DC’s teacher didn’t go to university.

[RabbitWedge]

Two of my DC’s are at the same secondary private school. It’s a small private school, not a well known name, but costs a small fortune nonetheless. An interaction with one of my DC’s English teachers at the end of term has made me feel uncomfortable.

‘Mrs Jones’ has worked at the school for a number of years. She is a very well liked English teacher; the children love her and she’s given high praise on the parents WhatsApp group. At the end of term, I was having a casual chit chat with ‘Mrs Jones’ and the topic of university came up. I asked ‘Mrs Jones’ where she went to university, and she stated that she had not gone and didn’t have a degree. I must have looked very taken aback, as she quickly added that she had an impeccable educational record (apparently all A’s and A*’s), she’d been tutoring for a number of years and working as a TA, at which point the school promoted her to teach English. I didn’t ask for this explanation, but she perhaps felt the need to justify her teaching.

I was under the impression that all teachers had to have degrees at the very least, and whilst I don’t doubt her popularity and delivery of her English lessons, I am concerned. I was aware that teachers in the private system didn’t need to be qualified teachers, but to not even have attended university seems unsuitable.

Would you raise this with the school in my position?

I don't see the issue. If she's a good teacher it doesn't matter how she got there.

Seems like you've no idea how to get a teaching Job. A teaching degree is only one way.
There's other possibilities too like teacher training through the school like Mrs Jones has done.

Why didn't you research the school properly before choosing it? Our school provides resumes for all teaching & exec staff.

More to the point, is she a good teacher? What are the results like? Do the dcs engage with her and enjoy the topic?

I don't really see what you can do about this. The school clearly isn't unable to recruit qualified teachers so they have gone for what seems to be an acceptable alternative. This is the way teaching is going unfortunately, most graduates with other options are unlikely to choose teaching so schools are having to become more flexible with who they employ.

Up until you found out she didn’t have a degree, what was your opinion of her?

Is Mrs Jones a good teacher? Is your child making good progress? Is your child enthusiastic about going to school?

If the answer to these questions is yes, I wouldn't raise it with the school.

I have two degrees (including one in a core school subject) and literally none of the content is relevant to primary school children. In fact, one of my degrees is directly relevant to the profession that I now practice, and even then, almost none of what I studied at university is relevant to what I do now. I've learned almost everything on the job.

I don't know what pathway someone like Mrs Jones would have taken to end up teaching children without a degree, but I would imagine that almost everything you actually need to know to teach primary you learn on the job, not at university.

Literally millions of childen across the Uk are being taught by TAs. So what? They are "teachers" too - as in - they teach! and you learn more about teaching by doing it than by studying it, so they have effectively had the same training as a teacher.

The only difference is that it sounds like "Mrs Jones" is being paid appropriately for her work, which many TAs are not.

I am no fan of private education, but don't see a problem here, at all. There are not enough teachers. Very few schools in the country are not carrying vacancies. This school has filled a teacher vacancy with a very suitable candidate who may well be doing far better than a low grade teaching graduate, so what is the issue?

Looking back at my own and others' experiences in becoming teachers I think that the old teacher training colleges were a good route into the profession.

Many lecturers, if not most, had been teachers. They knew what they were talking about. There was also pay progression - unlike today.

The tutors may not have been at the academic pinnacle of their subjects - but it's more important learning HOW to teach children to count unto 10 in French than to be able to count unto 100 yourself?

Current routes in often seem to lack varied experiences in different school. You learn in one, perhaps two - and may be good in that one/type but not experienced in other situations.

I suspect the poor retention rates may have something to do with this?

An excellent teacher is an excellent teacher. Sounds like she has essentially been trained ‘on the job’. If the teacher wasn’t capable I would understand your concern.
Please don’t confuse having a degree with being clever. Lots and lots of educated fools around. It has never been easier to get a degree ( as long as you can borrow the money to pay for it).

Ok, but it is the norm in Private schools and no, it’s not a good thing that they’ll choose someone with the right ‘pedigree’ over someone with a teaching qualification.

We have standards for a reason.

Yes, I’d be very concerned about that because it means that the teacher is teaching the kids the formula for passing the exams rather than how to think, formulate and test their own ideas.

The kids will do well in the A’ levels sure, but come very unstuck on a degree course if they haven’t learnt how to think for themselves.

Well known an out private schools.

When I started my career in higher education some though certainly a small number of the lecturers did not have PhD’s and many had not taken any kind of formal teaching qualifications. Policy changes meant a cert of teaching in higher Ed had to be taken or something like that, some who had been around and teaching for years got it by default. My friend took early retirement from a RG University two years ago and he had no PhD. Doubt very much that would happen now.

no it really isn't the norm. Very few now will actively recruit someone without QTS and if they do they put them on a training route straightaway. I entered the private sector 20 years ago and was chosen over three men with the "right pedigree", tweed jackets and Oxbridge degrees. In modern private schools which is a competitive industry with very tight margins, we simply cannot afford to have substandard unqualified teachers. A lack of degree is actually less of a problem - as others have said, there are many other routes to subject knowledge and to maintain that it is the only way to have "top tier education" as @3CustardCreams maintains is just wrong.

Quite a few of the teachers at my school didn't have teaching degrees, but they did have PhD's in the subjects they were teaching. Some of the sports dept also played their sport professionally.

They were all good teachers, passionate about their subjects and great at passing that passion on to their pupils.

You need the subject knowledge. The end.
The reason we have lots of teachers without this is because teachers are leaving in droves.
I have a masters in my subject and have had to take over the planning for another year group as the original teacher did not know what she was doing.
You have to know your subject so you can answer questions-especially from higher year groups. Kids quickly work out if you don't know what you are talking about.
Partly the reason that good teachers are leaving is the lack of respect that we see demonstrated here; the idea that anyone could do it and you need no special skills.
You see this in no other profession.

‘Mrs Jones’ has been at the school for a number of years, at least four, she was already teaching when my eldest DC started at the school.

The English department as a whole achieves excellent results, there is no breakdown per teacher. She’s one of those teachers that, when your child is placed in her class, other parents say ‘you’re so lucky!’ However, I am not sure the other parents know about her lack of degree or teacher status, I only discovered it by chance.

I feel uncomfortable as I am paying a small fortune for my DCs education, and ‘Mrs Jones’ is teaching my DC GCSE English when her highest qualification is an A Level.

Ask yourself, are your children doing well in her class? Are they engaged, and learning well? If so then she's a good teacher.

If not then by all means raise it with the school, but do it on the basis that she's not a good teacher rather than on her paper qualifications

Exactly. A degree meant something 40 years ago, but now it means very little.

Just look at the proportion of Firsts handed out now. In my class of 30 in the 1980s there were around 3 Firsts, so 10%. Now it is over 30% as universities need to attract students.

You didn't find out "by accident" - she told you. Openly. It isn't a secret. I am sure lots of people know.

I think the risk is, a secondary school teacher without a degree in the subject will not be able to deal as effectively with the higher level questions as a good teacher with a degree. They might even give misleading responses without even realising it that lay the foundations for problems in the future. That said, GCSE English language and literature are depressingly formulaic, so at that level it shouldn’t be much of an issue in terms of exam results - you don’t need to study a subject at university to learn how to teach people to jump through formulaic hoops. I do know that for science subjects, though, a lot of the content is simplified to such an extent for GCSE that if someone asks a more detailed question about a broad topic you are studying, you would rapidly lose all credibility and flounder in front of them if you had not studied the subject to a considerably higher level than the child in front of you. You would forever have to be telling them you do not know the answer and would have to go away and look it up (and hope you could understand what you read).

Have you every thought the quality of teaching has improved therefore the percentage of firsts has also increased?

A Ph.D massively supersedes any teaching degree esp as a Ph.D will have some element of teaching - I taught 6 hrs per week for three years when I did my Ph.D (I do also have a PGCE but that's by the by).

Of course it hasn't.

Anyway, getting a degree is not about teaching. It is about independent research and thinking.

You can be taught to pass GCSEs and A Levels. You cannot be taught to get a First (I mean the types of Firsts that were achieved in the 1980s and prior, not the Firsts that anyone and their dog can get nowadays).

A PhD itself doesn't involve teaching, it's an extra that a student may or may not do. If a student does help with the undergrad teaching then it's more likely to be as a demonstrator during practicals or seminars rather than delivering lectures. Plus delivering lectures is a different skill to teaching in a school - there's usually less interaction and larger class sizes, plus you're teaching at closer to your level and not to a curriculum.

All teachers in Scotland, including those in private schools, now have to be registered with the GTCS. This means that the modern PGDipEd (previously PGCE) is mandatory here.

When it was first suggested that it be made mandatory here, the private school HTs protested.

Tried to find the articles about the complaints made, but this is the first thing that came up. Now, I knew that new HTs had to have a masters...but I wasn't aware that an exception had been made for private schools.

"Why do the plans not apply to private schools?
They did at the beginning but the Scottish government backed off after independent schools protested."

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/need-know-mandatory-headteacher-qualification