The best Independent schools generally take the highest qualified teachers?

[Hamishbear]

It might be obvious to many that the most academic schools insist that their teachers have an outstanding degree from one of the best universities but it wasn't to me.

For example if you want a job in Maths at Guildford High school allegedly you need a first in Maths from a well regarded university. You obviously need to be an outstanding teacher in the fullest sense too.

So do the elite schools usually have the best teachers? I suppose it stands to reason that there is more competition for jobs at schools that have a fantastic reputation?

Poosh, do let us know how your son gets on once you've read the 'Oxbridge' prospectus won't you?

Most of us will have pretty much the same list - someone who is good at teaching and well qualified. We have been very lucky indeed with just about all the teachers the children have had.

"Received pronunciation Xenia? What approach do you take to all the clever geordies and yorkshiremen and east europeans who tutor at RG universities then?"

I suppose I raised that because someone was asking about the sort of person who would get a job in different types of schools. You want someone who can be understood by the types of children who attend which in my daughter's friend's teaching practice school I think 98% are or were sri lankan so I am certainly not suggesting you want posh teachers at all schools but it certainly helps if a teacher shares your own cultural and class background. However it's fairly low down any list of priorities. Someone prepared to put in hours doing extra curricular stuff, helps with sports, mucks in, never off sick however ill they feel, who display an attitude that they are lucky to have the job rather than constant moaner how hard is my life type of jobsworth.

But Xenia I don't see how the ideals you set out in your last sentence are related to having been to Oxford or Cambridge?

I also don't see how, as you've mentioned a few times that haberdasher's and NLCS, for example, have quite a range of ethnicities and backgrounds, you could have a teacher who shares your own cultural and class background? Or should they just share the white middle class background some of the children have, providing a role model for those who don't?

Agree with a lot of that Xenia but I'd have thought that from an educational point of view having teachers with a certain variety of cultures and backgrounds helps in the modern world.

Yes, turning up for work as a teacher is of paramount importance to the students, as is getting stuck into the extra curricular side, whether that's the sporty bit or something else.

The most educated teachers don?t always make the best teachers. DDs physics teacher just cant understand why the children don?t ?get it? she does not explain anything in simple terms so the children understand, she had several degrees from Oxford. Last year the teacher had a degree from a lesser Uni and she was amazing.

Summer - My son is 11 years old. Why do you think I would be spending time trying to find the best degree course for him in 7 years time?

.... in anycase, would it be better if I aspired for my DCs to go to South Bank University rather than Oxbridge?

I would think if your DS is suited to Cambridge it might be better for that aptitude to emerge over the next few years so that he feels it's his decision, not yours Poosh. That sort of expectation by a parent can be very difficult for a young person to handle. It's not possible to judge in Y7 what will best suit a DC.

Oh dear. I don't help with sport, am off sick today in fact, and am moaning a LOT at the moment (and throwing darts at pictures of Mr G).

I do have a PhD though, and am pretty good with apostrophes. So that's OK then...

The PhD is irrelevant to my teaching BTW. I like my staff to be intelligent certainly. I think it's hugely important for a teacher. But extra degrees are an irrelevance.

The Habs list is interesting, especially as between subjects. A neighbour of ours is a teacher there. I'm not sure one could say he shared the ethnicity of the majority of the pupils at Habs!

He's eleven but you've already decided you're putting 'oxbridge' down on his UCAS form, though not as number one, though?

Just seen the suggestion that a primary teacher with a BEd might be better for low ability secondary students than a Science graduate for teaching Science. Not sure about that one. We did think about it, and interviewed a number of them (some middle school trained in fact), but their understanding tended to be a significant issue when covering some secondary Science topics, and certainly when teaching How Science Works. I think a Science teacher needs to a be a Scientist rather than a generalist. A primary trained PGCE with a Science degree would be fab, but they are like gold dust!

Although I am obviously pleased, it is DS's expectation and not mine.

30% of his 6th Form go onto Oxbridge. Most of his teachers are Oxbridge. In his mind, Oxbridge is where the clever kids go so that is where he wants to go.

US and Canadian universities are also on the table but for the time being its simply a 'what would I do if I win the lottery?' kind of conversation.

Where is he at school?

He is at a boys school in the London area. Given my propensity to piss off posters, that is as specific as I'm prepared to get :)

30% to Oxbridge is a huge amount, isn't it?

I was teasing about accent, although I do not want teachers who stop their Ts, say haitch and that kind of thing. I don't think it's a hugely important issue but I do want the children to speak properly and it helps if the teachers do too.

I put up the Habs list as it shows a typical selective private school and where the teachers go,. I put it up as sometimes on mumsnet you get people posting that teachers at private schools have no qualifications and only in the state system are you safe. I don't think anyone looking at that list would think private schools have badly educated teachers.

Also yes, if the teachers went to good universities they may well be encouraging the children to do so and they can describe their experiences there and that will help with aspirations. If the teacher went to Middlesex poly they may not be quite so good at that. If most of the pupils will leave at 16 without GCSEs then it may not matter so much either.

Well, as soon as DD1 mentioned it as a possible destination (latter part of Y10), I bought a £3 Virgin ticket for her and her two sisters and an £11 one for myself and we took ourselves off to Durham for a weekend, to look at that instead.

I'm now stressing the fact that they mustn't aim or hope for a First, it can wreck those three years.

Xenia I very much doubt that the Habs list is 'typical' at all. Habs is quite niche. It will be fairly typical of highly selective London independents, that's all.

I went to a prospective parents' open day at one of England's very best schools recently. One of the things I was most interested in (having already visited the school on a previous occasion and been wowed by the facilities etc) was talking to the teachers, in particular the HoDs. I was very impressed indeed by their knowledge of the curriculum, of alternative curricula, of what universities required in terms of preparation. But the people themselves did not bowl me over. But then, they are teachers. If they were fabulously fantastic people in every way, would they be teaching (with the miserable salary and status attached to teaching)?

My DSSs' central Paris school has an exchange programme with Habs. I can say with great confidence that the standards of French language teaching at Habs are... abysmal

The English are not renowned for their love of the French. It is one of our better schools.

Anyway I have found NLCS' staff list too:
www.nlcs.org.uk/SeniorStaff/index.php

Will try to find a Northern one.

Interesting. Manchester Grammar does not give the place they attended.
www.mgs.org/contact-us/teaching-staff

@Hamish - Someone recently published a link to a newspaper article that broke down the schools of Oxbridge entrants. DS's school was in a respectable position but by no means was it near the top.

Based on that, 30% isn't a lot.

Newcastle Royal Grammar does (private, ex direct grant)
www.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/students-and-parents/staff.php