Should my child's class have a qualified teacher everyday?

[Jap26]

Aibu to expect that my year 5 child has a qualified teacher everyday at school. Teachers have been announced for the next school year and the year 5 teacher is part time doing 4 days a week, no teaching cover has been arranged and the plan is for various TA's to cover the 5th day. The school have confirmed that with ppa time for the class teacher they will only have an actual teacher 3.5 days a week. None of the TA's have any relevant qualifications. As an ad hoc arrangement to cover sickness I think this is fine but they are planning do to this every week. Before I complain I just want a reality check on if this is standard practice

As for timetables, a TA can’t teach PE unless they are being supervised so it’s unlikely they will teach that. There is only so much French, Music and Art across the week that they can teach so yes it’s likely that they will teach core subjects. We do.

Private schools are often not any better staffed. They just have better PR about it

Snap-there are none in any schools I’ve worked in/with.

Is it really any wonder that those who can afford it choose to send their DC to private schools.

OP, FWIW I agree with you that it's appalling and shouldn't be allowed, but judging by this thread it's completely commonplace and you're just meant to accept a sub-par education for your child 🤷‍♀️

Private schools use more unqualified staff than state schools

With the school budget cuts, more and more schools can’t afford qualified teachers. One school near me has two classes where the “class teacher” is a HLTA. I don’t think the parents actually know that these members of staff are not qualified teachers.

It’s not acceptable, effectively 1.5 days a week, 30% won’t be taught by a qualified teacher. That is a lot of teaching time. I work for an multi academy trust and we do use HLTAs to cover some PPA but would not ask a TA to do this amount of cover unless they were a qualified teacher and we would pay for that time at a teachers rate. We are in a part of the UK that is funded at a lower rate per pupil than the majority of the UK due to the funding formula. I set a deficit budget for some of my schools last year and will do the same for next year and working through our reserves. The financial situation is awful, we only have class TAs in reception classes, TAs in other classes are typically 1-2-1s supporting other children. We still wouldn’t plan to have a class thought for 30% of their time by a TA, it’s not their job, they aren’t paid enough to do it. They may cover in an emergency for a short period but not planned for the full year.

Private schools do this and there isn’t a problem. Many TAs are professionals in their subject of expertise - more so than generalist QTS.

Apologies for not RTFT. Can we have some standards, though? Teachers and not TAs for children, doctors and not PAs for health. You’d not settle for cabin crew instead of pilots, even if they’d been thousands of times around the world.

Are some posters not realising that there is a huge recruitment and retention crisis ? The number of qualified teachers is getting fewer and fewer. No, it’s not acceptable but if the staff aren’t there what does the school do ? Many of us have been warning about this for a while now. Think very carefully about who you vote for on Thursday if you want this to change

Acceptable - not really. Usual - definitely. It's hard to recruit teachers, it's hard to balance the books, it's hard to find/pay decent supply teachers. Some TAs (qualified or otherwise) will be better than some teachers.

It's even worse in senior school at the moment I'm afraid. My daughter is in year 9 and a number of her lessons are covered by non qualified cover supervisors. They are given work sheets and have no teaching or help with the content. In some subjects this has been the case for the entire year. If the school can't recruit teachers though and many teachers are leaving there's no amount of parents complaining that will change it. It's frightening!

While this is true, its really exploitative to expect them to take on full teaching duties on a TA wage. If the school is going to utilise their qualifications, skills and experience as a teacher they should pay teachers wages.
HLTA etc should also be paid as unqualified teachers while filling in teaching roles, not expected to take the additional responsibility for nothing.

TAs don’t want to do this but have no choice. We can’t afford to pay for supply teachers.

TAs do have a choice. They don’t have to accept minimum wage, and at the same time help decimate the teaching profession. If TAs stopped being the sticking plaster, maybe the government would have a rethink and actually fund teachers properly - skilled, trained, experts in their field teachers.

It is appalling, OP. Much worse than pre this government. Your child, all children, deserve much better.

This is a myth. Twenty odd years ago - maybe. Nowadays the vast majority of independent schools only hire qualified teachers with QTS. If they do take on 'unqualified' teachers, they will usually be people with PhDs or other significant professional experience who they will then fund to get QTS.

The vast majority of unqualified teaching staff are in state schools.I wouldn't be worried about that necessarily - I've worked with many excellent, technically 'unqualified' teachers in my time. Being 'unqualified' doesn't make them bad teachers - I think most of us in the profession know the PGCE isn't worth the paper it's printed on anyway. Having QTS just means you've gone through the paperwork to get a qualification - it doesn't mean you're actually any good at it.

More and more schools are very happy to take on unqualified teachers / use TAs as teachers because they can pay them on the separate unqualified teacher pay scale. I would always strongly encourage colleagues not to accept unqualified teacher positions without a promise they will be supported to QTS, because it's a total mug's game - you're doing the same amount of work as your qualified colleagues, and being paid 10k + less.

Ideally they would.

But (thanks to the tory government) academy schools do NOT have to hire qualified teachers by law.

Also you can complain but if the school can't get teachers then there's nothing you that anyone can actually do unfortunately. There just aren't enough teachers.

I am a teacher and we have many unfilled posts at my school which are covered by long term supply. I'm also a parent so I understand your concerns because I worry about my children's education.

Interestingly things are very different in scotland. Teachers can't get jobs and only qualified teachers can teach classes. It's the one thing the unions have defended robustly.

I covered a maternity leave this year and when I finished they were giving the class a teacher 3 days a week and a HLTA for the other 2. It’s not for lack of teachers at all. There are plenty of teachers I met supplying who want a permanent job. It’s because it’s cheaper.

It isn’t good enough.

Of course children should have qualified teachers every day (barring occasional absense, obviously). But complaining to the school is worse than pointless, to be honest. Do you honestly think the head teacher or school wants to be cobbling together coverage for a class like this? They're doing the best they can in an underfunded system that can't pay, recruit or retain enough quality teachers.

This is an issue we address at the polls and in public discourse.

Are you saying there isn’t a recruitment and retention crisis ?
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7222/

You could put in a formal complaint and if you aren't happy report to Ofsted, they'd sort it quite quickly you'd imagine then.

What, with imaginary teachers ??

No, they wouldn't, because they're not doing anything wrong.

There is no legal requirement for schools to hire qualified teachers.

Parents need to understand this.

They wouldn't because using HLTAs to cover is pretty standard practise.

No, they wouldn't. Ofsted are not going to tell a school that they cannot use a TA 1 day per week to cover a class - this isn't Ofsted's role. Parents are very naive about what power/role Ofsted play.

In addition, as others have said, unless the school is a LA one - which most aren't - there is no requirement to have a qualified teacher. And even if there is it is unlikely that there is any qualified primary teacher in that area looking to do 1 day a week in a job, to job share with the teacher doing 4 days a week. You can't hire people who don't exist.

I think some parents clearly have no idea what is happening regularly in classrooms across the country!