Bbc article about unqualified teachers

[rollonthesummer]

The tories are defending it by saying there were more unqualified teachers under labour anyway...?!

A Tory spokesperson says...

"There are some brilliant teachers who have not got qualified teacher status - nuns, great linguists, computer scientists, engineers and other specialists that inspire their pupils.

Nuns?!

I don't know of any unqualified people in schools near me that sound like that list. The ones I know are very young-no time to have been a nun, great linguist or successful in business- and have not yet passed NQT for various 'unknown' reasons.

I think it's all a bit of a red herring. The vast majority of teachers are qualified. Some teachers aren't. The ones who don't have a PGCE or equivalent are subject to the same scrutiny and standards as the qualified ones. My PGCE (from a prestigious university ) taught me bugger all compared with actually working as a proper employee in a school. There are plenty of crap teachers who are qualified and plenty of great teachers who aren't. - one of the best teachers I've ever known was untrained and had no degree either.

Of course it would not be a good idea to require no qualification for teachers - apart from anything else, it sorts the wheat from the chaff a bit and helps you really find out if you want to be a teacher (and introduces you to a load of lovely, wanky educational theory that you're never going to use again ). But making a fuss about the teachers who do come into the system by other routes is a bit unnecessary imo.

The red herring is the idea that qualification doesn't matter because there was once a teacher who wasn't qualified but got great results anyway. That's like saying my auntie smoked fifty a day but lived to be 99 years old and never had a day's illness. It misses the point. Being a teacher means being qualified. It means knowing the theories (and ridiculing them if you like, from a position of knowledge) it means being a professional and being able to stand up to Ofsted, consultants and others who claim to be able to tell you how to teach. Being an actual qualified professional means taking control of your classroom and doing the job for which you are qualified not following the ill-conceived whims of others whether parents or managers or profiteers.

Knowing the theory? My 'mentor' had never heard of Vygotsky or his theories, who is the theorist du jour these days. (She was a rubbish teacher, but not because she didn't know the theory.) She was qualified, and even had been a HoD, but was there time-serving.

Mixed feelings about this, personally I worked as an unqualified teacher for a few years then did the PGCE, don't think the PGCE made me much (any) better as a teacher. However it was a reasonably rigorous way of observing my practice and ensured that I was able to teach and manage a classroom.
I now live and work in Scotland, and no unqualified teacher is ever left in charge of a classroom, they would send kids home if for some reason they didn't have enough teachers.
Some middle ground is a good idea, give unqualified teachers 4-5 years to become qualified, if they want to continue as teachers this is fair enough. Otherwise what is the point of a teaching qualification, we do need some baseline as a profession and qualifications and the standards, that come from being part of a profession, should mean something.

Should there really be a learning theorist du jour? Particularly ones that were working 80 years ago? What about evidence from modern cognitive and developmental psychology, instead? I've read quite a few blogs from teachers who, having read cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham's book, Why Don't Students Like School, were shocked that they had never been taught this stuff on their PGCE. Teacher Tom Bennett has even founded an organisation called ResearchEd, with speakers talking about evidence in education, and its meetings are very oversubscrited.

The trouble is, it would appear that a lot of education academics aren't too keen on evidence that doesn't fit in with their own educational philosophies. You only have to look at the way so many of them misrepresented and trashed the evidence for phonics, and kept on promoting Whole Language, even after 2007.

Fullrumpus - I'm not basing my point on that great teacher I knew. Hence my remark about it being anecdotal. It was just an example. I just don't feel that my PGCE helped me to stand up to Ofsted or indeed anything much at all. It was the subsequent years of being a teacher which did that.

I just think that politicians grandly announcing 'My party is going to ensure that all teachers are qualified' is a bit like similar ones saying 'My party is going to ensure that all children leave primary knowing their tables / able to read to a certain level'. It's an attention grabbing soundbite which makes the public go 'You mean teachers are not teaching kids this already?! / You mean teachers aren't qualified ?!'

When in fact of course they do/ are. And there are some exceptions but there are often good reasons or mitigating circumstances for them.

Would we start to day that nurses don't need training?! What makes teaching so different?

Disclaimer- I'm writing as a qualified teacher who is broadly in favour of teaching qualifications.

Statements like this are patently silly. An unqualified or improperly trained nurse could kill several patients in one shift.

Children don't die from the odd unqualified teacher.

That's not to say they don't all deserve to be taught by the very best. Overstating the case though isn't helpful.

In my opinion being qualified or not doesn't make much difference at the moment because the training is crap. I think unqualified teachers, Schools Direct graduates, Teach First bodies and people with PGCEs from slapdash universities are all in the same boat and whether or not they are good is largely dependent on a) how hard they work and b) how naturally they take to teaching.

It should make a huge difference because the training should be great and then only qualified teachers should be allowed to teach.

I would like to see something like a year of Masters level research into pedagogy combined with watching and 'work-shopping' different models of practise and then a year of combining TA work with a very light, well thought out, teaching load and shadowing of activities like moderation and data analysis. Then I think people might have a chance. Let trainees think before the shit workload hits them.

"Unqualified" when referring to a teacher usually means that that person hasn't done one year of professional training (eg PGCE) on top of the degree course that qualified them in their subject.

This is hardly the same as no qualifications.

kestrel completely agree! My uni tutors had never heard of Dan Willingham and when I ref'ed some of his ideas in my assignments they were sniffy because he is not part of their establishment...
CharlesRyder yes the training is crap.
I read widely and people like Dan Willingham and other thinkers of all political hues and nationalities inform me ('cos now we have 'interweb we have access to a WORLD of thinkers so but I do not just need to accept anything because it has been published in xyz journal, I try stuff in the classroom I have and reflect on how I works (and adapt as appropriate)...
Teaching should be dynamic, adaptive - and regardless of whether you have gone thru a rubbish uni like mine (R*hmp**n) or another better place - the teacher needs to be more of an entrepreneur mindset rathe than a public sector -annual increments/bleat-to-the-union mindset.

My biggest issue with the unqualified teacher thing is the implication that anyone can do it.

I think it's a bit like the driving test - I definitely learned more about driving after I passed my test and was going it alone. That doesn't mean that driving tests should be scrapped. Similarly, I have learned more and developed more in every year I have been teaching, but I don't think that the QTS should be scrapped.

An acquaintance recently posted his frustration on FB that he couldn't be taken on for a PGCE course because he got an E in his GCSE maths - cue lots of his friends saying "you'd be amazing at teaching, you don't need a PGCE anymore anyway, just go for it and get a job" Not what I want for my DC or for the school I teach in.

The best teacher I know, friend from uni, - HoD in a comp in the north of England - a teacher I would love my own DC to have (they are happily at the top indie boys' school in the country as per today's Times) has no GCSE maths - he failed it several times. Makes no difference to his ability to teach another subject inspiringly...

Two thoughts. Firstly, my PGCE introduced me to a variety of educational thinkers and theories. This has given me the basis for further reading to support my professional development over the past 10 years since qualification. Shame that so much of the wider reading has been self-led - apart from the excellent MaST course I've had no really good training to enable me to be a better teacher. Wouldn't it be great if there was training for serving teachers to extend their knowledge and thinking?

Secondly - under-trained teachers without a theoretical basis for their practice are much easier to manipulate into following the latest trends/edict from SLT. Or maybe I'm cynical....

That's ludicrous. Basic standards should be upheld. Reaching GCSE grade C in Maths, English & Science should be an absolute basic requirement.

Hmm, a HOD with no GCSE in maths might be fine teaching RE or whatever, but I wouldn't trust their exam results analysis.

That sort of shitty background is what leads to the misuse of things like FFT data through a complete misunderstanding of what it means.

I can't see a HOD of anything managing without a GCSE in maths in the state sector. I teach Performing Arts and am expected to have some kind of numeracy focus in lessons whenever possible. We also do numeracy activities with our tutor groups - mine is yr 11. Kids are interested in teachers' backgrounds. The kids I teach know what I got at GCSE/A Level, where I did my degree etc. I'd be on pretty shaky ground without the basics.

Well there you are. A HoD in a top state school and yes - he really has no GCSE maths. His subject is not maths, and luckily he qualified before it was necessary. And so luckily a school now has a fab teacher that in today's money they would not have.

You've needed GCSE maths for a long time. When did he qualify?

1982

So before GCSEs actually existed then?

"under-trained teachers without a theoretical basis for their practice are much easier to manipulate into following the latest trends/edict from SLT."

But too much faith in what is currently taught on PGCE can have the same effect...For example, where did VAK learning styles and the requirement to tick boxes for them come from? Some PGCE courses are still teaching this, even though now pretty clearly disproved by psychological research.

It doesn't matter where the nonsense comes from, what matters is that teachers recognise and defend their professional responsibility. It is much easier to do this if you a qualified professional. The reason that learning styles appears so attractive is that, like many education issues it seems to make sense. A well qualified professional will destroy the argument in the minutes; an unqualified adult responsible for the progress of class is more likely to believe that others know better than them.

The quality of an individual's critical reasoning faculties - and hence ability to discern between theories and take on board updated ideas - is far more likely to derive from their general education and UG degree than from teacher training.

The quality of an individual's critical reasoning faculties - and hence ability to discern between theories and take on board updated ideas - is far more likely to derive from their general education and UG degree than from teacher training.
yy!
Does amaze me that (some) teachers have the arrogance to assume otherwise.

An undergraduate degree may well teach subject matter and skills but decent PGCE teaches how to apply that knowledge. That is certainly my experience. That training year should also allow a trainee to try out new ideas under the supervision of more experienced teachers and give experience of more than one school.

It's not about arrogance - it's about ensuring new teachers know what to expect and have sone tools to deal with what classrooms might throw at them.

I don't really see what's so difficult about that. Having a first class degree does not automatically make one a good teacher. I would much rather my children were taught by someone who has teaching qualification.