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's not a legal requirement anymore for schools to employ qualified teachers, let alone people with relevant degrees in each subject. Thank the current government for that.

Also thank them for making teaching a profession that is literally hemorrhaging it's workforce right now due to workload and behaviour issues.

Vote the conservatives out and it's possible things in education may improve.

Make parents directly responsible for their own children's behaviour. That would help too!

Oh come on. It’s not THAT hard. A level calculus, maybe, but teaching Year 8 about isobars and WW2 isn’t going to overtax many brains. It sn’t some special dark art (and yes, I do teach, and no, I’m not a qualified secondary school teacher).

It would be much worse to have a geography/history teacher attempting to teach music without any music qualifications. HTH

I’m programme leader for a degree course in a subject I don’t have a degree in 😁🙈

Over 50 years ago and a selective Grammar School we were taught History and Geography in years 7 and 8 by the same person. Not sure what her degree was but she taught games too.

Same with science we were taught General Science covering all three 'disciplines' without teacher being a graduate in the each of them, though one was a chemist and the other a biologist.

My OH is a more or less retired teacher. Her degree was in Organic Chemistry followed some years later by a PGCE. She was expected to teach Chemistry of course but also, after attending a year's worth of once weekly evening classes, Physics too. Both to A level.

One of mine was taught chemistry by someone without a background in chemistry or even in science. He moaned a great deal about it and I suggested he use the YouTube chemistry lessons from private schools (they were there at the time, but a while ago). He is quite a motivated individual and got an A star, then did well in it at A level. It's not an ideal situation, but in fact having to teach themselves, almost, sort of forced them to take more responsibility and own the subject, IYSWIM. Not advocating it, it stinks as a strategy, but it can be got round if the student is motivated. They can also teach each other, and they like that.

Teacher recruitment is through the floor at the moment. I'm currently working in a department without a full time member of staff and we're existing with 'cover' teachers. I feel sorry for the classes without a 'proper' teacher and for us as a department having to pick up the slack or at least try to. This is also the second year in a row where we've been a member of staff down.

There are five student teachers training in my subject at our local university. Five! I don't know who will be in front of our pupils soon. I've been teaching for twenty years and I've never known it so dire.

OP I wouldn't worry too much about KS3 - of course it isn't ideal but it is practical.

Phew - that’s a good job.

In my time I taught….. Maths, English, History, RE, Geography, IT, Graphics, CDT, Resistant Materials, Electronics, Outdoor pursuits. All timetabled in, not as cover lessons although some were timetable fillers.

My degree…… CDT. My specialism for my last 15 years was electronics - much of which didn’t exist when I did some electronics with my original degree.

I agree that a degree/qualification in the subject is desirable but far more important that they are a good teacher.

I’ve seen plenty of highly qualified teachers who couldn’t actually teach.

If you’ve a solution to recruitment and retention, that’d work, then I’m sure the relevant people would love to hear from you.

Not horseshit.
Signed,
a geography teacher with a geography degree.

My school certainly has classes without a teacher where the kids are basically teaching each other. This is at A-level when they don’t need to be supervised. Lower down the school there has to be a warm adult body in the room, but no requirement that it’s a teacher.

As a Scottish teacher, I find it shocking that you can teach in England without a subject specific degree AND a teaching qualification.

I am a geography teacher. I only teach geography. I am also qualified to teach modern studies (a bit like politics/sociology) but nothing else. I don’t teach any of my second subject.

I can provide short term cover for other subjects; but all I have to do is facilitate the work set by the subject specialist.

I agree... I'm in a similar field.

This is where I think schools fail, but in reality, it's not their fault. There's 'what is needed to pass' vs. 'what is actually useful'.

I remember a lecturer telling us "you need to know the different amino acids, what they look like, their chemistry etc... you need them to pass your exam... but in reality, I'd just look them up in a book".

School is more about memory than useful skills sadly...

Meh, we didn't have a Humanities teacher for a year during GCSEs as she had cancer and I still got an A. This was at a crappy comprehensive that was rated 'Requires Improvement'.

You don't have to have a degree in a subject to teach at secondary AFAIK...and never have.
My parents were teachers and didn't have degrees.

It would be ideal to be taught be a specialist. But u would rather have a specialist geography teacher without a geography degree, than music teacher who happens to have a geography degree teaching geography.

Does she not have a shortage of math teachers then?
DDs school have vacancies for maths teachers....they may well only hire those with maths degrees...in the mean time teachers from other departments are timetabled to fill the gaps so it's a counter productive rule.
Better a maths teacher with no degree than an English teacher teaching maths

"...according to my child they admit not being very good at teaching history or geography."

The teacher should never had said that, or even anything remotely close to it. it undermines their ability to teach.

I think it's bonkers that you - in most cases - have to hold a degree to become a teacher, even if said degree is in a useless subject. As university becomes more and more difficult to attend due to cost, the approach needs to be changed.

I was a SENCo and assistant head teacher. As well as that, including safeguarding and responsibility for LAC, I managed two departments and have taught Functional Skills, RE, Option Support and English. Always to fill gaps in the timetable and it was often necessary too take lessons at short notice.

Of course, the ideal would be a specialist in the subject, who has the ability to engage the students, teach to their strengths, adjust the content for more and less able. I’d settle for someone who could get the best out of them, even if they weren’t a specialist.

A music teacher with a degree in music will know a LOT of history. YABVU.

For those who are going on about “of course you can’t have subject specialists with degrees teaching your kid, there is a recruitment crisis!”

Maybe consider that if you revalued the profession - IE insisting that your teachers are qualified to honours/masters level in a relevant discipline as well as postgraduate/combined teaching degree, and then paying them appropriately, the RIGHT candidates would be recruited; and a lot of the issues would resolve.

In Scotland, unpromoted teachers earn £48k. They are contracted to work 35 hours and don’t need to do any more. There is no recruitment or retention crisis, well not to the extent there is in England anyway. There are no unqualified teachers, and every teacher has a degree alongside their teaching qualification.

Most teaching Degrees require the study of two subjects. How do you know the music teacher does not have a qualification in humanities/history/geography?

It’s not right although i do agree the exam years are more important and should definitely be taught by a teacher with a degree in the relevant subject.

However no one wants to teach these days.
Huge class sizes, bad behaviour and low wages make it no longer an attractive job. Teachers are no longer given the respect they deserve by students and yes even some parents.

We need to teach parents to discipline their kids and show respect and make class sizes smaller. Research has shown class sizes of no more than 22 to have a better outcome for students.

A friends son with a degree in Maths lasted one year in a secondary state academy and left. ( he was teaching all years ). He said students didn’t care about the work, didn’t do homework or in some cases work in the class, were aggressive, rude and basically impossible to teach. It was no more than crowd control.

He took a job at a private school teaching up to and including GCSE ( not Alevel until he has more experience). With small class sizes and strict discipline he has said it’s ‘a different world’. He pay is less, his hours much longer including Saturdays ( longer holidays though) but he doesn’t care.

So smaller classes and more discipline for starters might draw teachers back.

Oh your poor naive thing. Most schools are now academies - they don't even have to have qualified teachers anymore, let alone ones with degrees in the right subject.

Not necessarily. A headteacher told me once that their music teacher wouldn't present facts on musical history on a school trip because she "didn't learn history ". Ffs.

You might get on well in an independent school. My daughter seems to have lots of people with PhDs teaching her and I am fairly sure they don't all have PGCEs. I don't think they are struggling with motivation or crowd control etc as it's quite selective.

FWIW my mother was a Maths teacher in the state sector for many years. She even taught in a young offenders institution at one stage and did not struggle to manage behaviour so I guess at least some of this is down to aptitude rather than being taught how to do it. When she went into teaching in the 70s a PGCE was not necessary, just a degree in the subject you wanted to teach.

I’m a parent and an ex teacher. I would want someone with QTS.