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?

That is great for you, although I’m not remotely impressed by you going to a state grammar and becoming a doctor any more than I expect you to be impressed by me going to a state grammar, doing law at Cambridge and then becoming a senior lawyer. Nobody is saying that education doesn’t matter, but you have not actually made any argument that you need an English degree to teach English at GCSE or A-level.

All of the independent secondary schools around here (outer SW London ) have staff lists on the prospectus/websites with the teachers names by subject, together with their degree, often including the name of the university for undergraduate and another ( if different ) for PGCE.

I’m not sure why you’re interrogating my qualifications. If you’re a senior doctor then you should know that MBBS is Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, not a Masters. I’m a consultant. You don’t need a Masters to be a consultant surgeon in the UK.

I’m not going to list the co-authors on papers I’ve published, tell you where I went to uni or what year I did my MRCS exam - it’s very bizarre that you’re asking so many personal questions which are not relevant to the thread.

My point was that you can be “academic” without needing to tick specific boxes arbitrarily decided by people on this thread - you just said you need at least a Masters to be considered academic and now you’re backtracking.

The person teaching English is clearly more than capable based on the feedback from the parents of the children she’s teaching. If she got As at A-Level then she can teach someone else GCSE level. If she couldn’t then that would be demonstrated in exam results and she wouldn’t remain in post.

It’s obvious that the degree obsession is pure snobbery.

My dd read a humanities subject at Cambridge, not English. She is now a secondary school English teacher via the apprenticeship route. She got A*s for A'Level English, Drama, Psychology and French.

Her school had an Ofsted inspection last year. Her teaching was rated as outstanding and peer reviews have used the word inspirational.

The reason she got not just A* at English A'Level but 99% dropping just one UMS point was that for one of her texts she contacted an English Lit Professor at a London University because she googled and read one of his conference papers about the text and asked his opinion about some of her assertions. They had a lovely, and lively, exchange of emails.

The teaching can be superb but exceptional results are obtained through the learning as well as the teaching.

FWIW the best teacher I had (1970s) was for Biology. The teacher did not have a degree and was not allowed to teach A'Level. She'd have been brilliant.

I think there's a bit of inverse snobbery here. I don't think a degree is essential for a primary teacher or a secondary teacher of lower ability groups. But for higher level GCSE you would ideally want someone with a degree. Just because they will have better subject knowledge to go deeper and hopefully inspire a love of learning the subject, rather than just being able to teach to the exam.

Obviously if the choice is someone who is a good and enthusiastic teacher without a degree, versus someone who has degree but doesn't care about teaching, you would want the former, but it's not a race to the bottom, particularly in a private school where you are paying huge sums for an elite education.

*Londonrach1 *

It’s very common for teachers in private schools to have no qualifications beyond A level? I don’t believe you.
it’s fairly common for them not to have a PGCE or perhaps to teach a subject that their degree is not in but I just don’t believe that there are lots of teachers in private schools with just A levels.
As someone said, a lot of schools lost their teachers universities or qualifications - would they put a levels at blah blah sixth form college? Parents would be leaving in droves…..

@Storynanny1 wrote
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.Edmagically was renamed B.Ed - it was an identical course. So all “ old” teachers with a Cert.Ed were fully qualified.

I’m not sure what you mean by “fully qualified” - please tell me more.

I did a Cert Ed. Many years later a colleague signed me up (and paid) for my membership of the Old (name of college) Society. With the latest newsletter, received a month or so ago but on a separate piece of paper, was a letter from the current head of the college saying he’d received many letters from former students asking if their Cert Eds could be reclassified as degrees. He said they could not, giving reasons which I thought unconvincing when I read it.

After leaving that college I eventually did a BA, but before I did that I taught A levels in a local authority FE college in what wasn’t even my main subject for my Cert Ed, but the subsidiary (completely unrelated) one I only took for two years. So we weren’t just restricted to teaching up to O level.

“ fully qualified” as in being able to be employed in the UK state education system to teach children between the ages of 4 and 18.

True, but didn’t that always apply to people with a 3 year Cert Ed?

Yes!? I’m confused now by your post and question!
What exactly are you asking me re being “ fully qualified”?

You wrote
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.Edmagically was renamed B.Ed - it was an identical course. So all “ old” teachers with a Cert.Ed were fully qualified.

I wanted to check if, they when they effectively renamed your course, they retrospectively gave you all BEds. If so, any restrictions on people who only had a Cert Ed would no longer apply and you’d be fully qualified to teach at any level.

It sounds fair to me, if the courses ending in 1977 and 1978 were essentially the same.
However, my college still won’t do that.

(Re reclassifying courses - something similar happened to a family member who was at Cambridge University at about the same time as I was doing my Cert Ed. She did a 3 year BA studying Maths, parts 1A, 1B and 2.

She wanted to do a PhD. The system then was to do another year, part 3, and if you did well in that to proceed to study for a PhD.
She got a distinction in part 3 but got stuck on her PhD part and left without any further qualifications in Maths.

Years later she received a letter to say that those who took part 3 were entitled to an MMaths. At many universities a Masters is one year postgraduate course so there’s logic to awarding it for part 3.

This is not to be confused with the “free” Cambridge/Oxford MA, which is completely different… or not. )

I did write ( Birmingham Iniversity) recently to ask if they were offering us a B Ed but they’ve said no as they “ wouldn’t be able to ensue it was actually the same!

To be honest though, I’ve never had any restrictions in my teaching career with just my Cert Ed - I even taught 6 th form in my own subject for 2 years before reverting to primary.

Don’t need a degree to do this. Academies can hire anyone.

@Storynanny1 so they didn’t offer you a BEd back then, or now. Meanies. 😉
Thank you for helpfully explaining.