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?

I don't know who brought it up, by the way, but it was very clearly explained to you that some schools are taking advantage of this route to put unqualified in any country teachers (usually from the EU or North America) in front of classes. Take a trip to any school in Luton if you don't believe that. This was sued to illustrate the idea that hard pressed schools will take advantage of cheap apprenticeship schemes, not to knock experienced overseas teachers. If I understood that, why can't you madge ?

I have to be honest, I have worked with two teachers with o/s qualifications. Both had to do the UK qualification thing. It took both of them longer than that to get their heads around the very different education system that operates in our country. But, unlike a junior apprentice, they did know the pedagogical underpinning and had degrees.

But that person as defending you madge !!!! She was saying she feels more intellectual and that 'qualified ' teachers are often a bit thick....which you also seem to think...

E.g. madge this job advert ryedaleschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Advert-for-Website-English-DT2.pdf

An unqualified teacher working for two years on a crappy pay scale before they can gain QTS (which would be the assessment-only route). The school is cheating these people. They could be qualified after one year on Schools Direct which is a salaried and recognised teacher training programme. It is absolutely appalling that schools are doing this.
There are plenty of schools out there willing to screw people over for cheap labour.

Do these overseas people have degrees?

How is this any different to SCITT training then? Did I miss your outcry about that on this thread?

Madge With SCITT, the trainee will already have a degree. Furthermore, most SCITT trainees will have a substantial degree of classroom experience: as a TA, HLTA, or working overseas as a teacher.

Madge , this thread really is not about overseas teachers.

Feel free to start one.

you know, I am tired of explaining and justifiying and jumping through hoops for English people

I made the mistake of responding to a post that belittled overseas trained teachers and directly lumped them in as the professional equivalents of entirely untrained 18 year olds.

I won’t do that again in a hurry. The English education system as I see it is in a race to the bottom. Good luck to you all, you’ll surely need it

Oops. I see the conversation has moved on. Please ignore my post.

I'm not English madge

This use to be the system in my home country. MIL went to teacher training college at age 16 and was in front of a classroom at 17. Common for many teachers of her era.

she's not a very good teacher. Neither was her brother, also a primary school teacher.

Crap idea. I would be massively unimpressed to have an 18 year old in charge of my children. There is an issue of classroom control and bloody well life experience.

I live in a country now where teacher training is a postgraduate degree and highly valued. Because teachers are incredibly important. How about that for an idea?!

Fucking tories.... when will people stand up against this shit and the absolute devaluation of EDUCATION?

No-the cat from Japan, I think your point is valid and related to the OP.

I think the issue here is whether or not people should be teaching without a degree. Justine Greening says

“I’ve been quite clear in my mind that I do think we need to make sure that the profession is highly regarded and is seen as a high-status profession.”

I guess the question is, are there many 'high status' professions where you don't need a degree?

Here's why I brought up the assessment-only route. For clarification.

There were teachers with plenty of experience teaching, either overseas or in private schools. They need QTS to get paid as qualified teachers. The assessment-only route was designed so that they could start teaching in a state school, have someone check that they were indeed up to the job, then be awarded QTS. Mainly a formality. You need at least two years experience to go through it.
It has been totally bastardised by unscrupulous schools who are using it to get people with no teaching qualifications or experience to work in their school for poor pay for 2+ years, not on any recognised training route, saying that they can get QTS eventually. Outrageous.

Then we have TAs with loads of experience but no degree. How can we get them to become teachers without having to take years and loads of time out of the classroom to get a degree before training? Wouldn't an apprenticeship be a fab idea?
Hands up who thinks that the original aim to help these TAs will be twisted to get cheap people in classrooms for as many years as they can screw out of them?

@MadgeMidgerson - you didn’t read my post at all did you? Stop being so defensive. I don’t want to be a teacher - doesn’t stop me from getting offers of ‘training contracts’ from private schools plus salaries of 40-50k plus because having a economist on your staff is good publicity. But state schools prefer graduates even if they only have a 3rd class hons degree followed by a pgce.

I've been looking up various BEd programmes because people are saying that 18 year olds are already in the classroom.
The vast majority of time is spent in uni acquiring subject knowledge and the actual time in schools is about the same as a PGCE, spread over 3 years. In the first year, it's probably a couple of weeks observing.
So nothing like having an 18 year old apprentice working in a school all year.

I'm keeping my hand down, but only because I don't believe the original aim was to help TAs.

They have a recruitment crisis and need to get x number of apprentices by 2020. This kills 2 birds with one stone.

Whatever happened to improving the education system by getting the 'brightest and best'?

I don't believe the original aim was to help TAs.

Probably not, but it'll be how it's sold. I've seen posters on MN in that scenario. Not sure if real posters or think tanks testing the waters.

First year of my BEd involved 1 week before the start of uni observing with a set of things we had to observe.

2 weeks at the end of autumn term in a paired placement with 3-4tasks we had to carry out with a small group. But mostly observing and supporting groups during lessons planned and taught by the class teacher.

A 6 week placement at the end of the summer term as a paired placement where we did some whole class teaching which would have involved planning some sequences of lessons in literacy or numeracy but was mostly one off lessons.

2nd and 3rd year were both 8 week placements where we had increasing responsibility for planning and assessment.

4th year was the first time we had full responsibility for all the planning, teaching and assessment for the 75% contact time.

Isn't it much more likely that schools will use the levy to fund TA courses especially since there is already a well respected route with the STAL route.

I've been worried for some time about the standard of teaching in primary schools. I worked for a couple of years as a mentor in local secondary schools and the number of kids who didn't even know their times tables was pretty alarming. Primary teachers are laying the foundations for children in core subjects. I know one primary teacher who regularly uses "could of, should of, would of," in her fb posts. That's basic grammar that she'll be teaching to her class! 😳😕

I've got a feeling the number of kids not know their times tables has more to do with it being seen as a tick box exercise so one children have 'ticked them off' they don't get tested on them. For many children this will be in yr 4. Hopefully the arithmetic test on the new SATs might change that.

I don't think it's necessarily to do with the quality of teachers.

Just to go back a few pages and respond to the 'real life' thing:

To be clear, I didn't bring up the phrase 'real life'. I know that teachers exist in real life. 'Real life' was the term used by piggy and I responded to her argument.

Piggy, I'm still not convinced that we can generalise about teachers having the widest experience of life!

Maisy, my opinion is based on plenty of IRL experience, thanks. You disagree. That's okay.

I don't want to derail the thread any further. We agree on plenty of other points.

No, probably not : but maybe we have met the widest spectrum of people and have the privilege of seeing them grow and change .

That's quite a special thing. Not sure I needed to spend four years being, say, a journalist, to be a better teacher.

But, yes, I agree , we agree on the basics!

just a bit fed up with people suggesting I am in some locked away bubble

I think rae is right, though, that this CAN be a problem won't mention the A level teacher I work with

I can only see apprenticeships making that issue worse.

Honestly the amount of ignorance and hyperbole on this thread is depressing - from posters whose opinion I respect and value as well. As Donald would say - 'sad'.

There has been absolutely no indication whatsoever that 18 year olds are going to put in front of year 11s teaching them GCSE maths. IT WONT HAPPEN. If the secondary apprenticeship standard allows that then I'll join everyone else and agree it's crap. But I can virtually guarantee it won't.

And the people saying 'who'll pay the university fees for apprentices' - You let yourself down with your ignorance - Google 'Apprenticeship Levy' and find out how it works.

What do you think will happen titchy out of interest?

I ask because I think our principal would be actively interested in anything he would see as a money saving scheme you may have just put your head on the desk again