if so many people are about to be made redundant in the country, why can't experienced individuals be fast tracked as teachers?

[elmouno]

Yes, I know teachers require different types of certification. But in these pressing times, if we have people being made redundant in every industry, why can't they be placed as extra teachers so we can get class sizes smaller? For example, if someone is already a scientist with work experience in biology, chemistry, etc surely they will be able to teach it at secondary level? Redundant IT engineers could teach what's relevant now in tech? HR or former project managers could teach English? Bankers teaching certain maths? I don't know but I think it is really important that we get more teachers (of course they would have to pass a background check). I mean perhaps we need to get more creative with curriculum and scrap the tests for now? Perhaps children who want to get into certain universities can take a SAT test like they do in America?

It just seems a shame that we have so many people being made redundant and we have such a pressing need to make more bubbles. Large bubbles imo, won't work. What will happen to keyworkers when their bubbles pop? It doesn't make sense to me. The only answer is to build more schools and have more teachers.

As of next week, I will be supervising 3 new teaching colleagues, one of whom has a decent level of relevant experience...the other two, not so much.

We appointed them, to a very successful & highly regarded school, because we had 3 vacancies &, well, 3 applicants.

They all seem like good eggs, to be honest, & by Christmas they'll either have found their feet or taken to their heels & fled.

I've spent an entire week meeting with them, sharing my planning, walking them through potential lessons, & I'll be doing that all next term, at least.

& they're all qualified teachers - it's just that one of them is very recently qualified & another isn't a subject specialist.

I'm quite glad I'm not being asked to swap them for Susan Soft Play or Grace the Graphic Designer, or any other totally untrained randoms, in a hastily partitioned disused department store .

OP, you have cheered me up considerably!

@Palestrina20 how are your friends preparing to go back to school if they are not working this week ? Especially as nothing will be as normal. I'm just intrigued how they do seating plans (vital for track and trace), resource making and lesson planning if only work when teaching. I'd love to know 😊

We don't teach IT as much these days. It come under computing and has a much greater computer programming content. Many of the IT Techs i have worked with haven't been programmers and don't know the programming languages used in schools.

I would 100% have more than enough knowledge for this (have been a professional programmer and consultant for 30+ years developing many differing types of software) and the chances are I've either used the languages or could get up to speed really quickly.

What I could not do however is be thrown into a secondary school class and teach without an awful lot of training. I absolutely know this, as I spent 18 months working in a secondary school, not teaching, but most certainly had contact with the students and couldn't wait to get out. It's not what I am cut out to do.

amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/18/25-of-teachers-in-england-work-more-than-60-hours-a-week-study?amp_js_v=a3&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=15984596258056&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Feducation%2F2019%2Fsep%2F18%2F25-of-teachers-in-england-work-more-than-60-hours-a-week-study

Just one link to one study that has been replicated numerous times looking at teachers working hours.

I struggle sometimes to value the profession in the way that appears to be expected when I know people that chose to teach because of holidays, pension etc and because they didn't really know what they wanted to do.

Why would this bother you? Holidays and pension SHOULD be a factor in deciding a career. (Although let’s remember that they aren’t all paid holidays shall we and the pension isn’t all that great anymore - and I pay around £400 into my pension each month, it’s not a freebie).

Surely you’re not one of those who believe teachers should have some sort of calling from God and work selflessly for only the greater good?

When I decided to teach, holidays and pension, as well as the pay scale and contractual duties were all part of my wider decision making. I’m not stupid, whilst I care a lot for my learners and want them all to do well, I’m a human being with bills to pay, my own family to support and retirement to consider. It’s a job and not a lifestyle. No I won’t work during unpaid holidays; although it’s taken me 20 years to get to the point I’m happy to say no.

I like my job teaching, I don’t expected to be treated as ‘special’. But it’s still a demanding job and requires professional (and expensive) training. The idea that someone can go from being an air-steward to a classroom teacher in a month or two is ludicrous.

@mumsneedwine I can't do my seating plans until I'm in school because I don't know who I will be teaching yet. And year 12 won't be enrolled until next Friday afternoon.

@MrsHamlet can't do mine yet as SIMS not updated. But need them ready before start. I will be using the random button to start 😊. I'm currently trying to rewrite lesson plans for science lessons in history rooms. I have 8 labs a fortnight out of 44 lessons. I'm v sad as I do something every lesson.

Because they aren't experienced teachers. If they do the GTP they will end up in schools that really, really need experienced teachers.

@ineedaholidaynow

An actor could pretend to be a teacher, would that help.

😂😂😂

An actor could pretend to be a teacher, would that help.

Drama teacher?

Anyone is welcome to be a teacher, but subject knowledge is only part of the problem. I've had Oxbridge graduate colleagues who were terrible terrible teachers.

Anyone is welcome to come and be a teacher but getting good at it really only comes with experience and you can't really fast-track that.

It's not what I am cut out to do

Like most jobs surely, there are people who are doing jobs that are not cut out for them. Teachers included.

I think for teaching the number unsuited is as high or higher as other professions. It isn’t any different, the idea of teaching being a vocation is ludicrous. The people I know who trained later in life to become teachers wanted summers off and family time and have no issue saying this privately.

I should add that I don’t see anything ‘wrong’ with this reasoning if they are able to carry out their work adequately. Adequate is good enough.

@Alongcameacat

I should add that I don’t see anything ‘wrong’ with this reasoning if they are able to carry out their work adequately. Adequate is good enough.

Adequate is not good enough though.

That's why Ofsted renamed the 'adequate' band awarded to schools 'requires improvement'.

@Palestrina20 I don’t know any teacher who wants to be told they’re special.
Just maybe for people to not expect us to accept mad suggestions like the OP’s without criticism, and to also not be treated like teaching is the one job you have to enjoy ONLY because you want to help children. Obviously that’s the main bit, but it’s like we can’t also appreciate the perks of our job like the holidays. It’s not our choice to have them, and I don’t know any other job where you get sneered at for just.. taking the holiday you are given.

I had friends who took their jobs purely for the holidays. Noone sneered.
It was something like 6 months on, 6 months off - oil rig stuff.

I have lots of non teacher friends, I don’t know how many hours they work and they don’t know how many hours I work because we live in different houses and don’t feel the need to share that! Feel like an odd conversation. They know I work hard but that’s as far as the conversation goes. I never understand how people know the working hours of their teacher friends.

@Palestrina20

So do you want to be told you're special *@KatherineOfGaunt*?

My teacher friends work nothing like the 60 hour weeks a pp referenced - and neither should they. Nor have they done any work through the holidays, again, they shouldn't have to. Teacher experience (both as a teacher and as a pupil/parent) seems to vary widely.

No, I don't think teachers are special.

It's actually a reference to the popular refrain "You're not special" when any teacher dares say anything mildly negative about the work they do. Not that I want to be told I'm special.

Although, seeing as how we're the only profession essentially going back to work as normal, apparently we ARE special.

We’re not even taking a trainee this term because we’ve got a couple of NQTs joining the department who are going to need a lot of support because they basically haven’t done their second placement.

I am sure a lot of highly qualified people losing their jobs would love to ear a teacher’s salary in their first year of teaching!!

Adequate is not good enough though.

Depends what the bar is. At my kid’s school it is very low. I’d settle for adequate.

Can’t move due to being in an over subscribed area and the school doesn’t care before anyone says anything.

i teach religious studies and philosophy to teenagers (comprehensive in grammar area) and they achieve exceptionally high grades, but go on, have a go, must be a complete doddle and anyone can do it.
What are your thoughts on the importance of the Ontological argument for faith?
What conclusions can you draw from the 10 Commandments in Judaism and the Eightfold path in Buddhism? (This is a year 7 question btw, so really, really easy)

@balloonsintrees hilariously you’ve backed the other side’s argument here. If year 7s can grasp this stuff in a couple of lessons then I’m pretty sure well educated professionals can too.

If year 7s can grasp this stuff in a couple of lessons then I’m pretty sure well educated professionals can too.

Ah, it you see there’s a difference: the Year 7s are being taught. The “educated professionals” would be expected to do the teaching.

My perspective comes from having worked at an FE college in a support role where if you had the qualifications in a subject you could teach.

So I taught as back up sometimes.

I was totally unsuited to it. As well as did at the topic myself, I was:

• desperately uncomfortable standing up in front of people and talking
• poor at preparation which is so important in teaching. I'm a last minute person
• there's a thing that says how much you really know comes out when you try to explain it. I 'got it' instinctively but explaining to others how, why, difficult questions. Not good. Everyone's brain works differently, the reason you get it won't work for everyone, even if you can start to explain it
• dealing with unruly teenagers on their second bash at GCSE. My authority was shite. Prob better now but still. I was young then.

That experience means I really respect teachers for the skills they have. I also believe you have to want to do it.

I am in a good career now and very happy. I'm still not comfy with talking to groups of people in a stand up at the front way. It's just not my thing.

It's well known that people who are good at doing stuff really aren't always any cop at teaching others.

I don’t know any teachers who think they are particularly special, but they would like to be treated with respect and as the professionals they are!

I love threads like this, just another kick to my profession! Loving the bit someone on here got in a few pages back about also fast tracking child care qualifications - I’m sure they’re also a parent who complains at the slightest thing going wrong at their child’s nursery because it’s so easy! Yet of course they would never do the job themselves, they’re far too good for it. Likely also believes things like the 30 free hours could be funded by staff working for free and reducing their pensions and keeping them on minimum wage. Then expecting lots of 1:1 and for us to actually raise your child.

Why are teachers so disrespected? Why can’t they have a good pension? Who exactly does deserve a good pension?

Teaching is bloody hard. I did the three year teacher training degree for primary and was drowning in my last placement. I passed but never did my NQT year. It’s never enough. Results slip? Teachers end of loosing their jobs, put back on probation, demoted, Ofsted come charging in demanding improvements. Results rise? Near enough the same thing because it couldn’t possibly be true. The nation believes its got too easy. Look at this years GCSE results! They’ve risen and people are suspicious. You can’t bloody win.

10 years into my career (across schools and early years) I have been asked to consider a maternity cover teaching post at my school after Christmas - I now feel I might actually be able to do it. There are so many gifted teachers out there who just burn out. Anyone who comes in for the holidays doesn’t last. Believe me.

Just read the continuous threads on Mumsnet about things parents want to complain to schools and child care places about, then wonder why classroom management is becoming harder and harder and people are leaving. Parents don’t respect teachers, their children won’t either.

OP I don’t think you honestly have any idea what else goes into teaching. Teachers have be teachers, social workers, councillors, mediators, listeners, safe guards, cleaners, stationary and supply buyers, party planners, risk assessors, first aiders, and have to be extremely proactive. A “fast track” route wouldn’t do it. Just understanding things like data input and juggling it all doesn’t really happen until the trainings done.

But hey ho

Come over and join us in education, it’s a 9-3 party!