Plan for 18 year olds to become teachers with on the job training

[noblegiraffe]

So the government's bright idea to solve teacher shortages is not to make any effort to retain the teachers who are leaving in droves, but to allow people to train as teachers on the job with only A-levels.

Because acquiring a solid expertise in your subject first is totally overrated.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exclusive-first-teaching-apprenticeship-planned

Older people already have a degree (so three years study) before they begin

If you're a stakeholder in your children's education then you should re-think your views to this plan.

Many of us already mentor PGCE students already and get nothing extra so wouldn't hold my breath.

Children and their education are not guinea pigs for experimenting on - at least, they shouldn't be.

I get that existing teachers are afraid that they will have to take on more responsibility without extra pay. But nobody has said that, have they?

It's not even about pay, or lack of it. WE ARE AT CAPACITY ALREADY. The workload is intolerable (hence the severe recruitment and retention crisis) and this plan is hardly going to help. My job is educating children, NOT training teachers.

And then one year training and a further NQT year huge difference between 23year old and an 18 year old

This is a debate about teaching. With 4 children of my own and a mother, a sister in law and a best friend who have all taught, I can assure you I know a fair bit.

And do they all think this is an awesome idea with no potential drawbacks?
Also, you appear to have zero classroom experience.

You are very limited to what you do on your own as a student in the NHS,

Not really, the only I couldn't do on my own as a final year student is administer medication. I coordinated every shift for 15 weeks, and all over aspects of care I did unsupervised eg under indirect supervision as per NMC guidelines on pre registration education.

An unqualified teacher can kill a child future life chances

I would rather be uneducated than dead. It's that old chestnut isn't it? If you can read this, thank your teacher. If you are alive to read this, thank your nurse.

with reading and helping out in school from time to time, working as a school governor, as no classroom experience then fair enough. I can still have an opinion.

Yes, and people with 11 years at the actual chalk face can tell you you don't know what you're talking about.

FFS you think there'd be no difference between a 21 year old who had been to uni and an 18 year old who has just finished their A-levels.

Also, to get top dollar, you need to make sure you don't have unnecessary time off for having babies, looking after sick children and you must always work FT.

But the same applies to climb up the teaching ladder too. To get to an SLT position in a secondary you would also have to work FT and probably minimise time taken out for maternity leaves etc.

Again one has to compare like with like. A qualified accountant working part-time for a local firm won't earn as much as somebody working full-time in the top firms, rapidly climbing the ladder. But the former is much more comparable with a teacher working part-time, not progressing up the salary scales and not taking on responsibilities beyond classroom teaching.

My own university estimates the median salary for maths graduates 10 years after graduation to be several times the mean teacher salary quoted above. This is on the high end, as many of our graduates go into finance, but I don't think anybody would claim that teaching is comparably paid to typical jobs for maths graduates.

I've been in hospital a few times. Doesn't qualify me to spout on to experienced medics how things should be.

10 years ago they paid a Leeds Uni grad with a 2:1 in History 6k to train as a teacher.

Now this?

OK, well in the interests of free speech, and 30 years' experience in the classroom as a teacher, let me say that I don't take a great deal of notice of your opinions on this one.

motheroffourdragons Reading in class and helping out occasionally is not enough for an informed opinion. I've been teaching for 21 years and you really really don't know what you're talking about. "Lots of my friends are teachers" doesn't qualify you to know.

This is a ridiculous idea and simply confirms that the government thinks teaching is something pretty much anyone can do.

I'm still interested to know from those who like this idea whether they would be happy with an apprentice teacher taking e.g. an KS4 child for maths or A level student for maths. Would you really not care that they haven't studied the subject in much depth beyond A level?

You're entitled to an opinion, I'm entitled to tell you your opinion is poorly-informed and fairly worthless.