…how thick do you have to be to think that employing the muppets who got us into the current financial crisis, as maths teachers, with minimal training, is a good idea?

I’m not sure if their ‘mathematical skills’ was the problem.

I reckon ‘greed’ and ‘unnecessary risk-taking’ might have played a part though.

Don’t know how often they come up in maths lessons.

Might work, they will be good at maths. In need of a job and possibly have children so they might know how to work with kids.

Would you rather have someone that went to a private school with 4 A levels and a degree who knows their stuff or someone with bad A levels and a bad degree teaching your kids?

It would be good for employment too. Only problem is when banking picks up they will all go back.

Sorry I’ve just re-read your original question – as thick as me, would appear to be the answer.

I was thinking the same thing as matt_outandabout.

Most of these people have been nowhere near kids since they were at school and working in a merchant bank does not give you the skills you need to teach.

I have two daughters and I’m a qualified trainer, but I wouldn’t imagine that I could teach which is a different skill altogrether.

My youngest daughter is in her NQT year as a primary school teacher having qualified in the summer. As part of her teacher training she spent a total of 4 months in the classroom doing teaching practice. Quite how the government thinks they can turn ex-bankers/engineers/builders etc into qualified teachers in 6 months I don’t know.

And I suppose you have a blinding IQ Matt? Do you know many people working in the banking industry?

I must agree I’m not entirely convinced that employing MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE to teach (in 6 months) is such a great idea, and as we all know – as soon as its business as normal they’ll be back licking the cream off my pension fund again.
Anyway wasn’t the mantra in the city (deliberate lower case) “Those who can do, those who can’t teach”?
Actually, thinking about it, on those terms they’ll be great.

working in a merchant bank does not give you the skills you need to teach.

So they won’t be giving them aptitude tests then ?

……. weird 😕

I assumed April 1st had come early when I heard this proposal mentioned on the radio.

BTW alwyn one of my best teachers at school got a D is the subject he ended up teaching :-). There’s a lot more to teaching than subject knowledge

woldn’t knock the engineering industry, we’re benifiting from all the banking fiasco. All the engineering grads who would have gone off chaseing cash in the city are applying for engineerig jobs thus we’re already recruiting higher quality than last year (i was bottom of the class lat year 🙂 )

And the freefalling pound is aking us look cheep 🙂

geetee1972 – Member

And I suppose you have a blinding IQ Matt? Do you know many people working in the banking industry?
🙄

So they won’t be giving them aptitude tests then ?

……. weird

Probably will, but the government’s attitude appears to be that there is source of potential teachers because they must be desperate to get jobs rather than investing the money where it will do the best in the long run.

Agree with aP about them all running back to the city when the good times roll again, which they will, and then we’ll be short of teachers again because we did it the wrong way round.

woldn’t knock the engineering industry,

I wasn’t having a pop at engineers, sorry if it appeared so, but I have severe reservations about the governments second knee-jerk announcement in 24 hours after the fiasco on Monday with their new plans for dealing with violence towards women.

Firstly, I don’t see why you can’t take a graduate with some real world experience and train them up to be a teacher in 6 months instead of expecting them to go back to uni for a whole year on a PGCE (a fair amount of which is spent on teaching practice anyway). It would be best if they got people into teaching who wanted to teach, but I don’t see any reason to believe that the majority of people who go onto do PGCEs straight after their degrees are any more likely to be keen on teaching, rather than just having not much idea what else to do after their degree.

Secondly, I doubt very much that the senior managers ar RBS, or for that matter Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, will be the ones that this will be applying for teacher training.

Thirdly, of course any announcement by this government at this stage of its death throes needs to be taken with plenty of salt – they have a history of re-announcing things that are happening already.

I doubt very much that the senior managers ar RBS or for that matter Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, will be the ones that this will be applying for teacher training.

Very true. I fail to understand why someone who has been made redundant from the banking and IT sectors, will automatically make bad teachers because a bank which they might have worked for, failed commercially. I also can’t quite grasp why you would have to be really thick to believe that they might make good teachers – specially in subjects where there is a desperate shortage 😕

Teachings is like the YTS scheme for adults and dodgy graduates anyway isnt it 😆

The banks may have failed, but there will still be a lot of people looking to get into teaching that have experience of real business that most career teachers simply do not and therefore have something different to offer.

But it works both ways, I have worked with 3 ex teachers in my current job over the last decade and all of them have gone on to be successful in what they chose to do. One is now a management consultant.

my best teacher at school, and my favourite lecturer at uni have both worked for a considerable amount of time in the city. both teach management/economics type things. the school one was in her first year of teaching, and was VERY good at it. the lecturer at uni has her fingers in many pies, and so ahs very very very current knowledge on the subject (particularly concerning the environment and business).

i reckon the right ones could make very good teachers.

right children, if i have 100 million worth of toxic assets,and I leverage these to return 24 billion, whats the last possible date I can retire on 700k a year without getting rumbled?

Well, if you thought 6 months was too short, the Tories were on the radio last night trying to trump the government by stating they’d have introduced a similar scheme but with only 6 weeks training!!

Doesn’t alter the fact that its a stop gap for all concerned, gov and soon to be ex-bankers. we have seen a lot more paople contacting us to “get a taste of teaching and teh classroom” or the past few months. “No i’ve thought hard about it for the past few months”, “oh really what do you do now?”, “well i was in marketing but i’m being made redundant”, “really? Next!”
I really don’t want people slinking into my profession with minimal training because the money chasing has dried up and it’s percieved as safe. A lot of those undergoing teacher training pull out in the teaching practice stage (and in scotland a number pull out in the probationar stage). It would be unfair to all those going through training to run a system for some “professionals” which allows them to shortcut the long standing system.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

How comes every other non-teaching graduate takes 12 months to complete a PGCE yet these guys can complete it in 6?

Anyway as soon as the troughs fill up again, they’ll be off to dip their snouts and gorge, gorge, gorge.

hear hear kevonakona – my thought exactly

BTW alwyn one of my best teachers at school got a D is the subject he ended up teaching :-). There’s a lot more to teaching than subject knowledge

I failed GCSE IT, and now teach it at A level 🙂

With the attitude shown by some teachers on this thread, it’s a wonder any normal person would want to go and work with such people.

I mean, it’s clearly obvious that everyone who has worked in any other job than teaching (imagine being in IT for a bank, how strange to be such a capitalist running dog). Also it’s obvious that a motivated person can’t possibly do in 6 months what a student who wanted an extra year at uni can manage in 12 months. And of course subject knowledge and life experience and experience of the wider world of work are all pointless.

Hmmm.

<snip> And of course subject knowledge and life experience and experience of the wider world of work are all pointless.

Why just limit this policy to teaching profession, why not cut civil engineering courses in half for the newly redundant, or medical training (we always need new doctors, and an accountant’s going to have a lot more life skills than a wet behind the ears student)

Its quite interesting how many people have such little regard for teachers and teaching.
I still believe that all of these remarkable ex City workers will show just how good they are, right up until the point at which they can go back and work in the City. I’m not quite sure that being a rocket scientist in a back room for a trader is quite

subject knowledge and life experience and experience of the wider world of work