All this QTS stuff - do you REALLY know what it means? Here's the truth...

[Itchyandscratchy]

Right - I'd like to think I'm a reasonably intelligent person, but until today I misunderstood what the new ruling from the Govt about unqualified teachers and QTS is actually going to mean.

Forgive me my ignorance if you have already realised this:

Schools have been employing unqualified teachers - teachers without BEds, PGCEs, GTP, etc. for years. So the ruling about academies being able to emply unqualified teachers is not new.

So, even if you were unqulaified, you would still need to work towards Qualified Teacher Status within a set amount of time. QTS is 'proved' with a folder of evidence that shows each of these standards have been met.

QTS, as linked to in one of my previous posts (on the 'What every parents needs to know' thread) makes sure standards in the stuff you can't be 'naturally good at' are met: safeguarding, quality of teaching, subject knowledge and application; all the standards outlined in the QTs framework.

The QTS have been reviewed for Sept 2012 and will, IMHO, for the first time actually attempt to ensure standards are met in a meaningful way, with evidence needed.

So in this way, even OVER-qualified crap teachers will have to prove themselves as much as under-qualified great teachers.

QTS is the link that would hopefully bridge the gap between competence and qualification. In this way, IN THEORY, we should be confident that our fears about unqualified teachers are allayed. It will also mean that - for the first time - we might be a little more confident that the minority of teachers who do not care about the learning of their students are called to account without a lengthy and mostly unsuccessful competency procedure.

The Govt's announcement actually means that QTS is no longer required.

An unqualified person can now not only secure a job teaching your child, they are no longer required to prove that they are acapable of meeting those standards at any time in the future.

I realise I have probably been extremely thick in only just fully understanding this, but I'm guessing a few other people might be as well, and this is for them.

Scary isn't it?

Jabed - I'm not sniffing at anything. That's your job, usually, like when you claimed that everyone you work with trained at one of the top two training institutions. It seems you now manage to recognise that other institutions do indeed exist

Might I remind you that I am the one who always says I think that RG universities are over hyped self publicists who have no go behind the show!

It happens that my colleagues do come from one or two particular universities but that is because of who we are and where we are and nothing much more.

I guess if we were say, in Plymouth, all our teachers might be qualified from Marjon!

Jabed, we've been through this before. The two institutions you claim your colleagues trained at are at different ends of the country. You were just being your usual pedantic self. I can only hope that your 6th formers, who go on to train at Marjon, don't attempt to get work in the independent sector. That would fly in the face of the majority of your claims about the quality of qualifications of your independent school colleagues.

Note I said those who have PGCE. This brings another issue into focus. A number of my colleagues do not have a PGCE at all. They are qualified teachers though (as in have QTS). This is because they came into teaching as graduates before the PGCE became compulsory. We also have teachers who have QTS which the school validated through a provider so we could advertise our staffs was all qualified (these were the ones who couldnt meet the QTS provisions but who had been teaching with us as graduates) - they are also "Oxbridge" PGCE holders.

Now you know why I hold little store by QTS and am not worried about working with so called unqualified teachers. . A good teacher is a good teacher and no bones about it.

Many ways of skinning a rabbit.

The PGCE isn't compulsory

jabed, if you're working in an independent school which is keen to attract highly educated staff, I can see why you wouldn't worry about unqualified teachers.

If you were working in a state school (or had your children in one) and knew that cover supervisors with few qualifications were taking exam classes long-term, you might feel differently.

The PGCE is just a route into teaching for a graduate (one year course).

jabed, as you claim that you have worked in state secondary, FE and independent secondary, it is very surprising you don't know that.

"This is because they came into teaching as graduates before the PGCE became compulsory."

I really worry at times about some some people that claim they are teachers.

Hello jabed. Again. I know you don't hold 'much store' with QTS, as you say. But that is QTS as it was.

Ahem.

The framework for teaching standards is changing considerably from next month and will have a knock-on effect in every school that employs teachers with QTS. Ofsted will be checking that schools can prove their teachers are meeting these standards.

EXCEPT FOR TEACHERS WHO DO NOT HAVE QTS who, as far as can be ascertained, the DFE do not give a fuck at a flying doughnut about. Because the vast majority of them in state schools will be cheap and will stay cheap as they won't need QTS.

That is all.
Goodnight.

Oh Yeah...
If they don't have QTS, standards won't apply, so they won't be able to move up the pay-scale, because the pay-scale will relate to QTS.....and round and round we go.......
Neat.

Ha - should read "...do not give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about".

(It was late, I was tired, etc.)

Itchy - I did wonder... That was the bit of Blood Brothers the yr 10s liked best.

The Ignorance of some teachers really astounds me. If you were in teaching before 1978 (for some subjects) or 1989 for others you did not need a PGCE and QTS did not exist.

However, those who graduated after 1974 and who taught humanities and arts subjects were required to take a PGCE in order to be qualified. This was not QTS as you understand it now but it was a requirement. The old two years teaching and you are qualified rule for graduates disappeared and they had to get the bit of paper.

This did not and still does not apply in independent schools who continued to work with and train their own graduates.

This worked fine until around 1990 when QTS was introduced. Those who had graduated many years earlier and had PGCE and were working in state schools were given QTS. Those who did not have a PGCE but who had been in state schools and had degrees before the dates I gave above were given QTS.

FE trained teachers (with PGCE ) who had previously been able to teach in schools were left out ( that was what Wolfe was all about) and independent school teachers were left out if they were working in independent schools at the time (that was why a few years ago my school decided to get this QTS thing done for those who were not given it automatically - most of those concerned were long standing teachers and it was done as an INSET day apparently). Overseas teachers were also left out (unless from the EU). That is where the bulk of "unqualified teachers suddenly appeared from. Still they form the main groups of non QTS (unqualified) teachers.

However independent schools will still recognise OTT and FE teaching qualifications as acceptable and always has (and QTS has gone now along with the GTCE).

The exception to this was those who had the Certificate of Education which was also given QTS. The Certificate of Education was changed to the B.Ed in around 1978/80 and that was also given QTS in 1990 and retrospectively.
Some university colleges are upgrading their Cert Ed ?graduates" now and giving them degree status because a certificate of education was not graduate status.

That?s a brief picture.
Please do not try to re write "history" as is so often done. I have seen it often on TV. I am old enough to have lived through all of the changes and I remember most of them. I have colleagues who are older and they can recall even more. Sometimes it?s an eye opener.

Now its very late and I need to go. Goodnight/ Good morning.

Jabed, you are talking about independent schools, this is not about independent schools. If your 'bulk of unqualified teachers' are people who have been teaching since before QTS was invented or trained overseas then bully for you.

In state schools the problem is entirely different. Over the past few years there has been an increasing tendency for schools to cover teachers' absence (or in primary, PPA time) with people who are not qualified teachers. The Rarely Cover initiative means that classroom teachers should no longer have free periods taken to cover known absences for colleagues. In primary I believe TAs have been pressured to take this role whether they want it or not. In secondary, untrained cover supervisors have been allowed to cover teacher absences. The rules state they are not allowed to teach, merely deliver work set by a teacher and that they can only cover absences up to 3 days after which point qualified supply must be brought in. But, if you read the TES forum, these rules are routinely broken in many schools. Cover supervisors (who don't require any particular qualifications let alone a degree) have been asked to plan and teach lessons as a normal supply teacher. Cover supervisors have been covering classes for far longer than the specified 3 days, to the detriment of the learning of the students. Qualified supply teachers have been finding it increasingly difficult to find work as cover supervisors (who are much much cheaper) are taking all the work.
Now instead of sorting out this problem, which should have parents in uproar, the government has given it a big fat rubber stamp of approval. Cover supervisors can now be expected to teach and for as long as the school requires. TAs can now be expected to teach. Because now anyone can do it.

Anyone fancy posting their opinions and justifications without accusing others of being liars or ignorant?
jabed - you're not that old. You haven't lived through all changes in education, just those since the 1970s. And as someone who clearly didn't ever have a burning desire to teach in schools, but who would rather have been an academic, I'm not surprised you have a cynical view of it all. It's hard to get worked up about something that isn't hugely important to you. Good changes don't ever tend to be made by people who think everything has already been tried and failed. So how about you muster up a bit of youthful enthusiasm from somewhere, combine it with your years of experience and give us an idea of what you think would improve the quality of teaching and learning in this country?

Rabbit- ha! Good luck with that. Jabed's "years of teaching" actually adds up to about 8 in state schools. He's not in the habit of coming up with solutions, just in insulting those of us who DO have a passion for teaching and did in ON PURPOSE as a first choice career.

PS- Rabbit- you do realise you just called Jabed a liar?

Did I? Where?

The Ignorance of some teachers really astounds me. and me jabed ... the BEd has been around since 1965

I read all the SEN documents.

The good news
The number of exclusions in England and Wales as been decreasing over the past 5 years.

The bad news is why
Because the quality of teacher training in behaviour management has increased. Where do you think the teachers' got these behavioural managment skills? From Santa?

So if we put loads of unQTs in front of a class of Inner City children many of whom have SEN (BESD) so they are not bad but have medical issues, whose parents aren't paying thousands to have them educated and some, who couldn't, to put it bluntly, care less, how will these children behave?

Do you know that sending a child out of the classroom is a form of exclusion? Can you imagine how many children will be standing out of classrooms or sent to 'cooling of rooms' where burly unQTs who have been trained in 'conflict resolutions' will be 'teaching them'?

Now you understand why the government needs to turn PRUs into academies. 45 PRUs are currently under review for academy status and these PRU Academies can hold children long term.

So with the escalation of exclusions caused by unQTs taking over classes.....

I'll leave you all to think up the consequences....

Rabbit- "you're not that old", "you haven't lived through all those changes in education..."

In your secondary experience, how do PRUs work? Do the children attend the PRU for 1/2 days per week (or more)? Is there any liaison between the PRU and the school about the curriculum being covered? Does the child's time at the PRU improve behaviour back at mainstream school?

IM primary (local - may be different in other LEA) experience, children attend PRU 2 days a week where they are in a class of 5 with a TA. Not surprisingly, some of the most verbally or physically aggressive children are absolute saints in this heady attention-rich environment!

Then, these EBD children (who we are all told need stability and structure) return to their mainstream class for 3 days, and are expected to comply with another school's rules and to learn with their 24+ classmates (who they don't really know, as they only spend part of the week there). Those who attend the PRU on a Mon/Tues haven't got any idea of what's being taught that week, and, surprisingly, their 'behaviour' escalates on their return; those who attend on Thurs and Fri never see the week's sequence of lessons through to the end, and rarely complete a piece of extended writing or maths. There is no liaison between mainstream teachers and the PRU about academic progress, or even what the children are being taught whilst they're there. This is 40% of the child's week at school!

Outreach by PRU teachers, on the other hand, maintains the stable environment in the mainstream school and allows the child to follow the curriculum.

Surely the only way to work a PRU (if attendance is going to be part-time), is to have PRU units attached to schools?

If, as you say, there are going to be PRU academies, surely that means that children will be labelled as unteachable and off the rails from a young age?
I wonder if they will be able to sustain such low staff:child ratios?

What you have stated i.e. poor liasion betwee PRUs and schools is noted in the report. The proposals are that children will be placed in these PRUs long term and probably f/t and they will be attached to schools. The HTs will be working to ENSURE that the PRU academic provisions in their locality is higher. Teachers in PRU are annoyed that it can take weeks to get the reports on a particular child and that they can not liaise easily with the class teachers.

LAs will not have any control over the educational provision of the children the HT will. Parents will have no legal aid to challenge decisions to place their children in long term PRU academies.

The issue I am worried about is the type of children that will end up there and whether they will ever be able to make a transition back to mainstream. And the stigma that may be attached to them for life.

The government announced in the SEN Green Paper that funding for BESD in mainstream will be cut and that there will be PRU academies and that Special schools who don't want to become academies will be persuaded to.

Re the teacher ratios, I do not know. There are 50,000 unemployed teachers so perhaps that's where the work will be although the government states that the teaching emphasis will be on English and Maths.

Also, a logistical problem. Are PRUs big enough and will there need to be more new builds?

The most worrying aspect is having the HTs responsible for the educational provision of the students he or she has excluded. It is better for an impartial third party to do this as excluding a child is not necessary indicative of caring.

And a lot of parents not having a clue has to what they could do and not having the money to challenge it. They will be able to attend a meeting with the HT but that's not going to make much of a difference once the HT has made up their minds.

www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1074219/cornwall-shelves-plans-convert-pupil-referral-units-academy-status?utm_content=&utm_campaign=080812_Daily&utm_source=Children%20%26%20Young%20People%20Now&utm_medium=adestra_email&utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cypnow.co.uk%2Fcyp%2Fnews%2F1074219%2Fcornwall-shelves-plans-convert-pupil-referral-units-academy-status

To mrz,

Thank God Cornwall can see sense. I think these changes are too rapid and like everything with this government needs consultation with teachers, parents, students etc.