How many of your children are taught by unqualified people?

[gapbear]

Just that really.

A lot of schools have stopped getting (qualified) supply teachers in to cover teachers' non-contact time. Instead they get TAs to cover the class, or in secondary schools, 'Cover Supervisors'. It's possible some of them have teaching qualifications, but the vast majority don't.

I am unhappy at the thought of my children having a couple of hours a week with someone who does not hold a teaching qualification.

just think how many teachers you could afford .... depressing isn't it?!

We have one deputy and three assistants. Last year - two deputies and five assistants. Madness.

as far as I've been able to gather all they do is walk around, looking busy and giving us teachers all sorts of rubbish bits of paper to deal with, based on their latest 'scheme'. Oh, and bore us all half to death on INSETs with naff powerpoints full of edu-speak. YAWN.

Don't forget skiving Senior Support (or Behaviour Support or whatever you want to call it) by arranging 'meetings' when they should be on duty...

In all fairness, 3 out of our 4 are pretty good. The deputy is new, and she is totally of the do-nothing, pass-the-buck and bore people to death in INSET ilk.

They pass the buck, mostly...

And breathe a sigh of relief at no longer being a HoD.

I can see the point that having a couple of cover supervisors who are employed full time by a school allows the pupils to be supervised by someone who knows the school policies and knows the children and that this is a good thing.

What I don't understand is why it isn't mandatory for secondary schools to employ cover supervisors with a degre e and a PGCE. If there are so many lessons untaught that you need to employ full time staff to cover them, then the staff employed should be teachers.

The cover supervisor on here who tells her pupils that she is a teacher is bringing teaching as a profession, or certainly the teachers in her school, into disrepute.

But everything is going this way - nurse practitioners, community support officers, cover supervisors.

All of our cover supervisors have degrees and PGCEs. I suspect most teachers would not want to work for the lower wage.

Yeah that's me MillyR that tells the students I am a teacher.

Because they say to me "Miss, are you teaching us today? Are you a teacher then miss?" - shall I say "no, I'm a babysitter."?
Well I'll answer that with no I shan't, because anything that makes them think less of me and that I am easy meat (which to some extent they do anyway because I am not their normal teacher) will be the worse for me.

So I say, "I teach all subjects here so you might see me next week in English!"

I am well aware (thanks) that I am not e teacher. I can look at a) my hours and b) my wage slip to establish that. (one good, the other less so, there's a correlation there tho so I am not too unhappy).

I really don't think it matters to the kids wheteher I have a PGCE or not. How am I bringing anyone into disrepute???

Sorry I don't say "I teach all subjects" I say something like I cover all subjects.

Stroppy post. I had a bad day with yr 9 maths. Wish I was a teacher of MFL.

I am not a teacher. However I have witnessed many lessons. I met many supply teachers who vary considerally in their ablity. I have in the past witnessed a supply teacher calling a child "stupid". I have met supply teachers who made no attempt at controlling behavior. I have met supply teachers who say they don't do ICT

I have never met a bad cover supervisor. They do the job better for half the money.

Prehaps it does hurt some feelings, but I think its far too easy to pass a PGCE. Thankfully its pretty hard for poor teachers to get and keep a permament job. I do not want second rate teachers who can't hack real teaching being cover supervisiors, unless there is a strong reason like retirement or young children.

I have never met a bad cover supervisor. reallytired

Lucky you! During my time at secondary I worked with several CSs. Apart from one who went on to teacher training, the rest were dreadful. TAs dreaded going in to support in those lessons, as they would end up trying to break up fights and persuade the students to work. The TAs would gather round the cover board in the morning and work out if any of their lessons were being covered, then spend the rest of the day dreading it. Absolutely appalling. I have never seen anything like it.

Hmmm. I really don't have a problem with one-offs, but I want my children to have the best possible education. I don't think TAs and CSs provide this.

I agree reallytired, I do think it is far too easy to become a teacher and the bar needs raising.

but I think its far too easy to pass a PGCE

Jolly good - another statement without any basis in reality. Until you've done one, luv, please reserve judgement.

I am not a teacher

So no real idea what the job entails then?

In a school full of TAs and CSs I can count on one hand those who are worth having in a lesson. The rest are a complete waste of space - rude maybe, but the truth. There are, of course, some rather poor teachers but at least their experience and subject knowledge make up for many of their shortfalls.

I suppose our school is very lucky in having had access to excellent subject specialist supply teachers. I do accept that this is not always the case. Perhaps the argument needs to be for better supply rather than CSs? I'm sure if local authorities got themselves together they could sort out a really decent pool of local supply - without the need for schools to pay high agency rates. These supply teachers would get to know most of the schools in a area and build up relationships with these schools.

I have passed a PGCE and trained PGCE students and I can tell you, firmly rooted in reality, that it is too easy to pass. That is not to say there are not PGCE students who don't work very hard but they don't need to to pass.

Clary, nobody is asking you to say that you are a babysitter. You could simply tell them that you are a cover supervisor. Obviously the interaction between children and a teacher is going to be different between that of children and a cover supervisor.

A cover supervisor is unlikely to have a great deal of knowledge of the subject they are teaching. Many children in secondary school will have knowledge of the subjects they are studying. I have postgraduate qualifications, but I am aware that there are many GCSE students of, German or Latin for example, that would know more than me.

If I went into a classroom as a cover supervisor or a supply teacher with a different specialism (I am neither), I would have the respect for the children's intelligence to explain the lesson was being supervised rather than taught, and they would then understand that they could proceed with some basic self-tuition, but that the adult in the room didn't actually have the skills to advise them on many questions they had on the subject matter.

I don't think this is a problem just with cover supervisors but with the growth of teachers being expected to cover subjects on a long term basis that they have limited knowledge of - Biology teachers teaching Physics for example. It does bring teaching into disrepute if children are led to believe someone is qualified to teach something when in some instances they are neither qualified to teach nor qualified in the subject.

To think otherwise suggests you are basing it on some strange assumptions:

1. Kids are a bit thick. Teaching is simply a matter of being one step ahead of them in the curriculum. Children are not routinely going to ask questions that are beyond the curriculum, such as relating the topic in hand to their own experience, so you don't really need to know any more about Physics or History than what is laid out in the lesson plan in order to teach.

1. Kids are a bit thick and a bit nasty. If you acknowledged that you were supervising not teaching, they wouldn't be able to adjust their behaviour accordingly in order to get the most out of the learning experience. It is therefore better to mislead them in order to ensure good behaviour.

1. Teaching isn't actually a specialist or professional skill. There isn't really any difference between what you do and what a teacher does, so it is perfectly acceptable to consider yourself teaching staff.

If people genuinely believe that cover supervisors as a group are as capable (or according to some people more capable) of teaching as qualified teachers, we should abolish teaching as a profession.

But while I accept that it is just an acceptable mistake when DS tells me his cover supervisor told him that all vegetables are green except mushrooms, if that cover supervisor tells DS that she is a teacher and makes such a statement, DS is going to lose confidence and I am going to be concerned about the state of teaching in his school, believing the statement to be made as part of teaching by a teacher.

Sorry, that example was actually someone saying that all plants are green except mushrooms.

(Just a little aside - some of us are BEds and trained for four years to be 'not as good as a Cover Supervisor' )

The cover supervisors that I know all had degrees or were studying towards a degree. They are highly experienced TAs with higher level teaching assistant status. It is pathetic to suggest that people without a PGCE do not respect the intelligence of children.

"If people genuinely believe that cover supervisors as a group are as capable (or according to some people more capable) of teaching as qualified teachers, we should abolish teaching as a profession. "

I think that if lessons are being planned then it is essential to have a qualified teacher. However if a qualified teacher is delivering a pre planned lesson outside their subject area then there is little advantage over a cover supervisor.

It is bit like suggesting having a PGCE helps you be a better exam inviligator.

reallytired - Prehaps it does hurt some feelings, but I think its far too easy to pass a PGCE. Thankfully its pretty hard for poor teachers to get and keep a permament job.

Given that you haven't done a PGCE and aren't a teacher, then I don't think you are able to make such a statement. Also, I think it's often the other way round. I did my PGCE in 1996, and it didn't tax me too much, but then, I was really keen to do well, and, having graduated from an RG university with a good degree, and given that I was pretty confident in front of a bunch of teenagers, I like to think I was a good candidate. However, my Dsis has just started a PGCE and the amount of work she has to do in comparison to the amount I had to do 14 years ago is astounding. I don't think it's far too easy to pass a PGCE - I think there is an awful lot of work involved. An NQT year is similarly as rigorous - and so it should be. However, IME, it is notoriously difficult to get rid of a poor teacher. I have, and do, work with many, and it's probably the one thing I dislike about my job.

I think I am lucky in that I work in a school with three good CSs. The students, and the parents know that they are CSs and not teachers. They cover lessons well, and our school follows the rules in that they don't do long-term cover. IME, the CSs I work with have done nothing to damange the professionalism of teachers which is probably why I support the system as a whole - had I worked with bad CSs I suppose my opinion would be different. I fully agree with those posters who are saying that it is rubbish that teachers will become unnecessary, but I genuinely don't think that CSs are part of the problem. Perhaps every school just needs CSs like the ones we have. BTW, one of our CSs from last year is now doing a PGCE. The students knew she was a CS last year, but she was still voted "favourite teacher" by the Yr 11s when they left.

I think the quality of PGCE courses varies greatly as well, there are certain colleges we will not take students from as they send poor quality students and pass students to easily.

I still think it is too easy to pass a PGCE although hopefully schools are quite adept at reading through the lines when it comes to references and managing to spot a student who is not up to it. We should not have to, it should be possible for us to assume that someone who has a PGCE will be an excellent teacher.

A PGCE should be a lot of work, but some students work hard at being ineffective and others are just lazy and get away with it. When we get our cohort in I am rarely very impressed with more than 1 or 2.

(Just a little aside - some of us are BEds and trained for four years to be 'not as good as a Cover Supervisor' )

(Another little aside - some of us are BAs with QTSs, and also trained for 4 years.)

and there again some of us are Beds (4 years) with QTS plus a PGCE at MA level to be "not as good as a cover supervisor"

Many supply teachers are overseas teachers and even if they are qualified in their own countries they don't know the british education system. Are they better than cover supervisors.

Its naviety to think that all permament teachers are qualifed. The school I work in employs several unqualifed teachers on a permament basis. They have done well in their OFSTED inspections as well.

The school I work at has a policy of having teachers on a one term contract before making them a permament member of staff. If a teacher is poor then the contract is not made permament.