If your child is thinking of being a PE teacher ...

[finalay]

... you may want to suggest they aim to teach a second subject too.

As the graph shows, there's a massive oversupply of trainee PE teachers and an undersupply of most other subjects. So if your aspiring PE teacher is competing for a job in a good school, the school will be looking to see what else they can teach alongside it! PE teachers who have second subjects that are in the shortest supply will be in a much better position than those who don't.

I'm saying this as someone who knows a couple of new PE teachers who are struggling to get the jobs they want, and also as someone who works in one of the many good schools that are struggling to recruit teachers in some subjects.

But surely if you want to be a PE teacher and your second subject is physics the school that needs a physics teacher isn’t going to give you PE classes to teach. So even though you’re more likely to get a job it’s not going to be the job that you want.

Depends I reckon. My son is at a small prep school and lots of their teachers double up. His form teacher is also a PE teacher and also teaches DT. One of the science teachers also coaches rugby. In fact I think they only have one teacher who only does PE.

Not quite true. They will offer both subjects in most case. Providing you insist at Interview. Physics teachers are like hens teeth so they will accommodate

Surely you only go into PE teaching if you're not bright enough to teach anything else? That's how it used to be anyway.

If their school doesn't give them enough PE, they can move to a school that will give them enough PE, and make sure they negotiate it up front. There will be plenty of demand.

Have you looked recently at what you need to know to teach PE?

Not at all - many students go into PE teaching because their naive parents and teachers tell them to "do what you love", with no thoughts about the balance of supply and demand.

And if they're not bright, they're unlikely to get a good PE teaching job in such a competitive market. Many trainee PE teachers are the headteachers of the future.

am I reading the graph correctly? - there’s basically an oversupply of primary teachers and an under supply of secondary teachers ( other than a few subjects).

Yes, you are.

Interesting graph.

At my dc school, most of the subject teachers also teach PE, so I think they do require a dual qualification. It’s a very sporty school though so they have an awful lot of PE/games sessions.

Because they're the only ones who stay in education long enough to make it to HT!

Really?
How many HT do you know that were PE teachers? I am teacher in UK for last thirty years and I don't know any.

At my DCs school some of the PE teachers also teach psychology. I used to think that was weird until one of my children did psychology A level and another did PE A level and I realised how much cross over there is. As psychology is only an A level subject (well at our school anyway) obviously there's not enough hours of teaching to make it financially viable to have pure psychology teachers, so all the staff who do that have another core subject. It's the same for other A level only subjects such as Politics. So I could see that if you teach a mainstream subject that is over supplied it might be a good strategy to have something like that as a second string to your bow if possible as it could well benefit a prospective employer.
Oh, and the people making disparaging remarks about PE teachers being stupid might like to take a look at the GCSE and particularly the A level syllabus.

Do you have any idea what gcse and a level PE involves? Clearly not.

DH teaches PE and Geography to A Level. He has two degrees and is HOD.

I honestly think PE teachers are one of the most vital teachers there are. Literally everyone goes out into the world needing to exercise and keep fit and healthy and how you enjoy sport at school (or don’t!) has a big bearing on that.

Two in our borough. And two members of the senior leadership team in my school. Interestingly, the other SLT members are athletes too - they need the stamina.

So would these aspiring PE teachers have to have two degrees then? Can you teach Physics for example without a Physics degree?

you don’t need a subject specific degree to teach it. You can do a bachelor of education with subject choices or do a post grad pgce but can teach other subjects than your degree.

Most physics is currently being taught by non-specialists (often biology teachers).

If you have a physics A Level most schools would be very happy for you to teach physics GCSE.

The HoD in physics at my DC's school doesn't have a physics degree, his background is in engineering. There are other teachers in the department with a more theoretical physics background and at A level they split the syllabus so they are teaching to their strengths but they all teach everything up to GCSE.
I have a STEM degree other than physics but I think that if I went into teaching I could teach lower school physics, probably up to GCSE with a bit of a refresher. A level would be a stretch but not beyond the realms of possibility if I really worked at it. Certainly lower down the school I would think it is your general teaching ability that matters more than in depth subject knowledge. Nobody needs a Nobel prize to be able to teach year 7 physics I'm sure, rather a decent founding in science and the ability to actually teach.
My youngest DS is currently doing A levels in maths, physics and PE and is a talented athlete. He doesn't want to be a teacher but if he did, I would think that PE and physics is a mix he would probably be able to tackle to some level at least, if not both subjects to A level.

Let’s be honest, people want to teach PE because there is very little planning and preparation involved, and no marking. You get the best bits of teaching without all the rubbish. Everyone else is preparing resources for lessons and making PowerPoints and printing while you can just go to the PE cupboard and pull out some cones and balls. Furthermore, senior management/Ofsted don’t care half as much about PE compared to STEM subjects or English, so there is far less scrutiny.

If PE teachers are suddenly having to teach physics or other subjects as well (and are made aware of this before starting their training), there will be a massive drop in people signing up for this!

DS is doing GCSE PE. He has one practical lesson in 5, the rest are taught in the classroom. He is only in Y10 but Y11 will certainly involve a lot of moderation, videoing and probably out of hours teaching. Not easy, but I suppose one would hope the teachers and the students all enjoy sport.
A Level I think is even more theory.
I am not sure if all PE teachers teach GCSE PE but even if they don't, there is still fixture planning and team development and lots of Saturdays and after school matches to attend.

The thing is, they're being asked to teach other subjects anyway, so it's best they go into it with their eyes open, especially if it helps them get a job in the school they want.

In any case, as there are many more PE teacher trainees than jobs, it won't really matter if some drop out.

My son must be making up all that work he is doing for A level PE then, given his teachers never prepare or mark anything?
And no, there may not be formal marking lower down the school but I don't believe there is no lesson prep and there will be some form of evaluation and record keeping to do I'm sure. I am not a PE teacher but I am a volunteer Coach at a sports club and I can assure you that I don't just rock up, pull a few cones out of a cupboard and make it up as I go along. Nor do I go home and put my feet up and never think about that session again. I don't imagine school teachers do either. Yes, when you have been doing it for a few years you have a bank of session plans to modify and recycle of course, but I imagine an English teacher teaching Animal Farm for the 12th consecutive year probably does as well.
It's different to teaching other subjects obviously but that doesn't necessarily make it easy. I would think the PE teachers at our school have one of the busiest timetables of any department. They teach virtually all of every year group as PE is complusory up to and including year 12 at our school and voluntary in year 13. Rather than having fewer pupils higher up the school as most subjects do their workload goes up for year 10 and beyond as they still have "normal" PE to teach as well as GCSE and A level classes, plus they contribute to the PHSE curriculum and their out of hours commitment is huge. I know other teachers do great work after school too, but certainly at our school PE is the only department that has after school activities, often multiple, every evening and on most Saturday mornings.
Every job has its ups and downs of course but some of the stereotypes about PE teachers being perpetuated on this thread are ridiculous. All my DS's PE teachers are Sports Science graduates and are intelligent, articulate,hard working and caring human beings. They're much the same as his physics and maths teachers really but people seem less inclined to make sweeping generalisations about teachers in those subjects.

The HT at the secondary school my DS went to was a PE teacher when DS was there. The HT at my DDs SEN school was a PE teacher. That said, of DS's peer group who went to Uni to study PE related subjects and then did a PGCE afterwards, I can't think of one who is actually working as a PE teacher.