Unqualified teacher increase of 60% in last 4 years

[noblegiraffe]

The latest workforce survey appears to show that more than 5% of teachers are now unqualified. I really doubt they are all experts with PhDs who just couldn't be bothered to get QTS, and that children are being short-changed because the government keeps failing to meet its own recruitment targets and qualified teachers are leaving the profession in ever-increasing numbers.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40720697

I just realised that you said that the assessment-only applicants receive a bespoke training programme. Yet the assessment-only route is specifically for teachers who don't need additional training.

How odd.

Just because you know your subject doesn't mean you can teach. Just because you have been trained to teach, doesn't mean you can teach. Good teachers are becoming a rare breed but those who can teach can teach pretty much anything (A levels aside). Granted, although I am an outstanding teacher you don't want me teaching maths but I'm fine with teaching year 10 citizenship next year because that department is understaffed. I am a good teacher and I will work my arse off to make it work. Give me an Oxbridge graduate or any other graduate who understands that and I'll give you a good teacher.

I'm a good maths teacher but I'd be a terrible English teacher. It's an entirely different skill to get kids discussing or analysing or writing extended essays to getting them solving a page of quadratics.

I was shit at citizenship too.

Maths is easy though.

Oh god give me English any day! I teach Psychology as my specialism and I dread doing inferential statistics. I think people are either maths brains or English brains! Although if I had to teach KS3 maths I'd give it a good shot, and just try and stay one lesson ahead of the kids!

My DD is being taught maths by a PE teacher. And PE by a PE technician (which for those of you who don't work in school is somebody who looks after the PE equipment and changing rooms)

I'd rather she was taught maths by an unqualified teacher with a maths degree.

Teach first aren't qualified teachers the first year. Same with SCIT. How many of this 5% are people like that who are being trained and supported on the job? Possibly most of them.

Shrug. Look at the responses on here. People couldn't give a shit about their kids education so long as its cheap/less taxes. Depressing.

PaintingByNumbers

Don't agree with everything you stated, I believe most parents are interested in their kids education, but few understand how education is delivered in a school and yes, would baulk and extra tax to pay for it.
Oddly though, the parents of 7% of children realise that a decent education costs more the the state is prepared to pay for, and send their kids to private school. (although I accept some do it out of pure snobbery).

His school has a 94% A/A rate at GCSE (across all gcses) so I guess it works for them.*

And I suppose being a Super Selective has nothing to do with that...

The irony is that most of those pupils will be privately tutored as well, propping up the teaching.

How much better could they have been with proper training?

I absolutely agree that good training is desirable and likely to produce better teachers. The problem for me, however, is the number of teachers who feel that their PGCE was not just a waste of time, but positively detrimental to their teaching - that they became much better teachers when they realised that much of what they had been taught on their training course was wrong.

There's been a lot of threads on Twitter making this very point over the last week, with teachers talking about their experiences of the PGCE. Some courses are reportedly excellent, but others are reported as being even a few years ago still stuck in the past, ignoring or dismissive of cognitive science and related evidence-based approaches. With something like 50 different teacher training institutions, the quality still appears to be variable, a point made by the Carter Review of teacher training two years ago.

The Carter Review also pointed out specific areas of weakness, particularly in providing effective training on behaviour management. This is also something that comes up over and over again in blogs and on social media, including having been taught on their PGCE that the main cause of disruptive behaviour is boredom, and that teachers are therefore to blame for it because their lessons are not sufficiently 'engaging'.

Ideas like this, along with one-sided promotion of 'constructivist' teaching methods, had a stranglehold on much teacher training for a long time, and IMO have done a lot of damage to education in this country. We really have no idea to what extent that's changed, so it's inevitable that there will still be scepticism about its value.

Kestrel - absolutely. I was reading an article on TES this week about exactly that.

my DS firmly believes his best teachers are the ones who either didn't do a PGCE (teach first) or who no longer follow what they were taught on PGCE.

PaintingByNumbers - I don't want education on the cheap. I want brilliant teachers in every subject in every school. But how are we going to achieve that? Throwing money at the problem won't achieve that - although I'd also like schools to have more money. But I don't think more money would bring better teachers with the current problems schools face.

On MN I don't think I've ever heard a teacher say they're leaving due to money. Nor a potential applicant put off by the money. It's stress, workload, bullying by SLT and poor behaviour by pupils which is constantly talked about.

Teach first aren't qualified teachers the first year. Same with SCIT. How many of this 5% are people like that who are being trained and supported on the job? Possibly most of them.

I just looked at the figures. Only 21% of unqualified teachers are working towards QTS, so about 4% of teachers are unqualified and not working towards qualification.

In 2010 15% of unqualified teachers were working towards QTS so there has been an increase in the proportion due to the government focus on school-based training routes, but the 60% increase in unqualified teachers since 2012 means there's a large increase in the number of unqualified teachers not working towards qualification.

I start as a cover supervisor in sept. Genuinely terrified now. I've done it because I can't survive on a TA wage, and the school is eager to put me through teacher training. However I don't know if I want to teach due to the abysmal way teachers are treated. However reading this has made me away that I'll probably receive a frosty reception from teaching collleagues too now.

What do you propose is the solution? I don't bloody have one. Apart from look closely at the kind of government we keep voting in.

Aware*

A cover supervisor isn't an unqualified teacher. Cover supervisors aren't meant to teach. Are you going to be paid as a cover supervisor while being trained as a teacher?

Amateur don't be worried about the reception from other staff. I'm a qualified teacher (BEd and QTS) and I appreciate what cover sups do. A confidence to go and teach all of the subjects in school is amazing!

Interestingly, in Finland over 10% of teachers are unqualified for ages 8-16:

www.oph.fi/download/166755_teachers_in_finland_statistical_brochure.pdf

On the other hand, they have textbooks for most subjects throughout those years, I believe, so there is essentially a ready-made scheme of work to follow (I'm still totally bemused at the expectation here that teachers should burn themselves out by constantly reinventing the wheel). Finnish teachers say they spend the time freed up by not having to make their own resources etc in ensuring that slower learners keep up.

On 'is training necessary - or helpful - for most teachers?'

I think it depends on a number of things:

1. The person themselves. Some people - my DBro is one - are natural teachers. He has been in some kind of role in which he has instructed others in something from the age of about 12. Others have the potential to be good teachers, but need shaping. The latter group are far more numerous.

1. The type of teaching. For an Oxbridge Physics graduate to teach an A-level set in a selective school (whether state or private), subject knowledge is almost certainly sufficient. For the same person to teach a mixed ability mixed Science class of Y8s in a comprehensive, knowledge of 'teachercraft' in all its aspects will be much more important. For an Oxbridge PhD scientist to teach all subjects in primary to a fully mixed ability class including 20% SEN (that would be me) requires very significant additional knowledge of teaching and subjects way outside my degrees.

1. The short term damage to pupils schools are prepared to put up with. Nobody teaches consistently well in their very first week in the classroom, and for a wholly untrained teacher, that period may go on for longer, especially if (as is common in primary, for example) lesson planning is individual rather than following a fixed and resourced scheme. In teacher training and associated teaching practice, graduated and supervised practice in a class with another teacher is the norm - and weeds out those who fail - which limits the damage possible to classes and children's progress. Just throwing an unqualified teacher in and letting them 'sink or swim' could leave a lot of pieces to be picked up afterwards.

Not all training is beneficial to all teachers. However, if we do think that some training ISN'T beneficial, surely the best thing to do is improve the training, not say 'Oh, training is completely unnecessary, let's just drop a bunch of people into classrooms and see who survives'? I mean, if, say, a particular nursing training course isn't producing very good nurses, we don't go 'Oh, that's OK, we'll just take people in and put them unsupervised into wards to learn their trade - they have the Biology qualifications needed to start the course and they'll pick the rest up along the way, it'll be OK'...

I'm still totally bemused at the expectation here that teachers should burn themselves out by constantly reinventing the wheel

kesstrel, it would be very interesting to know how often the Finnish curriculum and qualifications have changed, and how extensively they are trialled before being used.

In England, just ver the last couple of years, we have had:

• Total change of the primary curriculum (unsupported by any materials or trialling, and in many subjects with the absolute bare minimum of information)

• Total rethink of AS levels

• Total change of A-levels

• Ongoing total revision of GCSEs

None of the last 3 have been properly trialled either, with final changes to specs and assessment schemes for new GCSEs still going on a couple of months before the exam. That means that those companies that did ruysh to produce textbooks etc have created books that5 are already out of date, only a couple of months after the very first exams have been taken.

KS3, as far as I know, has not formally changed (not my area), but of course with new KS2 and new GCSEs, is having to change piecemeal in response.

In this environment, of course schools and teacher have to create their own planning - there ARE no up to date textbooks, no money to buy them (especially since they may have a lifetime of months), and change is constant.

If the government fixed all curricula for a sensible period and agreed to proper trialling before any changes so they could be properly implemented with supporting materials and resources, then yes, we could be more like the Finnish system. It's not teachers' wish to continue to create, and continually re-create, silk out of sows' ears....

Nobody teaches consistently well in their very first week in the classroom

You misspelled 'week', I think you meant 'year'!

Everyone's a bit shit when they start out. In Japan you are considered a novice if you've taught less than ten years!

Yes, there is a cost to the kids having a stream of unqualified teachers dropped on them with no official training or proper support. But it's cheap!

Some people - my DBro is one - are natural teachers

I don't believe there are natural teachers who don't need any training. Yes there are people who are better from the start because they are better at explaining things, have a better way with the kids or whatever, but that doesn't mean they have nothing to learn about teaching. And they will still have loads to learn about the curriculum!

Noble, I know - but for those who think 'it's OK just to drop an unqualified graduate in because it works for a very bright class of GCSE physicists', suggesting that even a qualified teacher takes years to learn their trade well might be seen to indicate that the training isn't necessary, rather than that the job is very hard to do well...

amateur
Is this in a secondary where you already worked as a TA?
As a cover supervisor you should not be having to plan lessons.
You are responsible for maintaining a working atmosphere and trying to keep the kids on task.
In terms of delivery, yes it's great when LCRs can add to the lesson and interact with the kids (better results than simply writing a page reference on the board) but first and foremost: classroom control and kids engaged.
Your colleagues should be supportive. You need to make it clear that, especially for known absences, you expect a solid lesson plan and a seating plan with defined outcomes and the appropriate materials not just ECI (educational colouring in) or a word search.
Your bursar should provide a budget for your emergency "kit" (basket of pens, scissors, felts, crayons, glue, stamper/stickers).
Usual routines you observe: coats off, bags on floor, planners out and open...make sure you have the power to put any child into the SMT/SLT detention if messing about, do this a couple of times and kids won't think "Supply" every time they see you. Make sure pastoral leaders are on board with you making a few phone calls home in the first half term re any child's misbehaviour: word will get round fast and you will have fewer discipline issues to deal with as a result.
Hopefully you have a deputy/senior teacher as your direct boss/mentor. Ask them to keep you off covering registers until you are happy with how it's all going. You will be attending the staff insets presumably. Some days will be full-on, other weeks not so much: ask that the person i/c of cover does allow you some non-contact time when possible so that you can chase up lesson plans in advance, give written feedback, look over plans, make calls, update resource folder etc otherwise you may be used as a TA/LS when not covering and it becomes a full timetable but not at day to day supply rates. You should also not be covering long term illness (ie morecthan three days).

Noble, my DBro did teacher training, an MEd and NCSL [or whatever it's called] headteacher training, on top of an Oxbridge Physics degree, so I would absolutely agree that training can improve even the most natural teacher.

In other words, although he is about the only person I can think of who would have been a perfectly adequate teacher, of almost anything, with no training, he is still better because he has been trained.

Outliers of this type don't make good examples, though - 1 person in a school who is an excellent teacher though unqualified does not mean that this should be the routine process for creating new teachers.

(I would also say that the thing those courses clearly didn't cover well was personal mental health. He was a very, very young head of one of the most challenging schools in the country and has thus had years building back up again from a complete mental breakdown)

I'm a consistently 'good' teacher and I absolutely think that professional training is needed to set expected standards as part of being a profession. Ergo- the increased use of unqualified teachers is part of the continued degradation of the teaching profession. If anyone who has a degree can do it then why bother with professional development or teaching standards.
A good PGCE course is very valuable as a starting point in professional development- mainly because it lets you experience different forms of pedagogy. I find our new starters who did Teach First are ingrained by the (sometimes extremely odd) methods advocated in their training schools. We've had three and they were arrogant ( I got a first so I know more than you) and stubborn (well my training school didn't do that and they were amazing).