Unqualified teacher

[ladybirdsmum]

My DS is starting in Reception in September. There are two Reception classes and he is in one where there is a job share. The other class has one full time teacher. I just found out that one of his 'teachers' is not qualified. I looked her up on LinkedIn and saw that she has worked at the school as a TA for 3 years and prior to that she was working in admin in a non educational setting. She does not have a a degree. Apparently there is someone else currently teaching at the school who is also unqualified. She is not on any sort of training programme so I don't think this new teacher will be either (she is replacing the other one as she is leaving). I feel like this will not be a great start for DS and wish he could have got into one of the other schools in the town. Can I do anything about this without coming across as a difficult parent?

@ThreePointOneFourOneFiveNine I disagree. I've taught humanities so been asked to teach both my subject and outside it and I am FAR better within my specialism because I can link to related topics, adlib confidently, add detail and nuance and once (with the brightest student I've ever taught) I even got into the philosophy of the nature of the subject. Perhaps maths is different though.

It's not about whether a TA has a degree (although this one doesn't), It's about the lack of a teaching qualification. You admit that you learnt things you didn't know on your training. You may think you're good enough to teach without being trained, but your opinion needs to be backed up with a qualification that says other people think you are.

As a mum to a now 13 year old who was taught twice a week in reception by a HLTA and teacher then in following years had full time teacher but taught in ability based groups by HLTA for maths and English, I can tell you it had no impact. He went into reception unable to write and by Xmas able to write his name and some sentences as well as begin to read. Now he is in top sets. A good HLTA in primary in my opinion was actually as good as a teacher.

You can get the piece of paper with no training. You can teach in a private school or further education establishment without training or qualification. There is then a means of becoming qualified by having someone come and observe you teaching several times and decide that you are good enough and they award you QTS.

I will wait and see if he can get a place elsewhere but if not will just see how things go in September.

That sounds sensible. Try not to stress too much. It’s a bit unnerving when they start school.

I completely understand your concerns OP. Despite how great a TA is (and I know some fantastic ones), they have not had the training, nor learned the pedagogy, that a qualified teacher is required to have. The reality is that schools are being forced to use unqualified teachers when it’s not ideal due to cost implications and recruitment issues. If it reassures you any, I’ve often found that a good and experienced TA, with the support of an experienced qualified teacher, gets better outcomes for the children than a line of temporary supply teachers, which is probably the other option for the school.

It’s not fair on anyone involved, but this is what happens when you squeeze school budgets and neglect teacher recruitment and retention for over a decade.

I’m a secondary teacher but I am so disappointed that people seem to be saying it is only Reception so they don’t need a qualified teacher. Early years education is so important - it sets the bedrock that everything else is built on.

I wonder if the fact that the role has a caring element, and is done predominantly by women, that leads people to totally undervalue professional skills needed.

What other professions would people be happy with someone who has no formal qualifications but has learnt on the job? TAs do a fantastic role but they aren’t teachers, trained to be teachers or paid to be teachers.

Plus I suspect the main 3 day a week teacher will have to take on the planning, assessment and reporting even though they are only paid for 3 days. Also showing the under appreciation of the skills and professionalism of teachers, and lack of acknowledgment of how much time that all takes.

I am not sure how much you think you learn from having a qualification. Things change constantly anyway so any pedagogy and knowledge you think comes from a degree is short lived.

You say your child in nursery has a qualified teacher is that all the time? As again I think you don't really understand the free flow nature of early years. Our nursery has a qualified teacher present each day but there are two rooms and they aren't with all the children all day every day. It's TAs that are leading groups and supervising, carrying out the observations and putting on whatever platform your school uses. The teacher might have overall responsibility but much of the day to day stuff falls to everyone, and mostly TAs.

How do you know she's not on 'any sort of a training programme'?

I’m amazed she’s on LinkedIn. I doubt she will be long.

I’m a teacher (qualified) in an independent school and we employ a number of unqualified teachers. Most have risen up the ranks from starting as TAs and I would say mot of our unqualified teachers are among the best teachers in the school, certainly they have more experience and better teaching practice than most ECTs who come through our door fresh from uni.

I didn’t learn a great deal from the university side of my teaching degree, you don’t become a good teacher by attending lectures or writing essays, the most valuable bit was the teaching placements and actually being in a school. Being a good teacher is about how you interact with children, how you manage behaviour, how you deliver your lessons, how you engage students, how you plan effectively based on assessment. None of these skills can be taught in a lecture theatre or by writing an essay. Working 3 years as a TA will have given this teacher relevant experience, and she is only going to be teaching for 2 days so she will have the support of a qualified teacher if there are any weaker areas of knowledge. I’m not saying every TA would make a good teacher but I would at least wait to meet her and to get a feel for how she’s interacting with the kids before making a judgement on her.

@MolkosTeenageAngst respectfully, I disagree about the value of the pgce. I was taught to think about what the concepts were behind the subject that I wanted the kids to get, what progress looked like, how to build my own progress models for the second order concepts (which mattered when the school suddenly introduced bands not levels), and so on.

Hate the term unqualified teacher they are not a teacher just a person, you wouldn't let an unqualified pilot fly a plane or an unqualified doctor diagnose you.

I can see why there is a crisis in education if people devalue the job so much.

Fair enough, I didn’t do a PGCE I did a 3-year primary teaching degree so I can’t comment on what value the PGCE holds. My degree included a lot of useless modules, for example writing an essay on the pedagogy of Jean-Jaques Rousseau. I think we had 3 different modules on the importance of phonics across the 3 years which mostly I haven’t used. I have no idea what second order concepts are so maybe my degree just wasn’t a very good one, but it was at one of the most highly regarded universities for teaching and was supposed to be good! I just found the time I spent in schools the most useful, but maybe that’s because I learn by doing more than I do through listening to lectures and essay writing.

There should be some protection in the contracts of the teaching assistant against having to take the role of a teacher without the appropriate training and pay and for the teacher having to do planning for 2 days she isn't paid for. Do the unions have no stance against this unpaid labour?

I would be concerned too - but many many state schools are academies so perhaps that's why they can do it.

@MolkosTeenageAngst I think it depends what the essays are about really. We had to do one on inclusion and I think some of that thinking is particularly relevant now (although maybe it would have been better if our political leaders had done it...). My PGCE taught me to think about what good in the subject really looks like, and how to measure it, and actually that is useful and the kind of deeper thinking that I couldn't do as well in the midst of battle! But that does show the wider issue about variable teacher training too, I suppose.

For years, i've seen teachers come on this website and comment about how difficult the job is. They're very often told if you don't like it you're free to leave. Many have follow the advice of Mumsnet.

Maybe if more people have been a bit more sympathetic and listened to our valid concerns, there would be more qualified teachers in classrooms and fewer unqualified teachers.

My daughter was taught by a TA pt and she was better than the dreadful class teacher. See how it goes?

I'm a HLTA in a secondary school science based.

Last year due to sickness (a member of staff had cancer) I took a year 7 class for an entire year. I did the planning, the scaffolding, the testing and feedback.

I am also currently doing a degree to then fo a pgce to teach science full time.

No it was not an ideal situation. However,what was better for the students? Having a qualified teacher however not in science so never completing practicals or having someone with no science knowledge OR a specialised HLTA who could teach them the science. Not a single parent complained. Most of my class is now top set apart from the sen students who are low ability. Those students have support in their lessons and are achieving at their expected grades.

Please do not write off TAs. I had to complete a long course to become a HLTA including exams. It is a piece of paper that says I am capable to do this. In an ideal world we would have enough teachers for every subject. But this is not an ideal world.

I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with. I was saying that a PhD in maths hadn’t been useful. My BSc in maths could be to a point it it depends who you’re teaching, perhaps top set year 11. If I’m teaching bottom set me being a very qualified mathematician doesn’t help me to explain maths because the level of maths I’m teaching all came very easily to me but I have to try to explain it to someone who is really struggling and often the explanation that makes sense to me is completely wasted on them and I have to find a completely different approach to the one I learned. The main thing I was saying was that a degree in any subject isn’t going to be relevant at reception level, so unless someone actually has a teaching degree it’s not going to matter. My maths degree would not equip me to teach reception level maths because my degree has no information on how a 4 year old begins in understanding numbers. Young kids need to be focusing on things like column placement, which is just assumed at degree level. Likewise my sister’s English literature degree would not equip her to teach phonics.

I wouldn’t like it tbh. It doesn’t mean she isn’t as good as a teacher, she may be but I still wouldn’t like it. I would bring it up with the HT but if she is a HLTA you may not be able to do anything. I’m a teacher btw.

But part of the learning on the job is that is was backed up by the university stuff, they are intertwined.

It make might more sense with plumbing, the apprentice does the classroom part, then takes this into the field and applies this, they feel they have learnt more on the job, but they wouldn’t have learnt as much or as deeply with out the classroom parts before and after.

Someone shadowing a doctor will pick up a lot of useful knowledge and be able to apply it, but without the book learning they can’t be called a doctor. They could be great at their job, but without the qualification they aren’t a doctor.

Don’t devalue your skills and expertise, you are a degree trained professional.

I’m a HLTA and cover ppa daily. I have 16 years education experience, A levels and O’levels( yes I’m that age) in English and maths etc. But I totally agree, your child and every child should be taught for the most part by a qualified teacher. However, what is a qualified teacher? Some teachers study a degree in education, others have a degree in advertising and then do one year intense PGCE in school. I would argue that the latter does not make for a better standard of teaching.
I will say that the TA will not ( should not) be planning lessons so should be delivering a teacher planned lesson or using a scheme that the school has bought in.