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.

@Catapultaway For me it was a 4 year degree route (in which a 2:1 was the minimum you had to have), one year PGCE (inc placements) which you could't get on without recent, relevant experience of working in a school), then one year of what was known back then as a qualifying year which you had to pass first time. So 6 years in total before I was awarded QTS.
This was 20 years ago though. Not needed now.

Of course a teaching qualification is desirable but that is not the only route to being an effective teacher. My DS attends an independent school where his pe teacher and head of year is an ex-navy instructor. He doesn't have a PGCE or a degree in PE.

My DS came out of primary school miserable, lonely, hating sport. He had been stressed and humiliated, made to feel useless, to the point of refusing to take part in any physical activity.

It took about six weeks at his new school to start enjoying PE. Over the last five years they have carefully rebuilt his confidence, and he's now a gym enthusiast.

Whatever the 'qualified teachers' at the primary school did, clearly wasn't working, they made a generally happy 10 year old utterly miserable and threaten to kill himself, so I'm delighted with our 'unqualified' teacher. He is infinitely better at the job.

Just to clarify, you would rather the children waste a lesson than that a cover supervisor teach them? I hear this from some departments who specifically set rubbish cover work of the "watch this infotainment TV episode" variety.

Then there are the departments that prepare scripted, timed lesson plans with cloze worksheets (printed on blue or yellow for those who need it) and precise instructions for what learning looks like.

The cover teachers aren't undercutting the subject teachers by actively teaching in the brief time they see a random class for a random topic in a random subject. They aren't there because they're cheap, they're there because thousands of trained teachers leave the profession every year.

I love this thread 😂. Read through it again and replace ‘teacher’ with ‘nurse’. “In my experience the unqualified nurses are more enthusiastic”. Shudder.

Ok yes let’s let unqualified teachers and cover supervisors teach GCSE classes. Yup.

Some of the daily cover supervisors we have in our school haven’t set foot in a school since they themselves went to school. And have no training. And will never get any training, because why would a school do that? Not even in safeguarding.

My DD has a cover supervisor since her teacher went on maternity, she's lovely but I'm not happy about it but the other parents don't seem to care as the kids all like her. I also don't think it's fair on her, there are two classes in that year so we were told the other teacher would be supervising but she's also shortly going on maternity leave and I have no idea who's going to take over, they have supply teachers in two other classes at least (including my other daughters class!)

We have an increasing number of UQTs in my state comprehensive. They have usually been tapped up via being a keen TA or cover supervisor. I don't actually know if they have degrees in a relevant subject. The biggest single issue is their qualification to do what qualified and trained teachers can do - prep and plan a sequence of learning , mark work effectively and independently, and prepare students for exams and coursework. Of course, they can and will learn - but the huge knock on workload to other staff (often with no extra time or pay awarded ) has consequences for all, including the students who the overworked qualified 'mentors' teach.

This isn't about a cover supervisor doing one-off cover lessons as is their job. This is about cover supervisors doing long term cover and pretending that this is just fine. It's not fine for the class who deserve a qualified teacher who actually takes full responsibility for them, and it's certainly not fine for the teaching colleagues who have to pick up all the slack of the work that the cover supervisor isn't doing - the planning, the assessments that the cover supervisor isn't marking because 'it doesn't give them pleasure', the dealing with parents etc etc.

We have two Teach First teachers in our department (core subject). Both are subject experts and excellent at their jobs. They get a heavily reduced timetable, lots help and support from their mentors (both via the course and at school) Other members of the team came into teaching this way too. I doubt anyone could tell the difference between those of us with a PGCE and those without (apart from the level of student debt!) Don’t write them all off.

The government can stop academies recruiting unqualified teachers but schools will have to plug the gap somehow. Therefore more and more lessons will be covered by teaching assistants. There's a crisis in recruitment and retention in education.

@Fluffyowl00 But anybody can teach, right? It's not a profession, it's not actually difficult etc...

Yes and that's a bad thing.

Not 'oh the unqualified teachers work harder than the teachers' or 'me and my fellow cover supervisors are all fab because we mark books' or 'my kid has an unqualified teacher and they're better than a teacher'.

People get pissed off when they see a Physician Associate instead of a doctor, but we should be happy about kids being short-changed?

The standard of NQTs we have been getting the past few years, shows anyone can pass a degree and PGCE, no need for classroom management skills, ability to assess or even relate to children, no work ethic or drive to help children achieve. No common sense.
They want to be highly paid babysitters.
It is dire and a shame for the children who are being failed.

Are they doing a worse job than qualified teachers though?

Are the kids learning, despite the lack of academic qualification?

Virtually all teachers I ever had were absolute psychopaths, cruel beyond belief and utterly fucking toxic.

I really don't think "qualifications" have much to do with teaching.

The average teacher is more concerned with the upcoming Ofsted report than they are with their students education.

When l left secondary 4 years ago, l was teaching 300 different kids a week.

Someone in primary teaches about 30.

This is why only one piece of homework is marked in depth every half term.

And primary produce a lot less work than secondary.

I agree @noblegiraffe. Don't the government realise that's what will definitely happen?

I will read the proposals but assume this thread is specifically related to secondary,where it certainly isn’t uncommon for someone with for example,a degree in history to be used to teach maths or English, though do have a teaching qualification . Surely if someone has no teaching qualification but a wealth of experience in a subject, they are a better option than someone who has zero knowledge of the subject

Or wouldn't it be better if that person with a wealth of knowledge in the subject who apparently wants to be in schools teaching it, take a teaching qualification and learn how to teach effectively?

Nonsense

And it very much shows, unfortunately.

The "gap" is tiny. As previously quoted from a TES article on Jan 31st: "The proportion of unqualified teachers in academies in 2023 was 3.6 per cent, the DfE says - slightly higher than the 2.5 per cent in maintained schools."

Maintained schools are allowed use unqualified teachers on an interim basis if they can't find a suitable qualified teacher (see the regulations here).The Government's headline generating modification to reduce academy freedoms will bring academies into line with maintained schools, which may reduce their proportion of UQTS from 3.6% to c2.5% or may not, depending on how they have been using the freedoms.

I'm a governor at an academy and we certainly don't employ UQTS. The stats demonstrate that it is a freedom that wise school leaders have not used lightly.

Yes, but they should be able to take this qualification while also teaching (under supervision), whether as an apprenticeship, or another training scheme such as Teach First.

Which part?

How would they know how students learn? How they retain information? How to get the best out of a student?

I have zero problem with people who want to be teachers training to be teachers. Because they are actively learning how to do the job better.

PGCE students are also learning how to teach by teaching while under supervision. It's how you improve.

i guess it depends on what’s acceptable as a teaching qualification, I worked in the NHS, did a nursing qualification to teach and also a non nursing teaching qualification, both taught the things you indicate, none would have been acceptable to a school but the latter was acceptable to further education colleges.