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

Oh, got it mixed up, good by MTPP. I wonder what is sickening her? Must be the stats.

We are taking a pay cut, morethan. There is a pay freeze at a time when the ASDA's bill and fuel bill is getting more expensive.

I have already pointed out that due to budget cuts, my school is already in deficit. This is not due to mismanagement but due to the effect of our transient population that always seems to dip around January 19th (when the next year's budget is set). This is another effect of government policy - redundancies and uncertainties within the armed forces.

'If they are playing social worker also aren't they stopping somebody in social work being allocated a position liaising with schools.'

If a child comes into a school traumatised saying they have been sexually abused, we have to report it to social services and the police. We are not doing their job. It takes time before someone comes to the school as social services has to set up somewhere for the child to go and the child has to be attended to by somebody responsible. If the child is clinging on to their class teacher, would you prefer that some unknown person attends to the child whilst the class teacher teaches the other children? These are the dilemmas teachers face.

'But I don't pretend to support the needs of starving children by giving them an apple or crisps whilst I take a fat wage.'

I am not on a FAT wage as I like many teachers work part time. The only teachers on FAT wages are those UPS. I am not UPS.

If we support the needs of starving children we are 'stopping somebody in social work being allocated a position,' if we offer a starving child an apple, we are not supporting the needs of starving children.

So MTPP, what should we do when a child turns up starving and traumatised?

FB and Asda claim to be the best value for money and they are more expensive than Waitrose, Sainsburys and Tescos.

I being a poor teacher, go to Lidls, Aldis, Iceland, Poundland, 99p shops etc. to get as much as I can to make ends met. I also grow my own fruit and veg and with the bad summer this year I've had a poor crop this year. Usually I have enough tomatoes, lettuce, spinach etc. to sustain me for around 4 months every year.

Sometimes teachers take the child to the local McDonalds to feed them, but the fruit or crisps is to provide for their immediate need.

'Why not take in more diverse types of people, who can teach those small groups without behavioural problems, thus improving their learning experience, and taking pressure off the school budgets?'

MrsG, why are you resolutely ignoring the questions that have been posed to you? You persist in arguing that these proposals are a good thing while ignoring the pitfalls that have been presented to you time and again.

Regarding your proposals above, I think you are either misjudging the amount of skills and experience needed to work with young people even in small groups. Even if my children or my pupils were in groups of 3, I would expect them to be ultimately supervised by properly qualified teachers. I think this is what taxpayers expect. In other words, one classroom teacher and several TAs. I'm not sure how that would 'take pressure off school budgets'.

I also ask ONCE AGAIN who you think these people are who would be willing and able to come in and teach pupils SUCCESSFULLY without a teaching qualification and for significantly less than a teacher????

As far as I can tell there is only one person on this thread (who you have not acknowledged) who has been put in this position and she doesn't want to be in this position.

Despite your take on these proposals, you have provided no evidence whatsoever that accepting unqualified people to teach will be a good thing and you have ignored all the reasons why it will be a bad thing, including those who have actually been placed in this position.

'If the unqualified are getting 'better results' then unless you apply the christine blower 'logic' there should be more of them, rather than fewer?'

Eh? Where on earth are unqualified teachers getting better results than qualified teachers????

MrsG, please answer this question which has been posed to you a number of times:

Do you also think that we should be recruiting unqualified nurses, doctors and members of the armed forces? Why/not?

Would you personally be happy for your own children to be taught by someone who may not even have a degree and may not want to be teaching?

'Unless it is about teachers maintaining their closed shop'

MRsG, the teachers and non-teachers on this thread have argued at length why these proposals would be a bad thing. Their reasons range from concern about support staff being exploited and being forced to teach when they don't want to and don't feel able to (and there is a poster in exactly this position already on this thread) to concerns that their pupils and children will be short-changed.

Nowhere on this thread has anybody said or hinted that they are concerned about 'maintaining their closed shop'.

Do you think that nurses, doctors, optometrists, lawyers, the armed forces and so on would also object to recruiting people who are untrained on these grounds?

WHY/NOT?

Please answer this question.

How is teaching different from other professions which require those doing the job to train to do that job?

'Maybe some teachers should be looking at how they can make the current situation work for children'

I rather think that is what teachers do all day every day. There is nothing on this thread to suggest otherwise.

'The ability to manage change is fundamental to any organisation or business if certain teachers are unable to do this for the sake of children, maybe they shouldn't teach. '

I rather think that teachers also spend all day every day managing change.

Nobody here has said that they are fundamentally against change.

Saying you don't want unqualified teachers teaching your kids or your pupils is not the same as saying you don't want change.

I also don't want untrained nurses and doctors practising on me thanks. That doesn't mean I don't want to see change in the NHS

'The more diverse thei teachers, the better for the children. '

Including those without a degree and who don't want to be there?

mrsg you have refused to explain at any point what makes you think that you will get a better standard of teacher if you pay them less and require them to be unqualified rather than those who have demonstrated their commitment by training.

Please answer the other question that you has been posed to you several times:

Do you think that if we took away the need for doctors and nurses to be qualified and paid them about 1/10 of their salary then we would also attract better nurses and doctors??

Why/not?

'For goodness sake lets get the unqualified teachers in. They could hardly do a worse job. lol '

WTF??

Are you seriously saying that ALL teachers do a bad job?

Are you saying that they do a bad job because they have been trained and that people who are untrained would do a better job simply because they are untrained?

This has really got quite surreal.

I really hope that when you visit the dentist you also ask for the untrained one because it's more important for dentists to be 'diverse' than to be actually trained to do the job.

It's like something from Monty Python, it really is.

MrsG

'Unless it is about teachers maintaining their closed shop'

You do know that the term "closed shop" is not relevant as it applies to unions?

Unless of course you also wish to include doctors, nurses, dentists etc.

'sending dcs like lambs to the slaughter. Neither have really reached their full potential'

I'm sorry your kids have had a bad experience in education, morethan, but I really don't think that you can use your personal experience to write off the whole education system and all of the teachers in it at the same time as making the, frankly quite bizarre assumption, that unqualified and poorly paid non-teachers will make a better job of it.

There are many millions of parents who do not feel as you do about the quality of education that their children have received. I am one such.

And, if there are problems with teachers and education, I really think that the fact that they have been trained is probably the one most people would put at the very bottom of the list.

'I am not the one whose moaning about people being employed to do my job for less than I am getting. On the contrary, I can sympathise with those with little as my family are low income. '

I'm not sure how genuine your sympathy is if you seriously expect people to do the job of a teacher for about £10,000 a year which is what a TA might get since they are paid pro rata.

morethan has set up another post entitled 'unqualified teachers' arguing that unqualified teachers are the best qualified for teaching. She is still getting the same responses there that we gave her. Let's hope Mrs G goes and joins her in her campaign to get the nation's children taught by whoever.

Ooh good you're still here. Thought youd moved threads! Maybe if she re words it and starts another thread the comments will change

If morethan thinks schools would be better if they only recruited unqualified teachers, then she is more than welcome to send her children to any academy school which chooses to go down that route. I suspect the majority of the population will go out of their way to avoid joining her.

Just catching up.

can I ask again apologies if been answered dont think it has?

has anyone seen the detail of the changes and how it would be implemented?

Does the at moment only apply to academy schools which is not our whole education system we still have lea schools.

when they say unqualified I suggest it means

no Pgce
no bah hons

both of which needed to gain qts?

But I imagine they will have

gcses/alevels
degree level.

They will be interveiwed and selected on their skills and experience i use for example

an ex childrens social worker-maybe wanting to teach

an ex brown owl- brownie leader

A nursery nurse wanting to do early years primary.
well they taught birth to five matters in preschool but cant teach a reception?

A french person with good english educated to degree standard to teach french as decline in modern languages in uk.

some on the job practical training when they start the job they wont just be picked off the street and thrown to the wolves I suspect there be a few checks and balances and assessments on the job .

I think the post her far too simplistic if we dont have the detail

Any job I have had has involved initial training , assessment and trial periods.

The non qts teacher or ta still needs to be crb checked for example.

Parents could vote with their feet.

but I reckon if the top performing schools in our area yes some academies said they were employing non qualified teachers then applications wouldent go down a its perceived to be a god school and parents will still want to send their kids there.

what im trying to say is im sure the process still be highly selective
that its about finding specific skills to fill he shortage in some areas especially at secondry level.

Right now im not sure what I think.
heard valid arguments for both sides.

Not sure all this talk about deprived backgrounds is relevent.
Its not just teaching its leadership and disipline/ethos of whole school.I imagine it takes brave a group of strong, determined and motivated people to turn a sink school around.

As individuals we look top what we know some teachers teach in nicer schools than others and see things differently.

Until we get the detail and how it would work in practice then just to argue we dont like change, its bad is not a convincing argument neither is quoting guardian or other left wing newspapers which have their own slant and agenda.

I also dont get why gove is seens as devil in disguise.
hes doing a job.
I dont consider him doing a worse job than balls did.

"But I imagine they will have"

gcses/alevels
degree level.

not necessarily

Sorry, I don't want an ex-Brown Owl opportunistically applying for a job as a primary school teacher because she fancies a bit more of a challenge and wants to dip her toe into primary education to see how she gets on. If she wants to teach, she can join a graduate training programme and get trained to do it properly.

And I don't want an ex-social worker thinking she can teach children without training, either.
My French is good. I would be horrified if I popped over to France and asked for a job as an English teacher in a state school over there, responsible for getting lots of French children through foreign language English (and English literature) exams solely on the basis that I could speak French and English - no TEFL qualification or anything... I would expect someone to take me seriously if I asked for a job as an assistant, helping children practise their English speaking skills in small groups or on a one-to-one basis, but no way would I be capable of being an unsupervised classroom teacher.

Sorry, I don't want an ex-Brown Owl opportunistically applying for a job as a primary school teacher because she fancies a bit more of a challenge and wants to dip her toe into primary education to see how she gets on.

I actually overheard some parents discussing the Rainbow leader (who did some of the TA training in the school so staff do know her well) and saying they thought she could teach as she was excellent. I bit my tongue and didn't ask why she had been refused places on 6 teacher training courses. She's lovely and if I wanted someone to babysit my child I would be more than happy for her to do it but teach

Just to note I used those examples

as people who had experience working with kids.

a rainbow leader/sports club leader would have the expereince of managing to control a group of youngsters

I imagine these skills and experience would be looked on favourably if applying for teaching course as examples of how they be well suited personalities to do the job, not saying they could just go ahead and teach but they have the potential.

The nursery nurse ones an interesting conundrum dont you think?

shes in a private day nursery or preschool

shes teaching the older preschool class-the year before they go to school.

They following birth to five matters/foundation curriculum.

end of summer term child leaves nursery
starts school in sept
apaprently does the same thing
yet the nursery nurse wouldent be qualifies to teach a reception class.

I could use another example

the football coach who runs the well performing local team-could be brought in just to teach the football part of pe so theres the scope for certain subjects to be come more specilised, pehaps better quality and cheaper as a result if that makes sense.

Im not saying every subject lends itself to that idea I dont think would work with the academic subjects.

but for arts, music, sport, dance, dt it may just work.

How cool would it be for no academic kid to have a mechanics teacher? I dare say be lot more blooming useful than my step son doing a gnvq in hospitality-right now he says hes wants to be a chef yet never seen him cook one meal-maybe theres not gcse cookery on the school syllabus.

I think in some cases it could work if was used to teach specialist subjects in smaller groups.

but non qualified , no relevent experience in large class would be wrong.

It depends what context.

dont think we know fully in detail what exactly the proposed changes mean,

which is why im keeping an open mind on the issue.

mam29 the Rainbow leader I mentioned is also a fully qualified (unemployed) TA

mam29
Schools will not be telling parents that they are using unqualified teachers. It has been going on for years although it shouldn't have and it has just been made official. There are already HLTAs, TAs, CSs, LSAa covering main classes in schools and academies during PPA time (which is time for qualified teachers to plan, prepare and assess work) so this is nothing new. The only difference it that it can now become more widespread perhaps having an unqualified teacher take over a classroom teacher's post.

There are over 50,000 qualfiied teachers out of work and around 20,000 training every year. There is no shortage of qualified teachers, unqualified teachers cost less than half the cost of qualified teachers.

The fear though is in Inner City schools were there will be more problems due to
a. benefit cuts especially in Housing Benefits bringing more families on benefits or lower income into deprived areas where there are lower rents, increasing the number of disadvantaged children in schools
b. cuts in the SEN budget etc meaning schools are going to have to make ends meet some way
c. cuts in the LEA budget, meaning less additional support for schools with SEN children

Schools in the 'leafy' areas probably will not be affected at all.

Schools in poorer areas are going to be more stretched. This is government policy and the people who should have been consulted, i.e. the HTs, SMTs, teachers, support staff, parents and even the children, weren't. It's a cost saving measure and one that will probably be necessary when the 20% cut to SEN school funding takes place next year.

All the David Clarke's epetition was calling for was a debate in Parliament where all our MPs could speak up for us. This probably won't happen because the epetition will not reach the 100,000 votes needed.

The announcement was made on Friday 27th July, the opening day of the Olympics when Parliament, schools and the unions had gone on holiday.

QT 'Schools in the 'leafy' areas probably will not be affected at all.'

Don't you believe it! Our CC is getting an 11% cut from the government next year, so 2013-2014 isn't looking too bright.

Just looked at average spend per child for primaries 2010-11 and notice that average spend per child in 'leafy' Surrey exceeded spend in places like MK, Oxfordshire, Glos, Bucks, Brighton by about £5000! Whoa! Can anyone throw any light on this?