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!

I’ve been posting about the teacher shortage crisis for years. I do wonder what people thought it meant.

It means your child will not have a suitable teacher to teach them.

A music teacher teaching geography is actually a pretty good deal.

It could be anyone with a pulse put in front of that class. Or a daily different someone with a pulse, not even consistent.

You don’t even need that. My SIL had a physics degree and was a physics teacher. She was told one year to teach maths gcse. The school said as she had an A level in maths it was ok. She wasn’t happy and quit and the school was then short a physics teacher as well. 🤷🏻‍♀️

My friend is a maths teacher at secondary level. No degree in any subject.

It was still hard to get teachers in STEM subjects.

I was taught at school by retired teachers, trainees and the head of department for my science GCSEs back in the early 90s. The Maths teachers all looked like they were going to retire tomorrow.

I think we behaved well enough so the physics trainee only left after we finished our GCSE. He went back to work in "industry" but a different one to what he had left.

Other science classes did indeed have PE teachers but they all had Sports Science degrees.

You're being massively unreasonable given your kid is year 8. They're a teacher, and schools can barely get any teachers.

My dd has a whole random selection of teachers in y7 and y8. Last year she was taught Spanish by a French teacher who constantly spoke to the class in French! Caused a lot of confusion 😆

my dd has some marvellous teachers and herself wants to be a maths teacher. I hope things are better for the profession when she’s graduating! It’s a bit of a mishmash at the moment.

History and geography in year 8 aren't especially complicated.
A degree in either of those subjects definitely is not needed to be an effective teacher at that level.
Indeed, until fairly recently, a lot of teachers didn't have degrees.
For A-level teaching, I'd say a degree in the subject (or one very closely related to it) is essential.
For GCSE - certainly for anyone aiming for top grades - it would also be hugely helpful.
But for years 7 to 9, it's not essential.
Would it be ideal for everyone teaching geography to have a geography degree? Probably. But in year 8 so long as the teacher is enthusiastic, supportive, and a generally "good" teacher then they'll be able to impart the skills needed to succeed.
As others have said, there's a huge shortage of teachers at the moment so I don't think this situation is uncommon at all.

Stand by to be shocked, as a great many subject teachers do not have a degree in the subject they teach, some haven't even had teacher training!

Your child is lucky to have a qualified teacher unfortunately. Massive underfunding has resulted in a recruitment crisis. Teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers and not enough are wanting to take their place. This is what happens when central Government does not value education.

I have a degree in Chemistry. What I studied at university has absolutely zero relevance to what you learn for GCSE or A-Level.

I would be more concerned that they are being taught by someone qualified in teaching. We seem to forget that teaching children is a highly valuble skill and not an easy one to learn and put into practice.

It’s Year 8. What do they need to know? Ox bow lakes and Henry VIII’s wives? It’s hardly rocket science. Any one of us could teach that with half an hour to read through the notes.

My background is a finance professional. A few weeks ago I was a volunteer for a charity initiative being run in schools. I was working with an ex teacher who had QTS.

His delivery and engagement was fantastic. Being in a room with 60 young learners his skills in teaching were obvious. It's doesn't matter how much more I knew about the subject - my delivery would never have compared.

So, in my view, in yr8 - if the teacher has QTS and can learn the history syllabus that is far better than someone who knows history but cannot teach it.

It would be fab to have both, of course, but by the sounds of other comments on here, schools do not have to nor, in many cases, can they recruit to be able to.

I'm sure you meant to say "any qualified teacher" could teach that. Any good teacher with enough time to prep (not always a given) could use planning done by specialist teachers to deliver the Yr 8 curriculum. Of course it is not right or fair that they have to.

I didn't know this happened but perhaps if this shitty government treated our teachers better along with parents & children teaching just MIGHT become an attractive career. We need good, passionate, knowledgeable teachers 🙏

Teachers have always taught outside their subject area. I was doing this nearly 30 years ago. I have also worked with teachers who did not have a degree in their subject but were excellent teachers achieving excellent results.

I think we may have got lucky with dcs teachers for his upcoming gcses ( looking at this thread). His maths, sciences and english teachers have a degree in those subjects. I actually don’t know if that is the case with his optional subjects. I am going to ask him when he gets back.

How's that going to work then? Given the current state of affairs in education, if it's made compulsory for maths and science teachers to have a maths or science degree before being able to teach those subjects then you'll end up with very few kids being taught either subject beyond their primary years.

A good teacher doesn't need a degree in history to teach 12 year olds history because all the exact learning requirements are in the curriculum and they just need to deliver it, to be honest I could teach it from the academic perspective, I just would struggle to wrangle 30 12 year olds as I'm used to toddlers!

Music teachers still have pgces and mostly with have at least 2 a levels that aren't music (eg my dd did history along with music plus 2 others)

I was astonished when my friend qualified (in design and technology) but then was taking English, Maths etc. She explained it is part of the expectation, but I do feel it is really poor. There was a thread on here about teachers not knowing words that were not in everyday use (I think it was acrid that started it off) - I guess this explains why. But with the shortage of teachers, I dont see how there is any way that this can be changed.

85% of physics teachers don’t even have an A-level in physics, let alone a degree.
it’s the reality, especially at ks3

Your child, these days, is fortunate to have a qualified teacher.

This - this was an issue before covid and much worse one afterwards - and my younger two kids have both regularly had cover teacher classes in exam years and more than once or twice had literally no adult in front of them.

Most of the teachers teaching outside their subject ares really do try and do a decent job and it must be very stressful for them.

The idea that any teacher can teach anything isn’t really true. I’d be shit at teaching geography or any written subject because it involves skills I’ve no idea how to develop as a maths teacher. Languages would need skills in getting kids to listen and speak. Not my skill set.

I’m sure that other subject teachers would similarly struggle with maths teaching. Lessons in maths are very different to English.

I have a degree and a teaching qualification (adult ed) but I left the school I was working in as a science technician when we were told we were going to have to deliver science lessons in the absence of a qualified teacher. It was framed as 'just as cover', but we all knew that we'd end up doing it full time in place of a qualified science teacher, as there weren't any.

We were still going to be paid technician's wages though. To prep lessons, mark work and deliver lessons. No thank you. Schools just want someone in the front of the class.

If you're happy just being one lesson ahead of the children in terms of knowledge, then yes. What can they do when inevitably young people ask questions that go a bit deeper? They love to go off on tangents and a teacher qualified in the subject can use this to their advantage. They can also inject real passion as they made the choice to study this subject and qualify in it.

I was hoping the teacher allocation would improve when my son reached year 10, but sadly not.
Teachers that leave for whatever reason are 'replaced' by supply teachers that don't know the subject or the students and one that doesn't speak English clearly enough for them to fully understand.

My son is bright enough that he will get what he needs for A levels, but it's disappointing.