Qualifying to become a teacher in the U.K. - a guide.
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10 / 04 / 2008 | Author: dnorris
A guide to the tangled web of training to become a teacher.
The classic way to train as a teacher goes like this.
Once you have decided that you want to become a teacher, you work in a school for a year as an unqualified teacher. This enables you to work alongside experienced teachers in the classroom seeing how they work and picking up the tricks of the trade.
At the end of that exercise you go on to get a teaching degree and come back to start a teaching career.
It sounds quite straight-forward. It should be straight-forward but the tangled web of recent options makes the procedures for gaining the updated appropriate qualifications seem very complicated. So let’s start at the very beginning.
There are a variety of terms to describe the job of being an unqualified teacher. You can be called a classroom assistant, a teaching assistant a learning support assistant or a non teaching assistant.
Some schools will take on people because they think they have enough experience working with children. Others will need you to have GCSE qualifications. The most common requirement is that you have GCSE qualifications in Maths and English or their equivalent. To be put on a higher grade you would need to have a qualification like a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) in ‘Supporting Teaching and Learning in schools’ at Level 2. This qualification is also available at Level 3 and some schools may look for this. All Local Authorities will also expect unqualified teachers to take part in a 4 day Teaching Assistants Induction Programme. There is also a category of teaching assistant called a Higher Level Teaching Assistant and the training for this is through a Local Authority and will be through the recommendation of a head teacher once you are involved in teaching in a school.
Many would be teachers who are absolutely sure that they want to make teaching their profession by-pass all of the unqualified categories and go straight on to take a degree.
That degree can be in Education – hence the term B.Ed. It is an honours degree and can take up to 4 years. You can also take a B.A. degree with a teaching component or a B.Sc. with a teaching component.
Alternatively you can take a degree in your chosen subject of interest and then complete a one year ‘Post Graduate Certificate in Education’. All of these confer on you the ability to teach in U.K. state schools and this is now categorised as having Qualified Teacher Status.
Such a status is confusing because all previous qualifications such as B.Ed. and Post Graduate Teaching Certificates automatically incorporated that status.
The real aim of the Qualified Teacher Status is to create a professional data base on teachers which validates their standards of teaching but more importantly it makes sure that teachers continue with some form of professional development.
Similarly the term ‘Initial Teacher Training’ is being incorporated into descriptions relating to qualifications. This too is an added confusion, because it relates to the theory and practice of teaching. Teaching Practice has always played a major part in teacher training. It has often taken the form of a placement in a school. These components continue to be embedded in all forms of educational degrees.
When it comes to taking these courses, there has been a real explosion in the way you can take these qualifications.
Whereas the first option was always to be trained on a full time basis, there are now any numbers of variations. You can study part time or via a ‘distance learning’ package. Courses can be employment based and some are tailored to individuals.
They are not taken up in much volume but describing them makes the options seem like a hotchpotch of flexibility.
The prime example is the Post Graduate Certificate in Education. This normally takes one year studying full time or two years part time, but there are other niche routes.
One is called ‘Schools Centred Initial Teacher Training’. On this scheme graduates work on designated neighbourhood schools and colleges. They normally last for a year and lead to the designation of that term again – Qualified Teacher Status. In other words it is a teaching certificate.
The ‘Graduate Teacher Programme’ places graduates in schools, who again qualify whilst in the classroom. They are paid as unqualified teachers or qualified teachers depending on their experience. Another form of upgrading from an unqualified teacher status to teacher is through a scheme called ‘The Registered Teacher Programme’. It takes two years and is part ‘on the job training’ and part academic study.
There is also a scheme called ‘Teach First’. It is run by an independent organisation enabling top graduates to spend 2 years working in challenging secondary school in London, Manchester and the Midlands. Entrants qualify as a teacher whilst completing leadership training and work experience with leading employers. It is for high flying graduates who may not otherwise have considered teaching or are not sure about it as a long term career.
The University of Gloucester School of Education has pioneered a ‘Qualified Teacher Status Only’ qualification which is achieved through submitting a portfolio of evidence. It is for graduates who have substantial teaching experience at an unqualified level.
All of these sub divisions are part of a quest to make qualifying as a teacher fit in with the need to entice people who are mature or in work and cannot afford to abandon work for full time study.
Given that teaching can be the best job in the world, for those who can find their way through all the alternative options it is a task worth doing.
