Re~Stirred Forum

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jul/27/gove-academies-unqualified-teaching-staff

Being my usual, cynical self, whilst Gove's aspirations to get more scientists, linguists and engineers into the classroom is laudable - I wonder if some academy schools will not employ staff with the current required qualifications for teaching as a cost cutting exercise and as in the NHS where cheaper Health Care Assistants (auxillary nurses) are doing more and more work that should be carried out by nurses in schools we will see "teaching assistants" running classes and tests.

I suspect the latter will happen with teaching assistants doing more "teaching" . Another item that has almost been buried by the domination of the news by the Olympics

I think that my mother would have been very insulted if any union activist had ever told her that her not having a teaching qualification "devalued the profession". She's one of the best teachers I've ever known - I've seen the care she put into lesson preparation, and, frankly, the despair at the quality of teaching offerd by those with "teaching qualifications", when she had to pick up the pieces as a private tutor to some very bright children who had not even been properly taught the basics of her subject adequately.

Schools managed perfectly well without everyone having to be shoved through teacher "training" colleges and the like for years. If the unions really cared about the value of their profession, they'd be the ones really pushing for academic rigour on teaching and examining.

There is nothing like an impartial, informed opinion...... and that was nothing like one.

shall we get unqualified doctors and nurses then ?

Unqualified politicians..

teaching is a profession and should be treated like that. If people in other jobs want to teach of course use fast track procedures to push them into it but they need to have the basic of teaching skills first.

Just like any newly qualified teacher out of TTC

I could envisage endorsing taking a non-qualified teacher on but only when it is clear the candidate was exceptional. Even then, I would expect that they had to get the relevant qualifications as part of their contract in a given amount of time. Perhaps that is a detail that needs to be added to the proposal to get folk to buy-in to it. Reading Twiggs statement it is clear he isn't dead set against this:

Private schools regularly recruit new staff who do not hold formal teaching qualifications. The fact that at least some of these schools by far exceed local state schools' exam performance suggests that, at the very least, recruiting unqualified teachers does not lead to disaster and ruin.

I would suggest that removing the requirement for BEd/ PGCE would attract far more applications from excellent candidates.

I understand, for example, that nationally there is a shortage of physics teachers. So the choice we have is between recruiting BEd/ PGCE qualified teachers who do not hold degrees [or much interest] in physics, or recruiting unqualified staff who do hold physics degrees and can convey their enthusiasm and passion for the subject.

The fact is that - whether someone does or doesn't have a qualification - some people have the variety of skills needed to effectively engage students and others don't. Of course, these skills can be improved and developed through courses, but a four year BEd may not be the best way for everyone to do this.

I am sure that prolonged theoretical learning does not always prepare for practical work; the most important way to develop your skills is through experience. Again BEd/ PGCE are not the only way to get teaching experience - many people will have teaching experience from settings other than schools that is nonetheless relevant and helpful.

Well, you'd know, wouldn't you? Impartial and informed are not always words that first spring to mind when reading your contributions. The reason I have a decent A level in her particular subject is at least as much down to her actually being able to explain matters in a way that none of the teachers paid to teach me were able to, as it was to my great natural ability.

If the teaching unions want teaching to genuinely be a profession, then they should make sure it acts like a profession. At the moment, they don't. Read the outcomes of disciplinary proceedings of solicitors and the professional accountancy bodies to see just how different they are from teaching.

Please explain.

A baffling but unsurprising post. How dare you accuse the teaching profession of being less 'professional' than mere solicitors and accountants whose ration d'être is to extract as much money as possible from clients and then avoid paying their fair share of tax. You've made a real berk of yourself in these posts Fergus, especially the baloney about your mother, who cares about your school experience, vastly different from the way thousands of teachers every day touch the lives and replace shoddy parenting up and down the country and infinitely harder to do.

Solicitors remain one of the most inept bunch of people I sadly have to deal with on a regular basis.

Odd how personal experience is considered to be irrelevant, when all that you end up talking about is a claim about the supposed sum of personal experiences. Indeed, you care not for my experience, and prefer to refer to experiences you do not actually know about - you can't, not all of them.

And I didn't accuse the "teaching profession", I accused the unions. I stand by that.

The reason I mentioned my mother (and you know this, but prefer to ignore it) is that, like most of the teachers who taught me, being of the older generation, she did not have a PGCE or a B.Ed, or any other teaching qualification. Yet, somehow, many of these teachers instilled knowledge and a love of their subject in many, many pupils. Yet, if these people applied for a teaching post today, the unions would appear to not want them employed, as to do so would be to "devalue the profession"

I can take your gratuitous, childish and inaccurate insults to my profession, but (and this is also for Andy) how many teachers have been struck off, temporarily or permanently, in the last few years? Compare with the disciplinary proceedings of, say, professional accountancy bodies, and you'll see how a real profession behaves towards members who transgress the rules.

There seems to be some inconsistency in there. You said your mother gave you success that your other teachers couldn't.



But then say that those same teachers wouldn't be employed these days.



Well if you freely admit they didn't have the skills to teach you then it would seem like a good idea that they aren't employed these days.

I went to school with teachers that had drifted into teaching with no qualifications in it. Some were good, some were absolutely dreadful. The important thing is to recognise that teaching is a skill, you were lucky that you had someone with that skill to help you, not every kid is going to be that lucky.

The safeguard of qualifications is the very least we owe children.

So let's get this right, Fergus. Because your mother was a wonderful teacher, we don't need any of this new-fangled teacher training - "we never had any of this when I was a lad". Of course you're quite correct. My mate Dave is really good at doing accounts. He can do double entry in his sleep which I couldn't do for the life of me. The reason I could prepare a decent set of accounts which passed the auditors a few years back for an organsisation I ran, is because he taught me how to do it. But if he tried to say he was a chartered accountant some appalling trade union would stop him. So we don't need any of this training and examination in accountancy.

And you are a member of a local education authority, or what's left of one. I suppose that is an ironic argument for Mr. Gove, that Whitehall may be bureaucratic and centralising but at least it tries to be rational.

And what's more, according to Fergus, teachers aren't a profession because not enough teachers have been

compared to accountants. So it's easy for teachers to be recognised as professionals. All they have to do is ensure that more of them molest little boys and girls. Until the numbers are the same as the accountants who steal their clients' money. There must be a logic there somewhere.

No inconsistency, but I don't suppose you really care, as you haven't really read what I actually wrote. Did I say those teachers who weren't quite good enough to teach me properly were the ones who hadn't gone through the "professional qualification" system? There are, of course, good and bad teachers, regardless of how they entered teaching. The whole point of my comments, which I'm sure you actually do see, but don't wish to acknowledge, is that there is absolutely no reason why people who haven't been through the "teacher training" mill should be any worse, or should "devalue the profession" any more than, those who have.

I would challenge the teaching unions to provide evidence that they do. Not that I'd hold my breath.

"Let's get this right", you say. Oh, how I wish you could. See my above post for your first point. The ICAEW is far from being a trade union. How many trade unions require you to demonstrate both academic and practical ability in a rigorously applied system before you can join, and require you to maintain those standards throughout your career? And your friend can call himself an accountant if he wishes to (it's not a protected title, unlike "solicitor"), he just can't claim to be a member of a professional body when he is not. And there's a damn sight more to being a qualified accountant than just double-entry. These days even a simple and straightforward audit file is several inches thick, and none of that is excess baggage.

I think you'll find that far more qualified accountants have their qualification removed or suspended because their work was inadequate, than for stealing client money (the majority of accountants almost certainly don't hold client money). So how many teachers have been struck off or suspended for being inadequate in their line of work?

I think it was the late Alan Clark who referred to "the always tricky jeu of self-parody".

The teacher who did Jonathan Swift with us wasn't teacher-trained, being of an earlier generation. But he'd certainly have approved of that system.

Well you did say "none" of your teachers could explain a particular subject to you and "most" of the teachers that taught you didn't have qualifications so it isn't a great leap to extrapolate that there was a cross over between the two.

Well, as "none" was two (so to speak), that's a small sample. I'd have said, judging by theitr relative ages, that one probably was, and one probably wasn't "teacher-trained". But you avoid the main point.

Is your main point that there is no reason why teachers who haven't been through the teacher training mill should be any worse etc than those who have?

Pass that nugget on to Andy and Daz, could you? If you go right back to my original post, it was written in response to the claim by a teaching union leader that "unqualified" teachers would "devalue the profession", so thanks for a much better summary than I seem to have managed to achieve!

Of course, things then got side-tracked (as they do), and I'll take my share of the responsibility for that.

We're all guilty of side-tracking here at times

I have no problem with people being in a classroom who have not been teacher trained, as they can have very valuable skills and experience to contribute. However, I don't think those people should be called teachers, and I think the qualified teacher should be in charge. There is a purpose and point to teaching people how to teach - just as with any other profession - and that is to do with protecting the consumer ( in this case child/ teenager ) and trying to ensure quality standards.

Well yes, I do believe that it is reasonable to claim that people who haven't been trained to do something are, on the whole worse at doing something than people who have been trained. You will have some people with a natural aptitude but I would hazard a guess this is rare.

I don't see teaching being any less of a skill than medicine, the law or accountancy.

That's a good question but doesn't the answer (fewer teachers than accountants, I suspect) make the case for a more - not less, regulated profession? Raise the bar higher and keep out the inadequate teachers?

If teaching unions want to be treated the same way as other professional bodies, then that is a bullet that they need to bite. I do not believe that I have seen such evidence, in which case the situation that existed when I was at school is not a retrograde step.

I'll be honest Fergus, your argument lost a lot of credibility when you started blaming the unions. The move towards the standardisation of teaching was as much the fault of government as anyone else, not least supposedly Conservative ones, who insisted on interfering and micro-managing the education sector in a way they would baulk at for other professions in medicine, accountancy or law.

very very good to see

http://www.thechamberlainfiles.com/scho ... ies-route/

Gove has no electoral mandate at all to force schools to become academies, what has happened to freedom of choice and parental choice.

There are some right horror stories emerging of some what I call corrupt practices in this