Teacher giving wrong information

Not even vaguely possible, I'm afraid. I have a degree that was 50% school subject Never thought I was going to teach. Did a PGCE in Middle school education which promptly disappeared. I taught my subject and a couple of others for 37 years-with excellent exam results.

Then the mistakes are not ok. Wondering if the school has a shortage of Science teachers or whether others are having to fill in? A gentle email to the teacher is a good place to start and if that goes nowhere, ask for a meeting.

Might it be as simple as the teacher having written vertebrate instead of invertebrate? My SIL tells of teaching French with Ofsted in and writing 'mon mere' on the board and not realising all lesson. It was an honest mistake, she knows really.

Otherwise, OP, just mention it politely to the teacher. I'm sure they'd want to rectify it with the class once they're told?

She probably isn’t a subject specialist. I would encourage him to ask to speak to her to ‘check his understanding’ at a break or lunch, so he’s not pointing it out in front of everyone, which gives her an opportunity to reflect on her knowledge in this area and how she wants to tackle it with the rest of the class. This will make her less likely to feel defensive or caught out, and she’ll respect that he took initiative to further his understanding.

All from the POV of being a fallible secondary teacher myself!

Excellent point. My DS said the same about Science at A level. According to his physics teacher they teach basic concepts at GCSE (especially the lower sets) and
that Science evolves.
He enjoyed doing 3 sciences and A level.

I would send a polite email his teacher as her to contact you.

I have to agree with a PP I know of a Secondary School where none of the English teachers have an English degree, and that’s not even a shortage subject! I thank my lucky stars that at the moment my Secondary aged kids are being taught mostly by teachers who have qualifications in the subject. I don’t hold out much hope for my younger children who are 8. Unless there are significant changes I worry they will have a very different experience of education.

i guess I would try and contact the teacher. Possibly the Head of Department.

You cant force people to train to be teachers, so what's the answer to the lack of them?

Putting up with what they do, I wouldn't want to be one.

What was the exact teaching point? Without knowing that it's not possible to judge if your concern is truly valid or in perspective or not. In all subjects material is simplified at many stages so that a general point can be taught - you are often trying to build a framework of understanding - start with some foundational ideas and refine it later to include other and more complicated aspects - so what sort of thing is your complaint about exactly? Is it a factual or unequivocal point or to do with generalisation and exceptions?

You are itching to correct this appears to be more important to you than anything, you are way over the top and if my parent was this intense I would tell them I would stop studying till you calmed down

Take a step back

OP Have you checked the GCSE syllabus for the Exam board your DS is studying? You may be an expert in your field, but your DS needs to be answering exam questions the way the exam board wants them to be answered. Check mark schemes too.

As a PP said, things taught at GCSE level, especially in the sciences, are sometimes not strictly correct.

My DD did A level Biology and spent a lot of time complaining that tuff she had struggles to learn for 3 years was now wrong at A level!

A teacher's role isn't to be merely a fountain of facts - just like an English teacher isn't just a walking dictionary - a teacher's role is to teach kids how to learn their subject. This can include finding out information for themselves, constructing meaning, making conclusions. Op's son can do all these things and has demonstrated that in his recent fact checking experience. Good work, op's son.

(Although I do prioritise my own subject knowledge because I love my subject, but I have the luxury of teaching a shortage one so I don't have to teach something I don't know. If I had to teach a subject I'm not specialist in, I'd be doing it as above)

A few years ago when dd3 was in primary year 3 I actually took her worksheet and with a red pen corrected all the grammar, punctuation (teacher used to put an apostrophe when writing a plural eg bag's) and spelling mistakes. I then put it in an envelope addressed to the headteacher - I never heard anything back and obviously dd was mortified. In my defence it was my 50th birthday.
It's a very long time since I was at school but seriously 'The boy past the park'.

I wouldn't say anything, maybe your ds was mistaken. My dd3 is in year 11 and must have the worst computer science teacher in the world! And he has a PhD in computer science! He marked one of her questions wrong as she did not use the method in the example but it was a suggested method so you could use another. He also got some pretty basic maths wrong and dd3 pointed it out but he was very insistent. I don't know the foggiest about computer science but thankfully my sil teaches it at Cambridge so he has helped her.

But you don't need a teaching qualification such as a pgce to teach in an academy.

What a delight you are.

Teacher after teacher taking over the thread as usual.

It is hardly peculiar that on a website called Mumsnet aimed at parents, that we like to discuss teachers and schools without having every thread taken over by defensive teachers.

I’d say more that there is a disproportionate amount of posts aimed at teachers/schools. If you worked as a dentist and someone posted about dentistry then you’d be inclined to comment, it’s no different.

Why would being an academy change it? Most schools are now part of academy chains. Anyway, you do need a degree (at least 50% relevant) to the subject you intend to teach to get onto a PGCE. This was the case when I trained but God knows what it is now. They may accept anyone with a heartbeat just to get them through! The recruitment and retention crisis has meant qualified (sometimes not even qualified!) teachers are now being drafted into subjects they have no background in.

I therefore wouldn’t be surprised if this teacher was not a specialist.

You do realise that not all teachers work full time don’t you? I only teach 2 days a week now, I’ve been on MN most of the day today - it’s my guilty pleasure 😂

Not all teachers work full time. I work 2 days so you might find me commenting on fb on a school day during school hours. Oh and also some teachers will comment during school holidays. Some might also comment during the school day when they are in but they might be on a break!!

*Right. All teachers teaching GCSE should have a degree in the subject they teach...

Oh my goodness I think you are really out of touch.

40% of schools in the uk don't have a single teacher with a physics-related degree. But nearly every GCSE student studies physics, sometimes as part of double science award.

You can shout "should" all day long but it is just never going to happen. There's been a total brain drain of specialist science teachers in this country. All quitting in favour of other careers or teaching abroad.

Edit - of the other 60% of schools, most might only have one or two physicists, not enough to cover every gcse class. So a huge proportion of Physics lessons are taught by non specialists.

I'm focusing on physics as it's the one I know more about, but the other sciences are almost in as bad a situation*

This. The situation really is dire. Very few children in the state sector currently will have qualified teachers for every subject with a degree in that subject. The parents usually aren't aware of this of course... the school will hardly advertise that fact!

Sorry not read the full thread, but you wouldn't believe the number of mistakes in school textbooks, so I wouldn't automatically assume the teacher is wrong (although this may depend on the subject). When I find an inconsistency, I try to find at least 2 or 3 sources to check the facts, but teachers do not always have time for this.

You're not wrong to bring it up, because others in the class won't all have the benefit of knowledgeable and involved parents - if no-one tells her she's getting stuff wrong, she'll carry on making mistakes that might be the difference between pass and fail for a borderline student. You can be kind about it, but it does need to be said.

Whatever you say dear.

Well yes, exactly. Whatever I say about teaching is much more likely to be accurate than what you say, unless you work in schools. Whatever job you do, I seriously doubt you'd just nod and think my opinion was totally valid if I spouted a load of unfounded bile about the people who do that job. Yet somehow that's exactly what people expect teachers to do, rather than defend themselves or each other. Otherwise it's a 'pack mentality' .

Whatever you say dear.