Teach First/School Direct are just mad, right?

[noblegiraffe]

I did a PGCE and it was a difficult year with an intense workload. The periods at uni were a blessed respite from the school placements with the teaching/lesson planning/marking requirements.

My department has always taken PGCE students. They often seem exhausted by the end of their placement and work long hours. They are teaching about ten hours by Christmas, so a gentle but ramped introduction. They have a teacher in with them every lesson.

Which got me thinking about Teach First - they start on a 60-80% timetable, despite probably having as much teaching experience as my PGCE students. They own their own classes so no teacher in with them, only feedback is from proper observations. If the TF student quits, the school is then left with a hole in their staffing.

I’m not sure about School Direct timetabling but it’s also a ‘drop in at the deep end’ approach (more or less supportive depending on whether salaried).

How are they not seen as a bonkers training route? How can you hone your craft when you’re pinging from one lesson to the next from the start? And you don’t have a class teacher on hand to provide guidance and take over if things go badly?

And yet I’ve seen people on here say ‘I’d prefer to do School Direct to a PGCE because I’d prefer to learn on the job’ like a PGCE is an entire year spent in a lecture theatre.

I get that some people need the salary and don’t have a choice, but that’s not always the case.

Surely a PGCE is better for the trainee, the school, and for the classes they teach?

Then I started teaching a 50% timetable when I cam back in September, which was the official start of my GTP.

So if you hadn’t done the unpaid teacher bit beforehand, you’d have gone straight into a 50% timetable?

This was what I thought the salaried School Direct was like and I also thought that was a bit mad, but some on here suggest that some salaried SD build up like a PGCE.

I don’t understand the school that is paying both a mentor and a student to teach the same class.

dootball what do you mean maths teachers don’t have the skills to implement teaching theory?

@LucyLastik I'm a bit confused by the comment that your student will be teaching 80% "with supervision as they would as an NQT"? I'm in Scotland and our probationers (NQTs) are not supervised?

I have to say there is a new scheme in Scotland which is a 1 year condensed student and probationary year. It's running for shortage subjects only. We've had 3 students in our school all of whom failed or withdrew before the end of their placements - normally we have a lot of students and they do well with us, so we are questioning the structure of the new combined course...