Does Your Child Go To A Proper School Or An Academy?

Acc72

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

There is also the argument that just because you are good at something does not mean you can teach it.

It astounds me that parents are not angry that their children could be taught by someone unqualified and unproven.

There is the old saying " those that can, do - those that can't, teach".

Maybe this move will help to encourage those who can "do" to also "teach" ? (this will surely benefit the students).

Also, is it preferable to only be taught by career teachers who have no other work experience, or would it be preferable to be taught by people who also have "real life" experience in their field?

I also don't think that head teachers will be rushing out to employ "Joe Bloggs off the dole" (as previously stated on this thread) as teachers.

This kind of knee- jerk, tabloid-esque sensationalism does not help your argument.

peachyprice

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

That is the problem, many schools are not run by excellent heads. I'm not worried about my head hiring unqualified staff, we are a good school, and our school has promoted quality over cost cutting or data chasing. But there are schools who already have CS taking classes for months at a time, schools going for the cheapest option, schools cutting teaching time and the choice of subjects. These heads I can see using this as carte blanche to hire who they want.

Good for you to get Alan Sugar, most schools do not have this option available to them.

Those schools will already be failing their pupils though, they will be the ones that can only employ poor teachers because the decent ones won't work there.

I can see how this policy may cause the poorer schools to remain that way but I can't see how, as OP is suggesting, any school that is an Academy will no longer be a 'proper' school with standards falling purely because of this policy.

(AS does a lot for our community)

DecentLivingWage

errr.... so why bother changing the rules then? Either it matters to have qualified teachers.... or it doesn't!


Can anyone say why the rules are being changed.... so secretively...and at such great cost.... if it doesn't matter?

balletshoes

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

errr.... so why bother changing the rules then? Either it matters to have qualified teachers.... or it doesn't!


Can anyone say why the rules are being changed.... so secretively...and at such great cost.... if it doesn't matter?

because politicians like to be seen to be (on paper anyway) doing something to earn their rather large crust?

peachyprice

balletshoes wrote: »

because politicians like to be seen to be (on paper anyway) doing something to earn their rather large crust?

Which is probably why the policy of having to have degree level qualified teachers came about in recent years in the first place.

thegirlintheattic

Welshwoofs wrote: »

Does having QTS necessarily mean that you know about the subject you're teaching? The daughter of one of my Mother's friends is teaching French at secondary school level and she knows very little about the language (she can't speak it); her subject is Business Studies but that GCSE was pulled and she got moved to French.

Absolutely, but there's teachers who can't teach but who are experts at their subjects...and presumably to get where they are they had to get the QTS. The worst teacher I ever had was a hot-shot out of the LSE who replaced our old, retiring history teacher. She held a class's attention - he was so bad that people switched off immediately and ultimately we took to winding him up because we found his buttons were pushed very easily. He knew his subject all right...unfortunately he was also a boring little git who couldn't teach.

So what's gone wrong with English teaching these days? The average standard of English appears to be bloody awful...and that includes some graduate CVs I've had the misfortunate to read. I've had CVs from school leavers stacked up to the gills with A Levels that have been littered with grammatical errors. I know I'm not alone in that either; it's a common complaint of employers. So if we're at the zenith of teaching excellence, why are we turning out youngsters with poor skills in basic English and Maths? Apparently academically gifted youngsters at that.

Or how about someone just reviews their practical skills at teaching - rather like a driving test?


Personally I'd want someone to have their practical teaching skills and knowledge reviewed, but I wouldn't be so bothered about a rigid academic program.

QTS is not an academic qualification. It is essentially a process where a teacher provides evidence that they have meet certain standards. This is largely done by, as you say, someone reviewing their practical skills. One of the standards specifically relates to subject knowledge; you will not be awarded QTS if there is a question as to your subject knowledge. I think you are getting QTS and PGCE confused. PGCE is an academic qualification which can led to QTS, whereas QTS is a qualification in its own right which you don't have to have a PGCE to get. Many people get QTS through working through an apprenticeship in a school. QTS is entirely standards based and is a practical assessment of your teaching ability.

As for your mum's friend, once you have QTS you can teach any subject (legally) but most heads will want someone who has at least a grasp of what they are teaching. I'd be very concerned about the children this friend is teaching, how can you teach French if you cannot speak it?! Sign of a very poor school IMHO.

As for someone else, I don't agree with the OP that good schools will turn bad but that bad schools will get worse, and that this change will not be applied in the way the government (publicly) intends. The government continues to fail some of our most deprived children.

Acct72 - Schools already recruit 'joe bloggs' as cover supervisors. These CS often, illegally, 'teach' classes for long periods of time to cover absence. There are no qualifications required, no standards to be met. I know of one cover supervisor in a local school who failed to get 5 A*s-Cs at GCSE yet for at least a month was teaching Year 10 maths, albeit straight from the textbook. Those schools that do this have now been handed the ability to not only continue doing this but extend it, all legally.

suki1001

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

errr.... so why bother changing the rules then? Either it matters to have qualified teachers.... or it doesn't!


Can anyone say why the rules are being changed.... so secretively...and at such great cost.... if it doesn't matter?

Because it's good to be fluid.

I can't see how it's being changed secretively, surely school policy changes as and when. I've never been aware of these policies, because i don't seek them out. It doesn't mean they the policies are changed secretly.

Personally now degrees seem to be held in far less high regard than previously, I'll welcome someone teaching my dd who is good at it and has the relevant experience rather than concentrating on the qualifications. My sister has a degree, but my oh who I said had a HND in electronics would be far better at teaching. Like Welshwolfs said, she has found standards to have slipped.
My oh noticed this when he was interviewing people with electronics degrees. He said they didn't know simple equations, the most basic, yet on paper their qualifications were supposed to be higher than his.

Acc72

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

errr.... so why bother changing the rules then? Either it matters to have qualified teachers.... or it doesn't!

It is not clear which post / comment you are responding to ?

What do you mean by "qualified" ?

eg. in my opinion, somebody who teaches business studies will ideally have spent some time actually working in a business.

I would hope that all school teachers would be qualified enough to make a coherent, educated contribution to a debate.

Mr_Toad

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

Bubble still in tact cos I'm a qualified teacher with recently qualified son teaching so I know my stuff (sorry about that lol)

Your post strikes me as one that has an agenda more to do with protecting the rights of qualified teachers than it does with either the schools or the students in them.

Sadly the current education system is awash with qualified teachers who are rubbish and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a classroom.

As far as I can see there seems to be an outbreak of common sense with the acceptance that teaching is a vocation that has little to do with a teaching qualification.

I know several teachers socially and there's only one of them that I'd trust to teach. Of the rest, half seem to have gone into teaching with some sort of political agenda and the others do as little as they can without getting dismissed and hate the children they teach.

I think it's about time that those members of society who were born to teach are given the chance and if that means weeding out poor but highly qualified teachers then so be it.

Your comments on the quality of your posts are appalling. Any teacher worth being called a teacher should do the best they can every time they set pen to paper or type on a keyboard. As a teacher you should be inspiring people to do better and leading by example. All you are teaching is that it's OK to be sloppy.

Janepig

puddy wrote: »

on a forum? i write court reports for a career, i never use proper grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitals on here when i type, you can guess how successful i would be at my job if i wrote like that for court

I write Court reports for a living, and use (or try to use ) correct spelling, grammar, etc... for them and in every other aspect of my communication, including text messages, anal old me, despite only having 3 GCSE's to my name (I was in the first year that took GCSE's). I also present and read Court reports prepared by colleagues, the vast majority of whom have degrees, and they are appalling. Grammar is terrible, spelling awful, sentence structure awful, and I'm surprised there aren't more complaints.

Our new receptionist where I work has a law degree, such are the numbers of people with degrees out there now, it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. I've been with the same employer for 20 years and there's only afew of us left now who haven't got degrees. If I'd left after having my children instead of going back after maternity leave, I'd never get back in there now. Doesn't mean the staff are any better, in fact, they've probably got worse over the years, but on paper they're better qualified.

Jx