Do you have to be a teacher to do a teacher's job?

In April, the Guardian reported on a secondary school that employs sixth-formers as supply teachers.

The teenagers helped fill its shortage of cover teachers and were excellent at the job, according to Chalfonts community college in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire.

Also being used as stand-ins, and far more often, are teaching assistants.

Increasingly, schools are asking these assistants, who aren't qualified teachers, to cover lessons as a way to cut costs, a head of education at a trade union says.

Christine McAnea, of Unison, says schools are ignoring guidance on the use of teaching assistants - and won't pay the assistants any more money for doing a teacher's job.

But should they be paid more?

And do the pupils suffer if they are being taught by teaching assistants rather than teachers?

Perhaps teaching is a job that a competent teaching assistant can do just as well as a teacher.

We'd welcome the views of parents, pupils, teaching assistants and teachers.