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?

But they don't all have degrees

I think the idea used to be that a degree was evidence of ability to learn at a higher level and an indicator of overall intelligence. With such low pass grades I don't think that's always the case.

So overall teaching, social and life- skills are probably a better indicator of a good teacher, rather than a degree.

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't have any time for, let's say, a history teacher who doesn't have strong all-around history knowledge.

I've got a good general knowledge and a history degree. If you want yo know about the 1842 Mines Act, I'm your woman. If I had to teach about Stephen & Matilda or the Partition of India or the Congress of Vienna, I'd have to do as much work as if I were to teach Midsummer Night's Dream or Pythagorus's theorem or terminal moraines.

There's not a historian in the world knows everything, just as no Eng Lit teacher will have read every book.

One of my French teachers used to say (not in front of us pupils, but he was friends with my parents; I overheard,) you only have to be one page ahead in the book. I don't think just one page ahead is literally true, but you don't have to be a world expert to teach, especially at lower levels. What is probably more important is teaching how to analyse texts, how to question who wrote it, how to see more than one side of an argument, how to to write your argument (at least for subjects like English and history - languages you need to know a certain amount of grammar and vocab, sciences and maths, you need to learn various techniques and how to apply them.) If you're teaching GCSE or A-level, you have to cover the syllabus, but you don't need a PhD in it.

Every classroom based teacher:

Learn it on Sunday, teach it on Monday.

I remember when I started at an FE/HE college I got a weeks notice that I was going to be teaching Level 4 (first year degree) data analytics - I'd never done data analytics in my life.

Degrees are not the only source of learning.

Many practical subjects there are no degrees, hairdressing, motor maintenance etc.

I have a feeling that Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsey could teach a child to cook. Jamie Oliver might not be the best person to mark the written element due to his dyslexia.

Doing supply I was often in a class I am not qualified to teach eg photography, languages, music.

I don't have a photography or art degree, but in my teens I was in a photo club and I used to develop my own photos. Could I teach A Level photography, probably not but can I stand in a year 8 class and discuss David Bailey's portraits, yes.

As a teacher, this pisses me off as it devalues the profession and they are likely to be paying her less than a qualified teacher. As a parent, if she was a good teacher, I wouldn’t mind.

I don’t think you really understand the requirements here. To be, for example, a Spanish teacher or a biology teacher, there has never been a statutory requirement for teachers to have a degree in Spanish or biology. There is a requirement for teachers to have qualified teaching status (which requires a degree, but not in the subject you teach) but this requirement only pertains to local education authority controlled schools (which are now a small minority of secondary schools). Academies can hire teachers without qualified teaching status.

I’m a maths teacher, with qualified teaching status, teaching in outstanding grammar school. My undergraduate degree is in law (this enabled me to get qualified teaching status). I teach maths all the way up to A-level. I have sufficient subject knowledge to teach and (though I say it myself) I get outstanding feedback from the kids, their parents and my colleagues.

Having a degree does not make you a good teacher. Teaching GCSE English, for example, is less about content than it is about being able to teach correct structures/formats to access the higher levels. You can know all you want to about Jacobean drama but if you can’t teach a child to apply the PEE structure they will not get a high grade.
By the way, it’s A Levels not A Level’s. Be careful on that high horse of yours.

Yes don’t forget OP that many teachers have degrees in subjects that are unrelated to teaching. I have worked with those with degrees in advertising and marketing. They then did a PGCE year in school and uni which is very quick and I think barely prepares them to teach.

Agree my Dad was a history a level teacher and continued to mark GCSES until a couple of years ago when he fully retired at 70
He is an expert (written textbooks) on the Russian Revolution and Stalin and pretty good at World War II but very little about my Mums area of the industrial revolution

when he started exam marking back in the 1980s he marked a whole paper which included his subjects but also others (that for teaching the other A level teacher taught) or in gcse things he only had a passing knowledge of

by the end exam boards had recognised this and he only marked the questions on his area - so each gcse paper can be marked by more than one person now as it is all done via computer to recognise this fact

I'm an MFL teacher. When did you get your PGCE? When I got mine, the provider wanted to see I had 'substantial' MFL content in my undergrad although of course that doesn't stop me teaching a language I have never studied (and let's face it, many of us do). I also had to complete a SKE course in the language I studied at A Level before being allowed to do the PGCE. Lots of science/maths/MFL teachers have done SKE courses. Your young people are lucky to have you. Not everyone could do what you do. Let's not pretend that having qualifications in the subject we teach isn't at least desirable or we might as well just say that anyone can teach, regardless of level of education, life experience or subject knowledge. And then where would we be?

and then where would we be?

At an Academy?

yes I am most certainly aware, what I’m getting at is that someone commented that “anyone can be a teacher etc” standards are still high for qualifications in most subjects.

I think we will have to agree to disagree because I personally can't see someone who completed their education at age 18 as academically successful, regardless of the grades they earned in school. Potential, yes, success, no- the latter requires actually doing something, and academia is defined as a higher education environment. It is certainly possible for someone to be highly intelligent and to learn amazing skills without going to university, but if they didn't go to university they are not academically successful. Words do have meaning.

My point isn’t that anyone can teach. There are certain skills required and also certain subject knowledge is required to be able to teach. My point is that a degree is neither necessary nor sufficient for these skills and subject knowledge. Plenty of people out there with degrees who would make terrible teachers.

As for having qualifications in the subject you teach, I think I would simply say that having sufficient knowledge is necessary and ideally a passion too. But a qualification isn’t the same as knowledge / passion.

I did my PGCE two years ago. I did a SKE before that, but it was not in fact helpful. But I did a huge amount of skilling up myself in my own time (which has been massively helpful).

Yes, words do have meaning. I think you need to look up the meaning of the word academic because it does not mean a higher eduction environment. I’m sure the English teacher without a degree would be able to tell you that. Your degree has failed you there.

Well, seeing as one of the definitions of academic is:

'a teacher or scholar in a university or other institute of higher education.'

I don't think JustAVeryWeirdWoman is too far off the mark there.

I certainly wouldn't consider someone who described themselves as an academic to only have a bachelors degree even - I'd expect them to hold at least a Masters/Doctorate/PhD.

FYI - I'm a Dr / PhD holder.

The state sector used to employ people without degrees. Up until the 1980s, I think, it was quite common for people to go to a Teacher Training College straight from doing A-levels. Of course, they only taught up to O-level standard, i.e. up to 16.

I went to a Comprehensive that only took 11 - 16 year olds and the vast majority of the teachers there did not have degrees. There were, nevertheless, some cracking good teachers.

I took A-levels at a VI Form college where, of course, all teaching staff did have degrees. I remember some of the people in my year, who took A-levels in 1980, were going to Teacher Training College instead of University. Equally some of my friends at University were going on after their degree to do a PGCE, so I assume the rules around this must have changed some time in the early 1980s.

Yes as said before or on another thread, up to late 70’s we did a Cert.Ed to teach, which actually did allow us to teach in secondary. The year after me ( so 1978) the Cert.Ed magically was renamed B.Ed - it was an identical course. So all “ old” teachers with a Cert.Ed were fully qualified.

“One of the definitions”. JustAVeryWeirdWoman said it was incorrect to say someone is academic is they haven’t got a degree. It isn’t because that isn’t the only definition of academic.

Being AN academic has a totally different meaning to being academic. No one has described the teacher as being AN academic.

I don’t hold a masters. I’m a surgeon and I’ve published plenty of peer reviewed papers. I’d describe myself as academic.

I’d also say someone who got straight As at A-Level is academic even if they choose not to pursue higher education.

When did you get MRCS?
Or are you too junior of a surgeon to have done that yet.
Who were your co-authors on your published papers? I doubt you wrote a whole peer reviewed paper by yourself.

Also I would hope that any surgeon has at least got an MBBS or MbChb hahahaha. So obviously they would be an academic/academic.

We arnt talking about a masters here. We’re talking about a basic bachelors degree in ?English I think it was. To teach English at a private school beyond primary level should rightly require a bachelors degree in English as a bare minimum. The fact that they don’t is just testament to how made up the whole private school thing is. A farce.

Not really. You can be an excellent English teacher without having a degree in English. This isn’t a private versus state thing either as you don’t need an English degree to teach English in the state sector either as has been explained to you ad nauseam.

My English teacher at my state grammar school had a PhD from Cambridge in English.

As such he provided me much more deep dive content to study that would not have been possible from some glorified teachers assistant with no more than an A level or GCSE to her name.
He introduced to me to all sorts of viewpoints/critiques of authors that were really different and unique and I had never heard discussed by anyone before. I then went on to get 100% in 2 separate English literature exams, thereby getting me into university to study medicine and I’m now a senior doctor.

Education matters.

Very common for private schools to have teachers as you describe . Is she a good teacher, do your children like her.