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.

We never see any overseas trained supply teachers unless you count ones from Scotland we are too far from London

Can I join in: some of us have BEds and QTS and are TAs and are quite caable of covering the odd lesson if the teacher is off sick.

Hulababy I think the point is that in some schools it isn't the odd lesson ... and I may be wrong but you aren't a CS are you?

When I was on maternity leave I was covered by a long term supply teacher from South Africa. That was in Yorkshire. We used to get a lot of non British supply teachers in that LEA.

mrz - yeah, I know. Was just being "daft" :) No, not a CS - you don't get them much in infant schools IME. Just a lowly TA these days but loving every minute of it. Maybe one day I may return to teaching but whilst my DD is still young I'll enjoy the fun bits for a while.

Anmd wasreplying originally re OP as a TA, as OP did talk about TAs rather than just CS.

mrz, you work in a primary school. There is an excessive number of primary school teachers, but a shortage of secondary maths teachers.

Life is a bit different in a challenging secondary school where no one wants to teach the bottom set to keystage 1.

mrz, would you be able to teach Chemistry to set 4 of 5 (without TA support)?

reallytired - "Life is a bit different in a challenging secondary school where no one wants to teach the bottom set" - just out of interest, if you don't mind me asking, you've said you're not a teacher - what is your job?

Surely the point of this thread was that the OP is objecting to their child being taught by people who are not qualified. If you are a cover supervisor and you have a degree and a PGCE then you are as qualified as a teacher (barring professional development and so on). The point is that you don't have to have a degree to be a cover supervisor and as a consequence many people who consider themselves to be 'teaching staff' do not have a degree.

Reallytired, I didn't say that people who did not have a PGCE do not respect the intelligence of children. But someone who would mislead a class that they were a teacher when they are not does not respect those children.

MillyR I don't consider myself teaching staff actually. I thought I made that clear in my last post.

I don't think it is particularly helpful to shout out my status to the kids. Yesterday one of themasked if I was an English teacher, so I told him no; did I have an English degree? Again no.

So what was I doing trying to teach him then? (English GCSE btw, a great deal easier than the Eng Lang O-level I did). I told him I was supervising the work set by his teacher and was perfectly capable and qualified to do so (I have a degree and a lot of experience in education).

Didn't seem to get him to "adjust his behaviour accordingly" tho

reallytired as I only have chemistry at "O" level I think I would be selling the children short if I taught it with or without a TA. I could certainly deliver a lesson plan (as could a CS) but it wouldn't be to the standard of a specialist teacher. I could however teach English or History as I studied both at degree level so have the subject knowledge and the teaching skills.

actually as a SENCO I would be quite happy teaching the bottom set

I'm a CS and have read this thread with amusement and alarm.

Some points:

• I cover only planned or emergency one/two day absences

• I never claim to be anything other than a CS and introduce myself as such

• While the post does not require a degree, the employment market ensures that schools are offered dozens of candidates for each vacancy, many of whom want post-degree experience prior to applying for PGCE/GTP.

• The 'no degree' requirement keeps the pay low, not the qualifications of the successful applicants. Between the three of us, our CS team has 5 degrees (three of which are from Oxbridge and the Ivy League)

• Cover supervising bears only a passing relationship to teaching. The pupils are expected to be independent learners in cover lessons, and our role is to set them up, explain the work, set the pace and keep them engaged, on-task and only minimally occupied in drawing penises on one another's homework planners.

• I was an LSA for a year before I was a CS and sat through dozens of lessons covered by teachers yet to be liberated by the Rarely Cover agreement. No teaching happened in those lessons either.

• After a year and a bit, I know the names, abilities, interests, friends, dramas, special needs and musical preferences of the majority of the 900 or so KS3/4 pupils at my school. I know who'll try to coast. I know who won't be able to watch a video and take notes at the same time because they have processing speed disorders. I can understand the contributions of pupils whose cerebral palsy makes their speech impossible for strangers to decipher. I know who to sit at the front and who not to push too hard because he's spent the weekend sleeping on his friend's floor after his mum kicked him out again.

• I think we're a good idea.

Good post Devexity

Excellent post Devexity

Have just found this post.

As CS I would just like to say how excellent the post made by Devexity is.

We are a team of 4 and each one of us has a degree, (I have 2 degrees, have completed the HLTA course - waste of time imo, and am currently enrolled on a speech, language and communication course through the local university) I am also looking at doing the GTP.

My school follows very strictly the 3 day rule and at no time have I ever told a pupil 'I teach'

and please be aware not all supply teachers that are brought in are specialists in the subject they are covering....for example if there isn't a science teacher available but a 'teacher' is required, their subject specialism no longer becomes an issue. This week we have had a music supply teacher brought in to do ICT teaching! He was no more a specialist on ICT than me, he did not know the students like I do, he did not know who to go to when a fight broke out over who got the laptop first and spent an awful lot of time shouting at pupils

Excellent Question - being a PE teacher I notice it more and more! Specially in the world of PE where if you are off there is now noone 'qualified' to take your place.....so what happens...I dont need to explain!!!

I've just read this thread and have found some of the comments profoundly depressing. It appears that some posters just do not not know what good teaching is. It is not just about delivering a pre-planned lesson or supervising pupils while they follow instructions from worksheets or books. Good teaching involves a dynamic which inspires and motivates pupils to learn.

I am an experienced, qualified teacher, who worked for many years in secondary schools. Since taking a career break, I have worked as a supply teacher and cover manager, responsible for organising cover and supervising a team of cover supervisors.

I can state quite categorically that cover supervisors are being required to cover for far longer than was intended in the original job definition. In some cases, I was required to organise cover for subject specialists using cover supervisors. In one case, language classes had their classes "taught" by people who couldn't even speak the language. My own daughter was a pupil at the school and she had maths classes covered by unqualified non-specialists for nearly a term.

The cover supervisors tried really hard, but they didn't have the skills to adapt lessons or to teach pupils anything new. After a few lessons, pupils realised they weren't being taught, so started mucking about. As cover manager, it was my job to follow up discipline problems in cover lessons - and there were plenty of them! Some of the cover supervisors realised that the best way to get pupils on side was to humour them, with the result that very little learning ever took place.

The school was having extreme financial difficulties and the use of cover supervisors was an attempt to bring the deficit down. However, when Ofsted came, I was told to ring round the agencies and get in four qualified supply teachers - no matter what the cost. When Ofsted arrived, there was only one teacher absent, so the cover supervisor team and most of the supply teachers sat around the staffroom all day. In the end, I couldn't stand the situation any longer and resigned.

Nevertheless, I think that a good cover supervisor can do a better job than a bad supply teacher, but only because cover supervisors know the pupils and school procedures. This argument is currently being totally undermined by the use of supply cover supervisors.

Many schools have now realised that having cover supervisors on the permanent payroll means that they are not utilised effectively when there are no staff absences. Therefore, they now employ cover supervisors on a day to day basis. Since the fall in demand, agencies are desperate for work and are only too happy to supply unqualified cover supervisors at a lower rate.

Last year I had a long-term supply teaching job, taking over from the cover supervisor team. The classes involved hadn't been taught for over a month and it took me a few lessons to get them back into the habit of working and behaving. One of the pupils said to me that they thought I was going to be like all the cover "teachers" they'd had, but they soon realised that I was a "real" teacher.

I am saddened that good teaching seems to be so little valued by some parents and people who work in schools. To all the TAs and cover supervisors (especially the ones who like to gossip in little covens), please go and get yourselves qualified if you do such a good job.

I was shocked by the idea of cover supervisors when I first started teaching in England but it does have some advantages.

The cover supervisors at our school are well known by the kids and get much less hassle from them than the supply teachers who are brought in as they know and follow our school's discipline system. They're also aware of all the kids' special needs etc - in fact one of them takes pride in knowning the names of every child in the school!

Both our cover supervisors are graduates and one is working towards his masters degree.

Of course I've seen them taken advantage of - someone without a PGCE, who is paid far less than a teacher, shouldn't be expected to teach.

I a teacher at a large secondary school. If it was just CS I would be a happy bunny but no, at our school lessons are timetabled to be taught by TAs. They have no degree or QTS, have not had to study the subjects that they are teaching and are often teaching 3 different subjects so being used as non-specialists too. TBH it makes me really angry. I believe that teaching is a graduate led profession and these TAs have had the opportunity to complete degrees (some others have taken the opportunity and trained as teachers). To make matters worse, one of the TAs has now been given a TLR2 job and is likely to get a TLR1 in future - she is an excellent TA but is NOT a teacher. The TAs struggle with behaviour in some of their lessons and on occasion relate to students really badly (due to lack of training). I consider my vocation to be a profession and it drives me mad that people are being timetabled to teach lessons in my subject when they are in no way, shape or form qualified. What will be the long term impact on students who are having this level of teaching in subjects that most consider to be important.