To be utterly dumbfounded

[Swansandcustard]

DD17 is currently almost 1 year into A Levels at 6th form. She’s doing Classics, Ancient History and Sociology, with a view to go into either Archeology or Anthropology etc.

Yesterday the Classics/Ancient Rome teacher informed them they had basically been headhunted by the local private school, who were offering a lot more money and would fund their masters.

This teacher is the only non-private one of these subjects in our county. It’s very hard to recruit to, they’ve said they might put an English teacher in as substitute. The class is moving onto the Aeneid in the Autumn and they’ve been told they might have to teach themselves it. The departing teacher is leaving her material on Teams ‘in case of the worst’.

So, potentially 2 of DD’s 3 A Levels are fucked. Classics is acknowledged to be one of the most difficult A Levels as it is.

It’s horrific that the state school system is so unwelcoming to teachers that this kind of thing can go on. As annoyed as I am, I don’t blame the teacher. Why wouldn’t they take the offer?!

I'd ask the school whether they can talk to the private school about sending pupils over for lessons with this teacher, or maybe even borrowing her one day a week.

Those fields don't have good career prospects anyway. She'll need a PhD and there might be 500 job openings a year. All very competitive. It'd be a shame to go through all the years and expense of study to find she can't get a job in it and ends up working in an unrelated nmw job.

Classics is not required at all for archaeology or anthropology. It's a language subject!

Useful subjects - History. Geography. Biology. Chemistry. Maths.

Archaeology is increasingly scientific, statistical analysis, fields like sedimentology, GIS, zooarchaeology, dendrochronology & and carbon dating etc.

I understand your frustration, however, its appalling to be faced with no teacher half way into the course.

"Those fields don't have good career prospects anyway. She'll need a PhD and there might be 500 job openings a year. All very competitive."

This. Archaeology pay is piss poor, the work is insecure and project/contract based. Jobs in museums & academia are terrifically hard to come by & even then aren't well paid given that most people applying have masters and phds from highly ranked institutions.

I am surprised you would not ask the school what their plans are before posting on MN. You never know, it might not be that bleak.

There is no law that says you have to go into the field you did your degree in. Friend's daughter with an archaeology degree found her degree was highly valued in a number of areas of potential employment and she is now earning silly money in the city.

I have an 0 level in Latin
I really enjoyed the historical side
However, the qualification has had no bearing on my career in the future.
If no offer from private school, I would swap to English Literature

Secondly, world cultures are more diverse than just Romans & Greeks !

What are the other students going to do on her course ?

It’s very difficult to know age 16 or 17 what you want to study at university or do as a career. The ops DD may not have the obvious A levels for archaeology as posters say. I think anthropology might like Classics A level a bit more?

However if she has a passion for ancient history and classics then she should keep going. It’s not just for rich kids. Don’t be put off. She should ask her old teacher (who having successfully negotiated their masters degree being paid for, maybe they can also ask to finish teaching their old classics class) to help, ask the private school to help. Don’t give up at this hurdle. If your DD does the contacting herself it will be more impressive, if she can be her class rep on this it will be even more impressive. Just be very polite and upbeat. Assume they will be delighted to step in and help having inadvertently created this problem. In my experience classics teachers are a funny bunch (my 3 kids have had 5 different teachers between them), but extremely generous and so passionate about their subject.

Friends daughter might be me then 😂

The point being - classics is not a necessity either way.

How does anyone know that the private school is even local?!
Surely the school will just advertise for a new teacher? Why assume that the post won’t be filled?
Is the class learning Latin A-level or Classical Civilisation?

Why assume that the post won’t be filled?

Teachers are like hens teeth, classics teachers are rarer and they can access better pay and conditions in the private sector so you don't get many in state.

@pantjog the op says “local private school” in her post.

If the school have offered these subjects, then isn't it up to them to find a solution?

So not quite the same in terms of the speciality of the subject and the importance of the exams, but this happened to me when I was doing it GCSEs. I was studying business studies (didn’t even want to, my school simply placed me there as I joined in year 10). At the end of year 10, the business studies teacher left and the school decided to stop offering it as a subject.

So for year 11, we had a series of different subject teachers or governors trying to teach us the subject. To give them credit, they clearly spent time prepping for each class and followed the curriculum, that a lot of us still got top grades.

I know it’s worrying, but it might be ok. Ultimately it’s just a curriculum that needs to be followed and an experienced teacher should be able to do that if they put the effort in.

I would ask the school to approach the private school with the proposal that the private school helps maintain its charitable status by enabling the state school students to finish their A Levels, as otherwise adverse publicity may be damaging to the school's reputation.

@Schoolplacechoicemyth how is classics A Level a language subject? Isn’t it the study of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece? Literature/art/culture etc?

The teacher couldn't leave until September term anyway so will you child not have finished by then, or are they first year?

Sorry just re read your post.

@Kleptronic haha, I agree with you but the first approach really doesn’t need to be heavy handed, you can always go there if necessary further down the line. It doesn’t have to be unpleasant, give the private school the chance to be helpful and do the right thing first. The DD could ask for a meeting with head of classics herself (check the school website) and put her case. They may fall over themselves to help and then put a small “look how community minded we are” post on their social media pages when DD aces her exams. I know that’s what my kids school would do! They will want a happy story rather than veiled threats.

Classics is not required at all for archaeology or anthropology.

I can't speak about the anthropology but I know for sure it's not for archaeology and yes it will need further study if they want to stay in the area - but DH and I wandered from our first degree areas so know that's common experience. So always worth checking subject entry requirements for where she wants to do a degree.

However I do know how worrying it is DD1 Y13 lost a A-level subject teacher just before a major hand in date for course work and only just before exam prep/end of course started - being a more common subject they did manage to find a replacement.

DS had to sit one of the GCSE in a year and for 6 month of that had no subject teacher. DN different school and part of UK has been left with no subject teacher in one option since March - she's Y11 as well.

It is worrying but I would contact the school and see what they actually say and then see if there is tutoring or on-line sites you could access if needed.

how is classics A Level a language subject? Isn’t it the study of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece? Literature/art/culture etc?

I thought it was predominantly latin/greek language. Or perhaps op means classical civilisations which is broader?

Either way you need neither for archaeology. The content in a-levels isnt really so important with arts subjects, its more the skills of analysis, interpretation, inference etc, which is why most decent unis generally like a mix of "traditional" subjects at a-level and don't love subject specific courses like law.

I agree that probably the greatest failure of all our public sector organisations is the ridiculous pay band structure.

Very little flexibility to reward top performers and high-demand-low-supply employees. Instead choosing to subsidise the low performers and oversupplied roles.

Leads to the best and brightest (who end up doing the lion's share of value-add) either leaving for the private sector to be rewarded fairly or just drained of motivation if they stay.

Talk to the school urgently about what plans they might be able to put in place. As others have mentioned, they might be able to persuade the private school into some arrangement. It's possible that whoever has created the vacancy at the private school has retired but might be persuaded into a little A-level teaching until next May. It's also early enough that they may be able to recruit a new teacher - most likely newly-qualified, as those working in the private sector usually have to give a whole term's notice, but maybe a returner. If there's any networking locally between classics teachers, they should get the word out - someone might know someone.

If they can't find a teacher with experience of those subjects, do they have a history teacher with some enthusiasm for learning a new spec (you want it to be someone who sees it as a challenge/opportunity, not someone who just gets it dumped on their timetable)? An English/languages teacher who did classics at A-level? Can they get the teacher(s) concerned on a suitable training course, or pay for someone to support them? Maybe the private school, as part of their support for the wider community, could give the current teacher an hour a week to provide some support and advice, and moderate marking, etc. (This might also apply if they employ a newly-qualified teacher, who might need some support.)
And if end up with a make-do option, what can they do to boost? For example, can they get someone to come in for some whole-day workshops (perhaps the current teacher, if the private school term dates are shorter)? Can they find an Easter revision course and pay for the kids to attend?

If the solution found is not ideal, that needs to be explained on the UCAS applications - hopefully universities will be willing to make contextual offers even if the students would not normally qualify. Hopefully mocks and predicted grades will be unaffected, so offers should be okay - perhaps some phonecalls after offers might be useful, to make sure the universities are aware that final results may be impacted. If the universities know, then they may be generous when they look at missed offers.

Note to school management everywhere: if you have a single difffcult-to-replace teacher for two minority subjects, be wary of allowing students to sign up for both.

You'd think. Ds1's computer science teacher left due to illness in October of y12. They've had a few lessons with maths teachers, 2 temporary teachers (neither were qualified teachers, neither had experience of teaching A level, neither seemed capable of organising their way out of a paperbag). He's sitting the A level in 2 months, having basically taught himself.
If there are no teachers who want the job, what can the school actually do?

I saw someone who was cross that their child's school had just announced that they weren't going to run computer science after all. Better that they made that decision with time for students to choose something or somewhere else, than that they gambled on finding a replacement in time.