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Pupils Sent To Sikh Free School Amid Place Shortage

OneWingedBird

OneWingedBird

Beloved of Ra
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Aug 3, 2003
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This doesn't seem right to me at all. Even if they will get decent Bhagi's.

More than 20 pupils have been allocated places at a Sikh-ethos free school in Leeds that they did not choose, amid a shortage of school places.

Of the 30 pupils allocated a place at Khalsa Science Academy for next year, only eight named it as a choice.

The school is not a faith school, but it is run with a Sikh ethos.

Leeds City Council blamed ministers for prioritising free schools over locally run schools, but the Conservatives said the schools benefited young people.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32449101
 
Well my first problem wouldn't be with it being a Sikh school but the fact it is a free school, in which teachers for instance do not need to be qualified.
 
Yes, I'm with Loquaciousness on this. It's the Free that's the problem rather than it being a particular religion. I personally don't want any school to have religious bent to it though...

Depending on what I found when I investigate this particular instance, I might be caught between not wanting to prop up the private education sector and not wanting to support the religion-ethos one.

I'd be in the same position if the only school offered that was suitable in all other ways was one of my own faith.
 
Excuse my ignorance, my only child is 34 and I know nothing about the current school system. Can a school recognised by the State system really have teachers with no qualifications whatsoever?
 
This seems wrong on at a number of different levels. Firstly, pupils should not IMO be allocated against their parents' wishes places at schools which are governed by a faith/ethos which they do not share. Sikhism is a pretty benign religion but it is a minority faith in the UK and there is no reason why non-Sikhs should be expected to attend such an institition.

Secondly, there is the "free schools" isue. I personally have no issue with free schools but my understanding was that they were intended to be a mechanism by which groups of parents could band together to create an institution which they believed would benefit their children. There is no reason why parents who are not part of that should be required to send their children there.

This fragmentation of education along faith and other lines is hugely divisive and bodes ill for the future harmony of the nation.
 
Loquaciousness said:
Well my first problem wouldn't be with it being a Sikh school but the fact it is a free school, in which teachers for instance do not need to be qualified.
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This confuses me: surely the term 'free school' in the context of this article (and indeed the enforced enpatriation of these supranumeric local scholars) means that it funded by the Local Authority? So a state school, 'free' in the oblique sense that UK public services are centrally-funded via taxation as opposed to direct fees?

In which case, does not every Jill-Jack teacher have to be GTC registered?

ps whilst being personally in favour of an entirely-secular education system, I think that only a minority of the specialist church-school brands on offer (at least in the UK) would let religion entirely-overshadow the academic.
 
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From Wikipedia:

Unlike other state sector schools in England but like independent schools, free schools are not required to ensure that teachers have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). The government claims that not requiring free schools hire only qualified teachers enables them to pursue "innovation, diversity and flexibility" and "the dynamism that characterises the best independent schools". The Labour Party have expressed their opposition to this and said that they would require teachers in academies and free schools be properly qualified.
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So...some of those free schools may have some teachers that are not fully qualified.
That is plainly ridiculous.
 
Mythopoeika said:
From Wikipedia:


So...some of those free schools may have some teachers that are not fully qualified.
That is plainly ridiculous.
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As I understand it a lot of teachers at independent schools don't have a teacher training qualification, and I think the thinking behind it is that these schools are typically high performing. I suspect it shows a lack of faith in the quality of the teacher training qualification TBH.
 
On the one hand I don't see why someone with a PhD and years of lecturing experience should have to go back to university for a year (and all the debt that entails), to become a 'qualified teacher'. On the other I agree there does have to be some kind of insurance that teachers are up to the job and are all on the same page.
 
Quake42 said:
As I understand it a lot of teachers at independent schools don't have a teacher training qualification
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As I understand it, until quite recently some independant schools still maintained a tradition of appointing non-graduates (let alone post-grads) in certain subject areas. There are unlikely to be many examples of this left, but as long as HM Inspectorate are happy, there might still be some left.

Quake42 said:
I think the thinking behind it is that these schools are typically high performing. I suspect it shows a lack of faith in the quality of the teacher training qualification TBH.
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A more significant aspect is that most independant schools in England (and until a generation ago, all state schools in Scotland) sought ideally to appoint graduate scientists, mathematicians, economists and geographers who (preferably but not prescriptively) possessed a post-grad teacher training qualification. In other words, like university teaching staff, they were professional specialists from specialist disciplines who where then trained to teach.

Then, in the 1960s, the concept of people becoming trained as, for example, chemistry teachers, directly as a profession in itself appears to have taken the fore (as opposed to traditional subject teachers having had to have been practising scientists or technologists, who then went on to teach).

There have been other contributory factors to the downturn in the quality of academic outputs: this is only a simplistic summary, but, it's a valid aspect in the overall post mortem.
 
drbastard said:
On the one hand I don't see why someone with a PhD and years of lecturing experience should have to go back to university for a year (and all the debt that entails), to become a 'qualified teacher'. On the other I agree there does have to be some kind of insurance that teachers are up to the job and are all on the same page.
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My sister got a good degree and a teaching post-grad qualification, and she taught for a few years in junior and primary schools before giving it up to raise her own family.
Kids grown up, she tried to get back into teaching - only to be told that 'everything had changed' and the best they could offer her was a teaching assistant position. That's what she's been doing ever since, although she has talked about going on a refresher course so she could apply for a full teaching position.
Personally, I think the school is exploiting her by offering her less than what she deserves, and she's not assertive enough to stand up to them.
 
Mythopoeika said:
....she tried to get back into teaching - only to be told that 'everything had changed' and the best they could offer her was a teaching assistant position.
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Changed? What, to the extent that qualified graduate practitioners in a given subject, with a good post-graduate teacher training degree would not be considered on an equal footing with someone who is a qualified teacher with an integrated degree in the same subject?

So to take an extreme (and deliberately-contentious) example: a graduate minister of religion (BTheo) who has practised as a priest and then obtains a BEd teacher training qualification is considered to be less qualified to teach RMPS or social sciences than a graduate in Religious Studies?
 
Quake42 said:
As I understand it a lot of teachers at independent schools don't have a teacher training qualification, and I think the thinking behind it is that these schools are typically high performing. I suspect it shows a lack of faith in the quality of the teacher training qualification TBH.
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In theory it should favour high performers but the reality has been that "teachers" are recruited on the basis of their religious faith or who they know/are related to.
 
Sikhs btw do not force women to cover their hair. Its the men who cover up!
 
Ermintrude said:
Changed? What, to the extent that qualified graduate practitioners in a given subject, with a good post-graduate teacher training degree would not be considered on an equal footing with someone who is a qualified teacher with an integrated degree in the same subject?
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I really have no idea about the details, but I think she's been told bullshit.
When she was a student, she decided not to do a BEd, because a degree + PGCE would have given her more versatility.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I really have no idea about the details, but I think she's been told bullshit.
When she was a student, she decided not to do a BEd, because a degree + PGCE would have given her more versatility.
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In Ireland a PGCE (HDipE) is the standard along with a degree for secondary school teachers. This may now become a MEd.
 
On a related note, I applied for a university lecturership a few months back and i knew someone on the interview panel. I wasn't shortlisted but found out from this person that 2 of the 4 candidates who were interviewed didn't even have a PhD (this was even in the person specification!)

This is where we are now in this country I'm afraid-hiring cheap, underqualified people just to save money. Or hiring the vice chancellor's nephew or niece. etc.
 
I wasn't shortlisted but found out from this person that 2 of the 4 candidates who were interviewed didn't even have a PhD (this was even in the person specification!)
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It's very bizarre, a while back we were interviewing for a new office manager, and one of the applicants who hadn't been shortlisted for interview phoned up, after we'd had the interviews, and asked if he could be allowed to come in and make a case for why we should give him the job. He got told no.

Maybe it's a topic for another thread, but there seems to be a real 'blag it' culture in some places, with very little exploration of whether the people can deliver.
 
For some jobs (or some people), 'blagging it' is the only way to get the job. These days, being good and experienced isn't always enough - now we're expected to sell ourselves, using salesman's tactics.
It's bloody ridiculous.
 
I am afraid rules generally have been relaxed re: employing qualified teachers. However, academies and free schools have even less rules regarding this, and do employ proportionally more unqualified teachers. https://www.teachers.org.uk/edufacts/free-schools
As for faith schools, I have no problem with them per se - my son attends a Church of England primary.
 
P.S. Sixth Form Teachers do not need to be qualified teachers either ( I am ). A few of my colleagues are only just getting their quals now!
 
OneWingedBird said:
It's very bizarre, a while back we were interviewing for a new office manager, and one of the applicants who hadn't been shortlisted for interview phoned up, after we'd had the interviews, and asked if he could be allowed to come in and make a case for why we should give him the job. He got told no.

Maybe it's a topic for another thread, but there seems to be a real 'blag it' culture in some places, with very little exploration of whether the people can deliver.
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Maybe it is worth starting a new thread because I could practically write a book about my job hunting experiences over the last 8 months.

It's possible the guy was just frustrated at not being given a chance after about 300 job applications,I can sympathise with that-but it's an immediate fail to go back and whine about why you weren't shortlisted. It just reinforces the point that the HR department were right not to employ him in the first place, because he's an arse.
 
I've mentioned previously on the board a number of my teachers - including several of the best - were not qualified as teachers but had had careers elsewhere first: a smattering of priests, military officers, professors, and lawyers but also a titled aristocrat and a one-time gameshow host(!). I left school in '97, so this is hardly a contemporary anecdote, but as far as I can make out from the numerous teachers I know, a PGCE has little bearing on your ability to teach - although it certainly moulds you to what is (sadly) expected for the job nowadays.
 
I got a scholarship to a private school for 6th form and I'm pretty sure neither my music teacher nor my English lit teacher had a teaching qualification (the English teacher had gone straight from journalism into teaching). They both seemed competent enough. Some people just seem to have a natural knack for teaching others.
 
I'm sorry I asked.

I don't believe a teacher has to be taught to teach - in fact, I'm not sure you can teach someone to teach. But I was alarmed at the idea that maybe free schools could appoint just anyone - the gardener, say - and call them a physics teacher. I'm still not sure from all the above if that's the case or not!
 
Cochise said:
I'm sorry I asked.

I don't believe a teacher has to be taught to teach - in fact, I'm not sure you can teach someone to teach. But I was alarmed at the idea that maybe free schools could appoint just anyone - the gardener, say - and call them a physics teacher. I'm still not sure from all the above if that's the case or not!
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In some of the Free Schools literally anybody may be appointed, a gardener who knows his koran is better placed than a qualified teacher.
 
ramonmercado said:
In some of the Free Schools literally anybody may be appointed, a gardener who knows his koran is better placed than a qualified teacher.
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That's what concerns me.

If someone voluntarily sends their child to a school like that, I suppose its their business, at least up to a point, but in this case the children appear to have been allocated to the school against the parents' wishes, which surely is unacceptable?
 
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