To think most parents would be unhappy with their child being taught by a 19yo apprentice?

[Postapocalypticcowgirl]

schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-developing-teaching-apprenticeship-for-non-graduates/

The DfE are developing an apprentice scheme for teaching for people without degrees.

I think there are some serious problems with this idea, but this isn't about those, really.

I'm just thinking about the attitude that some posters have towards NQTs (IE they don't want their child taught by them) and I'm curious as to what posters think.

In terms of voting, I'd like people to vote not on whether they think it's a good idea overall, but just on whether they would be happy with their child being taught by a 19yo apprentice who's just left college/sixth form.

YABU - I would be happy with this for my children.
YANBU- I would not be happy with this for my children.

I do assume at least at the start, it would be under the supervision of an experienced teacher, hopefully with them in the classroom full time. But to make it viable for schools the apprentice would likely have to be unsupervised at least some of the time pretty quickly. I do think it would be much more involved than initial placements on primary teaching degrees AND this specifically targeting secondary level.

Lot of ignorance on here regarding primary teaching and the need for an all graduate profession. Successful education administrations aim for all teachers, of all age ranges, to be educated to masters level; we continually dumb down our expectations. We have a sadly low expectation of our childcare workforce and the tactic seems to be to associate teaching with that underpaid, poorly valued sector. Oh, and lots of people referring to BEd routes which hardly exist in England anymore. An undergraduate degree in primary education with QTS is not the same as a BEd which was a particular, distinct concept which turned good candidates into good teachers - the problem was attracting good candidates.

Most secondary schools don't take TA apprentices that young though.

Personally I think this will look very different to a 3 year BEd, which is rare at secondary level anyway.

I also think a lot of maturity is gained between 18 and 21.

I dont have a problem with this at all if they are competent.
When I was 19/20 I was running a mental health centre (I had prior experience in the field and was voted in by the service users who sat in on my interview). I did it very competently and good lots of great feedback. I had lots of absolutely terrible teachers at my school and all were older and very old school and couldnt control the class and didnt seem to give a crap about the fact some of us werent learning due to other kids being disruptive.

many older teachers still around now came through the "licenced" route

I disagree. The few that were still left when I started teaching have long gone. You might find one or two on supply left, but certainly not ‘many’.

This is just a blatant way to try to solve the teaching retention crisis with cheap warm bodies in front of a class. There simply aren’t enough experienced teachers left in schools to support an apprentice like this to become a successful teacher. The ones that are left are on their knees covering absence and just about surviving their own jobs. I’m wondering how much extra time out or money the mentors will be given to support them…?!

There are 110,000 teachers on the ‘Exit the classroom’ Facebook group-if they are experienced, properly trained graduates and all want to leave, I find it unlikely that young non-graduates on an apprenticeship salary will want to stay and do 55 hour weeks. For 3/4/5 years just to train?!

These 19 year olds, have just finished education.

They will know the exams that your child will take and their education is more likely to be relevant. Everything that your child will learn is still fresh in their mind.

My issue woukd be with gaining the children's respect if they seem so young.

We have been doing degree apprenticeships in social work for a while now and they work really well.

The apprentice works in a number of teams during their apprenticeship and has some days at college as well for the theory side of things. Its all sponsored/funded by the local authority.

The vast majority of people doing it are people already working for the local authority in non-qualified roles, who can't afford to stop working to go to university and do a degree to retrain as a social worker.

It's very very competitive and they only take a small number each year.

They basically do the on the job training alongside social workers in the team and a dedicated external person to the team is responsible for assessing them.

Lot of ignorance on here regarding primary teaching and the need for an all graduate profession. Successful education administrations aim for all teachers, of all age ranges, to be educated to masters level; we continually dumb down our expectations. We have a sadly low expectation of our childcare workforce and the tactic seems to be to associate teaching with that underpaid, poorly valued sector.
Agree with all of this.
I'm secondary trained and would understand if we had a proper degree apprenticeship for primary that lasted 4 years, and the teaching apprentice had to have 1-2 days day release to Higher Education, as well as 2 x 2 year placements in contrasting schools/MATs, and they were expected to learn how to plan and teach their own lessons. It won't be like that though. It will be a system that takes advantage of keen 18/19 year olds and burns them out by 25.

Sadly you're right though, this is about turning education into childcare, which is already an underpaid and under-valued line of work. The government are taking a babysitting approach to education that's only good enough for someone else's children.

when i was a 14 year old doing o levels, i english teach was 22
i had no idea of his youth.
he is now head of english and a lot older, as am i

No it isn't. Not in my experience.

one hundred percent is in mine

I think all teachers should have a couple of years away from education. Just like a think politicians should have a couple months years working in schools

Just teachers, or all jobs. Should a customer sales advisor advisor spend some time in an abattoir? If not, why not?

Delete the second advisor at your leisure.

My daughter has started the pre work for this course in sixth work. She's already helping to teach year 7s and has regular work to hand in. She will thrive from it and it gives her so many opportunities that maybe she wouldn't have had. I wouldn't have had an issue the other way round and we need more of these schemes rather than the current way of one size fits all approach

You have to have a degree before joining Teach first , don't you?

Reinventing the wheel time.

my dad (born 1923) worked in labs during the war and went to teacher training collage after.
hid best mate was in the RAF and because of that went straight into a school and trained “ on the job “ whilst being paid. Dad resented him not bring a “ proper teacher “😂

Whilst I feel 19is pretty young , i think with supervision it’ll work for the right kids.

as for “they won’t be teaching the children of mps “ I suspect most people don’t know that private schools are free to employ people with no teaching qualification at all ! My PhD historian kid has been interviews for some 6th form posts in private schools ( didn’t get cos no experience but they were willing to consider )

It’s about lowering the standards and doing things cheaply. It’s happening in nursing too. Some barely literate nurses are graduating as the bar has become so low. It’s terrifying. The senior nurses I speak to are horrified. The same is happening in teaching.

agreed

I’m a secondary teacher that did a primary placement. I would argue the opposite.

I know the content of my own subject from my GCSEs and A-levels because I have an interest in it. I could not switch to primary without some level of training because I couldn’t differentiate to that level and I would have no idea how to teach the basics of literacy and numeracy properly. Primary isn’t easy just because they are younger and the content is simple for us as adults.

It wasn’t in mine either

Nobody should be teaching without QTS, but they can't retain teachers, so have to look further afield for cannon-fodder

I think you're confirming our concerns. 😟

5 days a week sole teacher doing lesson planning unsupported: No

3-4 hour spells on each of 2-3 days a week with colleague support in all areas, especially at primary age: Fine, good thing, even

Primary isn’t easy just because they are younger and the content is simple for us as adults.

Thank you @Iyjd . Coming from a secondary teacher, that's appreciated.
I taught complete with severe learning difficulties, and bizarrely I had someone think that that must be "even easier" than primary!

There's already an Apprenticeship route into teaching 14+, so this is just an expansion of that.
The teachers I had in the 60s were not degree educated, but they were passionate teachers who were good at their jobs.
Oh, and Apprentices can be any age whatsoever. From 16-67. So what makes you think they'll all be 19?