Should UK teachers (Primary school) wear suits?

[BlueSquareThing]

My NQT year was absolute hell - much, much harder than my PGCE - but that was partly because the school I worked at was shit. It's easier now, but a lot of that's to do with working part-time. Still, lots of people do say that the second year or teaching's better, or at least the third and subsequent years.

I remember the second year as the worst of all.

They assume you know what you're doing and all the support suddenly goes away. Third it suddenly starts to click a bit more.

 

[BlueSquareThing]

I'm just thinking of the salaries they pay at the British School of Shanghai (with an easier workload into the bargain)

I have a terrible feeling I might know someone who works there. From Hull iirc.

 

[BlueSquareThing]

same is true on the PGCE - a couple of weeks of workshops, then just thrown in.

My mum was amazed when I told her; she said when she did her B.Ed in the mid 70s, on the first placement you just had to work with groups of kids and get to know the class, then back to Uni, and then in the final term of the first year was the first time you actually had to teach the whole class.

To be honest the pgce studes we get have it really easy compared to gtp or scitties. Those two weeks aren't as many as I got in college I know, but it's better than nothing. Their timetable (this is secondary mind) is really very light as well - just odd bits, 10 minute bits, small group work etc...

I can imagine it might be different at primary level mind.

 

[BlueSquareThing]

Depends. Is the alternative for your kids to have no teacher at all, or a teacher from another subject shoehorned in? If so then yeah, maybe. If not then no, the new guy can sit in the corner for six months and watch the expert at work.

It depends doesn't it?

If that teacher's a good teacher who knows what they're doing with kids and how to explain "stuff" in general, then maybe it's not so bad. The level's going to make a difference as well - Year 7 or Year 13?

I know they need people in. So they need to make it attractive to train and then to stay in for more than 3 years.

Maths is so important I really don't think they can afford to do it badly.

Frankly, you'd prefer for your kids to have me than most of the maths teachers I've come across.

Yeah, quite possibly. Although double year 11 on a Friday afternoon...

 

[scifisam]

To be honest the pgce studes we get have it really easy compared to gtp or scitties. Those two weeks aren't as many as I got in college I know, but it's better than nothing. Their timetable (this is secondary mind) is really very light as well - just odd bits, 10 minute bits, small group work etc...

I can imagine it might be different at primary level mind.

The GTP students I knew and/or worked alongside had a much, much easier time of it than me on my PGCE - half as many hours for three times as much money.

I can't imagine a secondary PGCE that had a timetable as light as that. The students wouldn't be able to meet the QTS standards. We started out with a really light timetable, like you say, but had progressed to teaching 12 lessons by the end of October and 14-16 lessons for the second placement. Some universities or schools might give their students a couple of hours less, but they wouldn't be able to get away with just small group work and teaching starters all year round.

 

[BlueSquareThing]

The GTP students I knew and/or worked alongside had a much, much easier time of it than me on my PGCE - half as many hours for three times as much money.

I can't imagine a secondary PGCE that had a timetable as light as that. The students wouldn't be able to meet the QTS standards. We started out with a really light timetable, like you say, but had progressed to teaching 12 lessons by the end of October and 14-16 lessons for the second placement. Some universities or schools might give their students a couple of hours less, but they wouldn't be able to get away with just small group work and teaching starters all year round.

Hmm - year 15 hours sounds right by about now. I think the one we have is prolly doing about that.

The GTP's are doing 16-18 hours. Iirc they do 80% timetable don't they?

PGCE's get to go back to college as well - but I did mean to add "to start with" on the end of the list of stuff!!

 

[scifisam]

Hmm - year 15 hours sounds right by about now. I think the one we have is prolly doing about that.

The GTP's are doing 16-18 hours. Iirc they do 80% timetable don't they?

PGCE's get to go back to college as well - but I did mean to add "to start with" on the end of the list of stuff!!

With GTPs I think it really does depend on the school how many hours they do. I knew one GTP who was teaching a full timetable and was a head of department - because he was a social worker who'd somehow managed to become an experienced secondary school teacher without ever getting a qualification. OTOH, I know another GTP who was still only teaching 8 lesson by March. Most of the others were doing more than that, but less than me, and were eased into their timetable gradually rather than being given 80% from the start, just like PGCE students are eased into it. They seemed to have fewer essays, too (though mine were easy).

And, of course, they get a hell of a lot more money.

 

[Sweet FA]

Of course, at least with a school-aged child you don't have to pay for as much childcare

Yup, Lil'FA starts school in Sept saving us 600 quid a month (though how she gets to school and back we haven't quite worked out yet...)

I thought SATS were in May?

Reading assessments start Monday for 3 weeks. 30-40 mins per child x 26 children = 18 odd hours = 3 weeks of afternoons. TA covering rest of darlings. After Easter, we're off on numeracy/spelling/writing...

I'm just thinking of the salaries they pay at the British School of Shanghai (with an easier workload into the bargain)

Will you still have to do your NQT here?

 

[scifisam]

Ah - that's so soon! I don't suppose you know if that's the same for year 6, do you? My daughter's been really worried about 'failing her SATs.'

 

[Sweet FA]

After Easter and some not til after half term.

'Failing SATs'. Christ.

 

[goldenecitrone]

After Easter and some not til after half term.

'Failing SATs'. Christ.

What do you do with the kids that fail. Sell them off for medical experiments?

 

[scifisam]

After Easter and some not til after half term.

'Failing SATs'. Christ.

I know - it's sad, isn't it? No matter how much I tell her that she can't fail, and that the tests are about the school more than her, and while it is good that her scores are improving, what's more important is that she's trying (she never used to try at all), she still comes back from school with this 'failing SATs' stuff. The kids are all really competetive over their scores, too.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Will you still have to do your NQT here?

Yeah, the only possibilities for doing the NQT outside of Blighty are in special schools for the children of soldiers in Germany or Cyprus.

Not that Cyprus would be anything to complain about.

We had a workshop about this very topic a couple of months ago. I asked if it was possible to do it at an international school in china. The woman said no, but then, she didn't seem very clued up: she appeared to believe that it would be following the Chinese education system, and wouldn't accept that they used a UK curriculum to the latter...

 

[Ceej]

We have a QTS Fast Track teacher in school, and even she admits that there's no subsitiute for experience. For curriculum, data analysis and teaching, she's brilliant but she makes a lot of mistakes with the children, parents and staff. Can't help feeling that professionals brought in from other areas would have the same problems - very knowledgable in their subjects perhaps, but teaching is so much more than that, and this is where they might be lacking. Bit tough on the kids in the meantime. Not to mention it utterly devalues the profession as a whole.

 

[brix]

We have a QTS Fast Track teacher in school, and even she admits that there's no subsitiute for experience. For curriculum, data analysis and teaching, she's brilliant but she makes a lot of mistakes with the children, parents and staff. Can't help feeling that professionals brought in from other areas would have the same problems - very knowledgable in their subjects perhaps, but teaching is so much more than that, and this is where they might be lacking. Bit tough on the kids in the meantime. Not to mention it utterly devalues the profession as a whole.

There was a fast-track teacher on my PGCE. He was rubbish because he just lectured at the kids and then couldn't understand why he had behaviour issues in his classes. He used to say things like "they just don't want to learn"

Our mentor at that school said (she didn't realise I could hear), "Fast-track! He's not even on the train."

 

[scifisam]

We have a QTS Fast Track teacher in school, and even she admits that there's no subsitiute for experience. For curriculum, data analysis and teaching, she's brilliant but she makes a lot of mistakes with the children, parents and staff. Can't help feeling that professionals brought in from other areas would have the same problems - very knowledgable in their subjects perhaps, but teaching is so much more than that, and this is where they might be lacking. Bit tough on the kids in the meantime. Not to mention it utterly devalues the profession as a whole.

I'd say subject knowledge is the smallest component of being an effective teacher, especially for kids. Teaching adults is utterly different.