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?

I don't know any decent private schools that need to hire 'wet behind the ears graduates' because they can have their pick of the best teachers and are usually willing to pay for them. Dodgy private schools, perhaps...

Oh dear Gove! Just read the article.

There are no words to describe the folly of employing someone to actually attempt to RUN a school with no educational experience...

Schmedz - in what way am I misguided?

You said in a post, "When I first moved to the UK, It was possible to gain QTS by doing various competency tests over a period of 3-6 months depending on the level of your degrees, but the school in which you were working had to support you in doing this. Sadly, I was not in such a school...in fact my request was point blank refused (go figure!) this was also not an option available for teachers working on supply." And I replied that it was all about the money - they weren't willing to pay for you to go through the assessments. Surely, if they had thought you were that brilliant, they would have paid for this and given you time for it? And if not... it was all about the money... In what way am I wrong, there?...

Also, I have never said you can't be a good teacher without a teaching qualification, I just said I couldn't believe anyone would think it would harm anyone to get one. Given that you CAN as at the date I am talking, gain QTS by providing evidence of your amazing experience, in what way am I wrong?

My mother taught in a school for a couple of terms straight after leaving school, herself, while she waited to go off to train to be a nurse... That was in the days before teaching qualifications were required and it was apparently OK for an 18-year old to actually be the TEACHER, not the work experience girl. Sorry, but I would not be happy with that for my children, much as I love my mother. For all the highly competent Schmedzs, take away some kind of formal quality assurance and you will get schools which take the piss - it's not as if some schools aren't already trying to do that even WITH safeguards in place, so just wait until these schools can really let rip. A teaching qualification is not worse than useless. Of course there are disadvantages to overly rigid requirements, but the world has proven to itself time and again that if you remove the protections, for every good person who can now be employed for less money than they deserve, there are a several people who are no good but cheap who now have their opportunity to cause damage.

abbiefield I am so glad you posted to give the other side so to speak.

You and I are possibly around the same age- maybe I am older-my involvement in teaching goes back 40 years. I remember all the things you say and have mentioned a few times that I knew of a maths graduate with no PGCE QTS who taught at a highly rated state comp on my doorstep- in the 1990s.

I'm a bit of a believer in good teachers are born not made-though accept that some people can improve on their performance hugely with support. What I refute is that a PGCE is some kind of magic wand which turns any graduate into a good teacher. It doesn't- it is highly theoretical though does include around 24 weeks in the classroom.

Other means of becoming qualified like Teach First and in school initial teacher training are more hands on.

No one is saying that someone should be dragged off the streets and put in front of a class of kids and be expected to teach. But non qualified teachers are used which is why the pay scale has a bad for this.

If I had to choose between a teacher like you and a wet behind the ears graduate with a PGCE, aged 22, I'd choose you any day.

I would much rather abbiefield than a wet behind the ears graduate WITHOUT a PGCE, too. No-one may be SAYING that someone should be dragged off the streets and put in front of a class of kids and be expected to teach, just as no-one is ADMITTING that if this is technically possible, it WILL happen.

In any event, Missbopeep - who on here has said that a PGCE is the only way to become a qualified teacher, or that the PGCE is a magic wand?

Would abbiefield or Schmedz refuse to take qualified teacher status if their school asked them if they would like to be supported through the process of providing evidence of their skills??? Do they think it is BETTER to be unqualified??

I found abbiefield's story interesting too. We still have a desperate shortage of maths, science and MFL teachers. There has traditionally been a high dropout rate after PGCE particularly in those subjects. But the Schools Direct programme is no more successful - in fact, it's more piecemeal, more places are unfilled and is weakening university departments and forcing many to close.

So thank goodness we also have the assessment route for teachers like abbiefield who may wish to transfer back to the state sector and progress their career. However, all training providers have to be accredited by external institutions that can set and assess standards - the university departments that are closing. And would schools like Al-Madinah get that accreditation? Of course not, and the government has cut even basic checks on free schools.

But to distract attention from these irresponsible failures of policy, Gove attacks his 'blob' of critics - which includes Kenneth Baker who introduced the national curriculum and GCSEs!

Rabbit- do you honestly think a head teacher would drag someone off the streets and put them in front of a class just because in theory they could?

The whole point of giving heads more freedom is so they avoid unnecessary and restrictive red tape- it doesn't mean they behave totally irresponsibly and in any case schools have governing bodies so appointments are never one person's decision.

But Miss, that sounds like exactly what happened at Al-Madinah and with Annaliese Briggs. Governors have their choice of Briggs as an unqualified head teacher who was not up to the job

You'd like to think this wouldn't happen but free schools mean it can and IS happening.

As you say market forces apply to private schools and one thing they usually have is decades or centuries of experience but free schools can do what they like and all with taxpayers money.

Regretted their choice of Briggs that should say.

Two free schools in special measures, two head teachers have quit the school in Pimlico.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

And the Govt was warned this would happen.

And as the link given by Talkinpeace shows, the government has abolished checks on principal designates to assess whether they are fit to lead a school. Elsewhere three Pimlico primary schools are being led by one executive principal. God help the teachers and pupils if she leaves suddenly because it would be up to the Nashes to appoint the next one and they made a complete hash of Annaliese Briggs' appointment.

So there are fewer safeguards than ever.

'appointments are never one person's decision'

Unless it's Lord Nash or his wife.

Missbopeep - you do sound very naïve. I gave the example of my own mother. Red tape is never created for fun, it is a response (which may be disproportionate, or affect more than its target) to bad behaviour. Yes, sometimes red tape affects more people than intended, or hits the wrong targets, but the answer to that is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater...

Still, if this country really wishes to continue swinging stupidly from one extreme to another... I despair...

And, of course, it's never a headteacher's fault if their school is inadequate - it's all those wet behind the ears teachers they've employed. We should give more responsibility to headteachers with less oversight of what they are doing, because they are all doing such a great job.

No, never a headteacher's fault - if their school goes tits up they can blame it on the governors. Who will blame it on the DfE and Lord Nash for being racist. Who will blame it in those teachers who are 'enemies of promise' ... Who will blame it on the parents. Who will blame it on other scumbag parents or the unions or EU migrants (the government hopes).

So, are free school governors allowed to get involved in the operational side of the running of the school? Community school governors are supposed to leave that to the headteacher - who is supposed to be the expert, after all... I guess this shows what can happen when unqualified people think they know more than qualified people and keep on overruling them?...

Are free schools just an exercise in creating and feeding monstrous egos at taxpayers' expense?

Ooh. And I note at the end of the article, teachers want the LA to step in to replace the existing governors with an interim executive board. Like there are enough people still working at the LA any more to organise that? Where will they find these people?! Our LA doesn't even offer up LA governors to community schools any more - we have to find them ourselves and put their names forward. They also don't provide a clerking service - we have to find our own clerks. They don't actually provide much at all any more, because the vast majority have been made redundant, what with the push for all schools to become free of LA control and all that.

Well Caroline Nash (Mrs Schools Minister) is very much involved and it is her curriculum project. It's the changes in the curriculum which have resulted in appointments of unqualified staff and scores of teachers leaving (qualified or not).

She has a history degree but was never a teacher. Lord Nash was never elected as an MP. They are Tory Party donors.

OK, TiPs really cynical head here

Free Schools are being set up to fail so that they can be handed to Gove's Academy Chain chums (who he will almost certainly go and get a job with once he's kicked out of Westminster)

None of the Free School thing is about Academic Excellence for children who otherwise would not get it.
All of it is about breaking the system to keep the "scum" such a lovely public school term downtrodden so the silver spoon brigade can line their chums' pockets.

And when people like me - old money, 5th generation university, ex private school - are counted among the scum we really are stuffed

Well, it's all about genes isn't it? The working class are all stupid yet rebellious anyway, they deserve to be shoved into work camps academies to be experimented upon given an education that teaches them to obey contribute usefully to society. And the rich privileged elites can them make money out of them where their banks failed and continue to send their children to Eton. Simples.

Sorry, was overcome by the cynical virus for a minute! Achtung achoo!

Interesting feature here discussing exactly this topic

telegraph