Teacher in 6 months, Head teacher in 4 years

spuds_2

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5877652.ece

A sign of the governments panic, I reckon, as they desperately try to get all these redundant professionals off the jobless figures. It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that you can run a school with, say, 900 plus kids and 60 staff after 4 years classroom experience. Just because you managed to help bankrupt a bank doesn't mean you can teach.

Previous schemes to recruit 'higher calibre' graduates into teaching have found that they have left fairly quickly - only half of those who completed the 2 year Teach First programme remained in teaching. As soon as the econmy picks up, I reckon most of these new teachers will scarper.

Cannon_Fodder

Do you know the old saying?

"if you can, do
if you can't, teach"


The bankers have proved they can't, so are halfway there...

torontoboy45

so, refugees from the city trained on the cheap. brilliant. and typical of broon, who carried on the de-skilling of many walks of life from where the tories left off.
still, the bankers are used to long hrs (or so they tell us) so they should be up for teaching. OH devotes 55hrs a week - and she's not a Head.

chucky

a teacher needs a defined skillset - not everyone can be a good teacher

head teachers are usually the better adminstrators or project managers than they would be teachers. an adminstrators skillset does not depend on very good tolerant social skills.

Kenny4315

Overpaid babysitters !!!

Guy_Montag

chucky wrote: »

a teacher needs a defined skillset - not everyone can be a good teacher

head teachers are usually should be the better adminstrators or project managers than they would be teachers. an adminstrators skillset does not depend on very good tolerant social skills.

Fixed that for you; my experience is in other areas of education though.

StevieJ

As long as you keep them away from making aeroplanes

pianeet

torontoboy45 wrote: »

so, refugees from the city trained on the cheap. brilliant. and typical of broon, who carried on the de-skilling of many walks of life from where the tories left off.
still, the bankers are used to long hrs (or so they tell us) so they should be up for teaching. OH devotes 55hrs a week - and she's not a Head.

yep mine too,

i would like to know where all these teaching and other jobs are the government are desperate to fill,

sabretoothtigger

Investment bankers are moving into schools? I can see alot of mergers and pfi superschools appearing in five years time

LydiaJ

chucky wrote: »

a teacher needs a defined skillset - not everyone can be a good teacher

head teachers are usually the better adminstrators or project managers than they would be teachers. an adminstrators skillset does not depend on very good tolerant social skills.

Heads may not need to do much teaching, but they do need to understand education thoroughly from the inside. Thanks to successive governments' obsession with meddling with education, things change every year (whether it's policies or exam specifications or inspection criteria or whatever). The head is in overall charge of the school's response to the changing demands on it, and to do that well requires familiarity with what's good and bad about the status quo and enough knowledge of kids of the relevant age group to be able to anticipate how they will react to the new possibilities.

They also need to be able to lead a staff of teachers - which means being able to communicate, to gather a team around a vision, and to balance the needs of kids, parents, teachers and other staff. And they very definitely need social skills - all the most tricky situations (whether with kids, parents or staff) get referred to the head. There's a lot more to it than admin and project management.

There's a reason why they're called headteachers. Four years of experience in schools is not enough - these people's previous business experience is only relevant to a small part of the job.

Plasticman

spuds wrote: »

A sign of the governments panic, I reckon, as they desperately try to get all these redundant professionals off the jobless figures.

A sign of panic, but nothing to do with redundant professionals I suspect. More to do with the fact that existing head teachers are getting older and there aren't enough younger ones coming through to take their place. If something doesn't change there won't be enough head teachers to go around..........