Funny breed.

I’ve spent most of the week interviewing perspective Skills for Life tutors to work in our department. Having been bitten in the past, less emphasis has been put on the need for a teaching question or even a relevant degree/ level 4 qualification. More emphasis has been put on a desire to work with the young people that i work with – You can be the most qualified or experienced teacher in the world, but if you don’t like the people you’re teaching, you’re screwed. Hence we’ve had a wide range of people in for interview, all with very different lives, experiences and backgrounds, but all have been equally amazing at the same time.

Running parallel to this has been my private life. My other half moved up from South London on Wednesday to live with me “oop Norf”. Yesterday he had an interview with a training provider in Doncaster, to do exactly the job that I do. He was very suprised he even got an interview, seeing as he has no teaching qualifications or experience, and his degree is in Sociology. He does, however, have experience of working with people with mental helath issues, an insiders view of the job from being with me, and a keen interest to do something similar himself. He is also keen to learn – he’d learnt things in the days preparing for his interview that the interviewees weren’t aware of – and is more than willing to work towards relevant qualifications once in the job. He felt the interview went until he had to do a presentation piece about how he’d deliver a particular subject to a given group of learners. He felt his lack of teaching experience let him down, although he had been honest with them from the start about this. He has written off getting the job. If they have had a similar experience to us with staffing, I still think he’s in with a chance.

So what does this say for the government’s agenda, to have all teachers qualified witha teaching qualification, and a relevant degree or level 4 qualification? All well and good if they are working towards them whilst already in the job. It’s becoming more aparent that you can teach someone how to teach, but you can’t make them like the people they are teaching – especially when they are teenagers.