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.

Great point Kestrel.

I hear that there are still very outdated versions of Piaget taught as fact.

As a parent of a child with SN, I was treated to all sorts of nonsense, which I later learned had been picked up on PGCE courses.

Hermia, it's a fair analogy but only up to a point. No-one dies, etc,etc.

It's not quite the same. I knew as much about my actual subject before I did my PGCE as I did after it because I had done a degree in it. Teacher training taught me some theories about how to deliver that knowledge, some ideas about how to deal with classroom management and some info about assessment etc. And I got some experience actually teaching, of course.

But I probably learnt a lot more in my first term of actually being a teacher than I did in the whole PGCE year. Partly because what I was learning was directly and specifically relevant to the school I was working in, and partly because I wasn't wasting time sitting in lectures listening to people waffle on about educational theory.

Surely much of your PGCE was spent being a teacher.

Yes, some of it. It was the only bit that was actually useful (although it was an absolute hell-hole of a school, so did not prepare me very well for the much better school where I got my first teaching job). But why is it ok for a totally inexperienced PGCE student to be let loose to teach a class, but not an unqualified teacher with a degree in the subject?

Because there are safeguards. There is usually another teacher in the room for most of the placement. You have a reduced timetable, you have time to observe colleagues and reflect on your practice.

I can speak for the law one Hermia because I'm a lawyer. There are key differences.

What's "real" in law that you go to law school for is the statutes, the case law and the rules of court. You simply have to sit down and memorise and grasp great chunks of them.
Your success or failure as a lawyer (by which I mean client service, not career progression) is then dictated half by your grasp of what you studied (as updated) and half by your practising skills (handling meetings, pragmatism, abiding by the rules of conduct and all that stuff).

But what's "real" in teaching IS the practising skills. That IS the skill, just as an actor's skill IS acting. It's about the face, the body, the voice, what's said, what's not said, when to speak, when to be silent, when to insist, when to hold back. You can be a superb teacher without ever hearing of Piaget or Vyogotsky. You cannot be a superb patent lawyer without knowing the Patents Act back to front (and I've seen someone try). A teacher's skill and knowledge is largely non-discursive skill and knowledge. It is not the kind of skill you can write essays about. It is about how you handle situations in real time.

I have enormous admiration for my teacher colleagues. They are not academics. None of them could argue a point with me. I could probably write a far better policy or training manual or even textbook (!) than any of them. But I couldn't teach like them because I have only four years' worth of very part-time skills in a specialist subject.

Legal, there's a lot to learn about teaching that you can't simply acquire by standing in front of a class. I've been teaching ten years and I'm still learning from reading blogs, twitter, books. I'd like to say going on courses, but my school is pretty stingy with its CPD budget.

One of my PGCE essays was looking at some national curriculum objectives in depth then looking at what the research showed were common misconceptions in that area. Another was about mixed ability teaching versus setting.

No we don't need to memorise facts and figures, but there are many things about teaching that we can learn from others. I got better at behaviour management by learning behaviour management techniques and applying them in the classroom, by having people observing my teaching and making suggestions. I learned how to plan a lesson or a series of lessons. I looked at the curriculum in detail and learned about levels and assessments. We made resources and shared our experiences with other PGCE students. I read a lot of books and journals.

You might be able to be a superb teacher without knowing about Piaget, but I don't think you can be a truly superb teacher without having a lot of background knowledge that perhaps you don't appreciate because you haven't got it.

If we only learned from being the classroom there would not be any need for CPD. A PGCE or equivalent is just a heavy dose of CPD, it makes sense to have this at the start of a teacher's career as well as throughout.

I do take your point that teachers need to learn from each other.

But that's best done day by day with colleagues or online.

I definitely accept that when you start off you shouldn't have a full teaching load. But I suspect most theory stuff is not useful in most courses.

Most teachers do not really have to to learn from each other day by day, sadly I think.

I do think that we need to learn about how people learn in order to able to teach.

Teachers also need to learn from experts. I hate the cheap training days where we sit around with post-it notes and the leader expects us to come up with all the answers.

The PGCE gives time to read books and journals, to reflect on teaching. It gives experience of teaching in more than one school and under the supervision of more than one teacher. I'd bloody love the opportunity to have that time again.

I totally agree noble.

You are both in danger of making a good case!

Sadly it seems as though the profession doesn't have the confidence to make most PGCE courses like the ones you are describing.

Legal I'd like to think I'm pretty academic thanks. I've had plenty of educational material published. I might not be able to argue a point of law with you, but I could probably argue you out of the water on a number of other subjects.

I did GTP and found it really good - 1 day in Uni, 4 in school. Also having NQT time in the first year of teaching helps with being able to look at other methods, research etc.

Legal is right. Teacher training for QTS is a relatively modern idea. It only became compulsory for state school teachers in England decades after pilots had to get licences to fly planes and centuries after doctors and lawyers had to obtain qualifications for the jobs they do.

Top performing independent schools employ large proportions of unqualified teachers. Like doctors (many actually have doctorates) they have deep and tested subject knowledge. Their schools make sure they get trained when they start with programmes of observation, mentoring and guidance. Being life long learners and keen on postgraduate study, some go on to study for MAs in Education. They remain unqualified but it is only in the last couple of years that it has been suggested, including crazily by their own trade unions, that they aren't teachers.

It may well be reasonable to expect teachers in state schools to undergo some specific training and/or external assessment but the idea that an experienced and capable unqualified teacher shouldn't be considered a member of the profession is a new and nasty one.

I'm sure you could legal. I'm talking about the teachers at my school, not you.

yes, my mother went straight from an English degree to teaching at a secondary comp. I think she found the experience fairly horrific.

I'm sure you get your own name right too Evil!

so did her pupils, most likely!

Also, Legal, you're now starting to make assertions without any level of evidence. My PGCE (17 years ago, admittedly) and the two different courses from which I have worked with trainees this year have all been run in that way. My school is challenging - my one trainee worked with us and then did her other placement at a grammar school. Our closest university does one placement with one school, a second with a second school and then a third back at the first school. I think that's quite a good system.

Evil, I need to fetch the "you're reading in more than I wrote" and the "I wasn't talking about you" emoticons but they haven't designed them yet.

I'm just wittering on mumsnet. I'm not in court. I don't need to produce evidence. Just some thoughts. Hear a lot saying PGCEs are crap. Have taught a shocking post-grad course in a top-tier uni myself so I believe it. That's all.

I think a "you're reading in more than I wrote" emoticon would be great