To think entry requirements to be a teacher should be higher

[totteringlump]

AIBU to think too many teachers (obviously not all) don’t have particularly good qualifications themselves and so struggle to teach the syllabus to the class? People are able to pass but not excel and these teachers often struggle to advise students about gaining entry to Oxbridge and other places plus about high paid careers.

If students don’t have this advice at home they cannot know.

Freckled Leopard - I have RTFT and still don't know how your unqualified cousin became a primary teacher. For this to be in the UK she would have to be over 80!
Do come back and explain!

If you want the "best" graduates (and I agree that teaching should be a competitive career path rather than a fall back option) then you have to make the job attractive. Currently it's a bit shit.

Absolutely-it’s pointless considering it really, until that’s changes.

Freckled Leopard - I have RTFT and still don't know how your unqualified cousin became a primary teacher. For this to be in the UK she would have to be over 80!
Do come back and explain!

This is what I came back to find out as well?!

Has Leopard not come back??!

Has Leopard not come back??!

Are you really surprised? It’s clearly rubbish as everyone has pointed out.

Just going back to the views regarding teachers giving careers advice; that's not their job. They can support and encourage but it's a careers adviser job to work with students to ensure the student has impartial guidance as to their future career plans. Careers advisers previously were viewed as a 'bolt on' in many schools, however under the new government Careers Strategy all secondary schools will have to appoint a Careers Lead by September 2018 to ensure the Gatsby Benchmarks (framework for careers advice) are being met. All schools need to reach all benchmarks relating to provision by 2020. This means that all students will be receiving careers advice about post GCSE options, HE, apprenticeships and experiencing work based learning. The strategy focuses on opportunity for all and should mean that all students between year 8 and 11 then 12 - 13 have at least one 121 and 7 experiences with employers. All students should receive an individual action plan with next steps relating to careers and signposting to external sources and organisations. So for PP concerned about the lack of careers advise available, it should be happening in schools already and if not it certainly will be.

The trouble is with raising the pay is that incumbents also will benefit, including the useless ones. In fact the useless ones are usually those who hang on like limpets.

Dd came home last year and said the teacher had asked what they were reading. Dd said Rebecca. The teacher had never heard of it nor of Daphne du Maurier. She said her favourite books were those in the Twilight series. This is an English teacher. Gosh, when I think of the old bluestockings who taught me (grammar school in 80s)...

I was also when speaking to the “literacy lead” at the primary school and she had never heard of Shirley Hughes.

On the subject of careers advice, schools have always been crap. Out of date advice, chips on shoulders, out of comfort zone... Back in my day I think they employed the bitterest of bitter people to “advise” on careers, the advice usually consisting of “No, that’s too competitive.”

I have helped ds by living on the internet during his university application process. I knew he was on his own when at the higher education evening for parents the coordinator person set her teeth and proclaimed that all institutions were equal, and there was no difference between Oxbridge and the University of the South West. Yep.

@irma now that's just not true and I'm incredibly offended on behalf of my profession. Although it is one of the most underrated and undervalued professions going.

@irma although top marks for trotting out the aged old phrase they told me it 'was too competitive'

I remember the days when teachers didn’t have to be degree level. Just A levels and then did a teaching certificate. Also nurses. Obvs everything is different now, but damn sure some of them did a great job without the BA etc.

What's not true? All true. I was absolutely told that being a lawyer was "too competitive". My friend was told that journalism was "too competitive". We were all told to be chartered accountants or join the M&S management training scheme.

Maybe some careers people are genuinely passionate and helpful and well-informed, but I was pointing out that there wasn't a golden age of a well-funded careers service.

I'd prefer that GCSE and higher teachers had a degree or vocational experience in a relevant subject, although that's as much about life experience as academic ability.

I do worry when I meet aspiring primary teachers who are having difficulty passing a level 2 qualification in maths or English.

IrmaFayLear
but I was pointing out that there wasn't a golden age of a well-funded careers service.

Neither has there ever been a "golden age" of teaching.

There's never been a golden age of a well funded education system. No qualified, professional guidance practitioner would conduct themselves that way. However, injecting a sense of realism is a part of the job and it was probably pointed out that those are competitive careers and would have used that as a basis of the discussion and also pointed out the importance of a back up plan. But young people have a way of only hearing what they want to.

In all my years working as a guidance practitioner and training careers advisers I've never heard a Guidance professional tell someone they can't do a particular job or tell them the must enter a particular profession. However, I have heard teachers do this because, of course, anyone can give careers advice 🙄

There is no way you can teach A level maths or the sciences without having studied it at Uni.

Half the problem is that parents are snobs because little Timmy or Jane hasn't been doing very well. Ergo they think teachers are stupid. Teachers do not have magic wands.

Most teachers who are bad are hopeless at teaching but excellent in their subject.

I could teach history/classics/politics, at a push A Level English. But I don't want to teach.

I agree and disagree. I have an undergraduate degree in Law and a PGDE (Scotland), yet I never achieved my full potential in either. When I started my undergrad I was on track for a first but I then became a domestic violence victim and fell pregnant, I was 18 at the time (having left school at 16) and it completely knocked my grade trajectory. However, despite all of the abuse and struggling as a single parent, I still passed my course with grades good enough to be considered for many graduate schemes (that I couldn't take up due to relocation and single parenthood).
My PGDE also didn't see my full potential because of another abusive relationship which then ended and threatened homelessness. I moved 50 miles back home and had to commute every day, attend placements and work full time around this to provide for my child.

Come my probation year I passed with flying colours and was one of the few of my cohort to recieve a permanent position. I am still one of the few in that position.
I started a new school in January after a maternity leave and, in that four months, have helped one child improve their reading and spelling age by over a year bringing them to an age that is just under their actual age. I'm a good teacher despite my grades.

On the face of it I shouldn't be a teacher, based on the views of some here, but digging a little deeper highlights the many outside factors which contributed to my grades on paper.

Most teachers who are bad are hopeless at teaching but excellent in their subject.

I'm not at all convinced that is true.

Place marking for this as I'm currently seriously considering doing a PGCE in September, after 18 years in a training career.

I'm not at all convinced that is true.

I agree, most of the bad teachers I know are mediocre (at best) at their subject and bad at teaching.

This separation of teaching from subject is really problematic. You don't just teach, you teach something. There's a superficiality in how teaching is assessed now. One-off lesson observations by non specialists are, I think, contributing to this.

I suck at tests.
I threw up during everyone of my uni finals because I was such a state
I also missed submitting 10% of my undergrad because I was really poorly during my pregnancy.

I have a pretty sound understanding of my subject, and could explain it to you with great ease

I earn fuck all and last week a teenage boy called me a cunt and an 11 year old girl tried to smack me

This profession isn’t about being bright, it’s about being passionate, caring about kids, and loving your subjects.

This profession isn’t about being bright, it’s about being passionate, caring about kids, and loving your subjects.

I agree with you to a large extent, but at certain levels and with certain pupils it is about being bright. If I’m teaching highly intelligent Sixth Formers at a very selective school then it doesn’t matter how good my teaching skills are if I don’t have the subject knowledge (which is connected to being ‘bright’ at this subject at least). In KS3 (at many schools) and in schools where behaviour management is more of a problem and/or the cohort is not as strong academically, this will have less impact. However, I think in an ideal world you would have both teaching and academic skills at a high level in teachers. I certainly choose my jobs to suit my skill set generally because it isn’t an ideal world and I’m not an ideal teacher!

It's not just about subject knowledge (although I maintain that is important, and not just for bright 6th formers...), but there is a lot of learning that goes into being a good teacher. The best teachers I have worked with over a pretty long career have been clever. And that is in all sectors. Subject knowledge might be the issue for A level, but teaching, as opposed to managing, challenging children, with all the many reasons for those challenges, also requires knowledge and understanding and critical thinking and analysis.

Blaablaablaa

In all my years working as a guidance practitioner and training careers advisers I've never heard a Guidance professional tell someone they can't do a particular job or tell them the must enter a particular profession. However, I have heard teachers do this because, of course, anyone can give careers advice 🙄

Of course "guidance professional"s doesn't tell someone they can't do a job. You just quote the criteria for entry and hope that the person is intelligent enough to join the dots.

Its left for teachers to explain that a pupil that is going to get lower end marks won't be able to be a doctor because they don't have straight 8s or 9s (or A*s or whatever)

Erm no that's not guidance. That's careers information. Two different things . A guidance practitioner will discuss the entry requirements in relation to the individual. They can often be the 'realism' bit....if the clients grades don't match ambition for example

*that