JOHN McCallum and Steffan Jones-Hughes should consider themselves very fortunate not to have been offered places on teacher-training courses.
Do they really want to join the 15,000 of us on supply? At 43 and 30 they have almost no hope of obtaining a permanent job.
Even if a selection panel is not itself prejudiced, it will be only too aware that the chance of the mature newly-qualified teacher gaining promotion in another school two years later is close to zero.
There will not be many schools prepared to take someone for a common pay spine post, knowing that they will have that person, at the top of the pay spine, for many years to come.
Have they not yet realised that the overused word “enthusiastic” in teacher job adverts is simply a code word for “under 25”?
Liz Hamerton
48 Curzon Street, Huddersfield