Can you be a SEN teacher with no qualifications?

[Redtaper]

Or a SEN teaching assistant?

To be fair, you could also say 'Let's stop pretending all these qualified teachers with degrees are great'. As in any job, some are great and some are awful. Applies to both qualified and unqualified teachers, as a TA I see both types of each.

You can be a TA without qualifications.

Many unqualified teachers are TAs.

You can be a SENDCO without QTS.

Independent schools and academies can put whoever they want into a teaching or headship role, regardless of qualifications.

Not usually a great one, unless with extensive alternative experience and training.

All teachers should be teachers of SEND, but giving additional support beyond high quality teaching is going to be difficult without knowing how to teach well in the first place.

I've got friends who have SEN roles but no degree nor teaching qualifications. They started out as TAs.

One now works in a school with extremely disabled children. They are a saint as far as I'm concerned. The pay isn't good but they have lots of holiday and the day isn't too long.

Another has worked their way up in safeguarding in a very poor school with awful awful issues. The things they deal with daily are hair raising. They work longer hours and throughout the holidays for better pay because students get into trouble outside school time and still need school involvement with police and social workers.

These people didn't need qualifications. They needed compassion and common sense to do their jobs.

If the government wants to insist on more qualifications for such roles they can pay them more money. NOT going to happen!

I don't think anyone has ever pretended that all qualified teachers are great. And there are an increasing number of shit ones because schools can't get rid of them as any teacher is better than no teacher.

What they are, however, is trained to do the job. That should be a basic expectation.

Plus it’s a safety net.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that protecting teaching so that it’s a graduate profession will lead to better standards overall, considering that it’s the business of education.

I mean you may get an unqualified teacher who can stand on their head and blow smoke out of their arse. Doesn’t at all mean that it’s right for the profession coming from a strategic lens. Of course this was going to be abused but ….. I think it’s too late now to backtrack.

Agreed. But no one ever pretended that all the unqualified ones are great either!

To be fair, you could also say 'Let's stop pretending all these qualified teachers with degrees are great'.

Who's saying that?! No job has universally great workers. There are amazing teachers, awful teachers and mostly ones in between. No teachers think all teachers are great, because we've all met ones who aren't!

I have experience in behavioural management, anger management, playground management, setting up school councils, small group work, 1:1 & SCip,
I have to have a knowledge of autism, training in hoisting and giving meds to vulnerable students including tube feeding. i give personal support , such as changing pads,toileting and changing ST'S
I sign, use OoC, PECs and braille, along with doing observations and all the prep and paperwork for the above along side normal lessons
All for just over the minimum wage
I no longer say any of this on my application forms as it never reflects in my pay regardless of experience
I am support staff

Are all nurses great? No!

Would I want an unqualified nurse treating me? Also no!!

Same thing, there’s no excuse for hiring unqualified staff, it only benefits the tight budget and puts a plaster on piss poor teacher recruitment/retention.

Yes and parents desperate to get 1:1 support for their child often don’t realise that what actually happens is an unqualified TA essentially teaches their child. These pupils often spend most of their time out of the classroom & have very little input from the qualified class teacher.

I can understand that people with no qualifications might make excellent TAs. But surely you need some training in ethics and boundaries in a classroom? Or confidentiality? Or some basic listening skills training? Or some intro to early years education/primary education as an absolute minimum??

Whole profession is run on goodwill (but less and less as time goes on) and an outdated, romanticised view of teaching that still lures the new recruits in (that generally don’t stay for too long).

Yep. Goodwill tends to evaporate when staff morale is low due to awful behaviour, lack of support from SLT and unreasonable workload demands.

I find the strongest ISAs and TAs are the ones who entered in the last 10 years. Not necessarily experienced or qualified but often mums who want rewarding school hour jobs. There is a glut of older bitter heritage LEA TAs who bemoan academisation, the "pathologising" of students and basically work to rule. I have managed teams of them in 3 schools.

There is a glut of older bitter heritage LEA TAs

Seriously? Loads of TA redundancies since 2010 due to being unable to afford them and a constant churn of newer ones as they realise that the job isn't worth the pay and they can get more in Aldi.

I'm surprised you have any that have been in the job any length of time, let alone a glut of them.

Ok. Don’t you think pupils deserve more than TAs who are doing the job only because they want school hour jobs? Furthermore, what happens when the children of those people grow up and school hours are no longer a priority.
IME the shittiest TAs are the ones who went into it because they wanted school hours.

Yeh. Sure you can a teacher but can you teach?

I was replying to noblegiraffe who said that about unqualified teachers. Was just pointing out that you can't generalise about either qualified or unqualified teachers.

I couldn't actually care less if the Senco doesn't have a teaching qualification

Well, I’m glad the DfE disagrees. I think it’s crucial that the SENCo is an experienced teacher.

@neslop

You can generalise actually. I want someone who has completely A-Levels themselves teaching mine doing their A-levels, not someone who didn’t progress past GCSEs which is so often the case.

Completed rather.

@Summatoruvva

They work to rule because they’re not young, dumb and pliable.

Exactly and I admire them, you need a lot of patience

You want staff who are biddable, not opinionated. You prefer people who do the job because it's convenient for their other family commitments, not because they have a vocation and understanding of wider issues.

You can maybe generalise about people who have no A levels, but that's not the same as generalising about unqualified teachers - ie those who don't have QTS. None of the TAs at my school have QTS but they all have A levels and all but 1 have a degree.