Should the DfE be offering £26k bursaries to train as a Classics teacher?

[noblegiraffe]

Given the recruitment and retention crisis and the school funding crisis, is it really the best use of funds to be paying £26k for teachers to train in Classics (and then presumably sod straight off to the private sector)?

Although I doubt they're expecting many takers, it does seem to display completely messed up priorities.

I'm half wondering if Toby Young has said he needs more Latin teachers for his WLFS and the DfE has, as ever, pandered to his whims.

I didn't click on the threads

it's based purely on the large number of threads you've created, all of which are downbeat.

including the ones you've not read.

I am not sure the private sector needs them : after all they wouldn't come up in the shortage figures...

gwen, now don't take this the wrong way but when you were young might have been a wile ago, right?

Good secondary English teachers are becoming like hen's teeth. And it is one of the least usual degrees for a primary teacher to have.

Recruiting heads of English is ,according to many local heads, a 'bloody nightmare'

Aargh - posted before checking for typos! I can spell, honest!!

Something's wrong somewhere. Maybe I'm such a crap teacher I don't deserve the money, someone new and enthusiastic does. hmm

Is that you moaning Clary? . Because expressing anything other than die hard gratitude at your current terms and conditions is moaning you know 🙄

"gwen, now don't take this the wrong way but when you were young might have been a wile ago, right?

Good secondary English teachers are becoming like hen's teeth."

Yes. 20 years ago, but what's changed since then? The reason why there was an abundance was because lots of people did degrees in subjects like English and history and there weren't that many options for them afterwards so many became teachers. Why would that have changed? Do fewer students to arts subjects now?

The needs of the less able not being met...

Lots has changed gwen !

Teaching has become less attractive, there are more jobs out there in publishing, the media, the Arts, the charity sector which may not pay better but might seem better opportunities for English grads.

And , if an undergraduate does their research, they quickly find that the highest levels of political interference and ideological messing have been in GCSE English (amongst others)

20 years ago is almost exactly when I started. My PGCE course was full : of people from high calibre universities. you couldn't get on a good English PGCE without at least a 2:1 and competition for jobs in some areas was fierce. Unless we are talking pockets like Cambridge and York , none of these things is true any more.

And the uptake for A level English is dropping year on year as is the numbers doing it at university : for a huge range of reasons. Ergo: there are actually fewer English teachers needed.

A level class sizes were about 12 when I started , now they are 24. The NOR at my school has escalated beyond all reason but the number of actual English teachers has gone up by 2 since I started.

Huge tuition fees may be putting students off degrees where there aren't many employment opportunities. There's also been a massive push on STEM subjects and careers in schools so students who may have headed down the English route may have their heads turned by the money and jobs available.

How many teachers are quitting varies by subject.

"The report calculated that:
about 10.4% of science teachers left the profession each year
10.3% of maths teachers
10.2% of those teaching languages
10% of technology teachers
English was just behind, with 9.7% leaving each year
These rates were higher than other subjects - for example, 5.9% of PE teachers left each year.
Of those teaching arts subjects such as art, drama and music, 8.4% left each year, alongside 8.5% of those teaching humanities such as history and geography."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39934526

Maybe that explains why so many PE teachers make it to SLT - they're the only ones with the experience! Or maybe that's why so many stay in teaching - tiny timetables.

goodbye there's been a change of education secretary - the last one got the policy ditched and the new one is pro-grammar school. Also, existing grammar schools are expanding their numbers and opening so-called annexes.
I wasn't clear on DT - I meant it's a good subject for would-be engineers, so fair point I didn't express myself well there!

All dc need good English and maths skills to have a chance in life (I’d add IT skills there too, but I would) and it’s no good having excellent classic teachers if the vast majority of dc can’t access the content because they have very poor English skills due to having poor English teaching. Cutting job benefits does not tend to attract the best and brightest and the issues in the system are being laid bare for all to see, though many choose not to look.

In an ideal world, all dc would have excellent teachers across the board and access to a wide range of subjects that spark their interests. In reality if you don’t fund education properly and insist that only specific grades in specific subjects count then you end up with the shit show we have at the moment.

I did Fast Track bursary for Classics, taught in a comp and became HoD in my second year. Would have loved it for much longer is if been able to get flexible working after my maternity leave. Have since taught in the private sector and will not teach in state again while the Government is making it so untenable. We need Classics teachers in state schools to make the subject widely available and less elitist and enable its many advantages to be there for more of society. However, the Government’s funding of training (for many subjects, not just Classics) rather then incentivising continued working in the state sector and in this country is ridiculously short sighted. For all the many faults of the Fast Track scheme, it did mean you received money for working for five years in state education. Something like that should be applied in order to retain teachers.

Do you know does that comp still offer Classics now you are gone?

Here's your starter for ten Piggywaspushed. A poster called TonTonMacoute. I haven't put it in bold because this is getting even more tedious than the actual moaning, which is saying something :

'I have often been very depressed by your (numerous) posts noble, criticising, almost sneering, at some new effort to try and improve the educational outcomes of children. You work in a deprived area I am guessing, but underlying your posts is always the feeling that you think the pupils who come into your orbit will never amount to much, and your expectations of what they are capable of achieving are pretty low.

If teachers have that attitude, it’s no wonder the pupils have no respect for education, and don’t believe that it can offer them any benefit for their future'.

There are others, not just on this thread, but you asked for one so I've delivered.

MumTryingHerBest I have read the threads when they were originally posted. If you read them yourself you'll see I contributed to most if not all of them which....um.... suggests I read them. I wasn't prepared to trawl through them again - some are incredibly long. But what I take away from the whole is just a long stream of negative consciousness and no willingness to turn any part of the reforms into opportunities rather than millstones, and I'm not singling out one teacher here, there are several - but that said, each and every thread was created by noble.

LooseAtTheSeams the grammar school expansion policy hasn't been ditched because of Justine Greening. It was ditched after the last election because of the result. It has nothing to do with who currently is or isn't the SoS. I've already referred to expansion of the PAN at certain schools so your post just repeats what I said but there's no money coming from the DfE for setting up satellite schools and only a very limited fund to help grammars with requests for funds for tweaking accommodation to house additional students. The plans are on hold to all intents and purposes for an indefinite period, which is likely to be long.

But mum then went on to defend noble

I did think you were 'out' goodbye but I have politley read your update as you clearly couldn't resist. The thread changed from a lively debate about classics to a dissection of the OP once you arrived on the scene, to be frank.

TonTonmacoute is familiar to me from education threads. She has her own agenda.

I can't see how loose is saying anything about noble moaning?

Anyway, still massively outweighed by her defenders!

Since it is a starter for ten I am guessing there is more to come. What a malicious person you appear to be. That's sad and I am sure you aren't . But that is how you are presenting yourself and I genuinely hope noble , who takes her job so seriously, is not hurt .

I also think two - possibly all three - of the posters you cite are not teachers and , despite what you think, that does make a difference to how we react to the posts.

We are often hushed up in our jobs and told to just keep carrying on carrying one. There is a lot of suppression of debate. So MN is where we can do it. If it sounds like moaning it is more accurately described as frustration.

I have read the threads when they were originally posted. If you read them yourself you'll see I contributed to most if not all of them

Nope, you contributed only to the first, the one about predicting 9s, and you spent a long time on that one moaning about me too. It’s a bit weird tbh.

(Posted light heartedly in the knowledge that I know nothing about education)

This week I saw a friend who I hadn't seen since school. Asked him what he was up to and he is head of English in a local school. Aged 33. Felt a bit inadequate in comparison but now I feel slightly better on reading this thread.

On the classics front, I live in a deprived area so nobody is teaching classics around here. I suppose if classics dies out then all the future cabinet members will have to study ppe at uni.

Am I not allowed to come home again Piggy?! Goodness me! Aren't you taking classroom bossiness a bit too far!

I responded to the various comments directed at me by three posters earlier (yourself, MumTryingHerBest and LooseAtTheSeams) with the caveat that the subject had become incredibly tedious. I'd have replied earlier had I been 'in'. Don't know what your comment about LooseAtTheSeams means since my response to her was about the DfE and grammars.

I've no idea about any other poster's agenda not come across the poster before.

The teachers in our school are not hushed up.

I believed you said you were leaving the thread not just going out.

And I am genuinely now not following you since I thought you were trying to prove other posters said noble moaned.

I am glad to hear your teachers aren't hushed up but it is commonplace.

Oh I see!! Those are things YOU said TO loose and mum !! So, in other words, you only found ONE other poster who said the OP was a moaner?

Have I now got that right?

Oh was it only the one about grade boundaries that I contributed to noble? I've read all your many, many threads anyhow. No it's not in the least weird to make a mild protest on these threads if one has an interest in pupils and education and think profound negativity doesn't help either.

Honestly goodbye the bold would have helped....