To think primary school teachers should have basic skills BEFORE they start the course?

[LissyGlitter]

My sister has just graduated from a four year course to become a primary school teacher. I went to her graduation, and asked her why some of her friends weren't there. She told me they hadn't yet graduated as they hadn't passed the basic skills tests! Apparently the students are allowed to retake these tests as many times as they like, with 10 or 12 retakes not being too unusual. All her friends will have graduated in time to start work as NQTs in september.

Now, I'm all for widening access to higher education and all that, but surely somebody who needs 12 retakes to be able to prove they can read, write and count shouldn't be a primary school teacher? Apparently it's becoming more and more needed to have an MA to work as a primary school teacher, due to the shortage of jobs, but surely it is far more important that the teacher has the basic skills they should be passing on to the children?

Why can't they have these tests as part of the application stage to the university, rather than letting the students spend three or four years studying and going out on placement before it is required that they pass the tests?

Which bit, spongebrain? The mistakes or my reactions?

Lol, I meant the mistake - your reaction was remarkably restrained!

I don't know much about this as I am a secondary teacher, but have had children come into my classes (in Geog) at secondary level who have been taught wrong (not jsut a little bit, but totally wrong) info about weather, landscapes, natural disasters (hurricanes are the same as tornadoes etc ....), and to do co-ordinates the wrong way round (its across then up - makes teaching map reading harder - "well sorry, little Jimmy, your last primary school teacher was an arse").

And I did (but no longer) expect children to be able to basically spell and count when they came into my class - (obv not including those with SN) - but that seems too much these days as well.

Completely agree with the comment that all this filters down, and that basic mistakes are everywhere. I constantly see captions on TV that are shockingly badly mis-spelled and wonder, how come no-one noticed that? I'm not being a pedant about it...OK, ok, I am a pedant, generally speaking, but in this case I'm in the right!

So, OP, YA definitely NBU.