Do private schools have better teachers?

[hercules1]

Read this on a different thread and it has peed me off a bit. I know lots of really good teachers who don't and won't teach in private schools. I've also known some teachers leave the state system to go to the private as they could no longer cope within the state.

Private doesn't equate with better teachers Of course it means lots of other things and I am sure there are lots of excellent teachers in the private system but no more so than the state.

duchesse

what does

loghorreic

mean?

verbal diarrhoea zippi

Great - we've had Wanker's Latin, now we've got Tosser's Greek

Greensleeves- my father came down with me to the (state) school I taught at for 2 years when I went in to pick something up. He asked my husband on our return whether he'd taken out insurance on my life- it really was that bad. And it was in "leafy" Surrey. I had to take a year off to recover after two years in that school. It actually had a terrible effect on my physical health due to stress and 60-70 hour weeks.

So I applaud that man for not deliberately harming his own already fragile health. Far from being the arsehole you describe, he was in fact making a wise decision taking into account his own weaknesses and frailties. I think we can be too quick to judge other people's life choices.

How rude.

My mother (a truly great teacher, judging from the number of gushing cards she received at the end of each term) taught for 20 years in a state FE college in Kingston, and spent a LOT of time picking up the pieces of bright-but-challenging pupils who had been failed by the posh private schools in that neck of the woods. Private schools are all very well for amenable, easily-taught kids, but anyone who exhibits behaviour that borders on 'challenging' had better watch out.

No, trust me, he was an arsehole. He spent most of his spare time climbing mountains and crawling through caves, I reckon he could have just about survived teaching in a state school. Now he's a headmaster of a school that selects children at the age of 4

I don't accept for one moment that "teaching in state schools is dangerous to your health". What a preposterous position to take. There are good and bad state schools just as there is huge variation in the private sector. It's just snobbery and prejudice.

The Lain/Greek comment was just a joke duchesse, I didn't mean it to offend you. Someone on here said it to me (Wanker's Latin) because I typed "fora" instead of "forum", and it made me LOL. Sorry if it's offended you, it was meant in fun.

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It is impossible to argue this either way. My sisters and I all went to the same public school and while they had (in general) a positive experience I wish I had gone to a different (state or otherwise) school. Some of the teachers were fab they really were, some were complete tossers. I'm sure that is the case at almost all schools.

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I know LOADS of shit teachers with Oxford degrees.

the best teacher I've ever met did his degree through the OU. He was an inspiring teacher, a real word wizard.

Teaching isn't just something you can fall into just because you've got a degree and there isn't anything else you want to do with your life.

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Hardcore academics usually loathe teaching and are crap at it IMO.

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I see. Fora is right, of course.

Anyway, I emphatically said originally that state school teachers are generally better. When I taught in a state school, I was able to make my lessons a lot more fun and varied. In the private school, they just looked at me as though I was mad if I tried to get them to learn through games. Give me the choice, and I'd prefer to work in a well-performing state school (ie one that does not suspend the bullied, to sweep a whole disciplinary outlook into one topical heap) any time.

The only 2 things I think we did wrong in the state school (and were taught to do during the PGCE) is not to extend the pupils concentration span sufficiently, and to aim the teaching at the level of the 30th percentile, rather than the 60th (incidentally, I find differentiated teaching and outcome to be pie in the sky most of the time, especially in languages). I do think that not enough is expected of secondary aged pupils in this country; the 1 minute per year of age for each activity rule springs to mind- that by extension would mean a 25 year old unable to do anything for longer than 25 minutes, which is very likely to get one the sack, and is patent nonsense.

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I agree that born teachers come from all walks of educational life. I've been taught by horrors with postgraduate degrees from Oxford and inspirational oddballs with Certificates in Rhythmic Gymnastics as their only apparent qualification...
Where MFL are concerned (where did you get that quote from cod?) I think a native speaker or real fluency - impossible to gauge from degree alone - is the best thing.

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"Teaching isn't just something you can fall into just because you've got a degree and there isn't anything else you want to do with your life."

Sorry, but yes it is!! (I'm talking from personal experience)

As a slight swerve from the OP I feel that you do need a good degree to teach at A level. There is a heck of a 'jump' from GCSE to A level (bigger than there was between O levels and A levels IMHO) and even the brightest kids need to be taught at A level.

Kids at either end of the ability range are the challenge to teach in my experience. For different reasons.

Life is easier in private schools for teachers becasue they have smaller classes and longer holidays. They are not better teachers and ime often complacent, and need a kick up the arse

If I were a teacher (I'm not, although I have just spent 3 years in Germany teaching trainee teachers) I would want to work in the state system, mainly because of the challenge aspect that slugmentions further down. (Have read some of the thread ).
Absolutely agree with Marina re MFL. I had an utterly fantastic German teacher - part of it was just her inspirationalness and connection to us and the subject, but part of it was her fantastic German. OTOH, the majority of the students I've taught over the past 3 years really did have such appalling dreadful English - both when they started and when they finished -, and the system let them get away with it - I was forced to lower my standards all the time and it ended up being incredibly demoralising. But the view was that it didn't matter, because these were 'just' going to be teachers for the less prestigious types of German school. (That's a whole new thread, though).

You need to love explaining things (and have lots of different ways of getting stuff over). You also need to be passionate about your subject.

If you don't love your subject, why should the kids? To a degree, you have to be a bit of a showman and 'sell' your subject.

Having an excellent understanding of the subject also helps, even at KS3. When you know your subject inside and out you tend to be able to predict where the kids will stumble and intervene before they get confused.

It also helps to have a good general knowledge, so that you can 'place' your subject in a real world context. Kids like it when they can see connections between things.

I don't know about state schools, but it seems that in private schools individual children get more attention, simply because the parents demand it because they are paying through the nose for it.

I had mostly very good teachers in the private schools I went to (in different countries) but then I have above average intelligence so it may not have made much difference to me any way as I loved reading and learning so I think I would have done well under most circumstances. I think bright kids who want to achieve do well ANYWHERE.

There were kids in my schools who made no effort at all and no matter how good their teachers were, they were still crap: mummy and daddy had enough money and contacts for them not to worry about being ensured a job in business or the City.