Schools advertising for 'unqualified teachers'

[roamingespadrille]

This is what a number of our local schools are advertising. Very low pay attached to it. Job description is a full teaching job.

If this is directed at my previous comment, I can assure you that Growth Mindset is very much alive in my area and we are encouraged to display posters and get children to do this shite in our classrooms.

I really feel for you. It is so distressing and depressing to be forced into propagating systems and concepts we know to be utter drivel.

Water from springs and streams is natural and has a lower water potential than from bottles or taps
Please tell me you don't teach science, what about deionised distilled water in a bottle cf with stream water in yorkshire running through the limestone 🤔
It is not even problematic for our bodies to drink water containing mineral ions, either stright from the stream if you fancy diahorrea or from a bottle.

What has something not working 100 years ago got to do with anything?

It's like you're suggesting that education was sorted out centuries ago and there's nothing new to say?

It's like you're suggesting that education was sorted out centuries ago and there's nothing new to say?

there really isn't. Knowledge is knowledge and brains are brains, and adults have taught children for half a million years....and the idea that someone is going to come up with something now that not one of the millions of teachers in the previous hundred of millenia has ever thought of is a bit silly.

user1497480444

So encouraging pupil to move from "I can't do that" to "I can do that" is "bollox"?

Seems to me that that is the basis of a huge amount of teaching.

I think a very small proportion of children have been educated across the timescales you are talking about. Teaching all children, that's the challenge for now I think.

Teaching is a skill as is working with people and leadership of both other students and staff-no amount of educational theory can train you

This is such obvious nonsense, it's embarrassing. There are good ways of teaching, and less effective ways of teaching. There are good ways of assessing, and less effective ways of assessing. There are good ways of managing behaviour and less effective ways of managing behaviour.

Why the fuck should classes of children be put through a succession of people having a go at what they think might work, what they remember from school, what they saw someone else doing once, when they could find out in advance what some of the good ways are and implement them from the start?

My DH is a manager. Some people might say managing people is a skill, you're born with it etc. Well he's got massive textbooks of ways to effectively manage people, get them working in teams, how to lead meetings, give appraisals and so on and he has made sure that he has read them and got better at it. Of course he has, he's a professional.

Teaching qualifications can be over rated. PGCE just consists of one year unpaid experience, with support and feedback. You can get support and feedback in a paid job too

I assume that you are a qualified teacher? If you are qualified then you are undervaluing a demanding course and profession. Presumably you found it all incredibly easy and consider yourself to be a 'natural'? Not many of those about.
If you are not then please confine yourself to talking about something that you know about.

"A lot of people prefer going into teaching through this route, rather than PGCE; a lot cheaper, you get paid from day one, rather than having to pay tuition fees yourself, etc. and a LOT less irrelevant faffing about."

Well, yes, this sounds much better for adults changing careers. I can see why qualified teachers don't like it though.

Knowledge is knowledge and brains are brains, and adults have taught children for half a million years....and the idea that someone is going to come up with something now that not one of the millions of teachers in the previous hundred of millenia has ever thought of is a bit silly.

It's a bit silly to think that education now is the same as it was in the previous hundreds of millennia. It's a bit silly to say that children are treated the same. In 1960 there were 32,000 children over the age of 15 in schools, today there are over a million. New challenges bring new research. Technology brings new solutions. Developments in our understanding of memory and cognitive psychology highlight more effective methods.

It's pretty sad that you think there is nothing new to learn, no way to improve. How do you grow?

this sounds much better for adults changing careers

Better than a paid training route on the job which results in a qualification? It's not like that's not an option.

My ds has had an unqualified teacher this year, she's amazing and he loves her. She has been working towards a qualification though and I think may actually have passed now. We are a LA school not an academy.

Seems to me that that is the basis of a huge amount of teaching.

I don't think you understand what "mindests " are

Well he's got massive textbooks of ways to effectively manage people, get them working in teams, how to lead meetings, give appraisals and so on and he has made sure that he has read them and got better at it.

exactly, he has read about it, so do teachers, many do every day, many belong to professional groups and read their publications, and ALL schools and ALL teachers do inset, my school does an hour and 20 mins a week. My next school does an hour and a half.

I assume that you are a qualified teacher? If you are qualified then you are undervaluing a demanding course and profession. Presumably you found it all incredibly easy and consider yourself to be a 'natural'? Not many of those about.
If you are not then please confine yourself to talking about something that you know about

I do know what I'm talking about, I don't think you do though. The PGCE qualification is worth diddly squat in terms of skills and knowledge. It is worth something to the school in terms of salary and insurance.

ALL teachers do inset

So you acknowledge the value of doing INSET to a teacher, and CPD, but not an intense course at the start of the job to get you up to speed?

How odd. Either learning how to improve your teaching is important, or it isn't, don't you think?

Developments in our understanding of memory and cognitive psychology highlight more effective methods

but actually they don't bring any further methods, no, as you said they may "highlight" effective methods, as in help us understand why they are effective.

Technology brings new solutions new technology brings different ways of implementing new methods.

how to use your brain really is the one area of human society which hasn't changed in half a milllion years. In that time billions and billions of people have tried it out in every way possible. What works in one society and one generation also works in another.

Even within the career of one teacher, the same theories come round again and again.

Hence the saying "There is nothing new in teaching" because there truly isn't

So you acknowledge the value of doing INSET to a teacher, and CPD, but not an intense course at the start of the job to get you up to speed?

no, not odd, I am trying to explain that the PGCE qualification does not "get you up to speed" and does not train you in any way or prepare you better than being an unqualified teacher does.

People seem to think you learn how to teach in a PGCE, you don't, you may learn one set of theories, but theories just go round and round in circles, and contradict each other. So what you learn isn't of any value. Also you might end up in a school where the management don't want you to use a particular theory, etc, anyway.

For example, look at "growth mindsets" which was until recently taught in some PGCEs.

Complete load of BS.

Some managers refused to ever let it cross their threshold, but some adhered to it so tightly that some poor teachers are still having to shove it down students throats, even knowing it is meaningless and damaging.

Look at " praise sandwiches" " three stars and a wish" what ever you want to call it - still being foisted on infant and junior school children, in spite of the fact it has been shown to make senior school children wary and suspicious of all praise, as they assume they are just getting the "praise quota" that is required to spoonfeed them with before critisising something.

There is no right or wrong way to teach. What you need is to know what your particular school wants ( which might be the opposite of the school in the next road) and to build up your own feeling for the children in front of you.

You might think you learn something about SEND on the PGCE, but with 50 or so different types of SEND common in schools, you can't learn about them all, and remember the details in one day a week of lectures during term time only, over 10 months. You learn and relearn them as you come up against them.

Actually, two stars and a wish is a great way to get students to format the feedback to their peers in Drama. Creates a positive environment and makes them think about giving constructive rather than destructive feedback (ours can be a negative bunch). Don't use it written work for the reasons you suggest

well, peer assessment does sound like a better use of it, I haven't used it myself, but will keep it in mind in the future

There is no right or wrong way to teach

As Hattie points out, in education everything 'works' - to a degree. The question therefore should be not what is right or wrong, but rather what is the most 'right' - that is, what works best. You've already said that the human brain has remained the same for millennia; that implies that in fact there should be better ways of teaching than others, surely?

If there are no right and wrong ways to teach them how do we have good and bad teachers? Clearly there are ways to teach that are better than others. Droning in a monotone to a class that ignores you or flicks the vs = bad. Getting the class to draw pictures of Romeo and Juliet to teach the theme of violence = bad.

But what are the good ways? People need to be taught them.

user1497480444

I understand what mindsets are, do you?

you said

So encouraging pupil to move from "I can't do that" to "I can do that" is "bollox"?

Seems to me that that is the basis of a huge amount of teaching

so it would seem to me that you DON'T understand what "growth mindsets" are

user1497480444

Its called simplifying, I obviously aimed too high for your ability.