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.

In principle, a well structured degree apprenticship where the trainee has lots of support isnt a terrible idea. They would have a degree and qts by the end of the course just like any other teacher and presumably would be a trainee until that point. But i know it wont be well supported and would be cheap labour and I expect quite time consuming for other teachers in the school to support

PinkPantherPaws · Today 07:00

I think it's fine for Primary teachers.

Learning the skills of teaching is far more important than the content IMO - you don't need to be degree educated to understand the content at primary level.

At secondary level I don't see how it would
work at all.

As a primary school teacher, your expertise is the way young children learn and develop not the subject specific content of the primary curriculum. It never ceases to amaze me how little people understand this, often despite having children themselves.

Did you read the link? It's a degree apprenticeship so after the course they will have a degree, the same as any other teacher

That’s what I thought.

Sounds great, my daughter is considering teaching. She is working at the moment, had very good A level results. If she went to university it would be to a redbrick/ Russell group one. If she decides on primary school teaching a degree level apprenticeship would be financially a far better option than a degree with QTS or a degree+ a pgce.

Exactly. Some parents are unaware of this or don't care as long as there's someone with a pulse available to child mind their offspring

Anyone who thinks this will be a well run scheme with schools being given enough funding and experienced teachers being given enough release time to support an apprentice to gradually gain the skills and experience to be a teacher on the job is being utterly naive.

I would imagine that we won’t have a Conservative government for very much longer though, and this will allquietly be dropped.

If whoever is in government started to seriously look at reducing workload-and remove or significantly reform Ofsted, they might find the recruitment and retention issues in teaching can be resolved. Then, we can keep the teachers we have (and maybe even get back some that have left) rather than just creating a stream of non-graduate fodder for Year 9 to eat alive until they completely burn out and leave.

I'd of gone into teaching if I had this route available to me when I left school. Instead I've worked in multiple day nurseries and playgroups.

I'm now a sahm working towards my degree via home learning. I'd love to teach but now my family comes first and the idea of still having to go through a pgce year is putting me off and I'm just looking at alternative job opportunities I can go straight into.

My sil on the other hand is a teacher , no relevant degree in childcare, (in another subject entirely) but had done her years teacher training, absolutely hates it. Wonders why she ever got into teaching.

I think this way you'd weed out the teachers who it really didn't enjoy it, quite early on and the ones who were doing it for the love of teaching would continue.

My sil on the other hand is a teacher, no relevant degree in childcare

Degree in childcare?!

I don't mind at all. Age and a degree isn't always an indicator of a good teacher. I'd rather they had a screening or assessment to make sure they are sound of mind or something.

If it's the right person for the job I'm happy. I'd rather a kind loving personality guiding my child's interests and supporting them than an intelligent person who would upset them constantly and thinks the cane should be back in haha.

Also a mix of student teachers and older would be ideal. Therefore there's more chance the kids would find a person they relate too. I like diversity

@Appuskidu she has a degree but not in any field that would be anywhere close to education of children or young people. Not even a relevant teaching subject for a say, a secondary school teacher. Has zero experience of working with children, has no children etc etc. walked into a teacher training year because she has a degree and five months in realised she hates it.

I think highly skilled joiners are probably better teaching woodwork than someone with a degree in teaching, it is subject dependent, I think you need a physics degree to teach high school physics, academic subjects a degree, practical subjects not so much

Nothing wrong with this. They’ll be degree educated by the end of it. Makes me laugh as there’s LOTS of unqualified teachers these days without degrees but it doesn’t create quite such a fuss on here.

Depends on the apprentice!
BEd placement students might not be much older for primary.
I’d reserve my judgement for if they were any good.

Well MIL, who has a June birthday went to Homerton to do the two year teaching cert in 1954. She was barely 20 when she started teaching. She also knew the positions of the x and y axes, how to spell and is a grammar nut - unlike some of the degree educated 30 to 40 year old who taught my DC at an outstanding primary.

DD who is 24, got a job as a TA the September after graduating and was swiftly promoted to unqualified teacher and is doing her teaching quals on the job through the apprentice route. It's a secondary school. She had a pile of Christmas cards from parents thanking her for the support given to their children.

What I meant to say is that people can either teach or they can't and a BEd or PGCE probably have very little to do with that. If helps if the teacher starts with excellent foundation skills across Maths, English and Science.

As a parent, I don't have any problems with an apprenticeship route into teaching, if executed and funded well (but that is another topic altogether!). IMO most subjects do not need a degree in the subject to teach school level content, good set of A grades at A-Level including an A in the relevant subjects would be sufficient.

The skillset teachers need could absolutely be taught on the job and day release for qualifications.

As a non degree qualified professional, who learned on the job but without the structure of an apprenticeship, I absolutely advocate routes to careers without the burden of the cost of a degree when it is not required.

when my DS stayed on in 6th form to retake A levels they used let him teach the occasional maths class, he also mentored the younger students in Maths

yes, that is true, but there is limited teacher training involved, some weeks in August, then straight into the classroom

No. I went to a small (125-140 pupils) private school abroad for most of my primary school and we had qualified teachers and then a few student teachers (19, just finished A'level taking a gap year before uni) who helped teachers served as subs, helped coach their speciality sport (as long as they played first team in senior school, bonus points for provincial or national teams), art, music, drama, woodwork, needlework etc & normal classes etc but always worked with a teacher unless subbing.

Helped they were around the whole time and they would usually have a big fun project like an event throughout the school year. We would start the year with 5 and finish with 2-3. And maybe 1 would return the following year.

Then we had teachers-in-training, typically 2 throughout their entire program and they would study and teach/intern simultaneously done in conjuction with their uni. More study the first year and maybe 10% of their time at school, and then gradually increasing it in their 2nd year, 100% on site in their 3rd for work experience (done for all courses in that country) and then 60/40 in their final year before joining full time. They got more responsibility as it went on and guaranteed jobs if you did well at the school that helped with your teacher training. Great that you'd be familiar with the kids too and know the kids that would be in your class when you qualified.

Think it can work well as long as responsibilities and work load are suited to the apprenticeship ability and not full time teaching from apprentices.

well, it isnt ideal to attempt to teach A level if you only have an A level yourself, but there are many teachers teaching in subjects they dont even have GCSE in

I cannot imagine what the staffing issues were here for the schools best option to be to use a student who failed the exam to teach the exam. Madness.

My ds didnt fail any test. He had an A in maths A level. He was retaking physics and has dyslexia which effects his performance in exams.
They weren't short in staff, they thought it was good experience for him as teaching something often embeds knowledge and gives the students a change

Surely the best way to learn to be a teacher is actually teaching - in the classroom? I'm not sure why teachers need a degree, other than maybe for knowing their subject well enough at secondary.

I would definitely be worried about a 19 year old leading a class of 16 year olds alone from a safeguarding point of view. a 19 year old is barely out of puberty and is still quite immature, and may not be capable of making sensible decisions in the event of an attraction arising between them and another teenager. inappropriate liaisons would definitely become more common.