To expect a teacher to be qualified?

[Sunnysummer1]

My ds is about to start year 3 in September & I have just found out his teacher is not a qualified teacher. She has been an teaching assistant for a few years & is starting a teaching degree which she will do one afternoon a week. She has a teaching assistant qualification nvq, but nothing else. I have heard that she is a good teaching assistant and my ds likes her. She is supported by the deputy and will have a teaching assistant in the classroom in the morning. I’m trying not to worry but it just doesn’t sit comfortably with me as I thought teachers had to have a degree. She is fairly young; under 30 & doesn’t have children, if that makes any difference. Would it bother you?

@herculepoirot obviously not, what a daft thing to say! But even a surgeon has got to do a first operation on a live patient, are you saying you’d ask to know how many patients they’ve operated on before you? Or would you let them do their job and assume the person who judged them capable knew what they were doing? One would assume that they have to do some sort of placement/experience BEFORE they qualify? Or would you expect them to just study and be given a piece of paper and suddenly be an amazing surgeon?

I also didn’t say that youth and enthusiasm were the be all and end all but likely have some benefits to the fact that she is only just starting to train. This is over those who transfer out of working in another industry for 30 years and decide to go into teaching and stand at a board and lecture all day.

There are loads of qualified teachers who are crap, how do we know that this woman isn’t going to be an amazing teacher? If she’s inadequate, the school/uni would judge her so and she wouldn’t continue the course. On my PGCE only 5/12 of us qualified (the younger ones in fact).

I do agree that there are some cases where standards are lowered to allow people to go into teaching because there is such a massive shortage, that is a sad sign of the times. Her school have judged that she is capable of leading a class and, if their decision is trusted, she must be assumed to be capable of the task until there is evidence to the contrary.

However we don’t, in this case, know that the lady in question has low literacy, maths skills...etc. She could be a perfectly literate and capable person but unless she is given the chance, how can she train?

I thought teachers had to have a degree

This worries me massively and I wonder how it has happened?

She is fairly young; under 30 & doesn’t have children, if that makes any difference. Would it bother you?

This wouldn’t bother me at all. I qualified at 22 and had no children! There were a few people on my PGCE who thought they would automatically be great just because they were parents! It wasn’t necessarily the case...

It's a form of teacher training where you train on the job. I doubt the school are "putting her through it" she's probably paying for it herself and they are letting her do her use the class for her experience. It's a valid form of teacher training
I'm not aware of any teacher training course that puts someone straight in a classroom with no degree or qualifications above NVQ3 (vocational course at the same level as A level).
Certainly not one that puts someone straight in the classroom as a sole class teacher.

I wouldn’t worry - teachers have to start their training somewhere
Yes. On a teacher training course with relevant academic entry requirements, a blended teaching timetable with training and appropriate mentoring and supervision.

So not 'you're a lovely TA so have year 3 next year and be the class teacher'.

Trainee teachers start off observing lots of qualified staff and get told what to look for, they do training sessions, plan and deliver starters and plenaries for a while, then team teach and then take their own lessons on a reduced timetable.

Again, not being a full time class teacher.

Alieeeeeens

Surgeons practise on corpses before people. Surgeons are qualified doctors before they start their surgical training. Before they are qualified doctors they are medical students. Before they are medical students they have to get EXCELLENT A Levels. This is not the equivalent of a recently qualified surgeon’s first solo op. It is the equivalent of going downstairs, grabbing a lab technician and asking them if they feel up to performing a hysterectomy, with the Head of Surgery dropping in, and another technician watching on.

@fedup21

Anyone observing her performance in a classroom could be asked for an opinion. Why should a TA’s opinion be dismissed? They would see first hand their ability to control a class, manage misbehaviour and how much learning was taking place, even in passing.

If the Dep Head is acting as an official mentor (maybe they are, maybe they aren’t) then they have to observe the trainee at least once a week and have meetings every week. (I should say this is what happens in secondary schools but I think it’s similar in primaries from what I have heard)

There are loads of qualified teachers who are crap, how do we know that this woman isn’t going to be an amazing teacher?

We don’t. Let’s just let anybody have a go, then. Who cares if they failed GCSE English, Maths, Science themselves, and their most relevant qualification to teach is a clean DBS?

Fuck it. They might be fine. 👩🏾‍🎓

Why should a TA’s opinion be dismissed? They would see first hand their ability to control a class, manage misbehaviour and how much learning was taking place, even in passing.

Because they aren’t qualified to make these judgements.

I don't think that people are reading that the TA has no degree which means they can't be doing a PGCE.

I'd be worried about their general level of education. If all she has is nvq, she may not have more than 2 passes at gcse. A bright year 3 child could be working at a higher standard than that. It seems doubtful that this person will be capable of inspiring and stretching the top end of the class, even though they may be great at classroom management and helping children with specific tasks.
If the person had 3 As at A level in academic subjects I'd be less worried.

IIt would bother me enough to look for a new school. I wouldn’t home educate my child as I’m not a qualified teacher so wouldn’t use a school that didn’t employ qualified class teachers.*

Me too

Many schools routinely use unqualified teachers due to budget cuts. It stinks but is fairly common practice. Some of them are also doing teacher training some aren’t.

However we don’t, in this case, know that the lady in question has low literacy, maths skills...etc. She could be a perfectly literate and capable person but unless she is given the chance, how can she train?

The same way any qualified teacher trains? Through a tried and tested entry pathway that is monitored and supported? No pathway to QTS I’ve ever heard of allows someone without a degree to be responsible for a whole class. She is being employed as an unqualified teacher, not learning to teach a class under the supervision of a qualified class teacher, who actually is responsible for the class.

Hardly difficult to teach primary kids is it?
[shock

she must be assumed to be capable of the task until there is evidence to the contrary.

I’m taking this straight to the government as an idea for their next teacher recruitment strategy. A sort of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ method of training. Accept anyone who is willing, assume they’re an amazing teacher, and only fire them if there’s evidence to the contrary. Like if their classes fail their GCSE.

Oh Kolo we should trust the judgment of the school who is hiring her, they must think that she is capable of being an amazing teacher so who are we to doubt?

Because of course cash-strapped schools aren’t looking at the massive hole where their staffing budget used to be and leaping at the chance to put someone keen and energetic in front of Y3 over a qualified, and inexplicably more expensive actual teacher.

I think that primary teachers need to be amongst the most skillled and I would have been very unhappy with a non graduate teaching my children. Even the TA who did in school training and degree was of questionable competence. She insisted on correcting spellings to sandwitch, nesessary and other fantastic examples of a year three child knowledge being superior to teachers.
She also said you got half by taking a whole and chopping it in two - fair enough but then she taught that if you take a piece and double it you get a whole one. So you get two if you divide one in half. It was so appalling that it was funny. I was on library duty at the time and she was taking a small group of lower achieving children. Funny but compounding their struggles.
All TAs should have five GCSEs including maths and English as an absolute minimum. Graduate TAs preferably.

@noblegiraffe

Because of course cash-strapped schools aren’t looking at the massive hole where their staffing budget used to be and leaping at the chance to put someone keen and energetic in front of Y3 over a qualified, and inexplicably more expensive actual teacher. hmm

Gasp! Do you really think schools think like that??

Year 3 is a pretty low risk year group. If I were running a primary school I’d obviously want my best and most experienced staff on year 2 and year 6, as those are the exam classes. If I couldn’t afford a qualified teacher in each class, I’d think year 3 was lowest risk, I’d just make sure they got a proper teacher the following year and hope they made up the lost time.

I’ve faced this decision myself in secondary. I’ve been allocated the staffing for the year and then had to allocate staff to classes, when there’s not enough qualified staff for each class.

Because of course cash-strapped schools aren’t looking at the massive hole where their staffing budget used to be and leaping at the chance to put someone keen and energetic in front of Y3 over a qualified, and inexplicably more expensive actual teacher. hmm*

One of the endorsements of Boris was that he was enthusiastic and full of energy (I paraphrase). If it's good enough to be pm...

As a teacher (and union rep) this really bothers me. You need qualifications to be a teacher. It undermines the whole profession. Nothing personal towards the individual TA but there is a reason you need a degree and qts to be a teacher! Massively unreasonable!

Yep.

@ladyvimes you are very lucky to be in school where only qualified teachers do the teaching - in my experience budgets don’t allow this

Maybe in reception / year 1 or even year 2 at a push!!

Wow. I taught Y6 for many years before I moved to Y2. I can hand on heart say that teaching Y2 is far more difficult in many ways.

Teaching isn't just pouring knowledge into little heads yknow. I can tell the time but teaching small children the concept of time and how to measure it is incredibly difficult. That's where my pedagogical training comes in.

Mind you, one of our best teachers started as a playworker, then TA before she trained as a teacher. But asking a TA to teach their own class full time from the off isn't fair to the TA or the children.

This is the tip of the iceberg and happening more and more as schools are financially absolutely fucked. The projection for my own school, my kids' schools and most in the area is that within 3 years everyone is going to fall off a financial cliff.

And this is going to happen in 100s of schools unless drastic action to address the funding shortfall occurs. When the Dept for Education keeps telling you that funding has never been higher, they are lying...

Maybe in reception / year 1 or even year 2 at a push!!

This is such a naive post.

But ok then-what qualifications do you think a Year R/1 or 2 teacher should have, in your view. If it’s ok to have no teaching qualification or degree.

What qualifications would you want YOUR y2 child’s teacher to have?

A bright year 3 child could be working at a higher standard than that.
I agree. I know someone who got a foundation degree and top up year to an education degree (not a QTS one) without having maths and English GCSE.
Their levels of literacy and numeracy were awful.

I think people's attitude towards the demands of primary teaching on this thread are horrible.

you are very lucky to be in school where only qualified teachers do the teaching - in my experience budgets don’t allow this
Which puts pressure on qualified and experienced colleagues to plug the gaps.

I'm aware of people taking the view of 'give a cover supervisor y7 english/Maths/history because it's less damage', until y8 when someone has to try and catch the students up because they've not had appropriate teaching in y7 and have gone backwards from y6.

Or, schools appoint unqualified non specialists in shortage subjects and then give them all the low ability classes because there's a lower academic demand and as long as the class isn't chaos then it's ok, except it's not because those children get a worse deal when they are exactly the ones who need a strong teacher. Catch 22: the staff without subject knowledge don't know enough to teach the higher sets so can't, and the classes who need a strong teacher most can't have a strong teacher because the strong teacher is in the class that needs the subject knowledge.

Or, there's a school that routinely struggles to recruit and has loads of unqualified members of staff teaching, usually cover supervising schemes of work planned by the head of department (because they're not specialists so haven't the subject knowledge). The children in that school routinely get a bad deal from y7-11 and then people wonder why that school's results are bad.

The best schools in my area (outcomes) have strong, qualified, teachers. The worst schools in my area have a lot of unqualified staff, lots of non-specialists, lots of Teach first in middle leadership after 18 months, lots of TAs covering low ability classes. Coincidence? I think not.

Trainee teachers start off observing lots of qualified staff and get told what to look for, they do training sessions, plan and deliver starters and plenaries for a while, then team teach and then take their own lessons on a reduced timetable.

In good schools, yes. In other schools I've seen trainee teachers given a week to observe and then told to plan whole lessons over the weekend to teach the following week without a teacher having given any feedback about the plans and then given minimal feedback other than it was a bad lesson but still expected to plan on their own.