Private schools use unqualified teachers - but are they really any good?

[Talkinpeace]

One of the justifications for Free Schools etc being allowed to use non qualified teachers is that Private schools do so and get great results.

However, are the great results because those non qualified people are really better?
or is it because they are handed heavily selected cohorts to teach?

This can be tested.

Take two schools of similar size and age range, one that is fee paying and the other that is fully comprehensive
say Eton and Wallingford school in Oxfordshire (fast search for 11-18 leafy)
and swap the whole of the teaching staff for a fortnight - to run a whole timetable cycle.
TAs and support staff would stay put so the places kept going
but the whole staff from each school would teach the other's timetable.

How would they cope?

My hypothesis
The state school teachers would be pleasantly surprised that a lot of the private school kids were pretty normal.
The state school teachers would get some good ideas about how to make extension work more useful
Some of the private school teachers would rise to the challenge and come up with new ideas
most would be eaten alive by lower ability kids.

So, could a TV company make it happen?
What are your hypotheses?

With a few exceptions the people who won't or can't get quals are people who are not v good or v committed or who know they don't need one in the independent school. By and large such teachers are v unlikely to improve state schools.

But please explain to me this weird jump to the fact that it's the qualification that somehow makes them poor and lack of qualification that makes them better.

Nobody has said that. How you have even perceived that I can't fathom.
What some people have said is that a PGCE doesn't automatically make somebody a good teacher. Nobody has said that a lack of qualification = better teacher.

NoRude
Quoted from the DFe press release
A Department for Education spokesman said: Independent schools and free schools can already hire brilliant people who have not got qualified teacher status (QTS). We are extending this flexibility to all academies so more schools can hire great linguists, computer scientists, engineers and other specialists who have not worked in state schools before.

If that does not imply that those coming from the State sector are second rate I don't know what is.

Not all Talkin, most. Less than 2p c at my school.

And it's illogical and about saving money and what you said. There has already been evidence of this which everyone with common sense warned Gove would happen.

Even Clegg agrees it's barking as a strategy for improvemeny

whendidyoulast I'm shocked tbh that you aren't up in arms about the waste of tax payers money on schools that are constantly underperforming year on year, as well as the shocking lack of literacy and numeracy skills of 20% of the population- many of whom turn to crime and cost tax payers more money.

You seem to be very selective in your outrage.

"Fece Quod potui, Meliora Potentes"

Answers on a postcard To P.O Box 57 Liverpool LA7 8HX....

I would actually like to hear Michael Gove use these words in his
resignation speech....

I wait to be corrected for my phrase though....

It is weird though.

You would never say

1. There are some rubbish doctors/ lawyers/opticians
2. There are some brilliant people doing other jobs
3. Obviously the way to improve hospitals/ law is to allow people to practise who are unqualified (with the weird assumption that they said brilliant people will want to do that job and be good at it)

Missbopeep
Would you close 20% of state schools then?
What would you do with those kids?
What changes would you make at the existing schools?
Here's a poor school : tell us the answer
www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/101055

But it doesn't imply that those coming from the state sector are second-rate. What it implies is that private schools currently have the flexibility to employ brilliant people who are not qualified teachers as well as brilliant people who are qualified teachers; currently state schools can only employ the qualified ones, so they are missing out on some great people who don't have UK QTS of one kind or another.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but there's no implication that qualified teachers are second-rate at all. The implication is that there are other people with specific skills who are not qualified teachers who also have a lot to offer.

I don't think there would be any point in swapping groups of teachers as suggested in the OP. The private school ones might well be 'eaten alive' by lower ability kids, but that wouldn't prove they weren't good teachers, just that they had a different experience and skill set. It also wouldn't mean that, given time to learn about their new environment and pupils, they wouldn't excel. And vice versa with state school teachers and their new experiences.

If that does not imply that those coming from the State sector are second rate I don't know what is.

To me it only implies that the govt have given free schools the option of choosing their staff based on who they feel us most suitable for the position. It implies that there is going to be less govt control than what we have in other maintained schools.
I can't see that it directly correlates that: no qualification automatically equals better teacher.

The fact that some free schools might employ the cheapest rather than best person for the job is another issue entirely.

LOL You are completely misunderstanding the stats.

It's not that 20% of schools are failing every child in their care.
It's that 20% of children leave school lacking basic skills. These children are scattered amongst many schools, but some schools clearly under-perform.

What exactly is your point, going back to the beginning?
Is it you don't like the idea of free schools?
Or the use of unqualified teachers?
Or the differences between state and private education?

I'd suggest you start new threads for each because all of these points are being muddled up here.

You seem unable to accept some very simple points that have been made over and over again by posters.

MOST private schools employ qualified teachers.

A PGCE does not make you a good teacher- you simply get a tick in the box and then learn how to teach. A bit like taking your driving test.You reach a passable level of competence with a PGCE or BEd then learn a hell of a lot more in the classroom.

You aren't turned out of uni a 'perfect teacher' a million times better than you were a year ago- you've learned something about child psychology, classroom management, and record keeping.

But what is missing from your opinion is the reluctance or inability to set any store by head teachers to hire and fire good staff. In private schools as I have said before you don't stay if you are useless. so if they have more freedom to select their staff they also have the responsibility to get rid of them more easily.

No head teacher would keep a poor teacher and this ought to be the case whether it's the state paying or parents ( who also pay for state education even though they don't use it.)

OP I think the whole reason you find it hard to understand some points- or accept them- is that you have no personal experience of any of this other than as, I assume, a parent.

If you were a teacher, or had experienced state and private schools as a teacher, or even studied for a PGCE or BEd then you might have a different perspective.

I know the content of current PGCE course- part of my work has involved talking to both students and professors of education teaching it.
It gives students the foundations to teach- along with their teaching practices- but it doesn't make them into superb teachers.

Conversely there are some graduates who may have been teachingor training in other areas- in commerce, unis etc- who don't have a PGCE- and who are naturally good teachers. If schools think they can do the job well - based on their previous career history- then they ought to be given the chance.

I wonder if you know that most teachers in colleges of further education are not qualified teachers? There is a drive to ensure they train on the job but it is not mandatory. Yet they are working with- in the main- students who have not achieved well academically and gone down either the vocational route- or are re-sitting GCSEs.

20% of children leave school lacking basic skills
Do you have a breakdown of that 20%. How many of them are SEN for example. What would you do about it.

For the record,
I would abolish all faith and selective state schools (you want that, you pay)
and return all state schools to LEA umbrellas - but with LEAs merged so that the minimum size is 300 schools
and then invest in the schools we have
rather than let random people set up new schools where they fancy

I would also force all state schools to publish detailed accounts in the way that Hampshire LEA always did - so that parents can be informed about where the tax money goes.

and return all state schools to LEA umbrellas

And then you create the situation of house prices near the good schools increasing even more and the parents who cant afford to live in the catchment having to accept a school that isn't performing as well. It would still be selection by wage packet.

I do agree that free schools are a bad idea though and need to be scrapped / rethought.

Norudeshit
I know of no system at all, anywhere, that has got round the problem of housing density and demand for school places and pockets of affluence.

The Pupil Premium is actually a rather good way to push resources into those schools that need rather than want.

But surely the next best thing answer would be to encourage all kids to go to their local school and support the weaker school locations through clustering and federating and specialist support on tap from experts.

My local school is dire because 100 kids per year group are elsewhere. If all 100 came back the school would pick up really fast, but none of us are brave enough to be the first.

Talkinpeace - I have no idea of all independent schools. Just the ones near here, the ones I've been involved with looking at.

Hulababy
Well if, as your researches imply, the DfE press release is based on erroneous information (not the first time) then maybe they can be persuaded to backtrack on letting Academies and Free schools hire lots of unqualified teachers as it clearly is not the reason fee paying schools do well

BUT
can you work out which are the 39 here who are not qualified teachers?
www.brightoncollege.org.uk/college/general-information/staff/
(as per the quote from the head)

Why all this misplaced trust in the abilities of headteachers to recruit good unqualified teachers if we would only give them more free rein? Surely all the "inadequate" schools have to a large extent their headteacher to blame for it?... Still, it's OK for free schools, because you don't know the school is truly rubbish for at least a year after it's opened, so plenty of time to recruit lots of cheap, unqualified and unsuitable people before anyone stops you. It's not as if we have a shortage of headteachers and an even bigger shortage of good headteachers, is it? I mean, hey, all they need is more power and responsibility and everything will be hunky dory.

Having the flexibility is good. As said above if a private school has 1% teachers without PGCEs ( a typical percentage perhaps) that's fine. No one has said private schools are full of unqualified teachers.

I am in favour of variety in education and free schools are a great idea. Parents can choose what matters - fundamentalist Islam or an Eton equivalent or no lessons type very free school or Steiner or Bretheren Christian tradition or outsides all day primary back to nature or Greek at 3. We give the flexibility just as parents currently have that choice if they pay fees and if they educate at home.

It depends on the personality and approach of the teacher surely?? I think I'd be happy if my kids teachers were good at getting them involved in a subject and get them to think. Qualified or un'. Most teachers are required to do little else but get kids to shut up and remember pointless information that they can be 'ticked' correct for.

Elizabeth I can't believe many people would see the ability to choose fundamentalist Muslim school as a good thing. Can you not see the problems with this perfectly demonstrated by the Al-Madinah school? Do you also think we should have Muslim hospitals that only treat Muslim patients?

What sort of choice is it if you have 3 faith schools on your doorstep and one run by the army when you just want a normal secular good local school? That is what most parents do want?

I am outraged by the fact that there are poorly performing schools and poorly performing children no beep. I don't think setting up a crap free school at great expense which may exclude them is going to help that situation one jot.

Greater investment and expanding good schools might.

Please answer the question: do you also think we need Muslim and Jewish hospitals?

Why/not?

Why have we come to expect good hospitals and GPs who treat everyone when we all pay for them but some people think it's ok for our taxes to be spent on schools that actively exclude their own kids?

I think it is a myth that there are large numbers of unqualified teachers in independent schools. There are a few specialists but in the main they are qualified and you can test this out by looking at the staff lists at many top independent schools. We used to employ "non qualified" staff in the state sector. They were "instructors" and paid on a lower scale but topped up with an honorarium. Unions probably did not know! Ofsted may not like it now either! Some teachers with overseas qualifications were not deemed to be qualified but they did the same job as everyone else. I think Gove will quote any old rubbish to support his views. Generally an over reliance on non qualified or recently qualified staff will lead to problems which is why most schools don't do it!!!

I think a problem now faced by many areas is that the good schools do not want to expand and some do not have the room anyway. If a good secondary school is already 1400 pupils, will it want to be 420 places larger or will it not be as good if it does that? Village schools do not want to expand because they lose their village feel. Small schools like being small. They want to keep their exclusivity and close knit ethos. If the money is going into free schools, where is the money to build new LA schools? Oh dear!!! There isn't any. Gove wins again and, in the meantime, there are not enough school places. The free secondary school set up near here has 120 pupils. Must be great for sport, music, drama etc!!!! It's a joke. People have such a narrow view of education and many SEN children are there because it is small. Lots of young staff too but no-one will know for years if it is any good or not.