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

You can hold a view, but I can disagree with you and point out that your view is ill-informed and that I'm going to ignore it. That's the beauty of free speech.

mother a bunch of teachers, on whom this will be dumped, have given you many reasons why this is a bad idea, and raised many issues with the process.

You are ignoring all these to continue spouting that it will be a great idea and you're sure it will all work out in the end. Why?

You can have an opinion mother but this will not affect your job, this will affect OUR job so our opinions are more relevant whether you like it or not.

But pointing out why it is ill informed is one thing, telling somebody they don't know what they are talking about is just rude.

That's because pointing out why it was ill-informed wasn't working. Your persistent ignoring of patient explanations was rude.

'I hope none of you have been teaching my children'

I hope so too.

mother if I have been teaching your DC, then lucky them. I'm a national award-shortlisted teacher with the best results in the county year on year. 97% A* in my A Level group last week.

Funny how "I hope you don't teach my precious darlings" is the perceived trump card of the MN disgruntled parent.

The fact that you will probably never know makes me chortle.

I hope none of you have been teaching my children.

You'd be delighted if I was teaching your children. A qualified maths teacher with 11 years experience and a masters in maths. Excellent results and great relationships with the kids.

Or would you rather an 18 year old with a handful of A-levels?

Because if you say the 18 year old, you're lying.

I wouldn't want my children taught by an 18 year old with no degree!

NQTs need a LOT of support/mentoring/guidance/supervision from existing teachers in school-I can't begin to imagine how much time/help an 18 year old with no degree would require! Who on earth would have the time to help them? Out nqt mentor gets NO release time or extra money to help them-it's all done after school.

19 years experience here and my department won a tes award, I'm also a fellow of the Historical society and a GCSE and A level examiner - but what do I know eh ??

If you are alive to read this, thank your nurse.

Because the nurse managed to educate them self without a single teacher

Perhaps we just don't need teachers or schools Fruitcider managed perfectly well without them ...

97% A* in my A Level group last week.

And you're still quitting teaching, Evil? This country fucking sucks when it can't hold onto teachers like you and thinks you can be replaced by a teenager on no-doubt minimum wage.

To give you some context, dragons, about why I think this is not a great idea, I am a modern languages teacher. I have an MA in German and excellent A Levels in French and Spanish too. Where I teach now I am the only Spanish teacher so I do the GCSE from scratch and with fantastic students I am really pushing the boundaries of my knowledge. I have spent the whole of the year double checking the grammar before I teach it, doing extra work etc in a way that I just don't have to do with German. I wouldn't trust an 18 year old to know enough to teach higher than y8 really. I get away with it because I know how to teach languages.

Motheroffourdragons

Ok so the only people who are entitled to hold a view are teachers ?

Not what anyone has said

You lot are absolutely incredible.

No, just tired, pissed off, and fed up of people that don't know what they are on about not accepting what is going on.

As long as the apprenticeship programme is well thought out, there's no reason why it can't work.

What makes you think that this being "well thought out" is even a remote possibility?

In the last couple of years we have had
Ill thought out curriculums/curricula that had to be re-written by teachers.
Exams changing grade boundaries, not just mid course but mid fucking marking.
A series of arseholes ministers in charge that do not respect the profession.

Curricula/curriculums that are not ready to be released but have been released anyway.
Programs of education that have been changed without having a chance to see if they have even worked yet
and many more.

And when it all fails the teachers are blamed for it even though they/we have repeatedly said that it won't work, needs more thought, is only just starting to work.

So you will have to forgive me/us if we see just another wall being built to fuck us over.

I appreciate that many teachers are working at capacity and I wouldn't want them to be exploited further

What about the 18 year olds who are being exploited to provide a cheap solution to the teacher shortage?

I will probably get jumped on by irate teachers here . . .

Whatever the rights or wrongs of training to be a teacher via an apprenticeship route, I don't think it's helpful to compare average maths graduates salaries with that of teachers.

Surely we all know that maths graduates who move into finance sector roles earn higher than average salaries? This is because of the type of capitalist society we live in where making/managing money is considered to have more value than many "caring" roles.

I myself am an AHP in the NHS, similar training time to teachers. I don't actually think the time taken to train is really relevant. I earn the same as a grade 6 nurse, salary band roughly 26k to 35k. It can take many years to get to the heady heights of 35k and is not guaranteed. New graduates earn early twenties.

It's the same situation across many public sector roles, nursing, teaching, social work, Allied health professionals. We could argue forever, about how these jobs are undervalued and underpaid. However I chose this job knowing the salary possibilities. Surely it is the same for all public sector roles?

I think the salary paid to teachers and similar professions is a wider argument, needed to be considered in a wider societal context.

As to whether teachers can be trained successfully via an apprenticeship scheme, I really don't know. I would echo many of the concerns raised by teachers on this thread. I don't think it's an impossibility but would be most concerned about the impact on existing teachers. I would guess it would have a huge impact on workloads for existing teachers and as previously pointed out with no financial compensation.

This thread is bad for my blood pressure. I had only just begun to unclench my shoulders from last term and relax a bit, ready for the next onslaught.

noble yep - this will be my final year. I'm not moving away from education entirely but I can't wait to get out of the hellhole that state secondary education has become. Hopefully my KS5 experience will continue though - sorry to be cryptic - not all details are in place yet.

I don't think it's helpful to compare average maths graduates salaries with that of teachers.

It's helpful, as a maths graduate, to compare my salary as a teacher to what I could get elsewhere.
It should also be helpful to those wondering how to tackle the incredible shortage of maths teachers.
However, the solution seems to be to say 'well, maths graduates don't want to do the job, so let's give it to a non-graduate instead' and pretend the maths bit doesn't matter.

Well here's hoping we don't lose you completely, Evil

There is a secondary school near me that has so few science teachers that they are lumping whole year groups into the hall to be taught by 2 teachers by PowerPoint.

That is just one of the consequences of ignoring teachers' valid concerns.

I don't think it's helpful to compare average maths graduates salaries with that of teachers.

But the gap between public sector salaries for STEM graduates and private sector salaries is a significant factor in teacher recruitment in the UK. In countries which do not have such a wide gap between salaries (and lower teacher workload) there is not such a problem with maths/science teacher recruitment. Look at Switzerland, Sweden etc. And look also at top private schools, which pay very good salaries to PhD educated maths/science teachers i.e. they value very deep subject knowledge.

Would the apprentice have to be 18? maybe it should be open to people of any age. That could solve the life experience problem.

Saying that 'Anyone without a degree-regardless of age' can be a teacher is hardly going to recruit the 'brightest and the best' for our kids, is it?!

I would be happy with energetic bright 18 year olds doing an apprentice type scheme in junior schools.Not all bright students will be able to afford Uni. in years to come.Many of my children's experienced teachers had lost energy,motivation and enthusiasm in my experience.I think they become disillusioned with time.I do think its important to pick candidates that actually like children.