Lessons · Teaching · a multiple subject credential against a single subject one
One class all day, or one subject all day
A multiple subject credential authorises teaching all the core subjects to one group of pupils in a self-contained classroom, which is most elementary teaching; a single subject credential authorises teaching one named subject to several groups of pupils, which is most middle and high school teaching.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
A candidate who loved her subject applied for the credential that sounded larger, because multiple sounded like more. She wanted to teach biology to teenagers and had applied for the credential that puts an adult with one class of nine-year-olds for the whole day. The names describe the shape of the day, not the size of the qualification.
How to think about it
Picture the day before you pick the credential. If you want one group of children and every subject, you want multiple subject. If you want one subject and a new group every period, you want single subject. Then everything downstream, the subject evidence, the examinations, the placement, follows from that choice, so make it first and make it on purpose.
Worked example
Multiple subject: one group of pupils, every core subject, all dayThe elementary shape. You are their teacher, not their mathematics teacher.
Single subject: one named subject, a new group every periodThe secondary shape, inside a department.
The choice made first, because the subject evidence follows from itEvidence is matched to a named field, and the field depends on this.
The placement in the preparation programme follows the same choiceYou are placed in the kind of classroom you are credentialled for.
Your turn
Name the kind of classroom a multiple subject credential puts you in.
Multiple subject: one group, many subjects, a classroom
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Reading multiple as bigger and single as smaller. They are two different jobs, not two ranks, and a teacher who is happy in one is often miserable in the other. Choose by the day you want, not by the word.