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

Aren't they at least working towards level 3 childcare?

Big, I totally agree.

I think this thread shows:
a) most people have little understanding of content of current GCSE maths (or English)
b) most people have even less understanding of content of Level 2 Functional maths
c) no one except those involved can make head nor tail of the different qualifications around Early Years, what the pre-requisites are, what the course covers, and what the qualification entitles the holder to do

So there's a whole bunch of us having a discussion with holes in our knowledge and talking at cross purposes, whilst Mrz who started us all off has wandered away (probably to explain patiently but not very elaborately for the gazillionth time why phonics is better than mixed methods).

That's so funny! At least it hasn't turned into a heated debate re phonics as these threads usually do.
As a very old teacher, I genuinely want the best for every child of whatever age.

The poster that started this was confusing reception teachers and nursery nurses anyway!

The poster that started this was confusing reception teachers and nursery nurses anyway!

I think @Mrz was confusing us on purpose to see if we knew the difference between them all.
The thing is, Reception is Foundation stage, not KS1, so (and I'm still quite confused) I think the implication was that the rules aren't that different between 3&4 year olds in nursery, and 4&5 year olds in Reception...

tbh I'm not much the wiser, apart from being happy that Level 2 Functional Maths & English is quite thorough and a perfectly good enough standard for life (and thus ought to be the GCSE pass).

I don't know the intention of mrz, but I am sure she isn't confusing reception teacher and nursery teacher. She is the very experienced EY/ KS1 teacher, and I am sure she taught reception as well.

I'm sure she is a super duper teacher but she misunderstood the article she posted.

No Mrz wanted to check her theory that parents wouldn't care ...I won my bet so thanks again everyone

No Eden I'm not confusing reception teachers and nursery nurses (who are highly qualified and have gcse English and Maths)

Sure.

I still don't get why you posted a thread with a title saying would you care if a reception teacher had GCSEs, but then posted an article saying that nursery nurses wouldn't.

I saw lots of responses about nursery nurses, very few about reception teachers, and if you think a response about nursery nurses meant the respondee didn't know the difference between the reception teacher of your thread title or the nursery nurse of your article, I think actually they thought that you didn't know.

Something to do with an invalid hypothesis I think.

Maybe all Reception / Primary teachers should have a maths A Level. Maybe an acceptable percentage (25%) should even have maths degrees. Then they could worry about something other than being replaced by EYTs.

What's going on here? I expect my daughter's teachers, from early childhood (nursery/daycare) onwards to at least have degrees and training in teaching children. Its a very important job, needs to go to the most able.

Natsku teachers do have degrees and teaching qualifications, even EYTs. Op is being purposefully misleading in order to win a bet.

Damn misleaders. But from my recollection teachers only need any degree plus a PGCE - has that changed?

Because that's was the question I wanted to know the answer to noble

There seems to be a widespread belief that those who "teach" the very youngest children need the least qualifications.

However, Eden you seem to be confusing nursery nurses with TAs who work in a nursery

Of course . Maybe you could find another unrelated article to explain it?

Natsku

But you have to be careful what you are defining as 'teachers'

My DD is about to start a level 3 Early Years Educator apprenticeship. She needs GCSE passes in Maths & English (and actually has way more than that, including another unrelated Level 3 qualification). But she doesn't (and won't) have a degree.

Will she be 'teaching'? She will certainly be interacting with children on a day-to-day basis, reading them stories, talking about numbers etc.

But she will be acting under supervision from the room manager etc who have higher qualifications.

I don't think you got your answer from this thread, mrz as the first few posts said 'this isn't about reception teachers' and then discussed the requirements for nursery nurses, with most of the conversation that followed being about nursery nurses. For example you were talking to me about degrees, and I was talking about nursery nurses but from what you said later in the thread it sounds like we were talking at cross purposes. I was following the discussion already going on in the thread, you were talking about the thread title - which had already been corrected in post 2.

That's true TeenAndTween I'd only expect the lead member of staff to be the 'proper' teacher and have a degree, not all the staff. DD's nursery class has one main teacher with an education degree, and then several 'child nurses' who have vocational training in early years care.

The fact that most people haven't bothered to answer the question says a great deal Noble ...

No, it really doesn't, mrz because you don't get to dictate how a discussion flows, even if you start the thread. People click on a thread because a title looks interesting (which is why you should click bait your titles to some extent), but they contribute to the discussion in the thread which is ongoing and out of your hands.

You know how annoying it is when people jump into a thread into the middle of a discussion only to reply to the OP and completely ignore what has gone before? You weren't even expecting people to do that, you were expecting people to ignore the link in your OP which was irrelevant to your thread title and only respond to your thread title.

That's not how discussion forums work.

Have to agree with noble. I like your minimalist posting style, but you can't expect us to answer your question without any question!
Title and just the link which doesn't support your question in title really didn't make sense to me!