www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7242631/Maths-spelling-tests-trainee-teachers-scrapped-attempt-boost-staff-numbers.html
Trainee teachers hated these tests, because they meant they could invest in a PGCE or on-the-job teacher training route, but be asked to leave because of limitations in their ability to spell or do basic calculations.
Then the Government cancelled the cap on the number of times you could take the test before being disqualified from teaching, because it was affecting recruitment numbers. Now the Government are abolishing the test altogether, because of the several thousands of potential teachers who have failed to qualify every year as a result of failing them.
Aren’t they mopping the decks on the Titanic? If teaching has become so undesirable as a profession that they can only plug the gap by recruiting people who struggle to spell twenty middle-order words, or to calculate a simple percentage value given pen and paper, shouldn’t they be dealing with the very obvious workload and behaviour issues affecting the numbers of people applying to teacher training, rather than lowering the standard of education required to do it?
I have a small child. Although I sympathise with those colleagues who have signed up to teacher training and had to leave because they couldn’t pass these tests, some of whom have been absolutely lovely, I do not want my child taught by someone whose ability to spell and do simple maths has never been tested in any robust way.
AIBU?