Unqualified teacher qualifications.

[nancyclancy123]

What qualifies a person as able to work as an unqualified teacher?
Asking out of curiosity as thought a degree was needed???

Oh and this is to work with primary aged children in a SEN setting.

No requirements. It’s up to the school.

Isn't it nothing if it's academy? Some nonsense about how you could get Dyson (the inventor not the vacuum) to teach science.

The way teacher recruitment and retention is going it will soon be the vacuum not the inventor stood in front of the kids

I’m horrified. I am currently working as a TA in an SEN school with a ‘teacher’ who has no teaching qualifications whatsoever, no degree or any actual qualifications in anything.
I have early years qualifications and until now have worked mainly in pre school settings. So I consider myself to be more qualified than her. It’s so wrong!!

The lunatics have actually taken over the asylum.

I worked alongside an “unqualified” languages teacher. She was a native speaker of the language in question who had taught extensively in evening classes and was extremely knowledgeable about the culture of the country alongside her excellent linguistic knowledge. She had an amazing rapport with the kids and was many of their favourite teacher. She eventually became qualified but it took her a really long time, she had to do a degree in that language which she found very easy but as she couldn’t attend full time it still took her six years of evening classes. Then the school sponsored her through what was then the gtp route. I don’t think either the degree or qts made her a better teacher in the end. So I think what I’m saying is, yes it may broadly be best for a teacher to have at least a degree if not qts but it doesn’t always follow that someone without those things is a terrible teacher. Especially in a setting like sen, they may have gained a lot of experience that no amount of classroom training could ever provide. I do accept though that there may be many shit unqualified teachers out there - I just haven’t encountered them!

The way teacher recruitment and retention is going it will soon be the vacuum not the inventor stood in front of the kids @carrieblue

And yet it’s true.

A pulse.

When I took a post as an unqualified teacher I had a first class degree in the subject I was teaching and a relevant MA, plus some lecturing experience and a previous career running educational workshops for schools. It is a meaningless term and a lot of 'unqualified' teachers are not 'unqualified' in the sense the general public would understand the term.

So I consider myself to be more qualified than her. It’s so wrong!!

How is her performance? What's her background? Why did they recruit her instead of you?

When I took a post as an unqualified teacher I had a first class degree in the subject I was teaching and a relevant MA, plus some lecturing experience

I wonder how many unqualified teachers don’t have anything like this sort of experience!

I think the point is that being qualified as a teacher simply means you are qualified as a teacher. Sadly, it does not mean that you are any good at teaching (although you might be) nor that you have the right kind of subject knowledge (although you may do) nor that you have a rapport with children (hopefully that's there) and it definitely doesn't mean you can handle the workload, politics etc.

When I did my teaching qualification, they made me qualify in KS4 Religious Studies (long boring story, have never taught RS since), which oddly enough didn't make me a better teacher of KS5 Economics.

It is a really ridiculous system and I'm.not surprised non-teachers find it hard to.understand.

What qualifies a person as able to work as an unqualified teacher

No qualifications necessary.

Is this in England? I've never heard of anyone being an unqualified teacher is Scotland. Everyone I have ever worked with has to have a degree and teaching qualification.

Academies have opted out of Local Education Authority control and can therefore employ anyone they consider suitable to teach. They do not have to have a degree. They do not have to have a teaching qualification. Unqualified teachers can be paid as little as £15,800 a year. A newly qualified teacher starts on £24,300. That's because they have a degree and a year's teacher training.

Many parents would be horrified to realise that because schools are short of money the idea of a warm body in front of the class who will do it for approximately £10,000 a year less money than an actual teacher is appealing to some headteachers.

@corneliawildthing I think the school has to be able to show (in theory, at least) that there were no qualified applicants for the post. So if posts in Scotland usually attract qualified applicants, it's not going to be an issue (possibly the rules are different anyway?) The number of teachers in England has fallen relative to the fast growing student numbers.

It’s true that academies can hire anyone. The only thing they need is DBS. Independent schools can also do what they like of course but I am yet to come across an unqualified teacher at one, the paying parents would simply not accept it. State schools require teacher to be in training on the job or to have QTS already.

I’ve come across unqualified teachers is independents. Some in senior positions. They tend to be the ‘unqualified’ meaning no QTS, still have several other degrees/professional qualification type though not the ‘will work for 15,000 type’.

The only way I have ever understood this is in relation to overseas trained teachers, who work as unqualified while they get QTS. That makes sense.

For everyone else, I don’t understand why someone who wants to teach wouldn’t want to be as qualified as possible for the role. It’s not as if the training routes don’t exist!

I think the unqualified thing was brought in by the government suggesting there were just thousands of people with amazing degrees or PhDs or previous careers as artists/musicians/physicists etc who would be brilliant in the classroom but for some inexplicable reason, despite their amazingness, couldn’t get their PGCE.

This didn’t happen, of course and just meant that heads could hire cheap people who had no qualifications if they wanted to.

As we all suggested would happen.

It’s the classic: ‘My friend’s son had simply marvellous talents and really wanted to teach for a while in a lovely little school, but couldn’t get a job because of some rule-bound headteacher who insisted they had a boring teaching qualification’. Thus policy is made!

It is the only profession where being less qualified is bizarrely seen as better than actually having the requisite training and qualifications.

It is the only profession where being less qualified is bizarrely seen as better than actually having the requisite training and qualifications.

It’s bonkers!

Phineyj I had a 1st Class Degree in my subject, and an MA in a similar subject, didn't make me a good unqualified teacher.
I could wing it and I was in a high performing school with very few behavioural problems, so could have got away with it longer term and learnt on the job - but I hated working like that so I quit after a year.
I enjoyed it overall and learnt a lot, but I did the kids a massive favour walking away.

Well, that's one of the points in favour of an unqualified route in, I think - you can give teaching a good try to see if you like it, without too much risk on either side.

Let's not pretend it's not possible to emerge from the current ITT system with the qualification but without much aptitude as
a teacher, either. You've met them. I've met them.

If the qualification really was that good/useful, I think it would be more respected and schools wouldn't be trying to find their way round it.

My mum did an HND in teaching in the late 70s and from how she's described it, it was a really practical, useful course. It wasn't particularly expensive or time-consuming either and she was able to do it around the childcare she had. She's still teaching privately now at nearly 80.