Teacher training candidates numeracy and literacy

[push-pull-mum]

imho, the tests are useful for those entering the teaching profession.

Unless you use your numeracy skills for example, on a daily basis, you can become rusty.

Then shouldn't the teachers have to take the tests every 5 years?
Or maybe even take regular exams in the subjects they are actually teaching?
Daughter's school (as of this coming September) is looking for a teacher of Geology, Geography and R.E. - is teacher likely to be recently qualified in all three?
Suspect a Geographer with PGCE will be spending his time googling 'World Religions' and printing off handouts from the internet.

[DIY Mum]

Not really because once you're actually teaching a subject specialism, it should be familiar.

Some primary trainee teachers despite having the gcses need to revise especially if it's been a while.

It's been a while in my case too but preparing DC year after year for 11+ has kept me in touch.

[P's mum]

I can see the point of numeracy but I'm a bit lost by 'literacy' if the examples given are supposed to be of literacy. They are simply spellings.

Spelling can be checked on a spell check or looked up in a dictionary - a bit slow I admit if you have to do it for every word. You can be a perfectly good teacher (or doctor, like my father) with dyslexia - as long as you realise that you have it and you have strategies to ensure that your pupils don't spell things incorrectly. My mother asked my dyslexic brother, after his first day of teaching seven year olds, how he coped. His response was:'Every child in my class can use a dictionary, we look spellings up together'.

Literacy is far more than spelling.

An important aspect for a teacher might be clear unambiguous speech and writing. If pupils are to be successful teachers need to be able to teach them about the use of appropriate registers for different circumstances. You are not likely to get a job if you can speak nothing but dialect and playground slang (not that thery are a wrong in context). It would be nice to think that teachers are well read. I would be worried if my child was being taught by someone who thought that literature was a waste of time.etc.

[yoyo123]

or who wrote "could of" in her reading record

[scarlett]

Do teachers have to regularly attend training updates just in their particular field or is it also for general maths/ literacy ? As a nurse I have to attend mandatory courses as well as others chosen by me or I can't re register as a nurse every 3 years. ......do teachers have to do a similar thing ? ...( sorry I sound a bit dim...it's the heat )

I agree re the rusty bit.I use maths all the time for working out drug dosages etc but recently I had to attend a course where we all took it in turns to stand up in front of a whole class whilst an assessor gave us an age of a child and then we had to write on a board what dosage was needed for a variety of things ...well, I hope I looked attractive from the back because I was there for quite a while

[workhard]

Hi all!

Poor literacy, poor numeracy/logic, poor general knowledge and sloppy research have been quite common in the secondary schools I have worked in.

Most teachers do not need to write great long reports - quick e mails suffice - so poor literacy is not quite as obvious.

But poor numeracy becomes obvious as soon as a colleague has a simple query on their payslip on on stats like the A*-C percentage for their students. Excel sheets can mask this somewhat, but not always.

Two stories:

General knowledge: At my DD's primary school, one teacher put up a the iconic 'standard' photo of the white Taj Mahal on the interactive white board. She told the kids it was a 'Hindu Temple'. My DD challenged this and so, when another teacher was pasing by, she was called in. This second teacher said :No! ... It's a mosque!' ..... I stand to be corrected,but I believe the famous white central building is a mausoleum, with one of the two red side buildings being a mosque. The whole thing is certainly not Hindu in any way.

Numeracy: A few years ago,one young teacher had failed their Maths GCSE, but wanted to be a teacher. So she simply lied on her application form. .... That lady is now the Headteacher of a secondary school in South London!

WH

[Marylou]

Where I work, one of my colleagues tried to correct my spelling. She began by apologising and said that she had to point out that my spelling of definitely was wrong. The problem was that she wanted me to change it to definately. We both tried to convince each other politely that we were right but, at the end of it all, she was convinced that she was right and I knew that I was right. I couldn't quite bring myself to pass her the dictionary.

I would have done! Possibly with a small wager on the side.

(A similar thing happened to me once when a friend told me off for not putting an "e" on the end of "tomato". Fortunately we were able to laugh about it. )

[mad?]

Where I work, one of my colleagues tried to correct my spelling. She began by apologising and said that she had to point out that my spelling of definitely was wrong. The problem was that she wanted me to change it to definately. We both tried to convince each other politely that we were right but, at the end of it all, she was convinced that she was right and I knew that I was right. I couldn't quite bring myself to pass her the dictionary.

I would have done! Possibly with a small wager on the side.

I have got to the point in life where I would happily hit someone on the head with a full concise Oxford A to P everytime I see the word definitely spellt with an A. Why oh why oh why do people do this? It defies all common sense, derivation etc ... I am sure I make as many spelling errors as the next person but I am Gobsmacked at how many poeple seem to do this. I wonder, have they ever asked themselves what the word actually means...and thought about...defined, finite, finish, etc etc...and I didn't even do latin...grrr sorry total personal bete noir...along with less and fewer but I need to go and lie down before I can address that

[tokyonambu]

to the point in life where I would happily hit someone on the head with a full concise Oxford A to P everytime I see the word definitely spellt with an A. Why oh why oh why do people do this? It defies all common sense, derivation etc

It also defies common pronunciation. Occasionally people do pronounce (and stress) the third syllable as ate, presumably to match the misspelling, but I could have more sympathy if people were misspelling it definutly, because that's how it's usually pronounced, with the stress on the first and last syllable. It isn't pronounced with the third syllable as in eye, after all, which were I feeling charitable makes definitely slightly counter-intuitive.

[mad?]

Occasionally people do pronounce (and stress) the third syllable as ate, presumably to match the misspelling, but I could have more sympathy if people were misspelling it definutly, because that's how it's usually pronounced, with the stress on the first and last syllable. It isn't pronounced with the third syllable as in eye, after all, which were I feeling charitable makes definitely slightly counter-intuitive.

I agree...except that I suspect in the shire counties there are thousnds of Hyacinth (sp?) Bouquets or Jaquetta Snobsberry People Carriers (sorry can't remember the original name ) who are actually pronouncing it as an 'ay' and thinking it makes them sounds sophisticated. Hidious.