Would you be happy with this?

[susanmt]

Schools in Scotland have just gone back, and someone I know has just taken up a position as the chaplain at a private school in Edinburgh.

He will do assemblies, individual pastoral care etc, BUT, though he has no teaching qualifications or experience, will teach RE as a subject as well as English and History (his degree subjects).

I'm a teacher and it appalls me! How can he teach 3 subjects with no teaching qualification? Do you think the parents know? Would you mind if it was your kid? This can only happen because it is a private school, it wouldn't be allowed in the state sector (this is not a pvt v state school debate, I was just shocked and wondered if I am being silly about it?)

We did cover the welfare side of things in the PGCE. We read a reasonable amount on the role of a form tutoe and were expected to work with a form tutor in 2 of our three teaching practices (18 weeks work in total with the FT). We also had to look at the role of the EWO and Connexions. Without this would wouldn't be recognised as having reached the standards of a Qualified Teacher (ie QTS).

That said, this is an area which needs experience rather than book learning IMHO.

Message withdrawn

It doesnt bloss.
There is nothing like experience with good support.
Personally, I feel that teachers would benefit from peer support ie observing good practise and being observed by peers with constructive criticism and suggestions.

The PGCE does not make you a teacher. It simply prepares you to begin learning in the classroom.
This was always stressed to us on my PGCE that the main learning would happen after. It is only a preparation....

The PGCE does not teach you how to deal with a member of your Tutor Group telling you they've been raped, another telling you they've been kicked out of home and so the list goes on.

just wanted to clarify something. I agree that a teaching qualification does not make a good teacher.

But.... how I understand it, qualified teachers are more 'in the system' - more accountable to an outside body. An untrained therefore unqualified teacher is (as I understand it) simply accountable to the school they are at. It is a more informal arrangment. So the appraisal f the teacher falls on the head of the school/governors etc. And no one else. So if I as a parent had a complaint against that teacher and the school did not take it up, I could not appeal to any other body.

This is from Susanmt's original message:

"Where's the quality control, where's the appraisal, where's the accountability (you can't report him to the GTC for unprofessional conduct, for example)" It is precisely this lack of a safety net that worries me.

If you are all saying an unqualified teacher does have the same accountabilty as a qualified teacher, then fair enough.

Finally coming back to this.

No, college did not train me in how to deal with difficult pastoral issues. But it did teach me a method, so that when something happened (I had a boy of 12 sitting in my class in floods of tears as his Dad was getting out of prison that day and he was afraid) I knew the form of what to do, how to approach it etc. Yes, maybe common sense, but when you are in tat situation it is more of a panic thing anf d it was nice to know what the proper rpocedure for a child alleging abuse would be).

Interestingly I just spent the weeksnd with friends in Edinburgh who know the chap involved and saw another friend who also knows him, both are teachers, and both thought it was appalling, even knowing him and his enthusiasm and great manner with kids.

Have just come to this thread. I think the fact that he is teaching at a private school is significant. Surely most/all parents of students at a private school know that the teachers do not need to be (and therefore may not be) qualified. Perhaps their expectations of the school are different than the expectations that they would have of a state school. Hopefully the parents have chosen the school because the trust that it is capable of assesing a teacher's abilities without necessarily requiring a qualification.
As a child my parents sent us to an experimental private school for several years. The teachers were almost all unqualified and my parents were well aware of this. They hoped that we would get other things from the experience. And in fact, although my maths teacher was unqualified as a teacher, he had further degrees in maths, had been a mathematician for many years and certainly knew his subject. He gave me a life long love for maths and certainly helped foster my enthusiasm for learning. When we did return to state schools as the private school did not do the upper grades, we were more advanced (and more enthusiastic) than most of the other children.
Having said all of that, I don't think that my parents (nor I) would expect a teacher with no qualifications to be teaching in a state school where the demands and expectations are different than in the private sector.

Also, I think that the comparison to the medical sector would be more appropriate if you compared apples to apples. I would certainly expect my gp to be qualified as he is in the state sector and licensed by a board that is overseen by the state. However, there are plenty of people who go into health food stores and ask the employees or see homeopaths who are totally unqualified (in that they have not attended traditional medical school) and then take "medicines" recommended by them that haven't been tested by any official boards. I would assume that these people are well aware that they are taking medical advice from someone that is not "qualified" in the traditional sense to give medical advice and "prescribe" medicines. These people (I am most certainly not one of them) have different expectations from their medical advisor and are not putting official qualifications at the top of the list. Perhaps you are just as appalled by these homeopaths etc., but personally I think it's up to individuals to make those choices about what their priorities are, as long as they are clearly informed about the choices they are making.

SofiaAmes, I do agree with your last sentence - that people should be free to have a choice as long as they are fully aware of what the choices entail.

Is it really the case that most parents who opt for private education know that teachers at private schools are unlikely to hold conventional qualifications? Don't know a huge amount about private schools, but I am taken aback by this fact. Again, it's not the lack of paper qualifications per se, it's the reduction of accountability this implies. I get the impression that private schools are suject to less outside appraisals and performance reviews (please someone correct me if I am wrong) so are larger numbers of unqualified teachers part of this tradition?

I am a teacher in the state sector, and my children go to private school. All of their teachers have the full quota of conventional qualifications. They either have a B Ed of a first degree with a PGCE.

You can have teachers without a teaching qualification (ie the PGCE) in private, but you can also have them in the state sector. I taught for two terms while finishing my PGCE in a state comprehensive. I am now fully qualified and work in the same school.

Private schools are not inspected by OFSTED but they are inspected by an independent schools equivalent. Time between inspections is roughly comparable, and parents are given a copy of the report.

I think there's a difference between an unqualified teacher in training for their PGSE and one who is unqualified and not in training for their PGSE or anything else, as in susanmt's example.

If an unqualified 'new-to-the-job' teacher sees themselves as fully up to speed with teaching practice, they could be less receptive to guidance from other, more experienced, teachers and also resent being checked up on.

I have to say, though, that this conversation confirms my feelings that the good teachers are born not made. I left college with a degree in history. I got a very high first - the highest in the college - for my disseration. I was offered the chance to do an MPhil at University. Didn't take is up as I couldn't get enough funding. There is absolutely no way I could have taught history straight out of college. If my son had me as a teacher, god help him!