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.

I was trying to decide what to think of this then realised we have a zombie government who won’t actually be able to implement it before the next election and then they’ll be out so it’s all rather irrelevant. Bit like the “maths to 18” thing.

However, what some on here are missing is that it is targeted at training maths and physics teachers at secondary. Who will that attract? Any 18 year old good at maths or physics would be daft not to pursue that even if they thought they’d teach eventually,

TAs who would really like to be teachers but who don’t have a degree is an issue to be solved but they mainly exist at primary.

The Bed route is an education degree. What would this be a degree equivalent in? Maths? Or education? When would they be getting their maths subject knowledge up to degree level and who would teach that? (Not teacher trainers, that’s not their expertise). Or would they not be expected to develop expert subject knowledge, in which case what would they be learning and why would we want them teaching A-level maths?

Most successful education administrations would say this was ill-informed. Perhaps you'd be happy with surgeons practising in abattoirs like they did in the 18th century? Nurses just 'having a go'? Lawyers taking cases after watching LA Law? No need for background knowledge.

Pesky subject knowledge. Why would a teacher need that? It is like the only thing that is important is childcare and keeping the class quiet.

and theyll all be taught from oak academy.

and all teachers become cover supervisors.

and the pay halved. Not just in real terms.

Running a class of 34 nine year olds with a huge range of abilities, SEND/behaviour and no TA whilst parents still expect every child to make progress, to be told about every incident, for you to find every lost jumper and to head every child read, at the age of 19 is no walk in the park either.

I know this isn’t being pitched at primary, but this is more in response to people who are horrified at the prospect of a 19 year old teaching their child A level maths but think it’s ‘fine’ in primary as you don’t need any subject knowledge (apparently) and they all just probably just play in the sand anyway.

I personally wouldn’t want to do this at 19 but I think it’s a good idea.

I felt my PGCE was a bit of a waste of time and I would have learnt much more by being in a school on more regular basis.

The good thing about a PGCE is you had other people to talk to rather than just the school you’re at and it was nice to talk to people who were going through the same things as you were and to share tips.

A couple of the other students had awful placements and were bullied by the staff there and they were able to speak to their uni mentor about it and get it sorted.

But I don’t think it prepared me very well at all and I did most of my learning on the job.

They say the NQT year is the hardest year and I think it’s because you are basically learning it all from scratch.

I worry the apprenticeship route would mean an excuse to have classes taught by someone on a crap wage and some schools may continually just have apprentices.

Meh. You get what your government is prepared to pay for. Tories hate spending tax revenue on basics like healthcare and education for the great unwashed. These trainee teachers are cheaper than educating teachers for another four years of an Ed degree.

It depends on the increased workload for more experienced teachers who will have to spoon-feed these trainees at every point, so inevitably more experienced teachers will collapse under workload and leave. Education, like the health service, is in deep shit, and the government is full of people who have never had to worry about going hungry or how to pay their bills and can't imagine what being ordinary is like.

At 18 student nurses cared for patients and were undertaking care tasks. Even those now doing degrees are on the wards at 18 (however, they appear not to actually be doing anything that resembles nursing)

An 18 year old at university could be in the classroom too and I don't think that a uni student would necessarily be any better than an apprentice.
The cynic in me thinks that this is about paying teachers less long term. They desperately need teachers and creating them younger is a Hail Mary attempt to sort this out.

I too would be concerned about GCSE and A Levels being taught by somebody without a degree in that specialism. How do you stretch and challenge if your personal knowledge isn’t about the students? Is it the usual, let’s put the idea into the public domain and let people with a modicum of common sense tell us how to make the idea work or equally tell us why it won’t?

It boggles my mind that some parents on this thread have such low requirements of the people charged with their children's secondary education.

The idea that they're happy that an 18 year old can pass their A level in a subject, and teach it a few months later, is just astonishing.

On other threads, people moan that teachers have no 'real job' experience. Now they're happy for them not to have had a 'real job' OR a degree.

As an ex teacher the industry desperately needs teachers. Training on the job is a good way in as a lot of it is training in schools anyway. However, the government are not putting money into retaining already trained and experienced teachers. They're just running education into the ground creating more work, cutting SEN funding, cutting budgets so schools have to recruit NQTs as they're cheaper. This is just another way of recruiting cheap teachers and a quick way of plugging the recruitment gap. There are lots of teacher training vacancies and teaching post vacancies. 15 years ago it was very difficult to get into teacher training now there are vacancies they can't fill.

Why would anyone need, for example, a STEM degree learning much more complex topics to then only teach A-level level content? If you obtain the grades to show competence at A level content and further embed that A level content learning through a well structured apprenticeship and on job training, I don't see the added value of the degree if the degree level complex topics are superfluous to the requirements of the role.

well, they are not superfluous to the role, are they.

If you don't know how the content you are teaching fits into the wider content of your subject, then you are not going to any good at teaching in a way that lays the right foundations, and as the A level syllabus moves around and varies and develops, you are going to find yourself teaching content you don't know

You are not going to be able to keep up with advances in your subject, you are not going to be able to assess students potential or advise them how they will cope with the next level, you are simply not going to be able to teach to the same standard at all

I know there are teachers teaching A level without A level in the subject - I have been forced to do it myself, at times, but the stress and time and layout required to be sure you are the right number of steps ahead of your students ( and the minimum is deemed to be at least two years) and I know I have never been as good in other subjects compared to my own - nor is anyone else. I have stepped in to support other struggling teachers, again, in my own time

Only in absolutely dire situations does someone have to attempt to teach A level in a subject they are not qualified in, never by plan, and it is never ever fair on either the students or the teacher

You are so wrong. You don't really seem to know what teachers do

how can an A-Level pupil with the intrinsic potential to reach A* grade in a subject, and who might then go on to get a first class undergraduate degree in that subject and further postgraduate studies, ever reach or even be inspired to try to reach that potential if the are being taught by someone who only ever managed a B-grade level of understanding themselves and had no interest in deepening their knowledge beyond the confines of managing to pass their A-Level. How could such a teacher provide additional stretch and challenge to pupils who are probably more intelligent and knowledgeable than they themselves are?

I think highly skilled joiners are probably better teaching woodwork than someone with a degree in teaching

Why would highly skilled joiners want to teach woodwork to children?

What about the rest of Design Technology?

Do you know what a “degree in teaching” consists of?

My degree knowledge has come in handy when non-subject specialists start telling me how to teach and trying to tell me how to plan a curriculum.
The range of perspectives I gained on my PGCE come in handy when asking awkward questions to quickly promoted leaders who think their latest initiative, with additional workload, is the next big thing.

I can see why people of fast tracked management types who've left the classroom wouldn't want well educated and critically thinking classroom teachers.

The difference is most likely the level of supervision and the length of time on the placement. There is a difference between an 8-12 week placement and being taught by that person all year...

The majority of BEd courses are primary, these days.

It is different, and there is no guarantee apprentices would be supervised in the same way.

Well, to be clear, the proposals suggest a degree is part of the training- so it's not like you could skip the degree level content entirely. It's just for 3 (?) years you could be teaching students with that level of content.

But also, it wouldn't work. A bright A-level class would find you out if you didn't have any more subject knowledge than they did. Most A-level classes are obviously pretty compliant, but I have seen A-level classes turn on teachers they do not respect and it's not good for anyone.

The best case scenario is the students would just stop attending the lessons.

We already have some of the lowest academic and training requirements in the world for teachers. The fact people are happy with that and want to lower it further boggles the mind.

Well, to be clear, the proposals suggest a degree is part of the training- so it's not like you could skip the degree level content entirely. It's just for 3 (?) years you could be teaching students with that level of content.

Who would be teaching the class while the apprentice is off learning degree level maths? Also teacher training plus degree is 4 years, so I guess the maths would be watered down?

I don't know enough about primary training to comment. But I wouldn't be happy if it was secondary. They would not have anywhere near as much subject knowledge as a teacher with a degree in the subject they are teaching. Admittedly, many schools are already unable to have subject specialists teaching all classes and it does lead to lower standards.

I'm a teacher and don't see a problem with it for primary years. It's a bit different for A level where you do need specific knowledge, although what I studied in my degree and at school doesn't have a lot in common with the current GCSE or A level.

I want to put another perspective. DD at 22 started her PhD at Cambridge. She was asked if she wanted to supervise groups of 1st years in her subject. One of the 1st years was older than her. She is paid a set rate for prepping and delivering the supervisions (tutorials) which is comparable to that of an experienced qualified teacher. If it's good enough for Cambridge to have people who only studied that course 4 years ago teaching & supporting, why not a 19 year old in a primary classroom with an experienced teacher alongside?

Fun fact. Not all teachers have a degree nowadays. They are qualified teachers. A degree isn’t everything. 😊

Sounds a great idea.

How many 19 year old would want to teach a roomful of kids?
Sounds an absolute disaster and just another way of dismantling state provision.