Teaching to stop being a graduate-only profession - 18 year old teachers.

[noblegiraffe]

There were rumblings about this a while ago when the apprenticeship levy was introduced, but it looks like Justine Greening is going to introduce an apprencticeship route into teaching.

schoolsweek.co.uk/greening-teaching-will-cease-to-be-only-for-university-graduates/

I'm very concerned that in secondary schools, specialist subject knowledge won't be a pre-requisite for going into the classroom, it will be seen as something that can be picked up across the years, shortchanging the classes who get the apprentice in the first few years of the training (how long is an apprenticeship?).

In primary school, the education of a class for a full year could fall to someone just out of school themselves.

This isn't just about training on-the-job, we already have that as a route into teaching. This is about deprioritising a certain level of education for teachers and devaluing the profession. It's saying you don't need to be well-educated to teach, because you could be teaching straight out of school. The 'learning how to teach' part of any teacher training programme is so intense, that acquiring degree-level subject knowledge will certainly not be a priority from the start.

The wage for apprentices means this is just another way for schools to get teachers on the cheap and hang the consequences for education.

And knowing how many parents already view young teachers, fresh out of uni and just finished their PGCE, how will they take to having their child being taught by someone who hasn't even been to university?

Now my eyes have been opened as to how little some teachers know or care about apprenticeships
When done well they are excellent. In my last career I trained on the job and it was a great experience.

People are getting their backs up and loving an opportunity to suggest teachers are snobs and voice the chips on their shoulders.

What most of us are saying is we have NO ISSUE with work based routes into teaching, but that subject knowledge is crucial (for a start it is one of the teacher standards).

There are ALREADY work based routes into teaching.
They require a degree before because to teach well you need strong subject knowledge.

Unfortunately some of you are too busy getting into a 'snobby teachers hate apprenticeships' hype to consider that almost every reform in the last 10 years has been rushed through, pooly considered with implications for students.

Many of us are simply not convinced that a teaching apprenticeship would equip trainees with the required subject knowledge to teach well and many of us have seen trainees already propping up understaffed department (which isn't good for the trainee or the children).

As i said earlier, if the apprenticeship was a 3-4 yesr course for experienced school staff that blended degree level subject knowledge with phased in placements and was properly funded and resourced then I'd be sold. But the DfE's track record tells me it won't be lile that.

This thread has been an absolute eye opener as far as what teachers REALLY think of apprenticeships.

you missed out the word teaching before apprenticeships.

Exactly boney.

But this is MN where most children are super academic, must do 20 GCSES (preferably early) and couldn't possibly thrive in your average comp, where people regularly demand to see the head becauae they are pedagogical experts and feel they have a right to complain about any element of school life and yet any discussion about the suitability of apprenticeships for a particular job only proves how snobby and out of touch teachers are.

It's madness.

Apprenticeships can be brilliant. I have experience of young people entering law and accountancy apprenticeships. These are well thought out and well funded. These are also professions where the job you do on day 1 is very, very different than the job you do on day 100,001.

Apprenticeships can be brilliant. Poorly funded apprenticeships used for cheap labour are exploitative and awful.

Consistently and persistently a variety of governments has underfunded education and devalued teaching. This particular government has been inept when introducing changes to the exam system.

Teachers don't trust the government and this is an evidence based response.

Piggy

Ah, the teaching isn't real life trope!! We meet the very widest range of real life people in teaching.

Of course it's real life. I didn't claim that teaching isn't real life. Those are your words. However, teaching is the only profession which enables people to spend their entire lives from nursery to retirement in the same system and set of institutions. In my experience, many teachers would benefit from a short time outside the system. Outside perspective.

I swear I know far more about real life than anyone I know

That's quite a big claim. I'm pretty sure that e.g. your doctor meets a similar range of real life people in the course of their work. Along with nurses, social workers, health visitors, police officers etc.

I don't mean to be unnecessarily critical. However this sort of claim only damages respect for the profession. It does reinforce my opinion that many teachers would benefit from a short time outside education.

I would imagine this will go the same way as the other bright ideas politicians have had to sort out the teacher recruitment crisis over the last few years.

Things like 'troops to teachers', getting retired teachers back into the classroom, parachuting teachers from Outstanding schools (or even independent schools) into failing deprived coastal schools haven't had much success, have they? Will this be any different?! I'm sure there have been other brilliant ideas which someone can remind me of.

I guess the detail will reveal all. What qualifications will these apprentices actually need if they don't have a degree? Will they need 3/4 A* at A level? Somehow I think that's unlikely. Hell-if they don't need a degree, do they even NEED A levels?! What about just a C grade at maths/English gcse? Especially if they are 'only' going to teach KS1 which is basically just childcare (joke).

Will apprentices be supernumerary or will they have a class?

Will the teachers in the school who are expected to train, observe and mentor them, get adequate training, release time and pay?

I can't help but think the government is aiming for some sort of giant kids club, manned by 18-22 year olds on an apprentice wage, 51 weeks a year, 8am-6pm.

Yes the poor teenage teachers being chewed up and spat out by year 9 on a Friday afternoon is traumatising. Everyone, every teacher, has had lessons that make you want to pack your bag and go.

The emotional devastation that could wreak on an 18 year old is awful to contemplate. In a well organised, well funded, well thought through system that wouldn't happen. Implemented by the DfE there will be a trail of broken young people cast the wayside.

Sorry, Peng x posts. I meant pestilentialone. She seems determined to bring this down to teachers not understanding apprenticeships rather than actually engaging with any of the points about funding or anything else.

I appreciate that there are companies that pay apprentices well, but I'd love to know how many public sector apprenticeships are paid that way. I doubt it's many judging by the job searching I've been doing for the last week.

It seems a particularly bizarre move when the current evidence seems to be suggesting that subject knowledge is an important predictor of outcomes even at primary. Having subject specialists in school is important.

Most people have gone through the school system. Surely they know how it works :)

If I am asked to baby sit some fresh out of college kids, I will print out my resignation and hand it in. The amount of extra unpaid work that goes with mentoring trainees and NQTs is bad enough even though they have the subject knowledge to a decent level. Imagine doing that and more.

Teachers are already working at or beyond their capacity and the limit of the timetable. Who will be given time off to mentor apprentices or will they be asked to do it on top of their normal teaching timetable?

People like me, with a strong degree in STEM subjects can walk away without much problem. Where will it leave the people left behind? How would that address the shortage in these subjects? In non-STEM subjects, it is becoming more and more difficult to recruit.

The last two pcge students we had at my school had dropped out by Christmas-they had needed spoon-feeding all the way and hours spent mopping up copious amounts of tears.

I can see this being a conveyor belt of young people (as let's face it-who else could afford to do an apprenticeship on £3.50 an hour aside from those still living at home) who are simply going to be fodder.

Rafals RTFT I tried to go into the apprentice levy and higher level apprenticeships yesterday. Also the role of IQAs and EQAs, not to mention assessors, awarding bodies and OFSTED. They are all involved in quality assurance. Any school putting an 18 yo in charge of a class would be deemed as requiring improvement.

Apprenticeships can be brilliant. Poorly funded apprenticeships used for cheap labour are exploitative and awful
This. And it is true in any situation.

In my experience, many teachers would benefit from a short time outside the system. Outside perspective
Many of us do. And even those who've not worked outsidr have friends/ family who do.
I don't get this 'i work in the real world. Teachers no nothing about life' thing. It's the sort of crap that's spewed out when someonr with no idea about teaching is justifying their ability to comment on something they know very little about.

Appuskidu
I mentor and train trainees at the moment. It's tough on new graduates at 21, let alone those without those extra years. Like many mentors I don't get extra pay or time but at least most of the trainees we get are reasonably competent, mature and ready to train.

If the job becomes experienced staff propping up a revolving door of inexperienced, non specialist apprentices on top of actually teaching my classes then I'll be leaving teaching.

A teaching apprenticeship could be great if it is well designed, give good subject grounding and is for those with extensive experience. Anything else to me is just lowering thr bar with thr hope that these young recruits will be trained to unquestioningly deliver whatever pre-bought lessons have been ordered, work insane hours, get indoctrinated into 'at this MAT we do it this way' and becomr so used to it that they won't seek union advice, will accept excessive hours etc and thrn burn out only to be replaced with another round of new young things.
(Some schools are already like that with NQTs!)

Pestilentialone

And yet the quality assurance isn't there.

If it follows the usual route that is taken in education, it will change every 6 - 12 months at the drop of a hat and every time the minister for education changes.

There will be little or no support for those mentoring and even less for the students doing the apprenticeship.

Pestilentialone

Any school putting an 18 yo in charge of a class would be deemed as requiring improvement

Ideally yes. In the perfect world you live in this would be correct. In the well organised, well funded, well planned world you live in you are entirely correct.

However, in the fact based world teachers live in we know for an absolute fact the rules change and merge and slip and some poor 18 year old is going to get exploited and broken. And it is teachers who will have to watch it happen and mop up the results.

That's quite a big claim. I'm pretty sure that e.g. your doctor meets a similar range of real life people in the course of their work. Along with nurses, social workers, health visitors, police officers etc.

I did think about adding that but. actually no - perhaps medical professionals aside, they meet people in very particular circumstances and have the sharp end. teachers meet people form across the entire range of life's spectrums. Only we meet the parents, siblings , other professionals etc involved with almost every single child we teach... we don't just meet these people when things go wrong. Whih makes us pretty privileged.

I do actually know a few police officers and a couple of nurses. I think I meet a wider range of 'life' than they do, on the whole. But, that said, they are quite often told they need to understand the 'real world' too, I hear.

Anyway, any nonsense about he real world isn't relaevant to any discussion on apprenticeships. I agree that the thought of an 18 year old, leaving school, then going to work in a(probably their own!) school before getting a job in (The same!) school is a narrow life experience.

I don't agree that by devoting my entire life to education , I have a narrow and restricted view of life. I have learnt more form teaching than I could ever hope to learn.

We actually had an apprentice bursar in a school I am connected with. We have apprentice TAs in my own school. In both cases, they came quickly to understand that they would receive little to no actual high quality mentoring and trailing and they quit.

I agree with whoever said it's just another government passing fad.

It was appu : you hit he nail on the head.

We have Teachers For tomorrow at my place. Sixth former volunteer helpers who work their way up to teaching a lesson It is supposed to inspire them to take up teaching post uni. There is, of course, a teacher ever present in the classroom. Some are great and can manage 15 year olds perfectly well, I have to say.

It's a good scheme but they mainly do I for UCAS! Lots drop out - because they can easily- I reckon the drop out rate from apprenticeships will be high.

Won't they apply to a uni and actually spend 3 -4 days a week there and do a couple of days at a selected school at first, perhaps?

There's already a route for prospective teachers to spend the majority of their time at uni getting their knowledge up to scratch with the odd bit of time in school in increasing amounts with increasing class responsibility. It's the Bachelor of Education, and students pay tuition fees to do one. No way is any school going to pay apprentice wages for a student to spend most of their time at uni, and unis won't offer the teaching lectures for free.

If a school is paying an apprentice, they'll be putting them to work for their money. Schools don't have the time or resources to put on the theory/subject knowledge classs put on by the universities. The apprentice would undoubtedly be used up and spat out.

Look at the assessment-only route designed as a three month tick box exercise to award experienced teachers who trained elsewhere QTS. Schools are hiring unqualified cheap staff with little or no experience and sticking them straight in front of classes with the promise of putting them through the assessment-only route if they survive 2 years (and probably fobbing them off if they do because they don't want to pay qualified teacher wages). They call this teacher training, but it's not. It's exploitation.

Lots drop out - because they can easily- I reckon the drop out rate from apprenticeships will be high

I agree. I'm on a supply teacher forum (I'm not a supply teacher but I was considering it) and the numbers of teachers joining there, having quit their permanent jobs, on a monthly basis is frightening! They aren't putting up with the current bollocks that is education and they're being paid good money. I really can't see many people putting up with it on £3.50 an hour.

As ever, the government are missing the point and need to address retention rather than just trying to find endless ways of putting a warm body in front of a class. I'm suprisd they haven't yet tried plugging them all into computers with headphones all day. The only problem with that is that computers are expensive too...!