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.

Student loan forgiveness for all new teachers was actually in the Tory manifesto for the 2017 election believe it or not. It almost got Labour voting prospective teacher DC to vote Conservative . It has since been watered down to applying to those who teach in certain defined locations such as some coastal schools.

It's only for MFL teachers in those locations too.

Bobby you must have trained about the same time as me then. I would have got loan forgiveness but, um, I didn't need it as I didn't have any loans. I was the last year of grants not fees.
Still, back then tuition fees were only about £1k per year and loans about £5k(?), it would be way more expensive now to forgive student loans of tens of thousands.

Passive acceptance of change is not what I see in the best of the current crop of NQTs and Purple's approach is clearly constructive, so of course would pass muster. I'm guessing Purple was interviewed a couple of years ago when things were less clear/ looked worse than they are/ do now. Piggy I don't see any quest for teachers who are uncritically positive. Being uncritical is a no no for teachers but critical thinking is a far cry from purely negative thinking. The objection is to those who've been preaching a doomsday scenario since the first changes were mooted and are still railing against them now, despite many of their fears not actually having come to fruition. The problem is where people refuse to budge intellectually even when events are proving them wrong. You're misinterpreting again.

1. Maths exams too difficult for the majority of children (check)
2. Students put off maths A-level by the difficulty of the higher paper (surveys suggests numbers down)
3. Incorrect grade predictions causing issues (know at least one school this affected badly)
4. Uncertainty about correct maths tier of entry with some decisions regretted (check)
5. Maths paper being totally inaccessible for the weakest (check - Edexcel are now amending papers because of this)
6. Very low grade boundaries (check - Ofqual had to try to defend this)
7. Students demotivated/anxious/panicking because of difficulty (check)
8. Lack of clarity about pass grade (check - not helped by the DfE amending this 6 weeks before the exams)
9. Uncertainty about translation between letter grades and number grades for entry requirements (check)
10. Appalling inconsistency in marking in English leading to huge numbers of students getting the wrong grades (check)

And something that wasn't anticipated in an maths exam that was supposed to help distinguish between the brightest, those getting a grade 9 could have achieved anything between 79% and 100%.

An all-round balls-up tbh.

That's far more words than required to outline your objections noble. Also duplication.

No-one - certainly not me, and I've said it on this thread several times - thinks the needs of the least able are being served by the new curriculum. The more able are being much better served and arguably they're equally important.

Nothing else apart from that is a massive issue and some of the initial settling down problems them are being exacerbated by doomsday teachers and not found to be a deal by others. But that's been done to death on another of your many threads.

There are always inconsistencies in marking, year in year out. Certainly each year for as long as I can recall one subject or another has been hit, often with the exam board digging in and sometimes hard won university places being lost: not new (but it would be nice if it didn't happen :)).

them

Nothing else apart from that is a massive issue

In your opinion, which is totally ill-informed.

There's no duplication either, btw.

I'm completely informed, ours views simply differ.

There is duplication but I think you believe in quantity from your voluminous output, thread-wise!

Clearly you’re not, given your remark about English marking.

I agree that the bursary for all subjects should have conditions attached. Of the twelve or so students who started their pgce in the same group as dc1, four years ago, only four, including dc1 are still teaching. Several never taught after getting their pgce, so do not have qts. They all pocketed the substantial bursary though (stem subject). Maybe the bursary should be repayable, pro rata, if the recipient does not teach in the state sector for, say, five years. And maybe, as an added bonus, student loans could be 'paid up'at different stages of a career? Say, 50% after 7 years and the remainder after 10 years? Given that many teachers are unlikely to ever pay their loans in full, the cost to the government would not be ridiculous, but it would make quite a difference to those students.

Historically (and no doubt it will continue this way) there have been far fewer inconsistencies with maths, for very obvious reasons noble. You may well not be familiar with the issues in other subjects over the years, but they've been marked and many.

Yes some conditions would make sense.

I am aware, goodbye. Are you aware that the proportion of unreliable grades rose from 30% to 45% in English this year as a feature of the new numerical grading system?
That's even before you look at the fact they couldn't hire enough markers.

Oh I see, I thought it sounded as though you weren't and it would be quite reasonable for you not to know about difficulties other subjects have encountered in recent years, especially since maths has been far less touched by this stuff. I'm aware of the issues over the 2017 English grades yes. You seemed to be challenging my comment that it isn't a unique case of inconsistencies by exam boards so I responded to that.

Yeah you're making it up.

No idea what the fuck you mean :)

As in if you were aware of the issues with English you wouldn't have blagged something crap then gone 'oh of course I knew about that' when I mentioned unreliable grades and a critical shortage of markers.

Of course I had threads running about both those issues.

I said the issues with English last year weren't the first of their kind by a long way. There's no inconsistency whatever in what I said, nor would there be. With respect, I think you should try to find the plot again because you've made some seriously spaced comments.

Bland statements, dismissals that betray a lack of understanding, I think you must work for the DfE.

Leaving this here:

Spoilsport!

Noble , one thing I would ask you ( and be in no doubt I am not a maths teacher nor indeed very good at maths ) - my son was competent at maths , not talented , not gifted , competent - as in he got a very good GCSE result. He started maths as a 4th A level and gave it up. I think part of that was that he did have some talented pupils in his class & it was a bit dispiriting to be always the one who needed stuff explaining a bit more. So , to the question , I know we need more STEM graduates , but for those whose interests and talents lie elsewhere ( and that might be e.g. History or Classics , ) should they just troop through ? IMHO Classics is not a necessary subject but it does encourage logical thinking . History as a discipline has advantages. I would absolutely be in favour of people not being scared of maths , but that said , some humanities subject ( not just English ) seem to be subject to the vagaries of marking and yet instil disciplines useful for jobs we all need to be done.

I cannot comment on your OP because I don't know how many would be offered the £26k bursary rather than the £6k for maths.

Piggy yes it does - it’s still doing well though having been academised I would be surprised if it lasted forever, sadly.

Having jumped on on Friday night, I don't know about classics particularly but it does also serve as an introduction to philosophy, much like RS can.

I do think it's a shame we specialise children so early, I don't think you create the best, most imaginative engineers if they never study creative or interpretive subjects for example.

So I struggle with this idea that we should throw all our resources at core subjects and forget about the rest.

I am quite depressed that our education system has got to the point where people who I don't think normally would are advocating one subject should lose out in favour of another (as opposed to everyone should get more money type sentiments)

It's a divisive place we have ended up.

I don't know if I explained that well.

I'm very involved with libraries at the moment, which are facing cuts and closures and deprofessionalism everywhere, and you really have to fight to resist the urge to dissolve into arguing with councils 'Well X deserves a library more than Y area does because blah blah blah' everyone deserves a fucking library, it's a statutory right, the situation where some huge areas won't have one for miles is ludicrous.

But people have got worn down from constant cut, cut, cut, and start 'making the best of things' which is okay to a certain extent, but beyond that... I think you have to make sure you don't shift your lines too far and accept what is unacceptable because you are so worried that it could be even worse.

I think saying the classics bursary should be less than the english one is totally fine, and I agree. But saying classics shouldn't have one is too far.