Teachers?

All over the country primary children are being taught by unqualified teachers. Assistants without professional qualifications are taking charge of classes while the teachers of those classes have their guaranteed 10% non-contact time for planning, preparation and assessment.

I set out the new and developing situation so baldly not to attack the teachers who, goodness knows, deserve their non-contact time or the assistants who replace them often with heart in mouth as they face the demanding task for which they have not been trained. My purpose is to look at what is happening, to contrast the political rhetoric accompanying the agreement with the reality in schools and to offer a view of the way forward which can bring longterm benefit to the children for whom we work.

Making available non-contact time for primary teachers was a much needed reform. Work and life are totally unbalanced when the working week is between 50 and 60 hours as it is for most of us. It was astute of the Government to couple the promise of improvement with the prospect of unqualified substitute teachers. Inevitably it was the NASUWT, always fiercely aggressive about conditions of service, which was quick to sign the workload agreement and initially only the NUT took a longer view of the professional implications. Now the revitalised NAHT has joined the NUT in opposition. The Government view outlined in the primary strategy ‘Excellence and Enjoyment’ is that working with whole classes should be undertaken by Higher Level Teaching Assistants who have gained a competency in English and mathematics equivalent to at least level 2 of the National Framework and who have taken a course of training. Needless to say such a course, however well directed, is far from the range and depth of a teaching degree or a postgraduate certificate of education.

The number of HLTA trained assistants remains small, only some 5% of the primary workforce have completed the course. The situation nationally is that the great majority of assistants substituting for teachers do not have the level of competency considered necessary by the DfES.

The workload agreement is grossly underfunded. As the changes got underway only 56 out of 140 local authorities judged that their schools were in a position to go ahead. The average of £70,000 per primary school made available by the Government to meet the costs of remodelling has too often been swallowed up by other budgetary demands and most schools have been unable to appoint qualified substitute teachers.

In an attempt to avoid using unqualified staff many heads are trying to fill the staffing gap themselves. A recent NAHT survey found despite DfES guidance that heads, even in small schools, should spend no more that half their time teaching, two-thirds now have a substantial teaching commitment. This leaves little time to carry out leadership and management tasks. Heads are also entitled to planning, preparation and assessment time but four-fifths find this impossible to arrange.

So are schools forced into asking often reluctant teaching assistants to take over in the classroom? Government rhetoric seeks to be reassuring to those who worry about the implications for the profession of teaching and to parents who are rightly concerned that for half a day in each week their children are being taught by someone untrained for teaching. This isn’t proper teaching runs the political spin. “Teaching assistants work under a framework of supervision and direction from the teacher” - the teacher does the planning and the preparation of lesson notes. Armed with the teacher’s plan the assistant has to do nothing more than keep the class busy and well behaved.

Anyone who knows anything about teaching young children knows this is nonsense. Very few minutes into a lesson a hand will go up and a child is a asking for help. The first of many. At this point, as the assistant responds, the teaching begins.Lesson plans are not teaching they are merely the forerunner of teaching. Do I answer the question or return a question for a question? Do I give direct help or do I challenge the child to think for herself? Do I offer praise for effort or criticise inaccuracy? Should the child persevere or should I set a fresh task? The adult in the role of teacher can respond in a hundred, perhaps a thousand different ways to the child’s raised hand. This is the act of teaching which is always rooted in the interaction between teacher and pupil. Professional training is essential and no assistant however able and experienced can hope to become an adequately trained teacher after a course lasting a mere 20 hours.

It is good that PPA time is now the entitlement of every teacher. It is good that teaching assistants have a career structure and that pay for their valuable work is being improved. Overall though the workload agreement is not working well because of the underfunding of primary education. Make do and mend is the order of the day and in far too many schools this has led to unqualified teaching for young children who, the Government must be reminded, are the key to higher levels of achievement right through to eighteen and beyond. We have to get it right for children in their primary years. By eleven years old, for some by seven, it is too late. Only very few ever recover after a poor beginning.

Primary schools must be properly funded. Per capita investment in young children must be the same as for those same children in their later years. We have to level up and do so quickly. Then classes can be smaller (at present the trend is towards larger Key Stage 2 classes) and every class taught by a team; teacher and assistant working together. And, of course, finance should be sufficient for PPA time to be covered by qualified teachers.

The Government should have a new target. Get rid of unqualified teachers. Our children deserve better.