IT taught by the geography teacher?

[KGamsun1]

Hi! My dd started year 8 and IT is taught by the geography teacher. Last year it was also someone who is not related to IT at all. Is it the same in your school?

Very common. Almost all teachers at DS’s school teach 2 or 3 subjects.
Even at A-Level, he had an economics teacher who also taught maths and geography to other A-Level students

There is someone who is dbs checked and has a heartbeat and the kids are not throwing chairs-result! I think people are underestimating how bad the teacher shortage is.

I think recruiting computing teachers is particularly hard because it is easy to get an entry level programming job on more money than a new teacher receives.

One school nearby has abandoned the GCSE as they can't get staff to teach it to a sufficient level. It's the programming aspects in particular which cause issues.

Again, computer science is a shortage area.

You'd probably also be surprised at how many teachers can teach multiple subjects. I have a joint honours degree and have taught both subjects. Equally, I know of staff who in order to avoid redundancy have done Maths/Physics subject knowledge enhancement courses so they teach half their subject plus some KS3 STEM.

We have computing taught by an IT teacher though DD has a computer which doesn't work.

At our school seems to be languages there's a shortage of - German is self-taught and French had 6 teachers last year, most of which didn't speak French. English had similar number but all could teach English so was OK.

which = whom

For a school like LEH, They should be able to provide a specialist. However, IT is not a too difficult subject so don’t worry too much OP. If they can’t provide specialist for Maths, English, Science and Art subjects then complain then.

However, IT is not a too difficult subject so don’t worry too much OP.

How rude! Have you seen the new 9-1 GCSE in Computer Science? Gove scrapped the GCSE in ICT completely. It is a very difficult syllabus!

LEH is an indie. What does GCSE CS have anything to do with the price of fish?

I have a geography degree and then worked as a computer programmer for 5 years. If I so wish I could do a PGCE and teach either subject or both surely

My husband has in the past had to do one ICT lesson a week - he is a history teacher and has no computing qualifications. He is unusual for history teaching in that he has a history MA

Does being a Geography teacher preclude you from having an expertise in IT?
I am wondering if this is a British thing...
Here in the USA, I have found great IT experts/teachers in everything ranging from Yoga teachers to Musicians to Journalists and very rarely met great IT instructors who were computer majors at University.

I am an English teacher currently teaching art, as the new art teacher was unable to start work for personal reasons. I don't even have a GCSE in art and was asked to do it because I am going on maternity leave in a couple of weeks and it made sense with the timetable. It's not ideal but schools can't magic teachers out of nowhere.

Graduate level software and computer engineering jobs in London command salaries of £25 to £30k. 2nd rung up the job ladder after 2 years expect to hit £40k with fantastic perks free food, games room etc. Now I have tech bods in my team not even 30years old earning well over £60k right up to tech specialists commanding contract day rates of £600 a day. How is teaching ever going to recruit?

The fastest retirees at a global software house I used to work at were the developers who cashed share. They banked millions. Computer science is a youth orientated cash cow of an industry. There is so much demand jobs we struggle to fill..we find it hard to recruit ourselves and I work for a silicon valley company.

cashed shared options I meant to say in my previous post!!

I think technically as long as you have QTS you can teach and subject from ages 4-16. Personally I wouldn't want to teach computing to 13 year olds as they would all be much more proficient than I am - however if I was given some plans to work from I'm sure I could give it a good go!

GHGN
I would imagine because it's totally different to computer science.

I have a GCSE IT, and even though it's quite an old version of the GCSE, my GCSE involves coursework making a PowerPoint, basic excel spreadsheets etc. That was enough for top grades then if done well.
Many teachers would have enough IT knowledge and competency to teach KS3 IT. Bless them, watching most students type on a keyboard is like watching paint dry. Many don't have practical IT even though they'd put us to shame on phones and tablets.
Most teachers would have nowhere near enough knowledge to teach computer science, which sounds vastly more interesting and technical and involves knowledge of coding and so on. They could do a subject knowledge enhancement of they run in their area but unlikely an independent school could access them.

OP said child is being taught IT, not computer science (yr8). This kind of thing is not new... chemistry teacher taught physics one yr at my school in the 1980s. Needs must.

Many schools still call IT "IT" at ks3. The demands are different though.

Chemistry teacher teaching physics isn't the same though because it's expected that science teachers teach all 3 at KS3, if not to GCSE regardless of specialism. It's just like English teachers will have literature, language, drama, linguistics or media backgrounds but will teach English language and English literature to GCSE and specialise post 16.

DS has a PE teacher for one lesson in maths. He seems to be better than his maths teacher.

Personally I had at secondary:
Maths taught by English/Maths support (I was top set)
Physics taught by a PE teacher
RE taught by the classics teacher
English taught by the drama teacher
History taught by a PE teacher

I did not find any of these went down into teachers I thought of as being poor.

Traditionally Geography teachers also taught PE.

I’m teaching a bit of KS3 computing (not IT any more) despite having no qualifications in the subject. It’s not spreadsheets and powerpoint, that was binned by Gove, I’m having to teach coding.

I did actually used to do programming as part of my job, but the school doesn’t know that. I’ve been able to pick it up quite quickly because of that, but I imagine it would be quite difficult for another teacher without that background. The main problem isn’t learning what to do, that’s just following instructions, it’s figuring out what’s gone wrong when it doesn’t work or something weird happens.

Dd has a teacher that they call Mr Rabbit. He teaches everything (just like Mrs Rabbit who does every job in Peppa Pig) - well he teaches 3 subjects. He seems a nice chap - I'm just grateful that somebody is there to step up and do it.

05LolaSmiles completely agree. Software today is all about Edge, Cloud computing, Platform as a Service, Containerization, Blockchain, Data lakes, automation IOT and lots more. These are live industry concepts and solutions being built today and some of these concepts didn't even exist 10years ago. My worry is that we are not teaching enough relevant content at schools so that the children understand what we mean by 'computing or computer science'.