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 think people are getting a bit confused here tbh.

It is fairly common knowledge that you don’t require a teaching qualification to teach at private school. This is so they can have people with PHDs or 1sts from Cambridge teaching without making them do a PGCE.

However I have never heard of someone with no degree at all working in a private school and I’d be pretty horrified if my daughter was taught English by someone who had barely studied past GCSE level while I paid vast amounts for it.

Incidentally the two people who dropped out of the PGCE I did 20 years ago both went straight into private school jobs. I always thought it was mad that the failures were teaching where parents were paying and those who had succeeded on the course had all gone into inner city comps.

TBH even a degree in English is no guarantee nowadays that anyone can spell, or knows where to put an apostrophe.
If the teacher is popular with the children and gets good results, I’d leave it.

OTOH if she was making basic mistakes in her own writing, I would most certainly take it up with the school.

Yeah, you don’t always get what you pay for, as others have said, teachers in the private sector don’t have to be qualified. A teacher friend of mine does supply at one of the local private schools and you would be surprised at the number of unqualified teachers.

Private schools can do what they like.

years ago my (fully qualified) mum taught at a private school. The school employed the headmistress’s 18yo Dd as a teacher post A levels. 🙈

Yes, I supported private schools who were accessing early years funding. Part of the work was to look at transition from reception to Y1.

The Y1 teacher was 23 and wanted to know if I could help her. She was teaching her class from a text book ( kind of Maths Teaching book 1) as she had no teaching experience or degree subject at all.

This is pretty standard amongst Teachers in private education and TAs in all education

Other countries pay more and have “minimum requirements” for these roles. ☺️

If she’s good then she’s good! What’s the issue?

To all those also saying that lots of private school teachers are shit because they're unqualified - this is a myth and belongs to a bygone age.

In the current educational climate, working in a state school is untenable for many teachers due to the workload. Teachers don't leave state for private because, as another poster has suggested, they can't hack it professionally - they leave because teaching in state schools is often entirely unfulfilling and takes over your life to the point where you are exhausted and unwell most of the time.

As such, due to the huge numbers of teachers desperate to leave state, private schools can pick and choose their employees and recruitment is incredibly competitive. I have worked in independent schools as a head of department for many years and I always have 50+ applicants for teaching vacancies - compared to my friends in state, who are lucky if they get five. I can choose the best qualified people - my friends in state usually just have to accept a warm body in the room. The calibre of teachers entering the profession is declining year on year and many state schools are struggling to have people in front of classes with any kind of qualification in their subject at all.

Working in a private school is a fabulous deal. I get about 5 weeks' more holiday than my state school colleagues, as well as about 20k more per year. I also get a very good pension. However, the main reason why I work in private education is for the smaller class sizes and correspondingly reduced workload, which means I can have a life outside of work.

The reason I am able to work in an independent school is because I am incredibly highly qualified - I have a BA and two MAs in my subject from top universities - and I am, if I do say so myself, a very good teacher who can teach two subjects to university standard, as well as a further two to GCSE. When I went for my current job, I was up against thirty other candidates with similar qualifications. Most of my colleagues are similarly qualified to me, if not more so - I have many colleagues with PhDs. This is the norm in most top private schools. That is the standard of intellectual and teaching ability most private school teachers are working at. It is a total myth that private schools are full of bumbling unqualified fools who can't hack the real world of teaching. Maybe 20+ years ago, that might have been the case, but nowadays, no - they are looking to hire the elite of the profession, and they are very easily able to do so as they offer working conditions far superior to state schools.

What does a degree in philosophy have to do with someone's ability to teach GCSE or A Level English?

Sounds like the teacher got As and A*s in the subject and the level she's teaching, and as well as having that knowledge, can actually manage her pupils and is well liked.

I don't see a problem here, except with snobby parents.

And yes, I have a degree, but I still don't see why it's relevant here. It's not as if the teacher is a university lecturer and teaching above her own qualifications...

It's also great that she can explain that university isn't for everyone. Is that what the OP is really afraid of? The teacher explaining that there are other routes after school such as apprenticeships?

There aren't many jobs that genuinely require a degree to do well. A long apprenticeship would almost always be superior to a degree study programme because four years of learning and observing in the actual working environment, while working in the environment itself surrounded by people actually doing the job you are training for is nearly always going to give you a better result than the sterile environment of a university being taught by someone who may never have done the actual job or not for a long time.

The reason we have gravitated to degrees being the preferred option for the majority of young people now is that it's easier to equalise standards across professions and quickly assess whether a candidate has passed a certain bar. It's mass production, and a business in itself.

Also setting up and maintaining good apprenticeships is a lot of work so they have fallen out of fashion.

If you have a teacher who knows the subject material and is skilled at being able to teach that material, whose teaching style gets good results and happy pupils - does it really matter how they were trained?

I have a degree and a PGCE.

Neither of them made me a good teacher, especially my degree.

What made me a good teacher (apart from really wanting to do it), was hands on experience.

As a PP said, she basically did an apprenticeship and learnt on the job.

The fact that she worked as a TA to begin with and worked her way up, would make me admire her more.

She is probably better than a lot of the teachers with degrees.

She genuinely wants to be there and has obviously worked hard.

Many teachers, especially NQTs, don’t actually want to teach.

I had no idea that you could work in a private school though.
I assumed they would require a degree.

My Uncle has a history degree but teaches PE to gsce and Maths to A level and has done so for years. Indeed often takes top set maths. Is that really any different?

I’m surprised you didn’t know private school teachers don’t have to be qualified. I thought this was common knowledge. YABU.

No requirement in the state sector either. Lots of "unqualified" teachers about.

Nope, if she's good, she's good. I mentored a guy with a PhD in Shakespeare studies, fully qualified teacher..... absolutely terrible. Be delighted this woman is doing a bloody good job and maybe send in some praise to the school rather than complain for absolutely no reason!

You get what you pay for but with private schools that doesn't necessarily mean qualified teachers.

I do think teachers should have degrees and QTS status but the reality is neither of these ensure that someone is good at teaching, alrhough the current ECT system does mean rhey get closely monitored for two years post qualification, which works if the school is prepared to put the time in ( and to be honest about their weaknesses, if any). And some TAs are better at teaching than some teachers. You learn on the job mainly.

I agree!!!! If she's a great teacher and gets great results then I fail to see the issue, there is no degree that can equip you to engage a classroom full of teenagers to learn.

There are many reasons why people who would have otherwise been incredible teachers didn't go to university, and they are given a strict curriculum to teach from anyway, adding to the fact that in state schools currently teachers teach subjects that aren't their specialty, including core subjects, you could argue the degree doesn't help them that much anyway.

Teachers not having degrees could easily be the answer to the current recruitment crisis for teachers.

If you are concerned that she isn’t teaching well, then raising it with the school is a reasonable thing to do.

Required qualifications (including degrees in an area not focused on the subject being taught) can do a lot to raise standards across the board. And in some subjects, especially technical ones, they are particularly effective at doing this. But on an individual basis, a good teacher isn’t made so by their qualifications. There are plenty of qualified teachers who still aren’t very good at teaching and plenty of individuals who can be good teachers without studying education or the subject they teach at university.

No there isn't, but in the state sector you at least need a degree. Those without degrees aren't called teachers, but they can be cover supervisors, who may well do a bit of teaching.

Not in an academy. They set their own entry criteria.

Personally, I think it shows that you have a deep grasp of your subject, that you are able to research independently with ease (eg if the curriculum has something in it that isn't your specialism), that you are capable of working alone and have a strong work ethic. It also shows that you are highly intelligent. I would prefer someone with these evidenced qualities over someone without them.

DH went to grammar school and was taught A level Chemistry by a teacher with a degree in Music. DH got an A.

I don't know why people keep saying that state school teachers need a degree. Academies can and do employ anyone they like. That's 80% of the state sector.

Why is that relevant?

You said she's a good teacher so why do you care if she spent 3 years getting pissed every night as a teenager in uni or not. You know a lot of teachers don't have an actual degree in teaching and just do a 9 month post graduate degree. Would you trust someone with a degree in fashion design more to teach your child.

My degree means jackshit in my
Chosen career. The snobbery in this post is gross. This teacher is clearly doing a good job that u all
Think so highly of her. Would u rather someone crap takes over her post cos he literally has an A4 piece of paper that in this day and age are ten a penny?
Honestly I really wonder what you think the school will do and should do? Literally smh.