Something EVERY parent of a child in a UK State school should know about

[QualifiedTeacher]

The UK Government has new proposals to allow non qualified teachers to teach in UK schools. This means our children?s education may be placed in the hands of teachers without basic qualifications such as English and Maths GSCE let alone a Bachelors degree. This policy will mainly be affecting children from the lower economic backgrounds and the reasoning behind employing unqualified teachers is simply because it costs less.

I have attached an epetition which gives more information and is asking for signatures to oppose the use of unqualified teachers in UK State schools. If the numbers signing this petition is large enough, we can get the debate discussed in the UK Parliament. Please help and protect the education of all UK children in State schools.

Thanks

If a teacher was to be trained on the job, the programme is called the Graduate Teachers Programme, which will lead to qualified teachers status, the said teacher will have to be paid a starting salary of £27,000 a year if in Inner London.

If however, the graduate isn't going through formally recognised training, and employed on a HLTA salary, they will not have to be paid the same salary as one training and will not be afforded the same rights such as PPA time, etc.

The salary for a graduate wanting to train to be a teacher, in a school as opposed to going to university to do a PGCE is around £17,000 in Inner London. The cost of a HLTA doing the same post is around £11,000.

The cost of doing a PGCE from September 2012 is going to be £9,000. So a graduate who has paid £9,000 on top of the cost of their undergraduate degree, which may have presented them with say £20,000 debts at least will have problems finding a teaching position when graduates without the postgraduate qualification or formal training working in schools will be earning £11,000 p.a.

In the EU country I teach in, this is already allowed and it's awful. Just because someone has a good knowledge and understanding of a subject does NOT mean that they have the skills to teach a class of 30 teenagers. I've seen students sink under an unqualified teacher with no classroom management skills, no idea how to teach to the appropriate level, no idea how to deal with students with SEN or differentiate for G&T.

The schools here aren't flooded with unqualified teachers but when there's a shortage of a certain subject or it's on short notice, then often the people they recruit are unqualified and inexperienced. They are cheap because they are unqualified and sometimes management just want a body in front of the class.

It's the students who suffer.

Here's an interesting comment from the Guardian thread.
'I`m not sure what Gove is doing with this move. Could it be qualified teachers are not signing up for his flagship academies?'
Fits in well with this mumsnet thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/1529589-AIBU-to-think-this-is-a-lot-of-staff-to-be-leaving
I think teachers will be quite worried about terms and conditions when their school has academy status.

Dear All

Let's just get this properly debated.

I'm putting another link

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/12405

Please try cutting and pasting it. I hope it this works.

www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1074140/unqualified-teachers-damage-prospects-vulnerable-pupils-ncb-warns?utm_content=&utm_campaign=310712_Daily&utm_source=Children%20%26%20Young%20People%20Now&utm_medium=adestra_email&utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cypnow.co.uk%2Fcyp%2Fnews%2F1074140%2Funqualified-teachers-damage-prospects-vulnerable-pupils-ncb-warns

'I`m not sure what Gove is doing with this move. Could it be qualified teachers are not signing up for his flagship academies?'

I think that is definitely a concern. No bloody wonder qualified teachers aren't signing up for his academies.

I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent and I want qualified, experienced teachers in front of my son's class. In my opinion teaching is a vocation and Mr Gove is doing his best to create a stiuation very much like mercibucket describes.

Engelsmama you've hit it right on the head. Gove actually got the idea from Sweden.

The amount of time we spend learning about how children learn. It's not just about knowing the subject, it about breaking it down so they can ALL understand. It's about making it interesting, it about getting them to be involved in their own learning. This takes a lot of academic training around the issues and practice, practice, practice. The training year is really hard going but you come out of it better prepared. We are monitored and assessed regularly on our abilities to do this. We are constantly having to keep learning and improving.

The issue of behaviour, espeically keeping boys motivated is key as is dealing with ethnic minority students. Inclusion, making sure every child's culture is respected. Special Educational Needs, making sure every child understands what we are teaching them. It's about ensuring all children a proper place in society when they grow up.

I heard recently of a school that decided their Year 5 and 6 should learn Latin. They brough in a Latin boff and he was calling some of the Year 6 children 'dumb' and 'donkeys' for not understanding BASIC Latin. He was eventually fired and the children left devasted. Some people just do not understand how powerful the role is of a teacher and how vulnerable children really are. We are working with the most valuable commodity on the planet, the mind of a child.

Not in UK. Just England/Wales. Scotland has a very different education system with a General Teaching Council that has existed for decades. Indeed, many teachers in England do not meet registration standard as it is and have to do a probationary period in order to achieve registration in Scotland.

Mrz thanks for the post. Really useful.

Stargirl1701, you are absolutely right and this has been picked up previously in this post AND the Scottish children do better academically than the children in England and Wales.

MWITA precisely - well said

epetition link

But if that petition was written by a qualified teacher, they need to learn to proof-read....

I'm massively pro state education (just needed to say that first). I also think a teaching qualification is essential.

It does annoy me though when people go on about teachers in private schools not having teaching qualifications. While legally they don't need them it is the exception that doesn't have them. This change just allows academies to cut costs.

QT, how vair evangelical. Unfortunately, if you genuinely believe that all qualified teachers have received SEN training (and are capable of breaking stuff down so that even all NT kids can understand) then you have a great deal more faith in a PGCE than I have ever seen proved in any classroom I've been in.

I like the idea. The reality is somewhat different.

That said, I know some great teachers. And a raft of shockers. All 'qualified'. Notwithstanding your one Latin geezer, of course. A niche, indeed, rather than the across the board primary concepts where you would assume most qualified teachers would be capable of excelling, non?

Thanks RustyBear for posting the link. I am a secondary teacher and confirm my specialism is not ICT. Best wishes

We listed some teacher qualifications on another thread recently from various private schools. My children's father has taught in both sectors and it is very very rare that a private school has staff without a PGCE and a degree from a good university. t is certaily not the nor. There no jobs to be had for anyone at present. It is even getting hard to get on the Teach First programme (graduates with 2/1 and higher).

habsboys.org.uk/info/govstaff1112.php
www.nlcs.org.uk/SeniorStaff/index.php
Does not say if PGCE or not but my recollection is most of them have it.

I am not against deregulatory moves but I suspect most good schools will tend to recruit those with their PGCSE and a good degree from a good university.

Unfortunately, if you genuinely believe that all qualified teachers have received SEN training (and are capable of breaking stuff down so that even all NT kids can understand) then you have a great deal more faith in a PGCE than I have ever seen proved in any classroom I've been in.

Not all teachers qualify with a PGCE - some posters here are confusing it with having QTS.

Yar, rusty. I couldn't get the past the first sentence.

I mean, I know on here we're all supposed to be jolly forgiving about teachers sending home spelling mistakes in reading records and all that bollocks (they are very busy people, after all), but on a govt petition?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, really. Those dreadful unqualified teachers - I wonder what their petition would look like? I mean, standards, eh?

way to make a point....

I really do not see what the big fuss is about. When this same debate got off on another thread there were all sorts of arguments. Some arguing that degrees and specialist knowledge were most important, some saying being qualified to teach (regardless of what) was important. In the end it seemed to be the general feeling that neither good degrees nor teaching qualifications made a good teacher.

We all, it seems want "good" teachers. Qualifications are a side issue.

QTS? Mine was a four year degree to include the QTS aspects, so theoretically identikit to a standard BA followed by one year PGCE? The same amount of time for all the teacher training gibbens to be included? The argument was that all qualified teachers have SEN training, wasn't it? Alongside all of the other stuff detailed in the op's post about what would undoubtedly be lost if the unwashed untrained were allowed in?

I'm also assuming the op includes the GTP programme under her 'approved' list? The OJT route presumably is declined to cover all of those skills during the programme?

Gibbens? gotta love autocorrect.

As a parent, I'm delighted that these restrictions have been removed from schools, that have prevented excellent individuals from teaching in the state sector. A renowned and inspirational professor of physics was prevented from taking a job in a state school a few years ago because of these regulations. This has never been a problem for the independent sector. I know several of my contemporaries at Oxford went straight into teaching, and have done very well.

It just undervalues and undermines everybody doesn't it? The TAs and support staff because they get paid peanuts for doing a difficult job that requires training and support and experience (i.e. a teacher's job), the teachers because their classes are left with people who probably lack the skills to deal with them and because people with less qualifications etc than they have are taking potential hours and promotions and opportunities for developint their careers (ie if they wanted pastoral responsibility e.g as Head of Year), the PGCEs themselves because the message is that they're not important, the pupils.....

MWIA if teachers qualified or unqualified had at least a GSCE in English and Maths and a Bachelors degree in a relevant subject and were paid a proper graduate salary say £25,000 per year in London, then we could start the debate as to who would or could be the better teacher.

As some have already noted, it is all about costs. Getting someone to teach full time at £11,000 per year as opposed to HAVING to pay a qualified teacher from £25,000 per year outer London or from £27,000 per year inner London.

As long as they are cheap that's the real criteria and teachers without basic qualifications are teaching whole classes in schools.

Here is a related link to this issue. I hope the link works

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17840447

It appears from the qualifications listed that 15 members of staff at Habs have teaching qualifications and 6 at the NLC but as you say they could have qualifications not listed

Quip & Co, your arguments are a bit naive and a digression really. Yes, of course, there are some individuals with extraordinary qualifications and exceptional experience and talents which means they could walk straight into a class of Year 10s with a thorough understanding of the curriculum and classroom management strategies and do a brilliant job but these are very RARE. And they are not likely to be found in tough comprehensive schools which are struggling to recruit are they?

TBH, even when people have a phD in Physics they should still benefit from doing a PGCE (and we're only talking about 9 months training). I don't like this idea that there are people who are simply 'above' the need to train.

The more likely scenario is underqualified and underpaid people (mainly TAs) being exploited by being expected to do a teacher's job without a teacher's pay or training. How is this a good thing?

I know 2 teachers (both Oxbridge graduates incidentally) who both had very established, successful careers and were in senior positions but made the choice to become teachers. In neither case were these people arsey about the need to do a PGCE. They just got on with it. And as the poster said, earlier, it's a sign of commitment isn't it? If they really want to teach then they have to roll their hands up and they should be prepared to take a break in payment as they shouldn't be going into teaching for the money.