Unqualified Teachers

[everychildmatters]

Why is there not complete outrage re the above? I'd rather my daughter not be "taught" full-time by someone who potentially does not need one formal qualification to their name.
I'm glad I walked out of teaching profession last year after 20 years in.
Enough is enough.

Wow

In primary schools a lot of teaching is done by HLTAs. In my school I actually think the HLTAs are better at delivering content that some of the teachers. There's also some level 3s teaching! I don't think the parents know they aren't teachers.

All the secondaries near me use Cover Supervisors. For which you need no qualifications bar GCSEs. So they are like unqualified supply teachers.

It’s all about budgeting

Do you have a link to this?

@Brickiscool Exactly that. But they're great for the budget which, let's face it, is far more important than the quality of education our children receive.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5269221-to-think-that-no-one-ever-regrets-leaving-the-teaching-profession-in-england?page=1

I agree it’s a sad time to be in education. I left at Christmas after 19 years teaching, I was one of 5 of the 25 teachers at the school.
The next thing people will be noticing is standards dropping. A TA or an unqualified teacher might be able to deliver a fun lesson but do they have the pedagogy to back it up? Do they know exactly what children need to know and what they’ll be assessed on the following week? Do they know which gaps each child needs filling?
I think it’s an awful time and our children are getting seriously robbed.

Except many cover supervisors, myself included, are QTS.
I have a double honours languages degree, PGCE secondary and thirty years of experience in education.
Stop tarring us all with the same brush and denigrating what we do.
I am not alone in being qualified but choosing to do cover as I have caring responsibilities.
Schools would not manage without cover supervisors or supply for that matter and we're not all crap, cheers.
On top of which, I work with a fellow cover supervisor who hasn't got a PGCE but has got ten years of experience mentoring, supporting then running the room. He is better than any ECT and many QTS, myself included.

That is wrong to state independent schools are full of unqualified teachers. The majority come from state sector so have QTS. Many in addition to MAs/MSc/Phd

i’ve been teaching 20+ years

curriculum manger for 8

some fo the best teachers i’ve had have been unqualified

pgce teaches you sod all - it’s on the job training and enthusiasm that counts

That's a training programme so very different to having an unqualified person

If you're doing a full teacher's job on a cover supervisor's salary then doesn't that make you a bit of a mug?

Isn't this route only 9 months training, with 6 months of it being placements?

The ego trips though “I earned this, I earned this?” Yet you’re all puzzled why nobody wants to work in schools, the pays shit, 13 weeks off but the holiday prices are sky high. Work life balance is massive

Degrees used to mean something when information was limited to libraries, everyone has unlimited access to information at their fingertips now.

I get the positives of teaching noble - job security, school holidays, variety, delivering content aka the fun bit, making positive relationships with students and colleagues but when I am home, I'm home. No marking, no pressure, no WFH, no exam pressure, no stress from negative residuals, no planning or prep unless I want to zhuzh up a lesson plan.
The cost of that is a pay cut. It doesn't or wouldn't work for everyone and I do believe support staff are massively underpaid because of contracts being pro rata. However, in terms of work-life balance, it works for me.

Mrwise

have you looked at prison education?

12 weeks leave at any point not just school hols

full teaching role but due to security nothing leaves site so working hours are indeed 8-4- never take work home

I haven't. Although I have taught adults as a side hustle in the past. It would not work for me currently as I do the school run and one of my caring responsibilities is at my school...but I might consider it in the future. Is there any age limit for preferred candidates or do they take anyone who is qualified/keen?

working in a school is awesome when you have young children, you get all of the holidays off. But when the holidays come up prices are doubled.sorry for my negativity it’s been a rough half term.

anyone

it’s often ex school teachers who join because it’s so less stress for equal or more money and same holidays but whenever you want so suits when kids are older as you can take your 10-12 weeks outside school holidays.

we do get younger teachers straight from qualified too and prisons also train their own

you can go FT or sessional which is £30/hour for 6-7 hour teaching day - you decide when and how often you work

Yes, so let's not pretend that children who have cover supervisors instead of teachers aren't being short changed.

Cover isn't the same job as subject teacher. A teacher plans, sets, and marks work. They see the same classes every week. They work crazy hours termtime. They are superhuman.
Cover supervisors come in when the teacher can't be there. They manage behaviour and put the work set by the teacher in front of the kids. They get to go home at 3.30.
Whether the kids learn anything in cover lessons depends on them believing that they can learn without being spoonfed. They might have to direct their brain towards an Oak Academy video, or open the text book at the right page and read it.

Parents talking cover lessons down isn't terribly helpful. Many cover teachers have QTS, others have relevant experience in the subjects. It's kind of tiresome to have a 12yo say "you can't teach maths" to an actual engineer. Pedagogy is not only studied by teachers, but most of the lesson design is done by teachers anyway.

Key stage four students being taught long term by cover supervisors not teaching the specialism, yes.
Key stage three/in the short term, I don't agree with you as it depends entirely on the individual staff member.
It shouldn't happen that a CS is used as a stopgap morally/ethically because of the pay/it is not their role to provide continuity longer than five days. However, as a parent, I am fine with my CS colleague teaching my own child - they are bloody good at what they do. As am I.
And because I don't have the stresses you do, I can give more of myself including marking the work when I want to, on my own terms - it's then an actual pleasure. My colleagues joke I mark their books more than they do. (Many a true word, as in secondary many schools are now operating by one set piece per half term and the laughable tick and flick because unions and recent research decry marking as meaningful to the pupils. Students don't take books home and parents are left in the dark - this was certainly true of my daughter's school. Compared with the deep dive daily marking still undertaken in primary, secondaries have lowered the bar).

Meh, you pretending that you're doing the work of a cover supervisor by sneaking in bits of actual teaching because 'it gives you pleasure' instead of it being you being taken for a mug by the school that isn't actually paying you to do it is on you.

But don't expect your teaching colleagues to thank you for it.