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!

@mumsneedwine dry any month with marking in it does not compute.

But they are, odds on, not teaching your children, so what's your point?

My point is I think people are quite unrealistic about who can teach their children in this time of crisis in education. If someone is quite determined they wouldn't be able to then I wouldn't want them to teach my kids.

I'm actually happy for anyone who is a good teacher and has skills and knowledge of a subject to teach my kids. Not fussed if they have an actual degree in it.

@Zonder so because I can't remember my A levels maths from nearly 40 years ago you wouldn't want me teaching A level chemistry ? To teach A level you need to be confident in your subject knowledge and know the correct terminology and common misconceptions. Not being rude. Just trying to explain why teachers are reluctant to do it. GCSE maybe (not anything arty though).

No, you need QTS to teach in a school - which can be achieved via multiple pathways, not just a PGCE - or to be in the process of getting it. Not the same thing as a PGCE.

Don’t say ‘unfortunately’ when what you’re saying is inaccurate in the first place.

You do not need a PGCE to teach in schools. You need QTS. A PGCE is the most common way of achieving this but it’s far from being the only way.

As for the OP - you’re not being unreasonable per se; in an ideal world it would be the case. I believe children do deserve to be taught by trained teachers who are also subject specialists.

However, as many have already pointed out, this isn’t the reality for schools at the moment.

I have been an English teacher for 15 years (SHOCK HORROR, I ‘only’ have QTS - not a PGCE!) and I remember when we were ten a penny.

Now I get headhunting emails almost daily from agencies looking for English teachers for schools and FE colleges. Schools must be absolutely desperate.

I qualified as a teacher after a previous career and have successfully taught secondary English, Drama, French, Spanish and Maths. I have a degree in French and Russian, GCSE Maths and English and no qualification at all in Spanish or Drama.

And actually, you no longer need QTS if the employing head employs as unqualified and is happy with the standard of your teaching. Even in maintained schools.

What is inaccurate with what I have said?

I was responding to the OP - I do think it is unfortunate that the people teaching children don't need a degree in the subject that they are teaching. QTS/ PGCE - however you want to dress it up - it isn't ideal in my opinion. I would like a specialist in that subject to teach.

I think you are right though - schools are desperate at the moment.

There might be soon!

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-developing-teaching-apprenticeship-for-non-graduates/

@noblegiraffe - absolute hogwash. There’s no way you’d have been able to deliver any of my lessons today because their content and pace was dictated by my relationship with each individual class and my deep knowledge of the texts, which allows me to adapt my lessons in the moment. PowerPoint is death to English teaching.

@MrsHamlet - speedy marking is my superpower! Drives my colleagues nuts that I cam mark a set of mocks in a quarter of the time it takes them! And yes - the text often is the lesson. Planning is an alchemical process between text, class and brain. Not translatable to PowerPoint.

This might be a bit outing, but DH was a secondary school teacher. In the 20 years he taught RE, History, Business Studies, Maths, Media Studies, Physics and bottom GCSE set English.

His degree is Classics.

His classes his got good results in their exams, sometimes it is more important for the person to be a good teacher, than a bad or mediocre teacher with a relevant degree.

Wrong person! I'm under no illusions that I could teach another subject's lesson from a PowerPoint! It does actually take subject knowledge not just reading skills to deliver a lesson.

@noblegiraffe - sorry!

I'm amazed by all these teachers who can teach GCSE in every subject. Tempted to put one of my PowerPoints on (I'll choose reacting masses and limiting reactant calculations) and you can all have a go.

In an ideal world, specialist knowledge and qualifications are desirable, especially in the later years of a pupil's education, but there is also the matter of being temperamentally suited to the job.
I have commented on another thread currently running on a graduate aiming for QTS who was utterly floored by the reality of tackling a group of lively youngsters.
On paper, her qualifications in English were far superior to mine, and I am certain that she worked hard to achieve them, but the reality of the Junior School classroom was another matter.

I’m going to go with the hour long lesson that has a picture of a sheet of sandpaper; someone getting their eyebrows plucked, and someone with their tongue stuck to a pole. Good luck guys.

Yup. Being a teacher is not for everyone. Friday afternoon with 25 16 year olds who would all rather be somewhere else is not for the faint hearted. But I love it (mostly). The stupid admin needed less so.

@0rangeCrush 😂 you've nicked my lesson plan.

I can just imagine a maths teacher confidently coming in announcing to the class that their teacher had left a PowerPoint about geography and they would run through it with them, and the sheer panic when they realised there was not a crumb of context to be found.

A PowerPoint shouldn’t really have much text on it anyway.

We had a power cut last week. There was a lot of panic from the "can't do it without the PowerPoint" crew.

Surely they just roll the textbooks out at that point 😂

What text books? There isn’t any money to buy class sets of text books.

This!

I always tell my trainees that they need to be able to do it with just a dried up board pen, and they rarely believe me.