Should your child's reception teacher have GCSE maths and English?

[mrz]

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/dfe-drops-gcse-maths-and-english-requirement-early-years-educators

Early Years Teacher is in the title too but they don't have QTS

^*I posted this earlier

"^Pestilent i posted because in a discussion elsewhere I said I didn't think parents would care or know the difference between a Early Years Teacher's qualification and a teacher, teaching in the early years ...seems I was correct."*

Still seems as if I was correct

From the original link I'm assuming you didn't bother to read

"The Early Years Workforce Strategyegy_ also says that the government wants to increase the number of specialist early years teachers and is consulting on amending regulations to allow early years specialists to lead nursery and reception classes in maintained schools. ^"*

Leading nursery classes - absolutely fine. No need for maths/English GCSE in that position as long as they are have basic levels of literacy & numeracy.

Reception class - not going to happen as recrption teachers have to teach other years but wouldn't be the end of the world as long as they had an understanding of how to teach age appropriate work within the realms of the curriculum.

I do wish nursery wouldn't be described as a class or school though. Learning through play & exploration is what it should be about.

The new GCSE's in maths and English are extremely challenging. I wonder if that's contributed to this development.

Alexander it's described as a class because in a school nursery is a class where children learn through a play based curriculum just as they do in the reception class

But the article in the OP says

"The specialists have to meet the same entry requirements as trainee primary school teachers and receive extra training to deliver the Early Years Foundation Status for children aged between one and five."

So the specialists who would be allowed to teach Reception would need GCSE Maths and English (and Science) and a degree, but the Level 3 hires who are needed to be able to offer the government's 30 free hours would only need functional skills.

Not sure why there would be a concern about reception teachers having functional skills given these details?

Specialist early years teachers have maths and english GCSEs.

So back to the initial question. Should your child's reception teacher have GCSE Maths and English? Yes they should and yes they do and yes they will have under this scheme.

L3 practitioners are not teachers.Some will not doubt become teachers but only with lots of extra training which will include Maths and English GCSEs.

College and Uni lecturers don't have to have QTS either, but they can get it if they do enough CPD.

I'm assuming op means pre school and nursery workers?
I would like my children's pre school key worker to really enjoy working with children and be creative in their teaching methods and provide learning through play

My children have had plenty of teachers who couldn't spell/use grammar etc and that's a far more important issue for me personally

I know why it's described as a class but I wish it wasn't described as a class.

My child's nursery incidentally (in an academic prep school) wasn't described as a class.

No badders I mean your child's Key Person in their reception class (effectively their prime teacher in school)

Why are you worried about Reception teachers not having GCSEs when the article is about nursery nurses Mrz?

Are you confusing Early Years Educators (level 3 qualified nursery nurses) with Early Years Teachers (GCSEs, degree, postgraduate qualification)?

Didn't a piece of research published in the last couple of weeks find there was no correlation bw the academic qualifications held by nursery school teachers and early years outcomes? Makes sense to me - being able to work very well with young children is a very different skill set from maths GCSE.

Yes, found it. TES Feb 13th 2017. Sorry can't link.

Eden have you read the whole article?

But this is about Early Years Educators- in a Reception class that will be the TA; The teaching assistant who supports the class teacher.

As long as they have a decent level of spelling and grammar, Early Years Educators really don't need to be that great at maths. They're probably supporting children who are having difficulty recognising numbers to 20.

I know several KS2 TAs who don't have English & Maths gcse at grade C .

mrz it's very hard to figure out what you are on about when your OP doesn't contain a post, merely a link, and your subsequent posts are just telling people that they're wrong.

How about your next post is more than one line of your own writing?

Yes I have, and I think you might have misunderstood it. The part about GCSEs relates to nursery nurses. The part about Reception and Nursery classes relates to specialist Early Years teachers who hold EYTS not QTS. Currently teachers with EYTS can only work in free and academy schools but the government is looking at extending that to reception and nursery classes in maintained schools.

Teachers with EYTS have the same GCSE requirements as those with QTS.

No need for maths/English GCSE in that position as long as they are have basic levels of literacy & numeracy.

But surely a C grade at maths and English GCSE is "basic levels of literacy and numeracy

As long as you can string a sentence together and do arithmetic you can get a C grade at GCSE.

As long as you can string a sentence together and do arithmetic you can get a C grade at GCSE.

Er, no. No you can't.

Well, I got a B at GCSE despite knowing no actual maths whatsoever - I have a friend who I would class as innumerate who got a C. From what I can see it's the same with English.

As long as you can string a sentence together and do arithmetic you can get a C grade at GCSE.

I'm with nobel foundation level GCSE Maths now includes factorising quadratics. And the English includes comprehension.

When was that Katherina? I got a C in Maths & A in English with little effort but I'm now supporting my children through the new GCSE's & they are hard.

My dh struggled to get GCSE grade C in maths as his mind doesn't work in a mathematical way. At college he eventually managed to get it via a much more practical based, everyday life syllabus. He's one on the best (secondary & higher ed) teachers I know.