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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Can schools be run with mainly 'unqualified' staff in the classroom.
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justlooking
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# 12079
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Posted
By unqualified I mean people who don't have qualified teacher status (QTS) but who may have degrees or other qualifications and work experience.
At present private schools, government supported free schools and AFAIK those with Academy status can employ unqualified staff as teachers. Most schools now use unqualified staff as 'cover supervisors' for classes where a teacher is absent and in some schools there is no significant difference between what a cover supervisor does and what a short-term supply teacher might do.
For about 10 years I worked as a supply teacher through an agency and when I began there was more than enough work, often a choice or two or three bookings with every phone call. The situation is very different now and I doubt if I could earn a living through supply teaching. Cover supervisors, often themselves working through agencies, are being used for short term work. The new Agency Worker Regulations have made older supply teachers too expensive for many schools and long term work has also been affected.
I can remember a discussion with other supply teachers, about ten years ago, when there'd been reports in the press about a 'think-tank' proposal that schools could be run with a few qualified staff to prepare lessons and to assess progress and that most lessons could be delivered by unqualified staff. Many supply teachers thought it couldn't happen but this seems to be the way things are now going.
Is it possible to run schools this way? Is it right? And, if this is the long-term plan, what is happening in the meantime to reduce the number of qualified teachers on the payroll?
My own view, looking at it dispassionately, is that it could be possible for most lessons to be delivered by staff without QTS. If the system has become akin to a manufacturing process then the lesson is the product, carefully planned and quality assessed before being passed for delivery to the consumer.
In the meantime from what I've observed schools are using the performance management and capability processes to get rid of teachers. Officially these are 'under-performing' teachers but in reality it's quite easy to target an expensive older teacher, or indeed anyone regarded as inconvenient, to manufacture circumstances and to manage them out of the school system. The pace is likely to speed up from September when new performance standards are introduced and a shorter time-scale for processing 'under-perfomers' out of the system.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
In the meantime from what I've observed schools are using the performance management and capability processes to get rid of teachers. Officially these are 'under-performing' teachers but in reality it's quite easy to target an expensive older teacher, or indeed anyone regarded as inconvenient, to manufacture circumstances and to manage them out of the school system. The pace is likely to speed up from September when new performance standards are introduced and a shorter time-scale for processing 'under-perfomers' out of the system.
Yes, I have seen this happen recently to two good, very experienced teachers. Teaching is a stressful job and if they are targeted for 'under-performance' they soon become over stressed and end up leaving.
This has huge implications for their future and pensions.
It's fast becoming a young person's profession. The patience and experience of older men and women is being cruelly wasted imo.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
[ 03. July 2012, 08:17: Message edited by: Boogie ]
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
It also means that all lessons are prepared to a set plan and taught to that plan. No chance to go through one area quickly when the class obviously understands that section and slow down for something not understood.
No chance to use the teaching opportunities of outside events - when the class is in uproar because something has happened outside and actually, scrubbing the teaching plan for half an hour and discussing whatever is bothering them is often more productive and constructive in the long term - and more memorable.
Having worked in both secondary and primary schools I can understand why schools do not want to use supply teachers. They were notorious for coming in for one day, not knowing the students, not bothering to find out, working through the list of instructions haphazardly and not bothering teaching. Having supported some lessons with supply teachers, I have taught more of those supply lessons than the teachers did (Learning Mentor going in to support particularly challenging students). Organising SEN support for lessons as a SENCo, priority was always lessons with supply teachers. I can really understand why schools chose to move to employing cover supervisors. They at least build relationships with the students.
But the total package of initiatives adds up to a continued denigration of the skills of teachers. I'm not sure how the Government can logically want to recruit high level graduates to the teaching profession and put most teaching in the hands of the unqualified. There seems to be a bit of a mismatch here.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
I believe some people without teaching qualifications could learn to teach as well as a trained teacher once they had some classroom experience. The issue is they would be doing a teacher's work for far less pay. Teaching is hardly a highly paid profession as it is so it seems unnecessary to hire people to do the same work for much less.
In England when I was there in 2006 doing supply teaching (admittedly I didn't have QTS as I trained in Australia so I'm not sure if my pay was the same as local supply teachers) the national curriculum was so set and detailed that even regular teachers did not have to do much planning. They still had to prepare resources etc, but often I did that as a supply teacher too. In Australia I still do a lot of planning as a supply teacher as work is not always left and the curriculum here allows a lot more teacher input in how it is planned, taught and assessed.
Thankfully in Australia there seems to be a push for more qualifications in teaching. Sometimes they talk about putting people with degrees in the classroom and then letting them study teaching while on the job, but these programs are suggested for attracting people who have achieved highly in their first degree. Therefore they would be paid more, at least initially, to encourage them into teaching. Even in childcare there has been a big overhaul of regulations so that workers need to be more highly qualified. We can't even employ secondary teachers at the vacation program where I work, which means we lost some great male staff and only have one male staff member working now. (He's studying to be a primary teacher).
It definitely is all about the money when the UK government claims to be improving schools by removing bad teachers, but then lets unqualified teachers teach classes.
Personally now I have been teaching for almost 10 years I find planning easy and enjoyable. Actually working with kids is the challenging part, especially if they have special needs, mental illness, difficulty with certain subjects or difficult behaviour. You could plan the most amazing curriculum ever, but it is how it is taught to each class and each individual child that makes the biggest difference.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
One only has to attend a few training courses as an adult to grasp that teaching is a SKILL. And not one that people automatically have just because they have a lot of knowledge about a subject. Knowing something yourself and being able to effectively teach it to others are entirely different things.
And two people could take the same 'lesson plan' (for adults, insert whatever name for course materials you like) and get entirely different results.
I don't know all the ins and outs of how one gets QTS over there, or precisely what qualifications a cover supervisor might be expected to have, but it certainly seems to me that teaching ought to involve... well... teaching skills.
Now, whether supply teachers are effectively fulfilling the teaching function strikes me as an entirely different question. Who ends up in supply teaching? To my mind there's an argument that supply teachers need to be, or ought to be, even more skilled than regular teachers - experts at getting the teaching done with little build-up and in quite difficult circumstances. I suspect the reality is often different.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
I agree with Boogie. I'd say that teaching is a profession where the "official" demands are impossible to meet. If you try to meet them you will run yourself into the ground. This is distressing, because the conscientious new teacher tries to "do the right thing" and becomes horribly stressed and depressed, very likely leaving the profession as a result.
In order to survive, let alone be effective, you have to decide what is really important and let the non-essentials fall onto the floor. I believe every teacher has reams of useless stuff that they are "supposed" to do, but actually don't do.
Unfortunately this means that you are always vulnerable. If management wants to get rid of you they will always be able to find a reason. Luckily most senior teachers are people of goodwill (no, really) and will not pry too far below the surface. But if not...
[x-posted with many]
[ 03. July 2012, 09:01: Message edited by: TurquoiseTastic ]
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Now, whether supply teachers are effectively fulfilling the teaching function strikes me as an entirely different question. Who ends up in supply teaching? To my mind there's an argument that supply teachers need to be, or ought to be, even more skilled than regular teachers - experts at getting the teaching done with little build-up and in quite difficult circumstances. I suspect the reality is often different.
From my experience supply teachers comprised returners, often women who'd spent time raising a family, teachers who'd taken early retirement, late entrants to teaching who'd had a previous career, people who were between permanent jobs and those who chose supply work in preference to a permanent post. For most I'd say the short-term bookings were interspersed with long-term work and many supply teachers had a 'core' of schools to which they returned frequently. A lot of my work was covering maternity-leave and long-term illness (often stress-related illness). The benefits of supply work include being able to avoid the politics and a lot of the admin which cause such stress for some teachers.
I certainly wouldn't claim that supply teachers are more skilled than regular teachers but the skills needed are different.
Cover supervisors who are employed as regular staff in a school are often a better choice than a n unknown supply teacher who's just there for the day. However it's not school-employed cover supervisors who've killed off most of the day-to-day supply bookings in some areas, it's the supply cover supervisors who work through agencies for less than half the pay rate of a teacher. Some schools still need to be able to call on cover staff at short notice and if they can get cheap cover with an unqualified person then that's what they'll choose.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Smudgie
Ship's Barnacle
# 2716
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Posted
Thank you, justlooking, for saving me from contemplating a return to teaching if things ever go pear shaped with my current job - that was just one of the many reasons which caused me to realise that my ethics and those of the education system in this country are too ill-matched.
I think a crowning moment for me in my teaching career was when the head teacher decided I was too good a teacher to waste on children who struggled with maths and so moved me to teach the top and middle stream and left my teaching assistant in charge of the two lower sets where she had previously been my spare pair of hands whilst I was teaching them. She was the best teaching assistant I'd ever had the honour to work with and she has since gone on to train as a teacher, but she was no teacher - her skills were in one particular area (the area of being able to approach the kids at their level and making the learning fun) but not in classroom control or planning or giving the lesson clear direction whilst doing that. And for her to be paid peanuts for doing what I was doing but in a more challenging environment was a disgrace.
As a teacher, even if I meticulously planned a lesson for a stand-in teacher to take - whether supply or a colleague from my own school - I knew that it would have been misinterpreted or taught in a different style or even totally ignored when I returned. As a result I virtually gave up on ever leaving worthwhile work for a stand-in to do. There again, I am a bit of a control-freak ![[Biased]](wink.gif) So the concept of regularly planning a lesson for someone else to teach is a travesty of the role of the qualified teacher. Besides which, I went into the profession to teach - if I'd wanted to write textbooks or teaching guides instead, I would have pursued that path.
Yes, you learn more on the job than you do in the teacher training establishment, but what you learn in the teacher training establishment is also of great value and it gives people time to judge your degree of vocation to teaching before you are entrusted with the education of a group of children who won't get another shot at doing those lessons they have with you.
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Miss you, Erin.
Posts: 14382 | From: Under the duvet | Registered: Apr 2002
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busyknitter
Shipmate
# 2501
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Posted
This doesn't have much bearing on the general discussion here, but at my son's special school for autistic children each class (of 6-8 pupils) has one teacher plus three teaching assistants to support the whole class plus any teaching assistant provision for pupils whose statements stipulate 1:1 support.
So while the teachers do all the planning, reviewing, assessing, reporting etc the school is actually run with a majority of unqualified staff. It is a brilliant school.
Not saying I would recommend this model for mainstream classrooms, just that (as ever) context is all.
Posts: 903 | From: The Wool Basket | Registered: Mar 2002
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Smudgie
Ship's Barnacle
# 2716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by busyknitter:
This doesn't have much bearing on the general discussion here, but at my son's special school for autistic children each class (of 6-8 pupils) has one teacher plus three teaching assistants to support the whole class plus any teaching assistant provision for pupils whose statements stipulate 1:1 support.
So while the teachers do all the planning, reviewing, assessing, reporting etc the school is actually run with a majority of unqualified staff. It is a brilliant school.
Not saying I would recommend this model for mainstream classrooms, just that (as ever) context is all.
I would recommend this model for mainstream classrooms - small classes, a qualified teacher with overall responsibility and leadership, a coherent team of skilled assistants to support the teaching by adapting it to the needs of individuals, almost enabling the teacher to be in four places at once by proxy. I once taught this way - a "bottom" set of 17 children with varying difficulties within a mainstream school and with three excellent unqualified classroom assistants. Boy, you should have seen the progress those kids made in a year! Mind you, didn't make any difference to their SATs results or our position in the league tables so it was obviously a waste of resources.
Bitter? Me? Nah!
[ 03. July 2012, 10:53: Message edited by: Smudgie ]
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Miss you, Erin.
Posts: 14382 | From: Under the duvet | Registered: Apr 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Smudgie, just try looking at current school job descriptions to be put off. I looked at SENCo post yesterday and it's really bad news when the job requirement includes
- the ability to do so much it was an impossible work load - including returning all phone calls within 24 hours* and written communication within 7 days;
- to manage a large team (of LSAs) and
- to maintain a work-life balance.
Someone told me that management of 17 people is normally seen as pretty full time work, not just a sideline of a huge role. And interviewing, employing, training and supervising that many unskilled people is a huge job in itself - weekly meetings, regular reviews (at least annual, but 3 months and six months in the first year), timetable planning, adjusting timetables around sickness and absence, being available to discuss issues and support changes. And that's a sideline to dealing with the students, their parents and the staff.
I don't think the people who are planning this have any concept of how much work is involved.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
It's obviously possible to run schools that way.
It just isn't going to be possible to run them well, effectively, or to the standards Ofsted is demanding.
As it is obviously possible to run a country with people who have no qualifications to do so, and are clearly ignorant of the needs of the job, just come up with brilliant wheezes.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
I agree with Boogie. I'd say that teaching is a profession where the "official" demands are impossible to meet. If you try to meet them you will run yourself into the ground.
Yes - to survive we cut corners, the wise teacher quickly learns which corners to cut and which to pay attention to. The job is truly un-doable otherwise.
A young teacher I chatted to last week said "You have to dodge work tactically, but do it for the children. She'll go far! (unless someone gets it in for her of course)
A sensible headteacher (like ours) recognises this and values the staff for their teaching ability, rather than ability to produce A+ paperwork.
But, if a head wants rid, it's easy now. Soon to become much easier. The head I referred to earlier is not ours and she is a bully - so very arbitrary in who she gets rid of. In fact she tends to remove those who are competent and confident, no doubt because she feels threatened by them.
I only teach two days a week now (semi-retired, wayhay!) but I put two days planning and preparation into those two days. It's wonderful to have the time and energy to do it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
Teaching may well be a skill that comes with experience but I doubt that skill comes with a teaching qualification. Many private schools with excellent standards of teaching have in the past avoided teachers who have been through the teacher training route because they thought it was a pretty useless qualification, they simply went for the best graduates.
A lot of modish claptrap was fed to trainee teachers in the past.
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Many private schools with excellent standards of teaching have in the past avoided teachers who have been through the teacher training route because they thought it was a pretty useless qualification, they simply went for the best graduates.
Private schools have well motivated pupils - money motivates! Swap their teachers with the one down our road and I know which would get the best results (and which would survive!)
The people with the best degrees are most certainly not automatically the best teachers. Our maths teacher had degrees from Cambridge coming out of his ears, he wore the gown to prove it. But he couldn't teach maths for toffee, and put many, many pupils off the subject for life.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
One of the benefits of training, though, is precisely that you gain experience by going on placement. Often somewhat chastening experience.
As for independent schools - well, I teach in one and enjoy it very much, but I think we have two great advantages:
1 - we select our pupils hence we don't have to teach (many) disruptive, demotivated pupils. Therefore someone with great academic gifts can be a highly effective classroom practitioner even if they wouldn't be able to survive in a tougher environment.
2 - the government mainly leaves us alone to get on with it rather than insisting we waste masses of time on things like National Curriculum assessment.
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
ISTM that there are two issues here and not one (although they are related).
First, the issue of whether non qualified teachers are on the increase - and if so, is it good or bad.
Second, the issue of performance management in schools.
As to 1. IME the results are mixed: I visit quite a few schools with varying socio economic and other factors in play. One school where I used to be a Governor had 35%+ of pupils who needed additional help - that it functioned and functioned well was down to teamwork. Teachers and TA's alike worked with one aim and gained excellent "added value" for the children.
Other schools do not so well with different mixes of qualified/unqualified staff.
Secondly, performance management. It is, IMHO, a belated change for the better to the school environment. Stats show a miniscule % of teachers across the UK who have been subject to discipline owing to poor performance. Most poor performers get moved on and rarely disciplined.
When do you ever hear of a teacher being dismissed for any reason other than misconduct with pupils?
Depending on the employment sector a figure of 3 - 5% underperformers (as a % of total employees) is to be expected. This covers those who should have never entered teaching and those whose performance has declined. Anyone who isn't reaching a minimum standard is, by definition, also not helping the pupils that he/she is entrusted with.
Please don't overlook the fact (as is done so often) that Performance Management ("PM") identifies talent as well as bringing incompetance or pooor performance to the surface.
If we don't have PM then we are, inevitably, going to settle for a status quo where we have to accept that "satisfactory" is OK and "poor" is untreatable as at present.
The changes to PM bring the timescales into line with other groups of employees.
Of course PM is stressful - esp if you are in it. Its correct operation requires real sensitivity from leaders esp if a change in performance is due to personal factors like bereavement or divorce, for example. That's wholly different from circumstances where there is no other apparent reason for not reaching minimum expectations than based on ability and/or delivery.
Different causes demand different approaches. Don't though forget the increase of parent power: parents increasingly recognise that education is not "free" but paid for by their taxes. Like healthcare they now expect a satisfactory return on their contribution and bad schools and shody teaching don't push their buttons.
Expect more complaints if schools don't sort the not so good from the good: it's happened and happening in hospitals - watch out schools you are next in line in the social consumer economy.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
I think performance management would be a disaster for the maintained sector. The problem is how to quantify the performance. It would mean even more time being devoted to "cover your back" assessment, meaningless targets, generating reams of useless data etcetera...
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
I think performance management would be a disaster for the maintained sector. The problem is how to quantify the performance. It would mean even more time being devoted to "cover your back" assessment, meaningless targets, generating reams of useless data etcetera...
How do you think Nurses (and others), manage?
How would you assess Teachers' suitability for their particular posts? How would you monitor needs for continuing professional development?
PM may help schools when the stuff rally hits the fan (as it surely will), when parents (like patients elsewhere), really start kicking off.
[ 03. July 2012, 16:16: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
I think performance management would be a disaster for the maintained sector. The problem is how to quantify the performance. It would mean even more time being devoted to "cover your back" assessment, meaningless targets, generating reams of useless data etcetera...
We have had PM in maintained schools for over ten years. I passed through all the hoops quite easily and earn lots more money because of it.
[ 03. July 2012, 16:35: Message edited by: leo ]
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
I think performance management would be a disaster for the maintained sector. The problem is how to quantify the performance. It would mean even more time being devoted to "cover your back" assessment, meaningless targets, generating reams of useless data etcetera...
How do you think Nurses (and others), manage?
How would you assess Teachers' suitability for their particular posts? How would you monitor needs for continuing professional development?
PM may help schools when the stuff rally hits the fan (as it surely will), when parents (like patients elsewhere), really start kicking off.
To take your questions in turn:
I think nursing is also suffering from a box-ticking, over-assessed culture which actively inhibits nurses from giving good nursing care.
I would assess teacher's suitability by having them work closely with their departmental head and colleagues, who will then be able to see if something is going seriously wrong.
I would monitor their need for CPD by having their head of department/year asking them what CPD they would find useful, possibly making some suggestions.
This is roughly what happens in the independent sector.
Your comment re: PM "helping schools" is rather telling I feel. It will not improve teaching; rather, its purpose is to "show that something is being done". The goal of the assessment is not to help educate the pupils but to tick boxes for the school management and the government.
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I'll echo leo - state sector schools have had performance management for years. It's been the only way to up pay points for easily 10 years in secondary schools. And the unqualified staff also have to have regular reviews in the same performance management format. Which means additional work for whoever is managing those unqualified staff.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
[QUOTE]
1. I think nursing is also suffering from a box-ticking, over-assessed culture which actively inhibits nurses from giving good nursing care.
2. I would assess teacher's suitability by having them work closely with their departmental head and colleagues, who will then be able to see if something is going seriously wrong.
I would monitor their need for CPD by having their head of department/year asking them what CPD they would find useful, possibly making some suggestions.
This is roughly what happens in the independent sector.
3. Your comment re: PM "helping schools" is rather telling I feel. It will not improve teaching; rather, its purpose is to "show that something is being done". The goal of the assessment is not to help educate the pupils but to tick boxes for the school management and the government.
1. Define "good nursing care." When have we ever had it? I agree with the box ticking thought to a certain extent but the lack of box ticking will not make a poorly performing employee, good. Just how are you going to determine someone's suitability for a position? Are public sector employees to remain a case for special pleading on non assessment?
2. PM, then.
3. It will improve teaching because "something is being done." As regards your comment referring to school management and Government, who do you think the school is accountable to?
If you believe it to be parents then take real care: they are far more likely to "hire and fire" than any Government. They have far more to gain and far less to lose than any Government who want the support of the teachers.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
I think we may be talking at cross-purposes - apologies. What I would worry about is if "performance management" came to mean purely "how many levels did you make your pupils go up on their assessments, and can you prove it". No objection to professional review as such.
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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catthefat
Shipmate
# 8586
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Posted
If PHSE has no levels yet I am sure some will soon be invented. They have already got them for five year olds; twenty seven scale points for each child just for this one (of six) areas of learning.
As part of performance management these are scrutinised and percentages worked out. Then there are percentages for children having free school meals, ethnicity, and boys versus girls. So,when we know that 2.4 of a boy on free school meals is similar to 1.8 of a EAL girl and has made 3.25 progress in PHSE everyone is a little happier and everything is hunky dory. Boxes are ticked and the children have done well, or not.
Posts: 143 | From: nottingham uk | Registered: Sep 2004
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
The university sector used to run with 100% unqualified staff.
Some universities now require new staff to take a teaching course, but the proportion of "qualified" teaching staff must still be well under 50%.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
It's fast becoming a young person's profession. The patience and experience of older men and women is being cruelly wasted imo.
And isn't is so very much easier to force a first-year teacher into jumping through administrative hoops than a thirty-year teacher who knows better?! Administrators do so love a staff that doesn't snicker when yet another "new" fad surfaces with those immortal words, "This isn't going away, folks."
[ 03. July 2012, 19:24: Message edited by: Martin L ]
Posts: 8953 | From: Ad Midwestem | Registered: Sep 2006
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But the total package of initiatives adds up to a continued denigration of the skills of teachers. I'm not sure how the Government can logically want to recruit high level graduates to the teaching profession and put most teaching in the hands of the unqualified. There seems to be a bit of a mismatch here.
The same mismatch as between Gove insisting on an even more prescriptive and narrow curriculum, and at the same time persuading more and more schools to become academies who will not be bound by it. Does not compute.
I've always thought Tories were idiots.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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AntarcticPilot
Apprentice
# 17195
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Posted
I have three lots of family experience of teaching; my mother was a teacher, my aunt was a teacher and my late wife was an LSA.
My mother was unqualified, her highest qualification was School Certificate (roughly equivalent to GCE). She was asked to take up teaching after the Second World War, and did very well. Throughout her career she taught the Reception class; she regarded her job as being "Civilizing" the children and instilling basic reading, writing and arithmetic. She regarded herself as a failure for any child that could not read, write and do simple sums at the end of their first year in school. The introduction of the requirement for degree-level qualifications ended her career as a teacher; she felt that if her track record didn't qualify her, then she did not wish to waste her time on getting bits of paper.
My Aunt was a career teacher; she went to teacher training college at a time when a woman teacher had to repay her grant, and could not continue teaching after marriage. She never married; I am sure she was an excellent teacher; I had the privilege of preparing her funeral tribute, and fortunately (by chance) met one of her former pupils - strict but a good teacher summed it up! But her professional qualifications (although accepted as degree-equivalent when the requirement came in) were nothing like a degree - she entered her course from School Certificate level.
My late wife was an LSA providing learning support to statemented children. Again, she had no degree qualifications, but was regarded as an excellent teacher and supporter, to the extent that she was one of the TES Friday Heroes! And she supported several NQT's, several of whom regarded her support as crucial to their development as teachers.
I'd say that degree level qualifications are a complete irrelevance to teaching; what matters is flair and understanding. Of course, the degree-level qualifications may provide a filter to remove some who are unsuited to the profession - but I very much doubt if my mother, my aunt or my wife would have been better at teaching children if they'd had modern BEd or PGCE qualifications.
Posts: 3 | From: Cambridgeshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Knowing that there has been a history of primary school teachers who did not understand maths handing that phobia on to pupils and these days, an appalling lack of scientific understanding, leaving huge misconceptions to be retaught and explained later on, some training is necessary. If you can't see why children are getting the maths wrong you can't help them move beyond it.
But the degrees and no teaching qualification provision is mostly aimed at secondary school teachers.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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ecumaniac
Ship's whipping girl
# 376
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Posted
Overseas trained teachers can work in govt schools for up to 4 years before having to get their QTS. I got mine this year - it was the most ridiculously patronising thing I've ever done. I just about managed to keep my mouth shut long enough in the debrief session of my final assessment for them to pass me. I might have at some point muttered something like, "I'm just trying to respond to the realities of teaching in a classroom with 32 children and no money for resources."
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it's a secret club for people with a knitting addiction, hiding under the cloak of BDSM - Catrine
Posts: 2901 | From: Cambridge | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Well, I'd like to echo Curiosity Killed...'s concern about primary staff with poor knowledge of science and maths, having been present at a session on Nature for infants (5-7 year olds, for non-UK people) led by a classroom assistant. I managed to bite my tongue when one of the children referred to spiders as insects (yes, yes, they're really arachnids but there's plenty of time higher up the school to teach him the finer points of taxonomy) but was unable to keep my mouth shut when the classroom assistant (who really should have known better as she is a keen gardener) started telling the children that ladybirds eat leaves. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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The Kat in the Hat
Shipmate
# 2557
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Posted
I've also chosen supply teaching as a career choice, to allow me the freedom to support my husband in his career, and more recently to help with the care for my father-in-law.
When I started I could choose when I worked, but over the last few years that choice has been taken away.
I understand that often children see a supply teacher and think "I can do what I like - they don't know me or the system". I've always been complimented by the support staff on how well I do manage behaviour, compared to the majority (it seems) of other supply teachers. Usually they are NQTs who came straight from school into college.
I can understand that a CS (cover supervisor) or HLTA (higher level teaching assistant) employed by a school will have a better understanding of the school and the children and will probably do a better job at managing the behaviour than I could.
But I have never understood why a supply HLTA or CS should be better - they are in the same position as I am. However, the rate of pay is much less and schools are struggling to balance their books. As a result the short-term day-to-day supply that I wanted no longer exists.
I had to listen to a HLTA telling the Y2s that the festival of Purim is celebrated by playing the dreidle game, and telling the Y4s that there are in total 13 Hindu gods. ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
But I was the one on the temporary contract, and when the parents complained that their children were not happy (because I made them work, or they faced the consequence) I was the one who had to leave.
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Less is more ...
Posts: 485 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Cod
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# 2643
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Posted
Mrs Cod taught in English schools in the late 1990s.
The impression she had then and I have now is that teachers in the state sector have just about now discretion concerning what and how to teach.
Given that the essence of a profession is that its members should have the responsibility and freedom to exercise their own judgment according to the expertise, could one say that the UK government has abolished the teaching profession?
That being so, perhaps it could provocatively be said British schools would be no worse without trained teachers given that the job teachers are being asked to do is more suited to robotic bureaucrats.
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
The same mismatch as between Gove insisting on an even more prescriptive and narrow curriculum, and at the same time persuading more and more schools to become academies who will not be bound by it. Does not compute.
Does compute. The private schools and Oxford University are for "people like us:, the land-owning officer class. The so-called academies and the revived grammar schools and the posher of the church schools and the minor private schools and the other universities are for the junior officer and NCO class - people who need some technical knowledge in order to be able to serve their lords and masters more effectively. The comprehensive schools and the National Curriculum are for the scum of the earth who need to be taught to obey orders.
These people are Tories. That is how Tories think.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Knowing that there has been a history of primary school teachers who did not understand maths handing that phobia on to pupils and these days, an appalling lack of scientific understanding, leaving huge misconceptions to be retaught and explained later on, some training is necessary.
But that is also true of secondary schools. Some have no-one at all capable of teaching more than the most elementary maths. Sometimes even no-one capable of teaching physics or chemistry.
Maths (and maybe sciences) in the GCSE and A-level years might be the one big exception to the general rule of "trained teachers only". Because the sad truth is that there are not enough trained specialist maths teachers to go round. And the even sadder one is that quite a few trained specialist maths teachers do not know maths well enough to handle an A-level course, and some not well enough to encourage a clever GCSE student.
To teach an academic subject well you need to go beyond the curriculum and need to know more than the government says your pupils need to know. Partly because that way you have a context and intellectual structure, partly because you will get questions from kids that go further than the curriculum (and if your answer is "that's not in the curriculum its not important" you ought not to be teaching), partly because you need enthusiasm for the subject to communicate it and someone who didn't care enough to learn more for themselves probably hasn't got enough enthusiasm to be catching.
Also in science subjects (though maybe not maths) someone teaching the older years in a secondary school really ought to be aware of current developments since they graduated. Or since the textbooks were written.
quote:
If you can't see why children are getting the maths wrong you can't help them move beyond it.
A sore point with me. When I was at school the almost universal maths teacher reaction to a kid who got the answers wrong was to assume they hadn't understood the previous bit of work so give them dozens of easier ones to do. Repetitive and tedious and nowhere near explanation or help.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And the even sadder one is that quite a few trained specialist maths teachers do not know maths well enough to handle an A-level course, and some not well enough to encourage a clever GCSE student.
This is true, both of my boys did Maths and Further Maths A levels. Both got A grades, but only because I employed an (expensive) tutor who plugged the gaps left by the school. He was an ex maths teacher who found the stresses of class teaching too much, but became a very in-demand tutor.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
...Given that the essence of a profession is that its members should have the responsibility and freedom to exercise their own judgment according to the expertise, could one say that the UK government has abolished the teaching profession?
That being so, perhaps it could provocatively be said British schools would be no worse without trained teachers given that the job teachers are being asked to do is more suited to robotic bureaucrats.
This is a good point. There seems to be very little scope for professional judgement. It seems more like a a highly monitored and scrutinised process for delivering a public service.
ISTM to the aim is to drive down the cost of providing state education. Teachers' salaries and pensions are a huge part of the cost. If these costs can be reduced without any reduction in outcome, or even with a perceived improvement in outcome, then the process will have general support. A lot will depend on consumer response and the ultimate consumers are the parents.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Kat in the Hat:
I had to listen to a HLTA telling the Y2s that the festival of Purim is celebrated by playing the dreidle game, and telling the Y4s that there are in total 13 Hindu gods
Many primary teachers are wary of reaching RE so they delegate that to TAs while they take their preparation and planning time. This is yet one more threat to my subject.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
What if things were taken to extremes though? Imagine the UK Government decided to replace the majority of teachers with unqualified staff, deeming that these unqualified staff deserved less pay than trained teachers. How many people would want to teach? When I lived in London I had a friend who was teaching music in a secondary school who got some sort of subsidy towards buying a flat because London was desperate for teachers, but it was difficult for teachers to live there on a teacher's wage. Imagine how much less affordable London is for lower paid staff in schools.
Who could afford to work in these unqualified positions? All I can think of based on the type of people who work as lowly paid integration aides in Australia, is these staff would need to be married to someone who earned a lot more than them. The spouse would be the main breadwinner for the family while the teaching partner would supplement the family income with their low wage.
In Australia it is usually women who work these roles and I have know some integration aides who have really struggled when they have divorced after their kids have grown up. Suddenly they're stuck in a job with a low wage and no monetary support from the ex-partner.
There is already a fairly strong argument that many people, especially men, who would be great teachers are not teachers because they can earn so much more in another field. If the UK government used this round about way to reduce teaching wages, surely even more potentially great teachers would be lost from the system. (This is not to say that teachers and other staff in schools do not do a great job on low pay, as low pay generally means the people doing the jobs are there because they love the jobs not the money. However lower pay definitely makes choosing to teach a low priority for many people).
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
If this is indeed the plan then the lower paid staff would not be called teachers and what they do would not be described as teaching.
At present the system now has a recognised role of cover supervisor and agencies send out supply CSs who are paid around £50-£70 a day. Supply teachers who work through agencies are generally paid £100-£150 a day. Those who work through LEA's are paid to scale, which for an experienced teacher would be around £190 a day. The new Agency Worker Regulations mean that any supply teacher who is in a school for 12 weeks must be paid to scale and receive the same benefits as regular staff. It makes keeping an older experienced supply teacher for longer than 12 weeks very expensive for the school.
There are now supply teachers who are taking CS work because it's that or nothing. They are not supposed to teach and some I know do make a point of establishing this clearly with a school. However, they can safely be used to cover long-term absences because the school can claim that a class has a qualified teacher even though they are in the role of CS.
There is also apparently a surplus of newly qualified teachers from what seems to be a policy of recruiting more than the system needs. I don't understand the rationale for this but it seems to be the case that some NQT's find it difficult to complete their induction and the time-scale has been increased to five years.
Officially, CS work needs only GCSE level qualifications but some of the job requirements need a higher level of qualification and the kind of experience which is involved in teaching. Being able to speak to large groups of people, to outline and explain a task, to ensure good behaviour and to be able to contribute to pupil assessment can be part of a CS job specification.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
@OP
Short answer - it is a generally risky idea.
Long answer - I don't know if teaching is considered a profession in the UK? Like medicine, lawyering, occupational therapy, plumbing. In professions here, you require a licence to practice or a journeyman's certificate to show that you've had the necessary training and supervised experience to do the job. I don't think I want an operation from a skilled person who is not a doctor, nor my house wired by someone with skills but not a qualified electrician. Why would I want to be taught or have children taught by persons who are not qualified?
I did go to a private school in the 1970s which had unqualified teachers. I won't suggest that all schools who have unregulated unofficial teachers are bad from my personal experience, but I think it is is risky. Who exactly regulates the unregulated? It took Child Protection investigations and lawsuits to sort my school out.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
I don't know if teaching is considered a profession in the UK?
Depends who you ask and what you mean by 'professiopn'.
Old-fashioned teachers like me regard 'professional' as meaning that we do it for the kids and not for the money so we are prepared to work long hours of unpaid overtime. But we were exploited and our goodwill has largely run out, especially when they came to steal our pensions.
If 'profession' entails membership of a registering body, then we had that in the General teachers' council - which this government has disbanded (though my trade union calls itself a 'professional association.'
Teaching has always moved back and forth, in the eyes of politicians and the public, between a mere job and a profession.
When we lobbied for an all-graduate profession, we arrived there only to see this undercut by the use of assistants. These assistants were invented to do the boring chores like photocopying, under a working agreement delightfully known as WamG. Now, they are 'delivering' lessons while proper teachers stay in their offices and write lesson plans for them.
I use the word 'deliver' because this government has the banking model of education - you parcel up bits of knowledge and deliver it. They have no idea of education as inspiring curious minds - just filling them with 'stuff'.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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ecumaniac
Ship's whipping girl
# 376
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And the even sadder one is that quite a few trained specialist maths teachers do not know maths well enough to handle an A-level course, and some not well enough to encourage a clever GCSE student.
You have got to be kidding me. It's hardly rocket science!
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it's a secret club for people with a knitting addiction, hiding under the cloak of BDSM - Catrine
Posts: 2901 | From: Cambridge | Registered: Jun 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Well, I'd like to echo Curiosity Killed...'s concern about primary staff with poor knowledge of science and maths, having been present at a session on Nature for infants (5-7 year olds, for non-UK people) led by a classroom assistant. I managed to bite my tongue when one of the children referred to spiders as insects (yes, yes, they're really arachnids but there's plenty of time higher up the school to teach him the finer points of taxonomy) but was unable to keep my mouth shut when the classroom assistant (who really should have known better as she is a keen gardener) started telling the children that ladybirds eat leaves.
It was our TAs who caught me and asked what they should do about a student who taught the class that spiders were insects. One of them had queried it, and the student was backed up by the observing tutor! We got some books in. Our TAs are pretty good, despite not being able to go beyond the lesson stuff in personal knowledge.
Another student asked us at a planning meeting what a tetrahedron was. Along with our concealed shock at the ignorance, was also the shock that she did not see the problem with asking us, rather than going to a book and concealing said ignorance.
leo wrote "They have no idea of education as inspiring curious minds - just filling them with 'stuff'." Inspiring curious minds! They don't want that. No curiosity, and as for minds? Us Morlocks don't have minds, do we? On the other hand, it is probably their own shortage in the curious mind department that leads them not to see what is so obvious to us.
What ken said, re Tory thought. Too.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
<tangent re spiders and inaccurate information>
Thinking back (and making an effort to be fair), I wonder if the issue in the incident I mentioned was that the TA didn't want to challenge too many of the children's misconceptions. But surely that's what education is for?
And it's not just students - I heard a CBBC presenter referring to spiders as insects. This is how my own daughter learned the difference (as a result of seeing Mummy turn purple with rage and yell abuse at the TV screen).
Oh, and what Ken said again again, with the corollary that the Powers That Be have not yet woken up to the fact that this model of education is no longer appropriate for a modern economy.
[ 05. July 2012, 08:56: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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