Unqualified teachers

[morethanpotatoprints]

Who, apart from some qualified teachers are really mad about this. I do think there seems to be a lot of sensationalist reporting going on in the press.
I heard an advert on the radio today for unqualified teachers posts and apparentely they need a degree to be able to teach and in any subject. How is this any different than today with people with degrees in Textiles teaching in primary schools.
However, according to some QTs on here children will suffer as a consequence and anybody is allowed to teach without so much as a GCSE let alone a degree

omfg

In secondary schools it is normal to teach your specialisation.
In most cases schools will expect you to have a second or even third option to teach.

In order to cover classes or team teach.

In primary you need to be able to teach the entire curriclum for that year group MTPP has picked up on a teacher with a textiles degree, but some will have English, others Maths, MFL, etc. It is to a certain extent the luck of the draw and who the HT thinks will fit in best with the schools ethos.

Some questions to qualified teachers (and perhaps to parents):

1. Roughly what percentage of qualified teachers currently teaching would you consider to be 'bad' teachers?

1. Does the system allow for these 'bad' teachers to be removed easily?

1. In the case of shortages of qualified English and Maths teachers, would you prefer to seek qualified teachers from overseas or would you prefer to let unqualified people in this country with appropriate skills do the job?

1. In the case of temporary absences, would you prefer a class to miss a lesson or would you prefer to let unqualified people with appropriate skills do the job?

Everything cannot be blamed on teachers, but there must be PLENTY of 'bad' QUALIFIED teachers judging by the numeracy and literacy standards of many coming out of school these days.

I am only talking about English and Maths teachers here.

And to all those trying to compare teachers with doctors and nurses, stick to the subject being discussed here. There is a very big difference between the two professions and there is no proposal to bring in 'unqualified' doctors and nurses.

omfg

At GCSE it would be very unusual to have at teacher at KS4 that is not a specialist.
But in my experience it it unusual not to have a specialist at KS3.

BoneyBack. Neither I nor any of my peers had QTS we had QTLS and were only allowed to teach in Post Compulsory Ed. We all got jobs in secondary schools, some were promised a QTS year, some weren't. Either way they didn't materialise. Most are teaching subjects other than their own.
I personally couldn't do it for long as I felt way out of my comfort zone. But it does go to show how standards of employment contract and PGCE's vary. Even in Post Compulsory I was offered contracts for teaching A level Sociology and Psychology and I have no experience in either. I took the Sociology job and was one step in front of the students. So if the argument of being qualified is anything to go by, I should have been fine. Hey lets teach anything.

Going back to the other thread, this bits already been done! Deja vu

cumbernauld, are you Marczac?

So you have a post compulsory education qualification designed for FE and you are arguing for unqualified teachers to be allowed in schools.

It suddenly makes sense. You stuggled at KS3 and 4 because you haven't been trained for KS3 and 4.

Sorry, I had to add this. I don't always see a qualified doctor, usually a student.
My pilot was training, but I don't think his teacher/ mentor told him not to bother him unless the plane was crashing.
My midwife was training on my first dc, now thats scary.

Why can't people just teach their own subject and ITT trainers/government agree as to whom can teach at what level. Why can't teachers teach anymore rather than manage a class, why can't schools have TA's in all classes to allow the latter.

I dont think that there are bad teachers per se. Im sure all want to do their best. But if you've got 30 kids you are not going to be able to get the best out of all of them, especially if some have got other issues going on. I don't think for one minute that teachers have it easy. Some kids will respond to some teaching styles better then others, I am just sad the my DD and her current teacher do not have the same connection as her previous teacher. And in science subjects, the frontiers are rapidly changing, as in technology. I remember vividly my biology teacher telling us about cell walls and how the lipids were arranged, but in the exam we were to say it was another way because that was a new study that wasn't yet in the syllabus.

BoneyBack. Yes exactly, however on gaining employment at a 6th form college which was part of the high school, we were expected to teach whatever they threw at us. There were a good 500 people this happened to, obviously not the same school. I think it unfair to name the teaching uni as it wasn't their fault. All our practice was conducted at PC level.
My argument is this was happening in 2008/9 and still is in several geographic locations. Likewise TA's were/are being allowed and encouraged to teach some primary classes. I have seen this first hand. This was happening way before Gove, not that I agree with what he is doing.
I feel that all the ills associated with his plans were happening under the past government too. Not that I care about any Political party, theyr'e all a bunch of liars.

1. Roughly what percentage of qualified teachers currently teaching would you consider to be 'bad' teachers?

In my school, maybe 3-5%.

1. Does the system allow for these 'bad' teachers to be removed easily?

In 14 years' teaching, my experience has been that poor teachers - as in, teachers that shouldn't ever have qualified - almost invariably find their situation to be untenable & jack it in fairly quickly. Being a rubbish newly qualified teacher is utterly miserable. Hence the loss of 1/3 of teaching staff within 5 years of qualifying!

It's rare for poor teachers to cling on as far as the formal competency stage, but once they do, the process is slowish but inexorable (usually still resulting in resignation rather than the actual boot).

1. In the case of shortages of qualified English and Maths teachers, would you prefer to seek qualified teachers from overseas or would you prefer to let unqualified people in this country with appropriate skills do the job?

That's a bit hypothetical as we're unlikely to have any such shortage, given current levels of unemployment. Not least amongst qualified teachers. In the event of us all being mysteriously kidnapped or something, I'm sure it would make sense to train replacements.

1. In the case of temporary absences, would you prefer a class to miss a lesson or would you prefer to let unqualified people with appropriate skills do the job?

Neither of these happens in most schools. In the event of planned absences, the teacher prepares work which the class can get on with under supervision from a Cover Supervisor; if the teacher has fallen under a bus, the Head of Dept. sorts out the work.

There's no shortage of available fully qualified teachers to cover longer terms of absence.

I think the whole idea of qualified teachers and qualified teacher status is a red herring to be truthful. What I want for my DS are teachers who are suitably experienced and who have a knowledge base at an appropriate level. That is not necessarily the same as a qualified teacher.

Unfortunately qualified teachers are often neither of the above.

OP you seem to be concentrating on people that do a degree then a pgce, gtp etc.

What about those that take the three/four year primary education course? IME the students on these courses are taught many of the things you mention up thread - how to manage 30 pupils, how to split your time etc.

Op- I think you are misleading people. If you have qtls then you are not a qualified teacher as you have claimed. It is a lesser qualification that allows teaching of adults. You don't actually know anything about training of qts which you are disparaging.

If someone genuinely wants to teach and do the best job they can, why would they not want to train? The huge drop out rates in pgce/gtp show that many people who think they want to teach, are not cut out for teaching. The training process allows you to try out different ways of working and find what is effective. I don't want someone doing this if they are already employed as my child's teacher.

OP - you have experienced first hand the error of putting people with inappropriate qualifications in front of children (eg someone like you who has NOT been trained to teach the children put in front of them and therefore feels out of their depth). You have also experienced first hand the leaders of schools choosing people like you to teach, rather than people with the APPROPRIATE training and experience. Yet you would rather this ridiculous state of affairs was made official and added into the mix more people with no training in passing on knowledge and skills to young people whatsoever. Do you think you would have been a better teacher if you didn't even have the qualification you do have? More fool you. And how do you suppose a head teacher is going to recruit magnificent teachers on the back of the fact that they have no experience whatsoever in teaching? If they can't even tell which of the qualified teachers they recruit are any good and which are the awful ones until after they've recruited them, how are they going to suddenly become better pickers when they don't have to bother about looking for any signs of prior interest in teaching?????

If you are going to let an unqualified person in front of children, it has to be with colossal amounts of supervision from experienced, qualified people. Wouldn't that be what the GTP is supposed to be? Why let schools off the supervision and just dump unqualified teachers straight into the deep end as though they are as good as qualified teachers straight from the off?

And morethan - if you really think your "trainee pilot" hadn't actually spent hundreds of hours flying light aircraft without passengers, scores of hours studying theory, countless hours in a simulator and time flying an empty aircraft of the exact type he was flying you in, before he was let loose on a plane full of people, you really are deluded.

I think morethan's point may have been that the trainee pilot wasn't a qualified pilot (regardless of flying hours etc.)

And a GTP student teacher isn't a qualified teacher, either - but they are being trained and supervised... And for a so-called "trainee pilot" to be flying commercial passengers, they actually do have to have a commercial pilot's licence and type rating for the type of aircraft they are flying, even "under training." So OF COURSE they have to be qualified pilots.

I can't believe anyone thinks anyone flying the big jet they are going on holiday in is just going to be someone whose done a few flying hours in any type of aeroplane... you can't fly commercial passengers unless you've already been trained how to do it. The further training relates to the fact that even after you've received appropriate training, it is recognised you shouldn't just be left to do it all alone - you are still learning. A bit like teachers, really. NQTs are not supposed to be dumped in it as though they can now do everything, either (although in practice, unlike in aviation, I suspect some NQTs and unqualified teachers are must dumped in it, though, because teaching is not as highly regulated as flying).

In other words, to spell it out in black and white, you cannot fly commercial passengers in a commercial aircraft unless you can already fly that specific aircraft type and have been shown to be capable of doing so and have received a licence to do so before any passengers pay to fly with you. And it is not easy to get a commercial pilot's licence - it takes many, many hours and huge amounts of money in training. Hence pilots being able to command large salaries, because they are not easily replaceable.

We could, of course, argue that it shouldn't be that difficult to get a pilot's licence, open it up to all-comers with any qualification, and let them get straight into commercial aircraft to fly us round the world and learn on the job...

... that would make it a bit more like teaching, then. Is everybody happy with that idea?

For my PGCE I had to have a degree in a "major" National Curriculum subject, read a story, have an interview and write a few pages about a given subject. During the academic part of the course I learned about different theories of learning, completed subject files on each NC subject, wrote academic papers and provided commentary on subject leaders' files. For the practical side I planned and delivered lessons from a short session right up to 90% timetable, including parents' evenings. I worked in every tear group from nursery to year 6 before focusing on my chosen key stage. I think my course was excellent. Nobody can just be thrown in and do it well. Not exactly fair in the children.