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?

How was she great at teaching then? Did you watch her teach every day?

Which bit of schools don’t have money and there is a teacher recruitment are parents not getting

This happens all the time now. I’m a year 3 teacher and recently turned 61. After teaching full time for 32 years, I cut my days down from 5 to 3, and my MAT refuses to hire anyone now to cover job shares (instead they like to make us older teachers feel very guilty about wanting to cut back a little!) They put a HLTA in my class for the two days I don’t teach. They also asked me todo all the planning, class admin, all 34 reports and both parents evenings (even though one of them was on a day I don’t work in school!)

Unfortunately for the academy trust, not only am I way too old to put up with their shit, I’m the union rep! I informed them (professionally 😬) that as I am being paid 0.6 of a full time salary, I will be working a 0.6 contract too 👌🏻

OP, it’s not right, but this is how education in this country is going now. It’s utterly broken! 🤷‍♀️😢

Good for you! What utter arseholes!

You’re better off doing supply!

They’re unlikely to have had the same training with regards to scaffolding, differentiation of work, SEN needs etc. it’s not just the degree. I have definitely met HLTA’s that are arguably better than some teachers but I have also met many, many TA’s that struggle to spell and punctuate correctly.

This.

At my school, TAs aren't required to attend staff training on pedagogy or curriculum. They won't have received any formal.training on this.

It's not the subject of the degree that is important.

TAs also aren't required to meet the 33 teacher standards especially in terms of assessment or subject knowledge.

It's easy for people to argue that some TAs are very good and better than some teachers but it's the professional equivalent of replacing surgeons with Physician Associates.

I thought I had been told that regular classroom teachers only get a single day on SEN during their whole training course, or have I got my wires crossed. I think I heard this on Jamie Oliver’s dyslexia program.

My grandson was taught by a TA for most of last year.It worked really well although I felt very sorry for her regarding her salary scale.
The only difference I noticed was she used terms which I don't think a teacher would have used ie: overly congratulated him on "coming out of his shell ", which was bizarre terminology for him to cope with.I also didn't want the fact that he's a quiet ,reflective child to be commented on.I mentioned it to her and she stopped although I'm not sure she could see the problem.

For those arguing wait and see. When fully qualified teachers start finding jobs hard to find because cheaper unqualified people take the jobs will that also be reasonable? The teacher imho should at least be working towards a qualification.

I was a school TA.
After being a sessional lecturer for 10 years for adults.
I refuse to put it on my cv/linked in or anything because where I worked, some people discriminate against when I was job hunting.
I actually held higher level degrees than our head (and was a qualified head) when I was a TA. Don’t dismiss this lady out of hand!

Would rather have a better teacher AND a small class size.

Then that’s a recruitment issue. Five hire crap people as TAs

Class sizes of 20 aren't sustainable unless looking at mixed year group classes

I disagree with this. Having the subject knowledge to degree or even phd level gives an insight into how the building blocks of maths develop and how topics link to others. Having expert subject knowledge gives you the mental dexterity to support children in making links and, for those who might struggle to understand a concept, to provide a range of explanations and opportunities to develop their understanding. And this is especially important for lower ability groups, or children with SEN. My teacher training has given me a good basis to be able to teach most subjects, but I’ll never be able to teach them as well as my specialism.

Yeah not true at all

I have been a TA and HLTA for 24 years. I have a BA Honours degree and a Level 5 Diploma in Trauma Informed Practise plus numerous other SEN/Behaviour qualifications.
I wouldn't imagine that the majority of 'my' parents actually know that so how do you know what your TA has?

Totally agree. After all would society accept a nurse doing a surgeon’s job?
Fortunately I’m retired from teaching after 38 years, I feel very sad for my so called profession.

It’s possible that my training is more useful than I realise. I have a habit of overestimating other people’s knowledge in maths because all teachers have to have passed to GCSE so I just assume they know stuff, and have then discovered that they don’t. We are talking about reception level though. It will be lots of counting, number bonds, and place value. An experienced TA will know what they’re doing teaching that better than I would. The knowledge of the maths is so very basic, and I don’t have the experience delivering it to that age group.

Many years ago, before becoming a teacher, I worked in an admin role with qualified professionals. I saw a very newly quallified professional make a decision on something that was against policy and could have had serious repercussions so I mentioned it to him. He assured me it was fine, I knew it wasn't and urged him to speak to someone more experienced just to check. He did and I was right.

That doesn't mean that some admin staff are as good as or better than some professionals It just meant that someone who was completely unqualified but slightly more experienced in that area had functional knowledge he didn't.

I didn't suggest that professionals were replaced by admin staff or that admin could do the job just as well as long as there was a professional nearby to keep an eye on them.

And yet, here was are with people suggesting a TA can replace a teacher.

We have some excellent TAs at our school. Long standing, very experienced and get brilliant results from the children but it is all done under the direction and supervision of a teacher because, whilst they're very good at delivering the support or personalised learning individual children require, and they will often have ideas about what will work and make suggestions to the class teacher (eg strategies or approaches they have used previously) that are incorporated, they are not given the responsibility of writing that programme of support because they are not teachers.

That doesn't mean they can replace teachers and it doesn't mean they can do the whole.job just as well just that they have become very experienced in one particular area of it.

That's not to take away from he excellent job TAs do, and, yes, there are teachers who have left the teaching profession who have become TAs but they are not the majority. And yes, some very long standing TAs wil have experience and knowledge that ECTs don't yet have. But they are not teachers.

And that's even before we get to TA pay being crap and schools should not he employing them at TA rates to do a teacher's job.

I don't know why TA's do it tbh, they are being totally ripped off with the pay.

Get used to it OP, my DS didn't have a science teacher for his entire GCSE physics course, just a series of unqualified cover supervisors who showed them YouTube videos and told them to email the Head of Science with any questions. All totally normal.

Totally agree with this. My primary education was in the 69s and was excellent, and teachers did not have degrees then. They went to vocational teacher training colleges.
And remember, a Primary Teacher could have a degree in Greek Mythology, and a PGCE, and be teaching your 5 year old maths.

Education in all respects, as with most things, has changed just very slightly in the last 60 years.

They did have teaching qualifications and they did study education.

Some TT colleges were linked to Universities and awarded B. Ed degrees. Some students who did 3 year full time courses requiring A levels and a thesis have subsequently awarded Degrees in place of their Cert. Ed award.