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?

It is not clear that Al Madinah used unqualified teachers. The report says that they were not experienced, which is a different issue.

And it absolutely is caused by the school being Islamic. People were more focused on ideological Islamic purity than education.

This has happened before.

New Monument School in Woking (which like Al Madinah had mostly Muslim pupils) was the subject of a takeover campaign by Islamic governors, who forced her out in a drive to make the school more Islamic.

They destroyed the school, which like Al Madinah was put into special measures, having been rated 'Good' previously, with the head acclaimed in Downing Street. The school was put into special measures in 2006, and again in 2009.

In the case of Al Madinah, the whistleblower was the former head, who, not unlike the head of New Monument, left his job as a result of governor actions, after again, not unlike the head of New Monument, previously (apparently) running a good school.

www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/22/al-madinah-headteacher-admits-whistleblower-cutts-mckayckay

The Guardian tells us that Al Madinah is a 'devasating blow to Gove', whereas it had nothing at all to say on New Monument, which was reported only by The Telegraph, Daily Mail and local press, despite the £400k payout for the head, who had to give up her home and take a job as a care assistant as a result of the campaign.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/primaryeducation/7664621/Erica-Connor-driven-out-of-my-own-school.html

British Pakistani culture is very different from British culture.

In the area of New Monument School, the victorious candidate at the last election, one Mohammed Bashir (Liberal Democrat) and his extended family forged votes, getting votes from the dead and deported and was found guilty of electoral corruption in the last local elections. www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/woking-election-result-thrown-out-5379770

His replacement in the re-run election, experienced local politician Norman Johns, finished a very distant last (fourth behind UKIP), while the Tories, the only party to nominate a Muslim candidate, went from third to first.

Pakistanis do many things differently, some better, some worse, but supposing that Al Madinah tells us anything about unqualified teachers is absurd.

A tad rough on the kids at those schools that catastrophically fail though.

Beckham teaching footy would be fine, but as a PE teacher in a school I'm not sure about his tennis skills, or his ability to cope with kids who dislike football.

Read the Ofsted for Al-Madinah : the reason for shutting it was that the 'teachers' had no idea what they were doing, no idea what level the pupils were, no idea who was SEN, no record of who was in the building etc etc etc

sorry 'forced her' meaning the headteacher, Erica Connor.

And yes, there are lots of failing schools that are not free schools.

Missbopeep. In a lot of cases the best footballers cant "COACH" they don't understand why said person can not do what they do.

That could be the case with other people that although they are brilliant
at what they do , may not be able to teach it.

PS
copied from page 6 of the Ofsted report
Staff have been appointed to key roles for which they do not have the qualifications and experience. For example, most of the primary school teachers have not taught before and the head of the primary school is experienced in teaching secondary–aged pupils only. They work hard and are keen to do well by their pupils but they have not had the training and support they need to do so.

'Nothing like poor schools closing due to competition from better schools. Just like the private sector- the bad ones go to the wall.'

Which is all very well if you're selling cars or even electricity.

When you're talking about kids (often the most vulnerable) in the schools left to 'go to the wall' not so good.

Miss, I thought we'd established that it's unlikely anyone is going to throw their hands up about allowing David Beckham to teach football in a school.

The reality is that even in private schools teachers without teaching qualifications are exceptional in every sense and often very highly qualified.

The point about unqualified teachers in free schools is that it's somehow presented as an advantage when it isn't.

A significant number of unqualified teachers as opposed to 1 or 2 teaching sport or A Level classes or whatever is likely to have a negative effect as with Al Madinah and the unqualified head who realized she hadn't got a clue what she was doing.

It's also in the interest of teachers to get a qualification as most understand.

You've got to ask why a school would choose an unqualified teacher.

I don't distinguish between races at all.

The British Pakistani community has a set of well documented cultural issues. Other communities have different issues. As however we are talking about a school with, per the report, almost entirely Pakistani pupils, that is the relevant community here.

I believe, for instance, that school attainment levels are substantially higher between the racially similar British Indian and British Pakistani communities.

I am confused by your last sentence btw. A NQT is a newly qualified teacher. I.e. a qualified teacher. So where does it say they had unqualified teachers in the report?

Where I work there are one and two who have worked with kids in the school for years, are highly qualified (just no teaching qualifciations), highly specialised, very experienced, have proven themselves in their subject area and as teachers and have sort of moved sideways.

That's completely different from employing several young people with no experience and few qualifications in a NEW school without even the guidance of the national curriculum.

And the motivation can only because they're cheap and mouldable. Not good reasons.

'Staff have been appointed to key roles for which they do not have the qualifications and experience'

I would also question why a school would employ a significant number of NQTs - a recipe for disaster especially in a new school which doesn't follow the NC>

It's also tax payers money that's wasted when schools 'go to the wall'.

The amount of money wasted on free schools is criminal.

When it's obvious that the money would have been better spent improving/ extending existing schools.

There are unqualified teachers and unqualified teachers.

If you want to teach a subject which is effectively only taught in independents (like classical languages) then there isn't always a whole lot of point in doing a PGCE, particularly if you already have teaching experience (say from doing TEFL abroad or working as a teaching assistant). You might as well get on with earning some money if the school makes an informed judgement that they are happy with you and can support you as a relatively inexperienced teacher.

And if you do a PGCE but then spend your whole career in independent schools, you won't be able to do the qualifying year, so you'll be very experienced but technically "unqualified". Would you rather be taught by someone like this with 20+ years of experience or by a NQT who has not a clue?

There's a great deal of difference between hiring an entire school's worth of unqualified, unexperienced teachers (which is what it seems Al Madinah did) and absorbing "unqualified" teachers (who may well have a long and proven track record) into an already functioning environment which can support them if necessary. One is starting from scratch and is a stupid idea. The other is more sensible and works for a lot of independents as shown by their results.

Nobody with good judgement would ever have said it would be a good idea to begin a school from scratch with totally unqualified, unexperienced staff, even if the law allows you to do so. But unfortunately it seems that at Al Madinah, the founders were solely focused on creating a school with an Islamic ethos to the exclusion of some fairly basic considerations.

How can it be right that you work as a teacher when you aren't qualified too? .

'Nobody with good judgement would ever have said it would be a good idea to begin a school from scratch with totally unqualified, unexperienced staff, even if the law allows you to do so. But unfortunately it seems that at Al Madinah, the founders were solely focused on creating a school with an Islamic ethos to the exclusion of some fairly basic considerations.'

I so agree with this Fair.

BUT this is what free schools allow.

There were always going to be problems with it.

And any idiot could have seen that the faith element would exacerbate social and racial divisions too.

As I say, if lack of qualifications is an advantage why bother with them? If the NC is a disadvantage why bother?

I don't get how any Govt can promote both systems at once.

Is David beckham especially good at teaching children of all abilities to do PE? Does Carol Ann Duffy know about literature from all periods, and is she able to engage children who struggle with writing and reading at all?

Being very good at something doesn't mean you're any good at teaching it to everyone else.

I have reported your post at 17:56 op. It is not on to call people racist. Criticising a school for appearing to be more interested in religious ideology than academic attainment does not make someone a racist.

Add message | Report | Message poster Missbopeep Tue 22-Oct-13 17:49:55
Talk- if David Beckham applied to a school to teach footy would you turn him down as he didn't have QTS?
Or Tracy Emin to teach art ( well...)
Or Carol Anne Duffy to teach English?

You see this is the nonsense behind insisting on QTS.

Yes I would turn them down, being clever or talented is not the same as being able to teach. It is great when someone is talented and able to teach bit the two not always go together.

It's just the lack of understanding behind the policy that's so frustrating.

It is not the fact that the odd teacher doesn't have a teaching qualification that makes private schools successful.

It is not the need to employ teachers with teaching qualifications that hinders schools in the state sector.

Of all the things that could make a good school or improve one, this isn't it. And it is as with Al Madinah, potentially a recipe for disaster or exploitation.

Just like the schools that think blazers will improve results.

It's not the blazers that leads to good results!

How can anyone be so stupid?

whendidyoulast completely agree. I want subject specialists preferably who have a PGCE because they get teaching experience in a range of schools. Failing that a subject specialist (we are talking secondary unless you mean a primary music or language teacher) who has received accredited training on the job, e.g. as part of Schools Direct. Leaving it up to head teachers or governors to decide without even having a standard way of assessing equivalent experience (e.g. two years x 25 hours per week x 20+ children in an Ofsted inspected school? Or two hours a week coaching 11+ pupils for a term?) leads to failures like Al-Madinah or Discovery New School:

'The headteacher has agreed to stand down from her current role as soon as a new headteacher can be appointed. It is essential that a credible professional is appointed to the headship without delay to provide the expert leadership necessary to remove the school from special measures.'

• she was the wife of the business manager and co-founder

Talk- if David Beckham applied to a school to teach footy would you turn him down as he didn't have QTS?
Or Tracy Emin to teach art ( well...)
Or Carol Anne Duffy to teach English?
Again, I will refer to my earlier post that famous/specialised people were brought into a school to teach (Jamie Oliver's experiment) and they all bombed. Therefore, I believe that point you made, Missbopeep in this instance, is rubbish.

I'm afraid people's ignorance about Carol A Duffy just proves a point. She is a Prof of Poetry but also has written plays. She's a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She gives lectures in unis and to GCSE students studying her poems for their exams. Not sure how she'd be with lowest set last lesson on a Friday afternoon but she would she be any worse than lots of 'qualified' teachers?

Given the choice between the poet laureate teaching my child or someone who had a degree and a PGCE- now,let me think...who would I choose

I saw the Jamie Oliver prog. It was 'good tele'. I don't think it proved a point beyond what most people would assume anyway- that being an expert does not always mean you are good at crowd control- but the programme was focused on a tiny number of people who clearly had problems controlling classes.

But if Jamie Oliver or Carol Ann Duffy wanted to teach full time and be employed by a state school and even get promoted, why wouldn't they want to gain accreditation? If they wanted to visit schiools occasionally doing workshops you don't need a PGCE for that. Which is why Tristram Hunt didn't need a PGCE doing occasional history lectures. All great enrichment experience for the pupils on top of the usual curriculum - as long as they are CRB checked I'm happy with that!

The school concerned uses qualified teachers,. Only those badly taught presumably can read those quotes and determine the teachers were not qualified. Just read it. NQTs can be exceptionally good and they are qualified, amazingly, not unqualified.

Most private schools employ more qualified teachers than state schools. look at the lists on the websites of private schools which give their teacher qualifications. It is hard to get a job in a good private school if you have not done your PGCE actually although there are some exceptions.

Westminster Under School staff list is here;

www.westminsterunder.org.uk/contact-us/staff-listings.html
They will just about all have a PGCE etc. The independent schools council says most teachers entering teaching into private schools have done their PGCE etc.