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?

The problem, titchy as I see it, is that training to be a teacher isn't a 'normal job'.

attract STEM students to secondary teaching

Why do you assume this means 18 year olds? I read this as offering degree students an alternative route into secondary STEM teaching once they've graduated.

I didn't say it was - your objection to the degree part appears to be that students will only be at university one day a week which makes the degree inferior. I am pointing out that 7 contact hours a week do not make a degree useless. Many many many people study for this amount each week as well as working. They won't be studying full time, and they will inevitably have to do a lot of studying in the evenings and at weekends. None of that makes the qualification inferior.

I'm sure if there are apprenticeships in teaching those individuals doing them will be working incredibly hard, probably much harder than an undergrad who then does a pgce. My objections are not from the POV that these are Mickey Mouse individuals doing a Mickey Mouse degree but young or desperate people who will be exploited by a system that does not care about its workers and is designed to have a large level of burn out.

If you already have a stem degree you can get 25k to do a pgce or nqt wages as a teach first etc, why on earth would an apprenticeship route be appropriate for those individuals?

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with apprenticeships but it is not right for them to be used a sticking plaster to cover up lack of access to higher education due to costs or staff shortages in key areas.

Handbagkrabby - some very good points - I agree!

If you already have a stem degree you can get 25k to do a pgce or nqt wages as a teach first etc, why on earth would an apprenticeship route be appropriate for those individuals?

Good point. Do you think those routes will continue to exist once degree apprenticeships are on the books? (Although we'll probably have a new government by then anyway so who knows!)

Why do you assume this means 18 year olds? I read this as offering degree students an alternative route into secondary STEM teaching once they've graduated.

Because she keeps saying she doesn't feel teaching should be a graduate only profession!!!

But I am not assuming 18 years olds necessarily : lab technicians, for example? Because 20 years of setting up labs for teachers is good experience.

Can you really be a good teaching student with all this extra studying at weekends and evenings, on top of all the work 4 days of teaching brings with it anyway.

A friend of mine did an OU degree, it took 5 years. These teaching apprentices will be working in a school 4 days a week. There is no chance that they will be left to TA for those 5 years, so they'll be doing teacher training, including proper teaching.

Find me any teacher who thinks it's realistic to complete a full degree part time while also training/working as a teacher in the first few years of teaching.

And also, say it takes 5 years to complete the degree. What stuff will they be saving to teach in the 5th year that the apprentice wouldn't have probably needed at least 2 years previously?

I studied FT while working 40 hours a week. It is possible to do this. Plenty of students do it here in America. It's quite a good thing because they graduate with much less debt, if any, and have gained work experience.

Teaching 4 days a week (especially teacher training) would work out way more than 40 hours.

I'm part time, 3 days equivalent, been doing the job over a decade and I work probably close to 40 hours a week.

Ok let's say they're doing 40 hours on the 4 days of technical teacher training. Then 7 hours of lectures on Fridays. Then they've got to do all the additional study required to make it degree-level study.

How many hours a week work on just above minimum wage? For maybe 5 years or more?

Wanttobe The higher education system in the UK is very different to that in the US. Firstly, I believe there is something of an expectation that many students will undertake paid work whilst studying - in a serious manner - in the US, which is not the case in the UK.

Another difference is that UK degrees are more specialised from the get-go. UK children take A levels prior to entering university, so that general first year isn't an option here.

I believe that there is an assumption that a full higher education requires some kind of graduate school experience? That, too, is not the case in the UK.

I believe there are other differences, too. Aren't courses more modular? And students can take time out (to acquire the finance to continue.) That's not always the case here.

I studied at a red brick in the U.K. and worked FT. It's very possible if you have the right mindset and a course that allows it. Certain science courses have lab work that prevents working more than 20 hours a week.

To be honest, it boils down to this: You're a parent, with a child in a two form entry school. In next door's class, they're being taught by a graduate with a PGCE. In your class, your child is being taught 4 days a week by an apprentice, studying to become a teacher. Happy?

... and of course, that should be 'an apprentice, educated to A level'.

The problem with the whole degree equivalence thing is that even if the apprentice gets a degree, they get it 5+ years down the line. This is no use to the classes they will have been teaching up till then.

In next door's class, they're being taught by a graduate with a PGCE. In your class, your child is being taught 4 days a week by an apprentice, studying to become a teacher. Happy?

Alternatively:

In next door's class, they're being taught by a graduate with a PGCE. In your class, your child is being taught 4 days a week by an experienced teacher and a TA who is also an apprentice, studying to become a teacher. Happy?

This is no use to the classes they will have been teaching up till then.

Maybe not, but then presumably you don't agree with ANY school based ITT - because in that model they're teaching from the off.

And that as I have said before is fair enough. I'm not a teacher trainer, I know nothing of the pedagogy, so if this model is a poor one then i'd agree rolling out apprenticeships that pretty much mirror that model does seem to be a waste of time.

But most of the objections on this thread are around the fact students won't get a proper degree, or they can't possibly study and work so the degree will be inferior, or that they'll be on £3 an hour for years. Or 18 year olds will be teaching year 11 Maths. Or they'll be in the classroom by themselves from day 1 aged 18. And all of those objections are complete and utter tosh spewed out by those that haven't even bothered to find out the facts about how degree apprenticeships actually work.

And ironically I'm actually not a huge fan of the current model of degree apprenticeships! But at least I know my objections are based on fact (and for another thread!).

Why would the teaching apprentice not be teaching their own class when other on-the-job teaching trainees do?

Titchy, you think the objections are because we don't know how apprenticeships work. Rather it's because we know how schools work.

'In next door's class, they're being taught by a graduate with a PGCE. In your class, your child is being taught 4 days a week by an experienced teacher and a TA who is also an apprentice, studying to become a teacher. Happy?'

They so wouldn't be.

You know, sod the current situation, I've been wondering what state education is going to look like if a worst-case, losing-10%-ofGDP, post-Brexit scenario comes into play. This thread has given me a little vision of the future.