UKC

My head teacher wants me to "renew" my ML qualification. I have led groups on hillwalking and mountain walks, as well as organising and running numerous annual DofE expeds.
I am happy for school to send me on a jolly in the mountains, but am a bit mystified by the advice given by a county adviser that all qualms should be renewed tri-annually, even the ones not requiring it.
Has anyone else been sent on refreshers for ML or SPA despite being fully active in its delivery?

In reply to Anton Eady:
Hello Anton, you can go on a refresher for ML, that might tick the box. Plas y Brenin and other providers in N Wales do these. Are you a member of MTA? They require CPD in order to retain membership which goes some way to demonstrating being current.

You only had to do your teaching degree once, so how do you maintain your qualification? Years of experience plus formal CPD I presume? Try explaining that to your county adviser.

In reply to Anton Eady:

......and if they're paying take the jolly!

In reply to Anton Eady:

Hmm. It is down to your employer what they demand from you in terms of awards and recent logged experience, in that they determine whether you are competent to deliver the activities they ask of you. An award in itself doesn't do this. I've not come across any employers who ask for people to retake their award, which seems unnecessary and onerous in general. A refresher course if you've been out of the game for a bit, or a relevant CPD training unit plus requisite logbook experience should meet their needs to establish your competence better than you redoing the award, imho. Maybe give someone at mountain training a call, get some advice from them?

In reply to Anton Eady:

Cynical:- but the county advisor has probably run out of things to 'advise' his employers on. So rather than say, "thats it boss, I'm all done and advised you everything you need, so you'd better make me redundant", he's found something else to give his 'advice' on to justify his job.

Its not as though its a theoretical qualification in that theories, developments and equipment/methods change radically. Maps & compass, nav, & safety are the much the sameness as ten, twenty, or more years ago.

Does this mean the LA, is also going to ask for all canoeists, mountain bikers, SPA'ers, and tea makers to requalify every 'X' number of years?? What a lot of cost!!!

In reply to Anton Eady:

Ask your advisor when he last renewed his qualifications to give out such nonsense advice!

In reply to Anton Eady:

Hi Anton, so long as your school or LA is paying go on a refresher course and see what has changed since you did your ML. I have recently done this with with my SPA and it was a very useful experience.

Like Murko says if you are a member of MTA they request you go on CPD to remain current. I've been on a few of these over the years and they have always been fun.

In reply to Anton Eady:




It's also just bullshit.

Does the math teacher renew their qualifications?

You should keep active and up to date, obviously with your first aid.

However if its paid just apply for a training exemption and re-do the assessment. I'd have thought that may satisfy the exemption. At worst its a week out in the mountains or two weekends and probably counts as PD, it would for me.

In reply to Roadrunner5:
Sorry, but to even consider it is absolutely bonkers.

In this caser it is 1 week for a Summer ML.

Then add a week for Winter ML. then add MIA and then MIC.

Sorry but you need to have a pretty frank conversation with your "advisor".
Try not to use the phrase "Bell-end"

If you get no sensible response from them, go over their heads.

Edit:
If you get the chance to attend some CPD days it wouldn't do any harm, but your qualification doesn't require you to do any.

Edit 2 :

Sorry RR5, clicked on the wrong reply button. not aimed at you...

In reply to Roadrunner5:



Actually as a maths teacher I had to show some CPD and gain a new competence annually. I suspect that this advisor is just asking for a bit of CPD that they can explain to the insurance company and satisfy the PTA/LEA with. LEAs are very cagey about the words they use to describe things as they so often get dissected in court when little Johnny's parents demand £1 million damages for a twisted ankle. If the insurance company demands re-qualification then they have to stipulate re-qualification and leave it up to the issuing body to interpret that as best they can.

In reply to Anton Eady:

I'm assuming that renew actually means doing some CPD or refresher.

This has got to be a good thing, especially if your school are paying.

In reply to Anton Eady:

When dealing with local authorities you're often dealing with someone who has no idea of the qualifications structure in your activity or whose background is in another industry or activity with different regulations.

When I worked at a wall we once had a local authority group who would not book until they received a paper copy of our PPE records. Quite what they were going to do with it I don't know. They decided they didn't need it after all when we told them it would run to several hundred pages and that they'd need to pay for copying including the staff time.

In reply to Clarence:

in your subject area?

I teach here and we do CPD but not subject stuff..

There is a big difference between CPD for a maths teacher and retaking the whole qualification !!! [degree, teacher training + ??]

In reply to top cat:


No, there isn't really. A PGCE is about 6-10 days of actual training plus classroom experience. With 3 INSET days plus 5 additional training days in curriculum and pastoral subjects and CPD on top, the actual amount of training and documentation is very similar. But as I said, I don't think that the head teacher is actually wanting a complete retake of the qualification rather than something that will satisfy the insurers.

In reply to Clarence:


How do you work that out?

In reply to DaveHK:

yeah I'm doing teacher training here and its 225 hours of instruction at a college at night school and weekends plus the usual teaching load myself.

In reply to DaveHK:


That's what I did in 2005.

In reply to Clarence:


You were less than 2 weeks in training? How come?

I did mine in 2006/7 and a back of a fag packet calculation suggests I was roughly 90 days at college and a similar amount on placement in schools.

In reply to Clarence:


'Twas a year's full-time course for me!

In reply to DaveHK:


No idea, that's all we were given. I suspect there are different plans because I was teaching 3-4hrs per day every day from the start and some people seem to have done more at university and fewer teaching hours. I know the maths teaching course for non-maths graduates involved far more university hours but I had a good maths degree so I was on the specialists programme.

In reply to Clarence:

Sounds like some sort of fast track program. I take it you trained in England as I've never heard of that kind of thing in Scotland where I trained?

In reply to Clarence:

Out of curiosity, how long was the course in total?

In reply to DaveHK:
Yes, Nottingham uni. We didn't get taught any subject knowledge, just teaching and learning strategies, minority awareness and pastoral care. It was one or two days a month at uni over a full teaching year. There was a week taster which involved a day in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary schools plus a bit of a look at EMTAG and refugee work but we didn't actually do much of practical value over that week, it was more to see who would be likely to stick at it. Several dropped out before the actual start of teaching.

In reply to Clarence:

This sounds similar (ish) to what is now School Direct (although that often involves, say, 1 afternoon a week of tutorials, so maybe 20 days?).

In reply to Clarence:
Sounds like more teaching practice and less theory than what I did which may not be a bad thing. It's still a bit disingenuous to suggest that teacher training and yearly teacher CPD requirements are similar commitments!

In reply to DaveHK:

This sort of course is increasingly common in England, and the people who do train on it think the more practice and less theory is indeed a good thing. Unfortunately the GTCS is unsure of whether they should accredit teachers who have trained this way - even though they have a PGCE. Depending on what they decide, they could end up in a situation where a teacher trains through School Direct, has been teaching for 6 years, wants to move to Scotland - no dice, you're "not qualified".

Backward, if you ask me.

In reply to Anton Eady:

1 day Refreshers are no bad thing, but I would resist all attempts at people trying to get you to retrain, What if you didn't have such a benefactor as your employer, What if YOU were paying for the retraining? Problem I see is the long term consequences of these things, once one authority starts asking people to retrain the next one will start thinking that they might look negligent if they didn't do the same. Then the next thing you know it becomes "common practice" and then low and behold will all have to retrain every 3 years at huge expense for no extra benefit!
Also, most people on average take 1 year to gain an ML, granted that's not 1 year full at it! But Minimum 20 days practical experience before you can even register for training. Then 6 day and evenings with 1 night for the training. Then a minimum of a further 20 days practical usually 30 before 5 days and 2 nights of assessment. That makes a total of 61 days minimum in my book. Oh and don't forget the driving to the 3 different mountainous areas to gain that practical! Bit of a moan I know but that's just my tupence worth!

In reply to Clarence:


And what about your degree? I assume 3 yrs full time...................like I said, it's a million miles apart. Well, I didn't say that above, but I'm saying it now.)

Or don't maths teachers need a degree anymore?