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.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/a2887164-DfE-Data-Cruncher-predicts-number-of-students-who-will-get-straight-9s#68042122
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/1899555-New-maths-GCSE-verdict-bad-for-the-less-able
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2954286-Rant-about-the-new-maths-GCSEs-Michael-Gove-you-tosser
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3015727-The-new-9-1-GCSEs-79-for-a-9-17-for-a-4-What-do-we-think
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3137002-13-for-a-pass-on-maths-GCSE-November-resits

That's just for maths GCSE. But you weren't actually interested were you, because that's just me moaning.

Classics is lovely but we need all children to have good English and maths teachers first, and this should be prioritised by any bursary set up.
Foremost we need good (as well as enthusiastic) teachers rather than a greater pool of mediocre English and maths teachers. The classicists I have met would be excellent at enthusing children for learning at primary and early secondary years and I guess there are more Classics graduates out there who would be just as good.
IMO they would cover a lot of the core skills for secondary English and MFL thus freeing up teaching time for those specialist teachers.

Maybe all the potentially good maths teachers are being put off teaching by last summer's doom and gloom about the new GCSEs and that no DCs would dare do A level maths. It is good that noblegiraffe's teaching has proved the doomsayers wrong.

no DCs would dare do A level maths

I think surveys showed numbers were down. www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exclusive-maths-disaster-schools-report-alarming-decline-post-16-take
That was for applications for A-level though, I'm not sure about actual take-up once the results were out. The scrapping of AS and a lot of schools dropping to 3 A-levels only will have also hit maths, so it's not just the new GCSEs to blame.

The top group I had that all did A-level was the year before the new GCSE. I taught borderline 4/5 last year.

I am interested actually, just like I said, but not quite flush enough with time to trawl through all those threads. I'm sure you could put your assessment succinctly here, in a single post. Thanks!

The posts linked to will suffice.

They won't suffice if what was politely requested was a succinct list of the deficiencies you referred to but didn't elaborate on. I'll just assume that it's hot air and no substance - not a huge surprise because there's been a lot of empty posturing on the subject generally, so MN is probably no exception.

Bloody hell goodbye do you want me to cut and paste my posts into this thread because you can't be arsed to click a link to them?
I have written what you claim to want to read. Click the links.

Seriously goodbye, it's Friday night. Noble doesn't exist to serve you. She offered you links to read through at your leisure. It's more than enough.

Not sure why you think it's her job to spoon-fed you.

She doesn't need to answer my question tonight, obviously. I couldn't care less when she answers I'm doing other stuff too, I'm sure we all are. I simply asked for a direct answer to a question she prompted by saying the reformed exams were crap on a number of counts. I asked which counts - simples. If she can't do better than try to blur a response by posting reams of links then I'll assume, quite reasonably, that she doesn't feel equipped to answer. If she doesn't like people drawing that conclusion from cryptic one liners then perhaps quit with the cryptic one liners or just answer the bleeding straightforward question.

I answered. It's not my fault you're lazy!

Um. Nope.

Noble's not your teacher, and even if she was it wouldn't be her job to spoon-feed you.

I have no horse in this race, I just think you're being shockingly arrogant and rude.

Back to recruitment:

"As of this month, there have been 80 offers made for places to train to teach physics, compared with 150 offers that had been made at the same time two years ago.
Maths has also been badly hit. There have been 410 offers made this year to applicants wanting to train to teach maths, compared with 610 offers two years ago
Music offers have also dropped, from 150 two years ago to 70 this year. "

This is despite a 150% increase in spending on teacher recruitment advertising. £Millions on adverts to no avail.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/dramatic-drop-new-teacher-recruitment-coincides-150-boost-dfe

I have just done a bit of googling and cannot find any article before 2010 about a shortage of classics teachers which I find odd. Or geography teachers : and there is also a huge bursary there.

Maybe you can explain the numbers I skimmed noble but why is English getting an £11000 smaller bursary / fund than so many other subjects?

Piggy...its supply and demand.

I can't but think these things are rather divisive : on PGCE courses there are people walking around thinking they are so very important to society (they'll learn!!) with their huge bursaries and then DT teachers with next to nothing. I am old fashioned but I do not like placing value on people's heads like this.

I remember a very vague resentment when I trained that maths got money and we didn't (it was about £1000!).

I am sure it isn't the way modern trainees think about each other at all but it does explain to me from my vantage point why the quality of recruits we are getting into English training is low and why so many are mature students with money already behind them / DHs (nearly always female) who earn considerable salaries. The danger is those staff are working for 'pin money' rather than a vocation and they leave when the going gets tough...

It is true that there is a glut of historians, definitely and still a dire shortage of linguists. But classicists? No...I'm bemused.

sofa I do get the economics but there is a shortage of English teachers!

Here is an example of why this policy is shortsighted and doomed to failure:

And only 80 offers have been made for places to train to teach design and technology, compared with 350 offers two years ago. No records were kept for design and technology in 2013-14, but 90 offers had been made to teach design as a standalone subject.

I agree with you op. Classics is a nice to have and would be great if schools schools could offer but it's not a dire shortage by any stretch. 26k seems a lot.
I trained in secondary music with a 2:1 9 years ago and got 9k - interesting to see this has gone down. Music is less popular at the moment with ebacc and budget cuts

'experienced teachers have had it easy for a few decades'
Whoever said that, what world are you living in? And yes, experience counts for so much. When young, enthusiastic teachers join the profession, everyone benefits because they learn from people with experience and old established teachers get a boost from their enthusiasm. My own experience is that a good mix of youth and experience makes for an effective department.
FWIW I am now retired and work in FE. I teach many people (Maths) who did not succeed at GCSE. The most common account I hear is that they had a succession of supply teachers or inexperienced teachers who could not cope during years 10 and 11. (There are some very good supply teachers out there and not all inexperienced teachers cannot cope, I know that. But it seems to affect a lot of people.)
I studied Latin and it was of some benefit to me. But retention of experienced Maths teachers would in my view be a better use of funds than offering bursaries for Classics teachers.

"goodbyestranger - She doesn't need to answer my question tonight, obviously."

She doesn't need to answer you questions ever. If you had a genuine interest in the matter you would take time out to research and read about it.

Perhaps this will get you started:

13% for a pass on maths GCSE (November resits)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3137002-13-for-a-pass-on-maths-GCSE-November-resits

I'm looking forward to hearing your positive comments on this.

@noblegiraffe is emphatically not a moaner. Her criticisms are clear sighted, intelligent and well informed, and stem from her commitment to the success of her students. This is obvious to me in all the threads that she has started that I have read. She has been very helpful to a number of posters with concerns about their DC's progress in Maths, as well as to other teachers.
I'm astonished that anyone thinks otherwise.

borntobe same situation here but I teach English. For a lot of students I think there was too much emphasis on getting through the literature paper at the expense of language skills at school, but unfortunately the new GCSEs in English have made this worse!
If we focus on the question Noble actually asked, I'm still really puzzled by the classics bursary. Latin isn't even a compulsory subject. I know of one grammar school that has a great Latin teacher and offers it past Y8 (when they choose options) but has had to drop GCSE computer science because too many students struggled with it, the school struggles to find a good teacher and the school hasn't got a lot of money. Another grammar school I know doesn't offer it at all. You don't need Latin for any university. You don't even need it to study classics at Oxbridge! So why in this era of massive cuts to education is it attracting a larger bursary than English when we desperately need to improve literacy across the board? Or DT when we need engineers?
Perhaps it has more to do with expanding the number of grammar schools, rather than classics for all?

Whirlwind if Poster A writes 'Sigh. There is so much about the exams which is crap but hey you don't have to teach them' and Poster B, to whom this was addressed, says 'Ok, then give me a quick run down of what you find so crap since you clearly reckon you know more than me', that's not the teeniest bit arrogant on the part of Poster B. It seems obvious to me that noble hasn't actually got a decent answer. It's absurd to think I'm going to trawl through a series of long threads to somehow divine noble's philosophy of educational change; that is arrogant! I asked for a couple of lines which noble can't give.

And yes, back onto recruitment: Classics deserves every penny of the bursary in my view. The point made by someone else up thread is the key one which didn't get much air time: in the nature of things there won't be a huge take up but it may serve to encourage some graduates., which is a definite good. Vastly more will end up being spent on Maths overall. It's not difficult, that particular calculation.

Loose I'm surprised you don't know that the expansion policy re grammars has been ditched for the moment also that D&T is not required for Engineering.

that's not the teeniest bit arrogant on the part of Poster B.

It is when Poster B then says that what Poster A has provided will take too much time and effort and they cba to read it all.

It's absurd to think I'm going to trawl through a series of long threads

No one asked you to. All you needed to read is the title of this one:

13% for a pass on maths GCSE (November resits)

If you cba looking at this in more detail then Poster A has given their comments to this in this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3137002-13-for-a-pass-on-maths-GCSE-November-resits

Perhaps you can explain why you think needing 13% for a pass in GCSE maths is an improvement?

I'm assuming all your opinions on education are not just taken from a bullet point list your saw posted on an internet forum.