NQT for next year - should we expect to have to help out our DS?

[tricot39]

Hi. We have been allocated a newly qualified teacher for next year (Y1) who seems nice, but presumably will have a lot to learn. What (if anything) can we do to lend DS a hand?

Glad to hear these positive stories as DD2 has an NQT next year too.

Though I am wondering why teachers (until recently at least) got pay increases for every year of teaching experience, if NQTs really are as good as a teacher with 5 years' experience

TeenAndTween, because as you carry on working your experience grows, you do not have the same support and time out of the classroom and take on extra responsibility. And what other job does not offer inventives for experience?
FFS.

incentives

how do folk know their child's teacher is NQT, does school tell you this with big letters? We're just told "Miss Brown will be joining us from May" and that's it.

I think DC have probably had them (youth was a clue) but not noticed any problems as a result.

"I think DC have probably had them (youth was a clue)"

As an NQT, I was the oldest teacher in the school. The head was a few years older (though as a student I worked with heads who were younger than me, as is my current head).

IME, NQTs are fabulous - energetic, full of new ideas, keen to 'be the best': as a previous poster said, definitely better than a teacher time-serving their way to retirement.

I was a 44 year old NQT, none of the parents had a clue!

My daughter had a NQT for the last year and I can honestly say she was one of the best teachers she has had (and all her teachers have been excellent). She was enthusiastic and fun and really seemed to enjoy teaching the kids.

"As an NQT, I was the oldest teacher in the school."

yeah, one of my neighbours qualified in her 40s.

Idealistic & Energetic youth or life experience with stable emotions, good to have a balance.

DS1 had a NQT in Year 1 who was the most amazing teacher ever. She had that class completely in the palm of her hand...they adored her. She was so enthusiastic and knew just how to get them to listen and take notice of what she was teaching them.

~random tangent~

My favourite teacher in primary school was newly qualified. She was substituting for a very experienced teacher. It was the first time since joining the school that I had felt remotely valued or liked. It didn't get better until my final two years there (incidentally one of whom was also newly qualified)

My dd2 had a NQT in year 3 and she was the best teacher I have ever known and with 6dcs I've known a few .

Our school told us that they were NQTs. In fact 6 NQTs joined the school at the same time (head teacher troubles but that's another story) and the parents had to be told really because it has had an affect this year on some things because of the restrictions placed on what the school can ask NQTs to do (after school clubs and such).

I was pleased that I knew, because it helped me to understand why dd's teacher sometimes seemed nervous when talking to parents. She did a brilliant job though and the children really loved her.

pippity because as you carry on working your experience grows

My point exactly. It is all very well people saying that having an NQT is nothing to worry about, they are a fully qualified teacher etc etc.

But, they are not as experienced as someone teaching for a few years, and I and most people would agree that experience in teaching does count for something. (Which is why quite rightly more experienced teachers are paid more)

So they should do fine, if the school supports them well, but I think people should be allowed to be mildly apprehensive about having a NQT who has no track record with the school, and especially in schools where leadership isn't always great.

I myself am apprehensive, not around the teaching side, but the emotional management - picking up on whether a child is being left out of things etc, and then resolving issues.

teen, but NQTs, for example

• Have less time face to face each week (20% not 10% non contact time)
• Can't be asked to lead a subject
• May - depending on the school - be expected to do less in terms of after school and lunchtime colubs (though IME they do run these things, and do them excellently becaus thei interests are often closer to those of the children they teach - NQT does Street dance, Deputy Head with 20 years' experience does Country Dancing - guess which one is more popular?!)

Those are the things that, IME, justify the (small) differences in pay. There are many jobs where small pay rises are accrued as an employee has been there for longer - it doesn't necessarily imply that those in their first year are 'less good' (anecdotally, the seciond year of teaching is the really rtough one, where the extra time and the formaility of support and training drops away, and the NQT, particularly in a smnall school, may end up with a couple of subject responsibilities).

teacher Thanks for the further clarification. I was not aware they had more non contact time.

I have to say I am surprised that people don't seem to expect a teacher with 5 years experience to be 'better' than a newly qualified one. I can see that 10 years may not be better than 5 years, but I am very surprised that 5 years proper full time professional practice is not expected to lead to improvements.

Things I would have expected to improve:

• classroom management
• differentiation / setting correct level work
• spotting when a child is struggling
• handling emotional issues / spotting bullying etc

I am not saying I would expect an NQT to be poor at these, just that I would expect a teacher of 5 years to have learned what works well and what doesn't work well for them, how to spot small signs of things etc, and thus to have improved.

Teen,

My view would be that, while a good NQT will be an even better teacher after 5 years' practice, the starting point of an NQT is not low enough for any parent to worry IYSWIM?

Or, looked at another way, given the variation between teachers - and also the way the teacher / pupil match sometimes clicks or doesn't click in a particular year - it is not poassible to make any general statement along the lines of 'an NQT will be a less good teacher for my child this year than a teacher with 5 years' experience would be'.

An NQT will often develop hugely within the year. So it's not as if you have a whole year of 'less good classroom management'. You might have a few weeks where it is a little tricky, a couple of months of improvement, and 2.5 terms of it being absolutely fine.

If you were to turn uyour list round a bit, I would expect a teacher of 5 years' standing to be a little less:

• Energetic
• Innovative
• Keen to impress and develop
• Conscientious to the nth degree

than an NQT ... and those 'losses' may, for a particular child, counteract the gains that experience brings.

Millais, exactly. And as I said before, I think it's the second year - when that formal mentoring etc is no longer there - that many teachers find hardest.

Thank you. I shall now go away happy that my DD will have an NQT not an NQT+1 year!

One of the NQTs at my DDs school (well, she was an NQT 2 years ago when she started) has recently just earned a promotion to Head of Department in her subject. Another with only 4 years' experience has proved worthy of becoming an Assistant Head. When someone has 'got it', they've 'got it', NQT or not.

People do tend to worry unnecessarily about NQTs when they are more likely to be up to date with technology and current educational reforms (perhaps the cause of some people's concerns). Whether young and energetic (or mature student who has made the deliberate decision to make teaching the career of choice) most NQTs are going to do a pretty good job! And even experienced teachers can make mistakes, because every child and every cohort is different...what works with one, may well not work with another, so any good teacher (NQT or not) is always learning and improving, anyway (and teacher, I also hope that most experienced teachers are not jaded and waiting for retirement!!!)

I have never heard any parent worry that, because of a bad experience (or a friend's child's poor experience) with a male/experienced/mid-career teacher one year that the experience is likely to be repeated simply because the next year's teacher is also male/experienced/mid-career. Yet, one bad experience with an NQT somehow seems more likely to bring gloom and doom to perceptions about all NQTs...

Hope OPs DC has a wonderful Year 1 full of fun and inspiration to learn.

As a teacher I don't think NQTs are necessarily better, as they do lack the experience of older staff. However, they sometimes have advantages over older staffthey are also full of enthusiasm and usually keen to learn. They are usually given a mentor to help support them with anything but often it is to build confidence as much as anything. Certainly all those I have met have been talented and eager to develop so that they soon pick up tips from more experienced members of staff. interviews these days are extremely difficult and the head is likely to have watched them teach as part of the interview so they are probably fantastic. I don't think you have drawn the short straw at all.

The only issue I have found is that some of the general knowledge you might expect from a mum / experienced teacher around things like common childhood health issues just wasn't there. He was happy to be told, but just didn't know stuff that I had assumed was common knowledge.

Apart from that, energy and enthusiasm are great and the classroom always had amazing displays and stuff.

Just wanted to say "amazing displays" are usually the TAs domain,especially in the school I am one in. Teachers tell us what they want....we put them together. The NQT I was with this past year pretty much gave me free rein to do what I wanted...my displays are brilliant !

Much rather an NQT..trained in the latest teaching methods...than an old, tired, demotivated teacher.

My DC just had a NQT for reception and she's a brilliant teacher. Very enthusiastic, always providing meaningful feedback and the children adore her. Couldn't have asked for a better teacher.

She's probably in her mid - late 30s though.