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?

piggy
You are right on plugfing gaps in the workforce. The problem is there will be 2 tiers of teacher: the ones with the subject knowledge and quality training who will progress and the ones who've been thrown in to plug gaps etc who aren't as well trained (not their fault but because fhe DfE won't do it properly) and will be less likely to progress.

Onr university in my region does an undergraduate degree with QTS for English. It worls similar to the PE one. People speak quite highly of it. Something like that could work well when placements are phased in later in the course.

Teachers in general just need to toughen up a bit, might be good to get them young to explain that it’s a pretty cushy job in the end, lots of holidays and short days.

So who is getting these short days then? Start at 7.30, no breaks some days, leave at 6 then another couple of hours at home.
If that is what counts as a short day I hate to think what happens in other jobs.

hiding Don't feed them.
Otherwise an otherwise interesting thread will be plagued by a range of posters who love telling us how to do our jobs (& if you reply to tell them they are wrong they become GF)

I think teaching, like a lot of jobs, is learned by doing. Having a primary degree isn’t often all that relevant, so apprenticeships may be beneficial and shows the expectations at the outset so people can decide if they aren’t up for it

I think I can see how some of this might work as an alternative path to BEd

I'm still not happy with the assumption that this might work with the 'little' children. Would any of you really be happy with this being rolled out with your own child's KS1 or KS2 class teacher?

I think it's a horrendously short-sighted idea focusing purely on getting warm bodies in front of a class.

We have no money in my primary school-not for photocopying, not for TAs, not for training and not for supply teachers. We have HR in at the moment to go through the redundancy process with us to save money.

I don't think for a moment that this scheme would be rolled out with anywhere near the amount of time or money needed to make it successful. The only people suffering will be the children.

Assassinated beauty it's not mealy mouthed. It's no different than any other profession. Lawyers, engineers, nurses etc are all busy, under pressure and work outside of normal working hours and still have to mentor new staff.

I've worked across lots of sectors and teaching is no different.

I'm still not happy with the assumption that this might work with the 'little' children. Would any of you really be happy with this being rolled out with your own child's KS1 or KS2 class teacher?
That's not what I meant!
I think people assuming primary is easy and can be done by anyone is awful.

I'm secondary so my focus on having secure high level subject knowledge BEFORE going into school is why I think the placementa should start later if there was a secondary equivalent. (Primary friends of mine said they did a mix of subject knowledge and teaching from the off because obviously they are generalists and they were always in addition to the class teacher to start)

I was meaning the structure of a BEd of uni and placement over 3 years is a good way of training teachers for primary because it's well structured (whereas an apprentice would be doing the job unqualified and then nipping out a day or so a week)

Some unis offer PE undergrad with QTS amd a local uni offer English with QTS. They are ran similar to a BEd primary so they do uni for subject knowledge and then placements.

If it was done well (similar to a BEd), then I could see it working for a small type of applicant. But i agree with you, it is more about throwing bodies in front of a class to mask the big problems in teaching caused by years of shite policy.

It’s an appalling idea. Really appalling.

Imagine this happening anywhere else.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Alfie Smith and I’m your captain tonight on this Boeing 757 to New York. I left school last week but I’ve always liked planes.

Hello, I’ll be your surgeon this afternoon. I’m Bethany. I haven’t done this before but dad let me carve the Sunday roast last week and I’ve got a steady hand so don’t worry.

Good morning. I hear you’re in the middle of a financial dispute and I will be taking on your case. I led the debate club at school and just finished my A levels, not quite enough for uni but we’ll muddle through with your case.

cauliflower
Exactly!

When people mentiom trainee lawyers and nurses they are forgetting that the trainee lawyer doesn't do a case on gheir own and a trainee nurse is in addition to a qualified nurse, not instead of.
In the teaching apprenticeship it would seem the apprentice would be THE class teacher with zero subject knowledge and for the first few months zero experience.

I'm all for considering different pathways (and preferably streamlining them because there are loads of pg routes with wildly different requirements), but apprenticeship as proposed isn't the answer

appu I do agree with you and have said elsewhere on this thread that I am concerned that people think lower age group teachers are somehow OK to be less able themselves. I have no issues with a BEd route , though, which is almost exclusively offered for primary, so I just meant I could see a degree apprenticeship which offered a BEd. Can't see the point, though!

cauliflower, hate to tell you, but there are apprentice pilots. They are about 12 years old (slight hyperbole). I watched a programme on ITV a few weeks ago and was quite taken aback! I thought pilots were all terribly clever with physics degrees and years as RAF pilots... nope.

piggy
Thry have years of training behind them though.
A boy i went to school with did flying academy on the weekends. He was flying his own planes from 14/15. Small planes obviously to start.
A former student also was doing similar things on a weekend (i think through cadets maybe?).
They were both competent pilots despite their age. The student was telling me that he would need more training before being allowed to move to bigger planes etc. Apparently it's also very competitive to get places for training.

They don't stick 18/19 year olds who like planes on large passenger flights.

To give an example, several unis are planning to offer police apprenticeships. This is because of the stated aim to make the police a graduate only entry profession! So, it improves the calibre (allegedly! I know that's a controversial idea in the force) and professionalism of the police. The same with nursing. So degree apprenticeships offer enhancements to people keen to follow that path.

How does Greening's stated aim to make teaching a profession which is NOT always graduate entry make any sense alongside this??

Piggy but surely the apprentice pilots are just sitting watching or flipping the “autopilot” switch or counting clouds or something? They’re surely not touching anything important

piggy
The same way all schools should be above average, all results should be going up but they limit the number who can pass, no school can coast or go down (but again, limited number of passes).
The same way comparisons are made to Shanghai and Finland on teaching quality but in Finland teaching is masters level abd in Shanghai teachers have a couple of hours PPA a day.

They removed the requirement of QTS to 'attract people from industry and with PhDs' (when schools already had tje freedom to use discretion) and then they were surprised when schools were advertising for unqualified teachers for tje fraction of the price.

They are trying to destroy the system so they can carve it up more and give it to yheir mates to run for profit.

No, they really are. With passengers and stuff. Every pilot has to land a plane for the first time after all.

The first time they take off and land, they have fellow trainee pilots (looking rather pasty!) on board. There are, of course, always 2 or 3 other pilots (qualified!) with them. It's a great model that used to work in teaching, actually, where someone talks a trainee through their lesson from a kind of police interview room set up. I did it once. It was fun and helpful. But hardly any schools have these training rooms.

counting clouds

In the teaching apprenticeship it would seem the apprentice would be THE class teacher with zero subject knowledge and for the first few months zero experience.

You see ^this is what pisses me off hugely - the bloody thing hasn't even been drafted yet and already you know exactly how it'll work? You really don't, you're assuming, same as everyone else on this thread.

So the solution to the recruitment crisis, the issues over teacher workload etc is to have these apprenticeships, @Lucyccfc? From what you know of teaching, can you see how this will work, be effective, produce good teachers without having a negative effect on existing staff?

I really rather detest this attitude that if you in any way express an issue with workload, then you're a poor teacher who doesn't want to help produce the next generation. As well as being generally a bit work shy, and much more whingy than proper hard workers in other proper jobs like lawyers, engineers and nurses.

Yes, definitely. Agreed.

How is it that you are not assuming, too , titchy

piggy yes they do, but they aren't slung straight in.
They actually learn to fly first, to land, deal with turbulance etc on planes without passengers.
There comes a point when they have to land their first passenger plane but they don't start there (at least from what these lads were telling me).

Titchy You seem very invested in saying this will work.
What many of us are saying is thay we can almost predict what it will look like based on a whole other set of shambolic policies.

There is a recruitment and retention crisis. Mainly retention (for obvious reasons). There aren't enough teachers and suddenly every criteria for being a teacher has suddenly been lifted so we can have apprentices.

Maybe lots of us are just very cynical and have already seen a few too many policy changes linked to entering teaching.

Maybe we aren't terribly thrilled at the jdea of someone with only level 3 qualifications teaching our children.

Maybe we look at comments suggesting it'll be fine for primary and think it's an insult to primary teachers.

I'm replying to someone right at the beginning of the thread who said there were already apprentice doctors = physicians assistants. PAs have a degree (can be anything) and then 2 years training.

And they never become a doctor. Unless they undertake medical training.

Completely different thing.

I've known of 18 year olds employed by the school to do small group teaching to Y11 so when titchy insists that no 18 year old would possibly be put in front of a Y11 class, I'm rather sceptical.

Thanks for clearing that up glower. I did think that at the time but didn't want to comment on something I have no direct knowledge of.