Do you need training to be a good teacher?

I trained as a teacher between 1969-1972 in Camberwell, Sth London. We had lectures on educational philosophy, child development, educational theory and then had to develop one curriculum area in depth (I did dance & drama) and two others to a lesser level (history/geography) both at an adult level and also how best to teach these areas.We also had training on the current theories on teaching reading and maths. We had to set up and run a weekly 'club' and we took a child from the local area to it once a week. I took Jason Weddell from the age of 3-6. I had to keep a diary about him and match his development and learning to the theory I was being taught.
I undertook several local school visits to observe specific subject and had three school practices: 4 weeks (in Suffolk), 6 weeks (in Clapham) & 8 weeks (in Leytonstone). I sat formal exams, wrote essays throughout the course and because i was doing a practical subject also had to perform in a piece and choreograph and direct a piece too.

I eventually became a headteacher. I ran a budget of £1m , ran a team of over 40 and developed a staff team that was superb. I did not follow government directives to the letter but did what I believed was best for our children. OFSTED said we were Outstanding!

I do not have 'o' level maths but I know how to use a calculator to work out %. I am not a great speller but I can use a dictionary.

Late to this but here's my two penn'eth.

A teacher needs a certain amount of training in child development and behaviour management. That's all they need for the children because the rest comes naturally.

However a teacher needs a huge amount of training in how to keep OFSTED happy but then finds that no matter how hard they try they can't do this anyway because once you learn which hoops to jump through they move the goalposts. OFSTED and the media make teaching a nightmare.

Also teachers, particularly in Primary, have to take responsibilty for a range of subjects and areas regardless of their training. Before I finally became too ill to work I taught a group of challenging children and children who needed boosting for Lit and Num (which I loved) and all the other subjects to Year 5 in the afternoons (which I also loved). I taught French across Key Stage 2 even though I wasn't a specialist language teacher. I was also responsible for PSHCE, Sex and Relationship Education, History/Geography, Global Community, MFL, was leading the school towards it's advanced Healthy Schools Award and was a contact for children who needed to talk. All this for no extra pay. It was a small school so everyone had to take a lot of responsibilites. Apart from Lit, Num and Science there is very little training in how to be responsible for so much.

In the end, for some of us, the pressure just becomes too much. There are only so many hours in a day but to do justice to the job you have to commit most of them to working.

Below is a link which will show the subjects required to be taught by primary teachers. By the time a pupil is in Y6, the last year in primary school, the one teacher could be expected to deliver all these subjects, and to teach the core subjects to level 5. A year later in secondary school and at Y7 the pupil will have specialist teachers for each subject.
Some primary school now buy in specialist teachers for subjects such as PE or MFL or music, but there are Y6 teachers out there who can and do deliver all theses subjects to a high level.
absent you are correct and primary teachers deserve a far better press and much more respect from their secondary colleagues.

www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/primary

Frankly I am full of admiration for anyone who teaches in a primary school.

David Cameron has said he wants privilege to be shared. If that includes classes of 15 or less, I am sure many teachers will agree. His posh education obviously did not teach him the meaning of privilege.
My son's partner has just done her PGCE and the workload now in one year is horrific. Many people going into teaching from other occupations do not have the knowledge to teach the primary school curriculum. They have to learn all the basics as well as teaching literacy and numeracy, whilst doing three teaching practices, longer each term. Anyone going into primary teaching with a degree - she has a BA in Psychology and an MA in computer studies - needs a year in college to get the confidence to go into the classroom. She had also spent a year being a teaching assistant, but was still nearly overwhelmed by the workload. She is Danish, so English is her second language. I am full of admiration for her.

In the 70s I did a B.Ed. degree taking four years and as well as covering the subjects we would teach, we learnt all about the psychology and sociology of learning, and how to teach reading and writing and maths, or numeracy as it is now called.
The reason poor teachers go into private education is that they do not have to control the children. Classes are usually half the size of those in state schools. If children misbehave, their parents are told to remove them.
I know this because I got a scholarship to a private school myself.

I am quite extraordinarily ignorant about teacher training. Are there different types of training depending on the sort of teaching the student intends to do? I would have thought that the skills required for being a general teacher in a primary school would be quite different from those needed by a specialist teacher in a secondary school.

I understand that the literacy and numeracy tests for admission to teacher training are to be made harder. If someone with a masters in English literature or a foreign language and O level/GCSE maths wanted to train with a view to teaching English or their specialist language in a secondary school, why would they need to know about probability theory and Venn diagrams? Doesn't seem very logical to me.

I firmly believe teaching is a vocation, and teachers are born, not made. My formal teacher training put me right off teaching and I abandoned it for a number of years until I had raised my children and re-discovered my love of teaching. I then re-trained as a Montessori teacher, which fitted perfectly with my beliefs about child rearing and education.
Later, during the years when I ran performing arts classes and employed professional performers to teach, I instinctively recruited those with whom I felt a rapport, despite their lack of formal teacher training, and in 99% of cases they proved to be inspirational teachers in their field.
Many have gone on, once past their own performing prime, to take their PGCE and to teach in State schools. I also have 2 former students; both 'difficult' school pupils, repeatedly suspended from school, who found sanctuary and belief in themselves with us on a Saturday, who have recently graduated as teachers and are by all accounts showing excellent promise. I feel very proud to have been part of the teams who gave them back their self-respect, and gave them the desire to do the same for others.
I do however have one major concern, and that is the appalling level of the majority's spelling, grammar and basic maths skills. This is a serious failing on the part of our education system and has to be addressed. Unless primary school teachers know the difference between 'to' and 'too' or between 'there' 'their' and 'they're' (demonstrated daily by these wonderful women on Facebook!) or how to work out percentages, etc., what hope is there that standards will be raised? Minimum standards are therefore essential, but if one is not to exclude potentially brilliant teachers such as those I have described, I guess remedial teaching is required for trainee teachers!! What a mess.

Primary school teachers, at least in Scotland, had to have a three year course, which covered all aspects of child development and learning, as well as teaching theory and practice and also continuing personal education for the students. Graduates took a one year course in the same college and seemed to spend more time in the common room than at their lectures.

But many did Ana. How children learn, multi-sensory approaches to learning, creating a 'can do' culture in the classroom, child centred learning, etc are just a few examples of modules that were pioneered in the 60s, 70s and so on. Good teacher training establishments should have included these in their syllabi. But not all were so enlightened especially at secondary level.

When I did my PGCE (or Dip.Ed as it was called) in the 1960s it was all about how to teach and child development because we already had a degree in whatever we were going to teach. There was a whole term of teaching practice under supervision which we had to arrange for ourselves. I think the system worked pretty well. I don't know what happens now. I believe there are people who are natural teachers but I also believe everyone can learn the tricks of the trade and get better. What I worry about is the content.

I was very surprised to discover, in the 70s, that a Teacher Training course did not, in fact, include teaching you how to teach.

margaretx sadly there are teachers with a weak grasp of English and no inkling of basic maths, never mind higher maths. There again there are many very good ones.

You learn to teach when standing in front of the class. Then it is an advantage if you get help - but from good teachers. In Germany we have a strange system. Firstly all teachers have to be very well educated and then they are taught how to teach, except those teaching at grammar schools and colleges and universities. They are experts at their subject but no one has taught them how to teach.
All the same I feel there are not more bad teachers here than anywhere else, and if there is a feeling in the UK that there are teachers with a weak grasp of English or no inkling of higher mathematics then this has to be corrected.
Lets hope it works.

I think there is something about a sucessful teacher that doesn't just depend on their academic knowledge. Its an art.

It's about having confidence and a bit of showmanship to make an impression and then being able to present a subject to enthuse your listeners.

I suspect that without these skills to start with you don't stand a chance, however good you are at your subject.

I got absolutely nothing from my year of teacher training (1962 - 63, a very cold winter!). The cert part was in the teacher training college in Edinburgh; the Dip Ed was in Edinburgh University which I enjoyed because it was more academic which had been my milieu up to that point in my life. The college course tutors were useless, my TP was in schools that did nothing to improve or challenge my skills. I got no constructive feedback from the tutors who came to observe. It wasn't until I went to Africa that I began to enjoy the experience and really relate to the pupils. I guess I have taken the easy way out in much of my teaching career because I have worked, since returning to Britain, mainly with mature students. But then, I have known secondary teachers who would have run a marathon rather than face the challenge of a class of adults. Horses for courses.

Both DM and MiL were untrained teachers and very good ones. My MiL became a teacher when her father told her to get a job when he remarried after being widowed and no longer needed her as a full time house keeper. The only job in the village available for a well educated girl (She had gone to grammar school and got her school certificate) was in the local primary school teaching infants. She did this for nearly 40 years. In the 1960s and 70s the local teachers training college used to send trainee teachers to her school with specific instructions that they should spend time with Mrs P.

DM drifted into teaching when we lived in Hong Kong, She started teaching TEFL at a local Chinese school, was asked to hold the fort when the English Lit teacher was ill and did so well that when we were moved on she ended up successfully teaching O level English at two prestigious girls schools in Singapore and Kualar Lumpur. Later on when foreign teachers were banned from Malayan Schools she went to work for a private prep school for expats' children. She ended up as Headmistress.

Teachers are born not made, but training hones their skills

Agree with these posts. Having an aptitude and a vocation for the work helps, and training throughout their career is vital. Sadly, great practitioners get promoted to managerial posts because they need better salaries or want to have some influence on policy and practice. I've known some wonderful social workers and probation officers who became poor managers because they lost their practice base and stopped attending the training courses that had given them the edge.

Whenever I ask for help with a computer problem, the kind men on my expat forums give me detailed instructions - and I don't understand a word! They are unable to envisage the depths of my ignorance of computer jargon.
I was a specialist remedial teacher and I had to explain to some specialist subject teachers why just running off worksheets when they had to take one of 'my' classes would not work. The fact that some children arrived at 11 with a reading age of 6 was beyond them - and the headmaster who had only taught in a Christian Brothers (extremely academic) grammar school.

There are two skills needed to teach: the basic abiluity to relate to, control and enthuse children (which has an element of nature); and the need to be on top of the basic skills that you are teaching, So.....

Yes, teachers should be examined for their basic literacy and numeracy skills and those who do not possess these should not be teaching; and teachers with a good grasp of these who are unable to master the "art" of teaching should also be weeded out.

Some of the reports and letters that my GC receive from school are full of spelling errors, grocer's apostrophes etc. - this is not acceptable, however delightful and child-oriented the teacher might be.

Excellent post nightowl, thank you.

Personally, as somebody who trained as a teacher as a mature student, and later trained other teachers- one of the most important aspect of training = the many periods of teaching practices where students are supported and observed, assessed- on the subject knowledge- but more importantly on the ability to teach, to impart knowledge effectively and enthusiastically - and also on the way to communicate and deal with students, and to impose a positive and effective discipline in the classroom. Subject knowledge is actually not as important in a way. My brother has several PhD's/doctorates in physics, maths and information technology - but he is totally unsuitable as a teacher. Basically because he is so clever than he can't understand ... that students can't understand. He has no disciplinary or communications skills either (bless his cotton socks). He is 1000000000s more clever than me, but I was a much better teacher, lol.

I am hesitant about posting as I am not a teacher and have little knowledge about what training entails. However the arguments sound very similar to those I have heard about social work. Many people who have been working in social care for years as support staff have many skills. However they would be even better with training, supervision and the opportunity to place their practice in a legal, sociological and psychological context. On the other hand many qualified workers are frighteningly useless and it is a mystery how they ever got through the training. So I would say that good social workers (teachers) are born and not made but with training they are even better. Or as someone once said to me 'training is essential but not sufficient'. Hope I've not strayed too far from the thread.

Most of the teachers I came across in my career and who could not cope - went on to teach in private schools. Always made me wonder why people want to pay so much for teachers who are either unqualified or unable to cope???
I also have evidence of private schools lying to inspectors re the qualified status of their staff- including our local Montessori school!

Being qualified does not automatically make you a good teacher- but not being qualified, trained, vetted and observed by specialist and experienced trainers certainly does help. I have failed teacher trainees on practice in the past btw, as they were clearly not cut out for the job in one way or another.

No, nor would I. I know that it is quite common for independent schools to take graduates who haven't done a PGCE., though.

As someone who has trained teachers I would agree that good teachers are born and not made. There are some people who will never be able to pass on a concept no matter how much training they receive and there are those who instinctively know how. In between lie the majority who with help, training, mentoring and experience will be competent or better. What does irritate are those who think teaching is an easy option (it isn't) and those who think anybody can teach younger children (they equally need great teachers to foster and encourage their early years).
mamie i would certainly not rate any school, private or otherwise, who used unqualified staff.