Teacher training

Keith Morrow headmaster of The Elms Junior School has added his voice to the growing debate around whether teachers should be qualified to teach, describing the Secretary of State for Education as ‘misguided’ in his belief that teachers don’t need formal training.
In the wake of controversy sparked by planned Government reforms to allow more teachers to work without formal qualifications, Keith Morrow, Headmaster at The Elms Junior School and Nursery in Long Eaton, said while it was too easy to generalise, particularly for primary age children the value of formal qualifications cannot be underplayed.
Writing in his regular web blog for parents, Mr Morrow acknowledged that independent schools have always been free to employ whoever they wish, subject to safeguarding checks, to any teaching position of any seniority.
But he insisted that anecdotal evidence from the independent sector was simply not enough to justify the promotion of unqualified teachers in state and free schools as currently being advocated by Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove.
Mr Morrow stating: “I believe Mr Gove is misguided in his belief that teachers teaching our children, whether in the independent or maintained sector, don’t need formal training or qualifications in teaching.
“It’s too easy to talk about inspirational teachers who were ‘unqualified’ and by contrast, awful teachers who were qualified teachers. This doesn’t really advance the argument. Do you need to be a qualified teacher to be a good teacher? My answer to that question would be a qualified ‘usually’.
“I believe, especially when we are talking about primary-aged children, that graduates being trained in how to teach enhances their effectiveness as a teacher. Understanding how children learn, how their brains develop, how they assimilate new skills and acquire language, are all very important for teachers to know.
“Equally, effective classroom control, the ability to assess children’s learning and how to teach children in an interesting and stimulating way are key elements of teaching as well. However well qualified a graduate is in a particular subject, does not necessarily mean this translates into them being an effective teacher.”
Mr Morrow acknowledged that there were some extremely good but unqualified teachers in the independent sector and it is possible for graduates, without any formal training in teaching, to become good teachers. But he believes that rather than leave the success of these teachers to chance, graduates with potential should be identified and nurtured into teaching careers.
He added: “Good graduates with a passion for enthusing others could become excellent teachers with additional training and qualifications. And what about those good ‘unqualified’ teachers in our schools? We should give them the opportunity to obtain qualified teacher status (QTS) by in-service training. They may even find this helpful and all our children would benefit as a result.
“We should strive to have the best qualified teachers and graduates teaching our children, and not enter a race to the lowest common denominator. The deregulation of teacher training is not a panacea to raising educational standards.”
To read Mr Morrow’s blog in full, and for more information about The Elms Junior School and Nursery, visit www.elmsschool.net