricotdanish]

I have a child in a grammar school, can't mention name for obvious reasons but an increasingly large amount of subjects are being taught by teachers with no experience at all in the subjects they are teaching and I'm not exaggerating when I say P.E teachers are teaching all of the subjects above, there are also some specialist teachers but clearly not enough. I'm really concerned about how this will affect my child's education long term.
This is not anti teacher at all, quite the opposite, and I'm not underestimating the intelligence of the PE teachers but I don't think it's acceptable for them to be teaching subjects like Physics and Biology that are so specialised when they haven't trained in that specialism. I feel as though I've been sold a bit of lie about how wonderful this school is when this practice is so widespread.
Just wanted some opinions on what others felt about this?

Unfortunately, it's not unusual. Our humanities department doesn't have enough History teachers so RE teachers are doing some classes. They try to keep cover from within the faculty but it's not always possible. Alternatively, they have staff who are employed to cover lessons in any subject, are affiliated to a faculty but have no specific qualifications. The work is set by the teacher or, in emergencies, by someone from that subject. This seems to work okay for the most part; there are the usual variances between controlling the class, getting the kids working, etc. that you have with the qualified teachers.

However, if it was for a prolonged period of time I would have an issue. One of mine had a History teacher who spent more time off sick during her Y9 than in school. The point at which we were unhappy she had already chosen her GCSE options and History wasn't one of them. With that in mind, we didn't make a fuss. But, if it had been for any of her option choices we would have asked why they weren't bringing in a subject specific supply teacher.

How do you know that they aren't a History teacher for example that teaches some sport on the side?

My DBro1 is PE and science trained so can teach both.

DBIL is PE and maths trained so can do both.

Get used to it - this is just going to happen more and more.

I would expect a PE teacher to be able to competently teach Biology.

I teach a subject that I do not have a degree or even GCSE in. Fortunately 'only' for four hours per week (the rest I teach my subject). Like the teacher above I was asked in such a way that made it clear I couldn't refuse.

With teaching becoming an increasingly unattractive career, expect this situation to get worse.

there is a recruitment and retention crisis in teaching and its only going to get worse.

Unless you are in Scotland (or Continental Europe), where the law says that teachers have to have a degree in the subject they teach, yabu. In England once you are a teacher, it is kind of assumed that you can teach anything and everything. The TES message boards always used to have threads by desperate teachers who were told by the headteacher that they would be teaching e.g. languages they have never learnt themselves. Or sciences, or whatever. Once I've left a teaching job because of this, because I was not willing. TES a few years ago published an article titled "you hardly know how to spell it and you have to teach it?" . No, it wasn't satirical, it contained "useful" advice like pass the time with subject related word-searches you've found online, or ask the better students to prepare a presentation for the lesson. English education system.

This is going to get worse and worse with current government policy. Write to your MP.

We had this when I was at school.

Teachers are technically qualified to teach.

YANBU to be unhappy about it but it's perfectly legal so ...

Happens in my school all the time, if you've got spare time on your timetable and another subject has a teacher shortage you get put there. I turned up one September to find English on my timetable. I had not been asked or even warned about it. Would have been useful as i could have spent the summer prepping!

Actually, there is a lot of science that many pe teachers would not be able to teach competently-even basic science such as photosynthesis has many misconceptions that most non science teachers hold. We have some great pe teachers teaching science at year 7 level and they are finding a lot of it hard and they need a lot if support. If this support wasn't in place, it would be horrendous for staff and students alike.

I had to teach drama once. It was bloody awful although the kids loved it as I was a shite drama teacher.

You know, my best Maths teacher in Year 11 was my least-liked PE teacher in year 8.

It was certainly always the case when I was at school - I was told that PE teachers had to have a fall back subject to teach once they were considered too old to teach a physical subject like PE. My GCSE maths teacher, who was also head of year and very formidable, had been a PE teacher earlier in her career.

More recently - my cousin is a PE teacher right now, and she did a geography degree, so I assume she is also going to teach geography too at some point.

I have posted this numerous times but the people I did my PgCE with are doing this in schools across our county, it's nothing new and has been happening for years.

I have a degree in a service sector industry subject, have no GCSE's or A levels, and my PgCE is post compulsory, so doesn't qualify me to work in schools under A level
As I gained my PgCE prior to the raising of compulsory age, A level was post compulsory then iyswim.

I was expected to not just cover but teach any subject at this level, ridiculous considering many of the students had a better basic education than me.

The crunch came when I was expected to teach, not cover further Maths.
I have learning disabilities and will never pass a maths GCSE, I'm resigned to the fact.
I refused to do it and not even the union backed me up.
I jumped ship and have never taught again for various reasons, but this is the biggest reason.
At the time my ds2 was a 6th former at the school and I didn't want somebody like me teaching him, it was completely wrong.
If the teacher is up to it, I don't see a problem. If I had A level or further Maths myself it wouldn't have bothered me, but there is leaving comfort zone and being inadequate and I was forced to be inadequate.

In some schools it is almost impossible to fill Science and Maths vacancies with Science or Maths graduates. You can't magic up a specialist and the classes are still there...

YANBU.

It will be interesting to see if the number of DC being home educated increases.

Several people I know are teachers now despite having no subject degree or particularly good GCSEs/ A levels, I was surprised.

What I am {shock] are all the answers on this thread just saying 'well get use to it'

Is there really no ione on here being shocvked by that abd by the effect this will have on the children educations???

I'm well aware that some teachers like Penny will go well above what they are asked to do and in some ways will manage to teach at an adequate level. Good for the children, not so good for the teachers.

But my experience in my dcs' school is that there are also plenty of teachers that are not up to scratch (think someone not speaking french teaching french).

How is that acceptable?!?

NewLife4Me, I wasn't backed up by my union either (though my situation was not as extreme as yours) but that is because the school is not doing anything illegal by making you teach a subject you are not qualified in. Again, Scotland is the exception.

That's always been the case Orda.

I have been in the position of trying to recruit to a Maths vacancy with no applicants at all... As I said, schools cannot magic up specialist teachers. I teach outside my specialism to GCSE very competently. Wouldn't want to do it to A level mind you...

Gosh, this thread is a real eye opener. I naively assumed that teachers just taught the subject they qualified to teach.
to all the overworked, underpaid and unappreciated teachers on here.

And tbh I don't f* care if it's legal.

Being qualified to teach doesn't mean been able to teach any and every subject. It's wrong for the children and it's wrong for the teachers.

recruitment and retention crisis

^ this.

I have worked in a HR dept in schools for five years now. When I started it was easy to recruit teachers, you could pick and choose. Now it's so very very hard. They're simply are not enough teachers so you have to use non specialists or unqualified teachers. It's that or a classroom with no teacher. And I really don't know what the answer is. It's true it's only going to get worse, the pressure piled on teachers is ever increasing so more and more leave the profession. I genuinely don't know what's going to happen in the coming years.