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.

At the very least they get a year of teaching out of them, often with subjects other than classics.

The private sector saves the Gov £s per pupil every year.

How does the government get a year of teaching out of them?

I sort of accept the private sector saves the government money (although I'm not convinced all private schools deserve charitable status). However, I do think allowing the private sector to exist means that lots of committed and intelligent parents lack an interest in the state sector.

You don't 'get a year of teaching' out of PGCE students. They teach very little and what actually happens is that qualified teachers give up their classes to allow the PGCE student to practise their teaching, which is not as good as what the class would have got if the qualified teacher had taken them. The qualified teacher also gives up time and puts effort into supporting the trainees, on the understanding that this is how we get the next generation of teachers. To expect teachers to do this knowing that the vast majority of those trainees won't teach in state schools is taking the piss.

You don't 'get a year of teaching' out of PGCE students

Often, you do. Many PGCE students on School Direct courses teach the same number of hours as an NQT. Some have taught unqualified for years, too, or have moved from teaching (qualified) in a different country.

Not that this is necessarily a good thing, but I know of one school that hung on to Classics by its fingernails by employing bursaried trainees to teach (along with other subjects to fill their timetable) the few Latin lessons it could offer. At the time it could not afford or provide work for a full-time employed Latin teacher. But after two years in a row of A-A* GCSE grades in non-selective classes, it's now got funding to do A level and can keep employ a Latin teacher properly. (Shame it was so results-driven.)

By PGCE I mean university-based. Schools Direct is a different kettle of fish and not always a good one.

RhymingCrickets I might be wrong, but I think that's arguably not meeting the requirements of what a school should do for a School Direct Trainee. In my opinion, that's exploiting trainees, especially if it was not a salaried School Direct program.

Regardless of the bursary situation, I don't think that's ideal at all.

Yes, drafting in trainees to fill in gaps in the timetable instead of training them properly is really crap.

noblegiraffe and LadyLance - agreed, it's far from ideal. But just putting it out there that there are School Direct, University-affiliated PGCE trainees who do give the schools they are in "a year of teaching" (for better or worse). IMO it's also unethical to be training a Classics trainee if they are the only Classics teacher in the school. (But it did work out in the best interest of Classics and the school in the example I gave.)