Teacher Training Agency Campaign

[John Simkin]

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has confirmed that it had received nine complaints from teachers about the latest campaign by the government to recruit staff. They have argued that the £12m Teacher Training Agency campaign, which aims to tempt recruits to teaching, was misleading. Teachers are especially offended by the claim that working in the classroom was “better than any anti-ageing cream” when it came to keeping teachers youthful. As one trainee teacher said of the adverts: “I’m only one term into a PGCE and I look five years older than I did when I started”.

Last year’s TTA adverts employing images of headless characters in tedious jobs, under the banner “Use your head. Teach”, were attacked as being in poor taste by union officials.

[Guest]

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has confirmed that it had received nine complaints from teachers about the latest campaign by the government to recruit staff. They have argued that the £12m Teacher Training Agency campaign, which aims to tempt recruits to teaching, was misleading. Teachers are especially offended by  the claim that working in the classroom was “better than any anti-ageing cream” when it came to keeping teachers youthful. As one trainee teacher said of the adverts: “I’m only one term into a PGCE and I look five years older than I did when I started”.

Last year’s TTA adverts employing images of headless characters in tedious jobs, under the banner “Use your head. Teach”, were attacked as being in poor taste by union officials.

I too find these commercials nauseating and misleading. Teaching is an exhausting demanding job with an apparently infinitely elastic workload.

If the government really wants to do something about recruitment they need to address the issues of workload and pensionable service.

I have long been of the view that given the stresses and strains of the job a teaching career should be 20-25 years and no longer. This would obviously require a big overhaul in the teachers pension scheme.

I am also not sure too many "recruits" would be stupid enough to fall for the current advertising campaign - moreover those who are will surely not last very long in the modern classroom.

[John Simkin]

I am also not sure too many "recruits" would be stupid enough to fall for the current advertising campaign - moreover those who are will surely not last very long in the modern classroom.

Maybe the idea is to recruit stupid people. A recent poll commissioned by Ofsted suggested that 7% of the teachers interviewed did not know that the Labour Party was in power. I suppose their only defence was that the government’s policies are so right-wing they thought the Tories must be in government.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2926

[Guest]

I am also not sure too many "recruits" would be stupid enough to fall for the current advertising campaign - moreover those who are will surely not last very long in the modern classroom.

Maybe the idea is to recruit stupid people. A recent poll commissioned by Ofsted suggested that 7% of the teachers interviewed did not know that the Labour Party was in power. I suppose their only defence was that the government’s policies are so right-wing they thought the Tories must be in government.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2926

I certainly think they are targeting "older" people to change career via one of their cut price non academic training schemes such as SCITT and GTP.