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?

It's not about apprenticeships in general. I think apprenticeships are brilliant and the "for teenagers whose A levels weren't good enough for uni" type attitudes are appalling.

But I do not think that an apprenticeship, of any level, is appropriate for training teachers. Not in the current climate anyway.

No it isn't. People on here have relished putting the boot into 19 year olds who decide a DEGREE LEVEL apprenticeship might be more appropriate to their skills than a degree. Describing idiotic imaginary conversations, rubbishing them as having a levels not good enough for uni. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Pestilential why have you linked to a 12 month course in becoming a learning mentor?

NO ONE has explained how an apprenticeship model can apply to teacher training, or satisfactorily turn it from a graduate profession to a more open one.

A degree gives you a bunch of subject knowledge. Currently you are required to have that knowledge (or a lot of it) before you are put in charge of a class.
This proposal would put people in front of a class without that knowledge (unless you go with the weird claims being made here that apprentices wouldnt be expected to teach until they finish the apprenticeship). It assumes that knowledge is not necessary for apprentices to start training in schools. But then it supposes that it is necessary, and that apprentices should pick that knowledge up as they go along teaching for a few years. They come out with a degree at the end.

So either the knowledge is necessary, and their teaching is substandard for the years while they acquire it, or it's not necessary, in which case why pretend it is and just drop the degree requirement entirely for everyone?

Personally I think the knowledge is necessary and their teaching will be substandard for years while they acquire it. This is why I'm not happy about the idea, especially as the drop out rate for teaching is so high that many apprentices won't even make it to the end of the apprenticeship and we'll see a new swathe of people who don't know what they are talking about turning up in schools every year.

By the way, a handful of my A-level maths class went onto apprenticeships last year, mostly engineering or accountancy. They sounded great, and totally appropriate for their chosen career path.

I'm not against apprenticeships. I'm against stupid ideas in education and teacher training.

If you can have nursing apprenticeships then of course you can have primary level teaching apprenticeships!

And here we go again with the hyperbole....

At secondary level, a level 7 apprenticeship, with an entry requirement of a degree in a national curriculum subject, would be perfectly rational, and as I've said a million times (see what I did there?!) would look exactly the same as the existing School Direct scheme.

One day a week at university - 7 hours of lectures etc a week is a perfectly normal amount of contact for a part time student - particularly at post graduate level.

The degree the apprentice gets, be it at Bachelors, PostGrad cert/dip or Masters level would be exactly the bloody same as any other degree from that university.

NO ONE has explained how an apprenticeship model can apply to teacher training,

Errrr hello!!!!

titchy for about the billionth time Justine Greening has said teaching is going to stop being graduate-only entry. Your banging on about a graduate-only apprenticeship is rather superfluous to a debate about whether teacher training should be open to people without degrees.

What has a level 7 qualification with degree entry got to do with this conversation?

And if you have a degree, why not just use an existing graduate route? Degree or non-degree.

Yes, I have conversations like that with my own 18 year old. But when she's at work she's completely different and very diligent.

Hayesking

You keep missing TEACHING from your complaints about teachers saying how TEACHING apprenticeships won't work in the current climate if at all.

My DIL is a primary school teacher - the problems that she, and others, have with discipline (because many children are not taught good behaviour at home, and because many children are in mainstream school who really need one-to-one attention of specialist education) is horrendous. She currently has a badly bruised wrist because a 9 year old hit her with a chair.

Why? Because she stopped him from repeatedly punching another child in the classroom. He then proceeded scream and throw chairs about the room and she had to remove the other children for their own safety.

I would hate to be an 18 year old coping with this! It's difficult enough for an experienced teacher.

I have no objections to non-graduate teachers - until comparatively recently that was the norm - but students were taught at college for their teaching certification, and had classroom placements. I also think that in secondary schools teachers do need a degree because of the level to which they must teach.

I don't think there are easy answers to this. Perhaps teaching assistants on a better pay scale and with a teaching qualification of some sort.

What she actually said was the teaching would REMAIN a principally graduate entry profession, but with some routes open to non-graduates to GET A DEGREE WHILE THEYRE WORKING in a school. Which is a route that would work perfectly well for some TAs working in primary schools for example.

Somehow this thread has interpreted that (and let's not forget that this doesn't exist yet and that JG won't be writing the standards herself) as meaning 18 yo Kelley will be teaching year 11 GCSE maths.

"During the Judicial Review, which was attended by FE Week, Ofsted outlined how Learndirect admitted during the inspection in March that 8,211 apprentices out of 19,940 (41%), were not receiving their training entitlement.

And the court heard that in a random sample of five apprentices there was no evidence of learning plans or any progress monitoring. When audio files were presented that proved not to contain promised evidence the inspector questioned in his notes whether Learndirect were “gaming evidence”.

“These are young people often in their first job who most need training and their interests looking after. They weren’t getting trained,” said Ms Spielman."

feweek.co.uk/2017/09/11/learndirect-and-dfe-scandal-referred-to-nao-by-public-accounts-committee-chair/

Can't see this happening in unscrupulous schools looking for teachers on the cheap at all

*What has a level 7 qualification with degree entry got to do with this conversation?

It's an example of how a secondary teaching apprenticeship could work.

Learn Direct was a crap training provider, not a school or other employer.

The training providers for teaching Apprenticeships would be those universities currently running ITT programmes.

GET A DEGREE WHILE THEYRE WORKING in a school.

I think you meant to write 'get a degree while they're teaching in a school' which rather implies the degree isn't needed for good teaching, or they'd get it first.

Many disagree with that.

Titchy, do you think it's unreasonable of teachers to doubt how this will be implemented and to be concerned that it will not be as fantastic as you're thinking it will be?

Where a friend lives near Hertford all of the TAs in several schools are qualified Indian teachers with over ten years experience each. Officially they get those TAs to ‘assist’ with numeracy/maths but they effectively teach it and the teacher assists as they are still new to the profession. In a situation where you have TAs with more teaching experience they should be paid the salary too.

The training providers for teaching Apprenticeships would be those universities currently running ITT programmes.

But only 20% of the training is 'off the job' meaning that 4 days a week they'll be in schools, like a schools direct student. Doing what exactly, if not teaching?

And Universities do the whole Schools Direct university training bit too, and that doesn't stop many Schools Direct students getting a pretty shitty deal. See the PP for details.

More apprentices being screwed over by being paid crap wages to work a proper job, saving the employer millions while not receiving the training they were promised:

www.apprenticeeye.co.uk/2015/12/08/dispatches-investigation-uncovers-next-misuse-of-apprenticeships/

We've already seen schools doing this sort of thing with the 'Assessment-only route' scam.

Sigh....

I am not a teacher trainer. I have no opinion of what makes good quality teacher training. ALL I am saying is that a teaching apprenticeship will NOT LOOK ANY DIFFERENT TO THE EXISTING SCHOOL BASED TRAINING PROGRAMMES. If you think they're crap then fair enough, but don't say the concept of a teaching apprenticeship itself is crap - it isn't and I've given some example of how it could work.

If you think all school based training is shit then that's another matter and perhaps you should start a thread debating School Direct.

In the meantime perhaps we should just wait and see what the draft standards actually look like before criticising something that doesn't even exist yet.