Teacher qualifications

This page contains cleaned historical text recovered from the former Bad Apple Bullies website. Character encoding, punctuation, headings, lists and obvious extraction errors may have been repaired for readability. The underlying claims and opinions remain those of the original author and have not been independently reverified. Listen uses on-device text-to-speech — no audio files are stored.

Do we need to set a minimum standard for entry to a BEd uni course? - Bad Apple Bullies

A teacher's story: Victoria

Help Robina

Universities that allow students to enter teaching with an ATAR of 43 should be ashamed.

I had a high VCE score and studied teaching.

I stopped teaching around 10 years ago.

On teaching rounds at Croydon North Primary, one of the lead teachers who moved on to become a principal at another school could not spell Aaron ("Are you sure it's not Aran? ") or community (comunity), and who knows what else.

I have heard numerous teachers say "the teachers who get the best marks are the worst teachers", or "all good teachers fail a uni subject or two".

Today's mature-age teaching students on an unnamed Facebook group have a large number that make me cringe with both their inability to string a sentence together, and their put-down of other parents and people.

There are lots of good teachers, yet unfortunately since I was in primary school I have known teachers are not good at spelling, and instead of saying "Let's raise our standards and have ourselves tested for these traits", they prefer to tell the public NAPLAN is a bad idea.

These teachers need to accept they are accountable, and to realise that many parents want to know they can rely on the teachers' skills.

Mandatory spelling, grammar and maths testing should occur for teachers, no exceptions allowed.

Saying a student can enter teaching with an ATAR of 43 - ie to have effectively failed Year 12 and be in the bottom 43% of Year 12s - is absolutely ridiculous and should be legislated against.

Universities allowing this should be ashamed.

Bemused, Reader's Comment, Teacher entry ranking tumbles, Benjamin Preiss and Craig Butt, 18 January 2013 Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/teacher-entry-ranking-tumbles-20130117-2cwb5.html#ixzz2j281DDZI Historical link preserved from the original page.

Is Australia at risk of producing 'a cohort of toxic teachers'?

Michael Gallagher, executive director of the Group of Eight research-focused universities, said Australia was ''at risk of producing a cohort of ''toxic teachers''.

''The next generation of teachers is being drawn from this pool'' of people ''who have themselves not been very successful at school, '' he said.

Much of the growth in teaching enrolments since 2007 has come from school leavers with scores in the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) range of 50 to 70. Historical link preserved from the original page.

At present, some 20 per cent of teaching enrolments have an ATAR of less than 60.

'Toxic teacher' warning as debate rages on lifting uni entry marks, Catherine Armitage, Rachel Browne, 3 October 2012: http://www.smh.com.au/national/tertiary-education/toxic-teacher-warning-as-debate-rages-on-lifting-uni-entry-marks-20121002-26xi5.html Historical link preserved from the original page.

Some BEd students have ATARs of 50. They shouldn't be at uni.

As someone who has taught B. Education students at ACU, (with a PhD from a top 8 uni) I can attest that many students are woefully underprepared to embark on a teaching career.

They can barely string two sentences together, let alone compose an essay.

Their grip on grammar and spelling is tenuous, at best.

They don't read books or go to libraries to access information but rely on google /wiki for their answers.

Some of the students I have taught had ATARs of 50.

I repeat, they were barely literate themselves.

These are the future teachers of children in Catholic and Private Schools.

They shouldn't be at uni.

The ATAR needs to be raised.

AW, Reader's Comment, 'Toxic teacher' warning as debate rages on lifting uni entry marks, Catherine Armitage, Rachel Browne, 3 October 2012: http://www.smh.com.au/national/tertiary-education/toxic-teacher-warning-as-debate-rages-on-lifting-uni-entry-marks-20121002-26xi5.html Historical link preserved from the original page.

Most undergraduates with an ATAR below 70 will just scrape through their BEd, and will be ineffective teachers.

We need to have a minimum ATAR for entry to a BEd course at Uni.

A handful of the undergraduates getting into a BEd with an ATAR of only 60-70 will "blossom" during their uni years, and end up being good teachers.

But MOST of the undergraduates with an ATAR below 70 will just scrape through the courses, and will be ineffective teachers.

While enthusiam and teaching ability can be great for engaging kids and getting them to think for themselves, a teacher who can't understand the syllabus content themselves is hardly able to explain things to their studemts.

Probably the mimum ATAR should apply to BEd (secondary) courses only, and not to K-6.

Rob of Sydney, Reader's Comment, 'Toxic teacher' warning as debate rages on lifting uni entry marks, Catherine Armitage, Rachel Browne, 3 October 2012: http://www.smh.com.au/national/tertiary-education/toxic-teacher-warning-as-debate-rages-on-lifting-uni-entry-marks-20121002-26xi5.html Historical link preserved from the original page.

If you don't achieve an ATAR score of above 70, you don't deserve to go to university straight out of school. Get some life experience and come back as a mature age student.

My first year of university was spent doing primary education (at a prominent Sydney university).

I was absolutely shocked at the intellectual/academic level of my fellow students.

We were required to sit a year 6 level maths test and achieve a mark of 80% or better.

Over 60% of our year group failed.

That's right people... more than 60% of future primary teachers could not pass a year 6 maths test.

This was just one example from that first year.

By the end of the year, I was so disappointed with the academic level of the course and the level of intelligence of my fellow students that I did not even want to be associated with them or the industry.

I transferred to an Economics degree and now work an insurance company.

I was lost to the education system because the standard of course was rubbish and so were my fellow classmates.

Many of you may call me arrogant, but I'm just calling it the way I have seen it.

If the entry level was set higher, you would attract a better level of candidate and would subsequently produce better teachers.

Plus, just to enrage people a little more - if you don't achieve an ATAR score of above 70, you don't deserve to go to university straight out of school.

Get some life experience and come back as a mature age student.

University degrees have been cheapened by tertiary institutions pumping out qualifications to anyone who pays the money.

Teacher no more of Sydney, Reader's Comment, 'Toxic teacher' warning as debate rages on lifting uni entry marks, Catherine Armitage, Rachel Browne, 3 October 2012: http://www.smh.com.au/national/tertiary-education/toxic-teacher-warning-as-debate-rages-on-lifting-uni-entry-marks-20121002-26xi5.html Historical link preserved from the original page.