Qualified Teachers

One of the bonuses of going through old files preparatory to moving is finding documents which I had forgotten I had. A small brown envelope with 'D.E.S.' written on the front contains this, a letter  dated August 10th 1970 giving me qualified teacher status. This followed my appointment to my first post in England, as teacher in charge of Geology at Ludlow Grammar School in Shropshire.

It notes that my first year will be a probationary year: I remember being visited briefly, once, during a geology class by one of the local authority officers, after which I was signed off.

As if the letter wasn't quite enough, I also received this, the size of a postcard, Form 33 TT, which repeats my DES number which, the letter urges, "....should be carefully noted." I checked on the latest missive from Teacher Pensions and am pleased to note, at the top right hand corner, that my TP reference is 7085717 - the / seems to have been lost.

In the same envelope is Gill's card which is much more specific and firm about the use of her number. It starts with 68/ so it followed completion of her first teaching appointment, at a convent in Stone, Staffordshire, in the year 1966/67, while I was finishing my degree at Keele. The reason that it followed her first year, while mine was issued at the start of my year, is that she had not completed a year's teacher training and joined the profession as a graduate.

When I think of the prolonged and difficult probation which Rachael went through to gain her qualified status in Scotland a year or so ago, we had it very easy. But then, in those good old days, we still had the cane, so students were much better behaved, and the policy was that a teacher was king/queen in his/her classroom and no-one ever disturbed him/her, not even if a riot was going on.