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!

PP make very good points but I'm confused as to what you want the school to do if they can't hire a specialist?

You're not wrong, OP, but you are a little naïve (I mean that in the nicest possible way.) If your child is at an academy, their teacher can be literally anyone and certainly don't need to have QTS or a PGCE.

Your concerns are entirely valid. If lots of parents / citizens share these concerns and take action such as writing to their M.P., support teaching unions' strikes (for example, in France most parents don't send their children to school on strike / industrial action days, to show their solidarity), then perhaps there will be some improvement.

Personally the latter but it's a generalisation. The highest qualified teachers I had in terms of PhDs etc were definitely not always the best teachers (in fact were often poor as they struggled to explain things simply and understand why the pupils didn't understand concepts that were easy for them).

I hope you backed the teachers when they were on strike OP.

At the rate teachers are leaving you’ll be lucky to have an English or Maths specialist teaching them the core subjects.

It’s in a very sorry state and who knows how many years it’ll take to solve it.
Geography is probably the least of the school’s worries sadly.

I can't really comment on Geography but most people with music degrees have had to study a fair amount of history as part of their degree.

I teach a small amount of KS3 French, because I have a ‘A’ at French A-level. My degree is in music (Oxford) and I have a masters in psychology.

The alternative is a supply teacher fluent in the target language who struggles to maintain order and whose classes are chaotic and dangerous.

Sometimes schools have to make choices based on who can actually teach.

In my long teaching career, started in 1970, I have taught the majority of subjects except Music and Drama, other than when covering for an absent colleague. My subject is Maths, to A level, but at various times I was timetabled for all kinds of things to fill gaps in the timetable, I recall keeping a couple of pages ahead of the class when teaching Technical Drawing in my first job. It's not new to have to use teachers from other subjects though I do understand it's worse now. I got a really good report from an HMI when doing a spell in a Reception class for our Mathematics display, the Head was delighted.

There's no requirement other than in a directly maintained school for teachers to have QTS. Subject wise, theoretically a teacher can be asked to teach any subject, if there is a shortage of specialists. An academy or a private school can hire anyone at all.

I would think they've been unable to hire a specialist and are making do with whatever staff have the timetabled capacity to teach those lessons.

There is little point complaining to the school as they will be well aware of the staffing issues. Write to your MP about education, befriend any out of work geography teachers you come across and big up the school to them?? Not sure what else you can do.

I'd rather have a qualified, permanent music teacher teaching Humanities to my child, if that is their timetabled teacher for the year, presumably with departmental/head of department support and schemes of work, than a series of supply or cover teachers who could be different every day🤷‍♀️

Someone with zero teaching qualifications or experience will probably not be able to teach, no matter how much knowledge they have. You need to know how to pitch things in the right way, how to adapt to different levels of children, how to keep their attention and most importantly these days, behaviour management!!

If you’ve had no experience in a classroom your behaviour management will be awful. This is a BIG part of teacher training which you learn in stages and through observation of other teachers. I’m an ex teacher btw.

The most ineffective teacher I ever worked with was the most highly qualified. He had a PhD and clearly was proficient in his subject, but simply couldn’t teach it. I’d prefer someone who has the ability to manage a classroom, follow the lesson plan and develop a positive relationship with the students.

Our local Grammar school has 3 maths teachers with no maths degree and one got a C at A level and is very shit at maths. Just shows a video. Teaching is in a shocking state and who in their right mind would go into it at the moment. I feel so sorry for dedicated, qualified teachers desperately trying to help kids but they are becoming fewer and fewer every year.

Is it an Academy?

The schools dont even need to have a 'qualified' teacher to teach any subjects. They can be people with no formal qualifications at all.

@northlundunmum "I do understand there are teacher shortages"
So therefore this is what teacher shortages look like. If the school simply doesn't have enough teachers then this is the result. Resources are diverted to GCSE years. This is going to get worse not better until the recruitment and retention issue is resolved. You will be lucky to even have a warm body at the front of the classroom for some subjects.

Funny how people don't consider what the phrase "teacher shortages" looks like until it impacts their DC.

In Scotland you qualify and register in a particular subject. You can also get accreditations for additional subjects if you meet the criteria.

Not having qualified staff to teach at GCSE or A level is a national disgrace. Caused, as said up thread, by how unattractive successive governments have made the teaching profession. I don't agree that unqualified staff in year 8 is acceptable because these are not exam classes yet. A qualified teacher teaches in a completely different way to an unqualified teacher. Understandably they have to rely on the prepared resources of others more .. which they may or may not understand. A busy head of dept with a full timetable of teaching/marking/managing has very limited time to support. A teacher qualified in the subject usually has given a more thorough grounding in the subject to younger pupils which is essential for the best possible results in later exams. It is not the teachers fault that they have had to teach a subject they are not qualified to teach and they usually don't like it either. Usually it is not the school's fault either. Endless cuts in education budgets, far too much time on admin, pressure to manage increasingly poor behaviour, not necessarily with parental or school support all impact the learning experience and ultimately it is the pupils" learning and results which suffer. I could go on but enough already. I am with you in expecting fully qualified subject staff for your year 8 pupil op. By all means raise this with the school but I highly doubt they can do anything about it. Keep a careful eye though on who is teaching GCSE though when she gets to that stage. 💐

@Ace56

Fair point :).

I've given lectures and classes at university, but as I said, I have no formal teaching qualifications. I do agree with you, there's obviously a sliding scale... I've had amazing PhD teachers, and others who simply couldn't translate vast knowledge into basic concepts.

I keep referring back to the saying (attributed to Einstein, as everything appears to be...), "If you can't explain it to anyone, you don't know it well enough".

It's a shame though... there are currently a lot of highly-qualified unemployed people out there, and a shortage of teachers.

I am not a geography teacher but have taught several year 7 geography classes and managed just fine. I’ve also taught A level psychology, philosophy, sociology and citizenship, none of these are my specialist subject. It’s more common than you think.

I have a relative teaching maths. No maths degree, but science degree and 20 years experience teaching maths. He is the most technically skilled teacher in the department and the go to person for the most advanced Y13 further maths stuff which some of the others shy away from. And he gets top notch results.

On the other hand, my dc has a teacher who does have a degree in his subject, but since he can't be bothered to read the current syllabus/specification and doesn't value academics, he's a pretty rubbish teacher - and has rubbish results to illustrate it.

I was maths teacher.

Lots of people who teach maths have what is called a numerate degree rather than a maths degree.

Engineering, computer science, physics (although frankly these days if you can get someone with a physics degree you hang onto them for dear life) etc.

Also, there is a real shortage of all kinds of teachers but particularly maths and science. So anyone and everyone is asked to fill the holes in the timetable.

At the school I used to work we gave year 7 classes, usually to PE teachers for some reason.

YANBU to expect your child to be taught by a competent teacher.

This teacher has admitted to not being very good at teaching humanities.

I feel for the teacher too though as she probably has been told she has to.

Education system’s a disgrace.

What happens in Scotland if schools can't hire a teacher with the necessary subject qualifications?

I've got a degree in a STEM subject, but I think that were I a teacher I could probably have a decent stab at most subjects in the lower years and any science to GCSE if I had a bit of a refresher. At A level I'd probably only be confident about my own subject though.
Being able to teach is a skill in it's own right and it is probably far more important that a teacher is enthusiastic, can relate to their pupils and actually knows how to teach than that they have a vast subject knowledge in the younger age groups. I really don't think you need a History degree to teach the curriculum to 11 and 12 year olds.
Obviously it would be better if teachers only had to teach their own subject. I am sure they would prefer it too! I bet the Music teacher has to spend a lot more time preparing for Humanities lessons than Music ones. But given the current shortage of teachers it seems reasonable to use subject specialists for GCSE and A level classes predominantly if you don't have enough to cover all year groups.

Incidentally, government policy is that not only does the teacher not have to have a degree in the relevant subject, these days they do not need to be a qualified teacher either.

Plenty of people without PGCE/B.Ed teaching.

At one time people did A levels and went straight on to teacher training college .
At one time you could go into teaching on a third class degree . But back then teachers didn't put up with the crap they do now and have to watch everything they say and do in and outside of school .