To expect my child to be taught by a teacher with a degree in that subject?

[northlundunmum]

My child is in year 8 and in their school
has “Humanities” which is history and geography combined rather than taught separately- not great in my view but ok. However, this year they are being taught by a music teacher. No doubt a very talented musician but according to my child they admit not being very good at teaching history or geography.

I do understand there are teacher shortages and sometimes some teachers will have to cover for others but this seems to be a permanent arrangement at least for this year.

Does anybody know what the DfE / Ofsted rules / guidance are on this? I understand you have to have a degree in a subject in order to train to teach it at secondary level (or at least used to) - does that not extend to actually teaching the subject in school?

Grateful for advice from anyone who knows the law / regulations here as want to approach the school about it and want to be clear what’s reasonable to expect and what they should in fact be doing according to govt policy.

Thank you!

It simply does not work like this in state schools. I’ve had 40+ years of experience in teaching. I have ‘helped out’ in subjects that I am only qualified to O Level. I have taught History, RE and French to Year 7 and 8 and I had to learn the content then teach it.
Fortunately, I have the brains and confidence to manage. This is the norm in state schools which are struggling to recruit.
Your insistence on a teacher having at least A level in the subject is laughable to be honest. You have no idea how schools struggle to keep things afloat.

Sorry - …your insistence on a teacher having a degree… ( not A level)

Except it does; just not in England apparently.

No, it doesn’t.

Meeting the bare minimum entry requirements for teacher training doesn’t make you a good teacher.

However, that doesn’t mean we just erode standards. Keep standards high; pay teachers accordingly; and then you stop the recruitment and retention crisis.

Welcome to the recruitment crisis. Teachers will always rather teach their subjects but can be forced into teaching just about anything else as no-one else is around to do so. If steps were taken to lessen workload and have less abuse towards teachers perhaps this could change. Until then.....

Well, obviously I was talking about England.

My point is that there is no reason why it couldn’t also work in England. Don’t accept low standards.

I don’t know what your point is. What couldn’t also work in England? What do you mean by low standards?
Sounds like you possibly have no idea how state schools struggle to meet timetable demands and make sure that all classes have a teacher.

Maths and science at GCSE and A level require a specialist teacher, as do all subjects at that level. These subjects aren’t more difficult than others.

A few of my friends have recently moved to teaching in the independent sector, and their pay is much higher than the state sector for comparable experience (think about M6/UPS1 for a science teacher who might only be on M2/3 in a state school). At the moment, around here, private schools are recruiting successfully by offering higher pay, but at some point increasing that pay further will likely become unsustainable OR it will have to be passed on to parents via higher fees. In science, as well, they offer the chance to only teach your specialism e.g. teacher of chemistry, not teacher of science, which is quite appealing to some people.

I agree that leaving TPS instantly makes a school less attractive to teachers (especially experienced teachers with a lot of contributions, as well).

I still know of a few private schools who are really struggling to attract science teachers- especially physics teachers. It's nowhere near as bad as for state schools around here, but I do know of a private school who simply couldn't recruit for a maternity cover recently. It's a popular school, and I would have thought someone would have gone for it as a "foot in the door" type thing, but perhaps given wider economic uncertainty, people are reluctant to give up permanent posts?

It could work that every child is timetabled to be taught - for each subject - by a teacher who is both:

a) educated to degree level in that subject
b) a fully qualified teacher

”low standards” mean anything other than the above.

The answer, of course, is paying teachers more.

@C1N1C it really depends on the subject, and the level you would be teaching at. However most schools would be concerned about whether you know what you are getting into. The PGCE or other teacher training involves getting familiar with ideas about how to teach children of different abilities and experience of managing different classes and behaviour. If you haven’t had any of this they would certainly expect you to demonstrate you have experience of working with children/young people etc.
Ask yourself whether a 13 year old whose parents don’t care about education and who ‘hates’ science would be very interested in your PHD in Physics. For example.

I agree! But speak to the government and their absolutely rubbish response to the crisis of teacher retention and recruitment!

TBH you’re lucky they’re a qualified teacher!

Cloud cuckoo land.

In an ideal world they'd have a degree. When I trained you could teach it if you had an a level in the subject but now they're so thin on the ground. I'm not sure how schools are still running. My child told me their maths teacher who isn't a lead boasted that they're on more than 60k so I'm guessing they're paying to keep people on as a friend of mine was head of department in another area and on nowhere near this salary. I'm primary trained but exiting and no amount of money would be enough for me to teach secondary from what I hear from my own children. It sounds dire

It really isn’t. In Scotland; spend per pupil is 18% more than in England.
A teacher earns £48.5k within 5 years.
We don’t have a retention crisis.
We don’t have a recruitment crisis.
All children are taught by a subject specialist.
It is really sad that you think this is cloud cuckoo land stuff. It’s not. It’s happening on the same land mass as you.

Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you! Although in many ways the state of education in England is upsetting!

I think up until very recently, schools tried their very best to protect exam year groups and give them opportunities. I know schools who partially redid their timetables to ensure every student got specialist teachers for e.g. science and maths in Y10 and 11. But then they still couldn't recruit enough staff, and it's got to the point where even exam year groups can't be protected enough.

If a science teacher leaves mid year around here, it's pretty much accepted you can't replace them until the following September- which means potentially two full terms of supply for some students.

Trips are really difficult- I'd love our students to get more trips BUT if I take my Y10s on a trip, I know my Y11s or 13s will be left essentially to self teach- and I worry I can't afford to miss too many days with them. There's also the issue of paying for coaches- the school can't afford this (we are in deficit this year) so we have to charge parents, but a lot of parents can't afford to pay either. Because it's a rural school, we also have the pressure of getting back for the busses which limits where we go.

We do run a trip for Y10 in the summer term, after our exam groups have left, so maybe he will get more chances then?

To be fair, it's not so long ago in England that this was at least somewhat the norm.

I went to school in the 00s, and in my secondary school I had:

-Specialist subject teachers for KS3 and KS4, tbf I don't know what their degrees were, but every subject was taught by someone who specialised in that subject.
-At KS4, I had a biology, chemistry and a physics specialist teaching me throughout my GCSEs.
-If maternity cover was needed, the school was able to recruit a teacher with knowledge and experience of that subject.

My school was a "bog standard" comp, not an especially desirable place to work.

The school itself hasn't changed, but I work in the same area now, and (like most schools locally) the school struggles to fill vacancies, and can't offer subject specialists in lots of areas.

So what's changed?

-House prices have increased faster than wages. A family with a teacher as a higher earner would now struggle to afford a house in that town/area/
-More teachers leaving due to excessive workload and stress
-Teaching is a less attractive career as wages have been eroded.
-Apparently, at that school in particular (but at many schools, to be honest) behaviour has deteriorated massively.

If society could fix even one of these things, it would help- and I don't believe that's impossible.

Land mass?? FFS. You make a point then throw in stuff about Scotland which has a different system. No, it’s not in the least SAD that I think it’s cloud cuckoo stuff to expect it to be the same in England.

For GCSE / Alevel I think it's really important for a teacher to have a degree or specialise in their subject.
Years 7 and 8 I think its much better if they are subject specific teachers as they will hopefully have enthusiasm for what they are teaching which will engage children more.
Does your school have specific history and geography teachers for exam years?

Yes - not sure why you have so many question marks after the words “land mass” - do you want me to explain what it means?
Yes, Scotland has a different system. A better one. One England could do too; if it chose to properly invest in education.

It is sad that standards have dropped so far that you don’t think teachers being paid more would allow better better candidates to be recruited.

Says a lot about your country and it’s priorities if you don’t think that is possible. Why is it not possible?

Ha good luck 😂 even private schools don't have specialist teachers anymore. Big recruitment crisis if you haven't heard.

So In some schools they hire specialists who aren’t qualified teachers. I know quite a few musicians who teach music in schools. They don’t have a teaching degree but do have a music degree or grades in music and music theory. Usually primary but sometimes secondary too.

At my daughter’s school the music teacher has taught reading lessons and also food tech. I’m guessing some subjects in some schools are hard to get people to apply for so they make do with someone who at least has an interest and can follow a scheme. I think her drama teacher also taught computing.

They do at DDs school. Every teacher is a subject specialist with QTS.

Look at my username.

I was a secondary Science teacher, and left the profession 10 years ago last month. You couldn’t get me to go back into teaching now for a HT salary much less a classroom teacher.

The school I spent most of my career at employed me to do art for a year to start with. I’m left handed and I can’t even draw a good looking flower similar to what a toddler or Reception class child might draw. But I was a living breathing body. And that was enough for them, even back in 2000.