school hasn't completed the GCSE syllabus

I'm a maths teacher too. We teach GCSEs starting in year 9. My top set 11's have seen everything on higher. The set 2 I think have done everything. Our set three only switched to higher at the start of the year after securing a good c on the end of year 10 mock. Therefore they have only seen grade b and some grade a topics. The sets 4 and 5 have seen everything in foundation, the set 6 will not have seen everything on foundation as they are so weak that they simply cannot access some topics. We only expect them to get u,g,f they also do another qualification so that they leave school with something. This is only about 10 students a year.

The set 3 and set 6 are aware that they will not be able to do every question, they have been doing past papers for ages so are used to this.

I dread teaching the new syllabus in which current grade b topics are brought onto foundation.

Maths is just one of those subjects where I'd be surprised if everything were taught. Some children just find it difficult to grasp some of the concepts and there's no point galloping along if they don't get it.

I wonder whether children are kept in the loop about this though? Surely it must be pretty disheartening to be sitting an exam and have no idea about some questions, either not having been taught it an appropriate level or never having seen it?

I rather think, May, that you could not teach an 8 year old to solve quadratic equations in an hour. You might be able to train them to push buttons on a calculator (indeed you can now get calculators for under £20 that have a solving quadratic equations function) but they have to be able to solve them without one.

What subject do you teach May? if the students are secure in enough areas to be guaranteed to get a C they get entered for the higher tier, even if that doesn't happen to include solving quadratic equations.

I would be rather surprised if you could teach the average 8year old how to solve a quadratic equation in an hour. You are assuming a level of algebra knowledge that they just don't have. And for GCSE students you'd need to teach them how to solve extended problems without signposts saying "write equations representing the facts you are given, set them equal to each other, rearrange them into a suitable form for solving then pick the right way of solving the quadratic equation from the options you've been taught, then decide which of your two possible answers is correct." That's a much more difficult ask. If you are good at maths you sometimes don't realise how kids can struggle with things you would find trivially easy.

I can't understand how they can get to Y11 and not be able to solve a quadratic! I'll bet I could teach an 8 or 9 year old 8 yr old to do it in an hour . And I am not a maths teacher!!
And if they really can't do that ,why are they not being eneterd into foundation level?

Maths builds on previous topics. It would be pointless to try to teach a group to solve equations involving algebraic fractions which need manipulating into a quadratic if they can't solve a quadratic equation, or if they don't have the algebra skills to do the manipulation. It may take some students so long to learn the foundation skills that they don't have time to get onto the harder stuff.

If a school has been doing nothing but practice papers for a year and teaching no new content in that time, then that's just crap.

I'm a maths teacher. Only a minority of students will actually be taught the whole maths syllabus

What!! They need to cover the whole of teh syllabus for the level they are doing otherwise predicted grades become self-fulfilling!
I am astonished this has only just come to light.At our school they will have been doing practice papers for over a year by now.In subjects with a very large 'fact based' syllabus, I can understand the teachers can't cover every obscure fact and the students will need to be reading round teh subject.Even then I would expect a half decent teacher to tell them hat they should be reading.But in maths which is techniques, I would expect EVERYTHING to be covered.

Charis, I have to say the more I see of your posts about your teaching experience, the more bizarre they become. As demonstrated by the experience of practising teachers on this thread, it is simply untrue to say that Ofsted would penalise teachers for standing up in front of the class and teaching for more than three minutes. If your friend was penalised, that is because his school got it wrong, not because of any Ofsted requirement.

ok! I'll try.

Hang on, sorry, it wasn't Michael Wilshaw, it was Michael Cladingbowl and I think he has left Ofsted now. Definitely try Sean Harford though. Wilshaw might be interested but probably a bit busy!

ok, well I will certainly do that! Thanks.

If it is true that Ofsted have given instructions explicitly against the advice in their own inspection handbook then I suggest that you get in contact with Sean Harford and/or Michael Wilshaw. I assume their contact details are on the web, they are both also on Twitter. I saw them speak at the ResearchEd conference last year and it was clear that they wanted this sort of thing reported to them so they could stamp it out.

no, ofsted did not say anything specifically about him ofsted have told the school not to allow anyone to stand up and speak to a class, these instructions were given last year, but repeated in a monitoring visit this February just gone.

I know it is terrible. I left the school last year, and now I am working in several different school across three other boroughs, and really nothing is any better anywhere else.

If that is exactly how it happened that is not on. How does This was done according to instructions and advice from ofsted fit into the story? From your previous post it sounded as if ofsted had suggested the warning was given to him but now it seems to be entirely the school's decision. Are the school using out of date guidelines on preferred teaching style? I'm guessing it isn't a state school if his residency is tied to teaching at that particular school but I'm pretty ignorant in that area so happy to be corrected. Surely if he got another equivalent job at a different school he'd keep his residency.

What you're describing is a terrible situation and a gross misuse of power by the slt but I don't in any way think it is the norm across the country.

Maybe his lesson in front of ofsted wasn't up to his usual standard, perhaps because of nerves. It happens

It does happen yes, but this wasn't an observed lesson, and there was no other adult in the room, this was just a deputy head who passed outside the door repeatedly for some reason and saw him through the window. it was an A level lesson.

If, for the sake of argument, I believed that your mate genuinely got something he thought was an 'official warning' for too much teacher-talk - he should be challenging that in the strongest terms.

It is an official warning, I can assure you. He was not in a union at the time but I've made him join now.

He is not able to move, as like half of the staff, remaining at this named school is a condition of residency in the UK.

As a union rep, seriously, if you have any suggestions that might help, I would like to hear them.

Thefallen - obviously not, but reading of teachers experiences in various media and via union it is a major problem in a lot of schools, mainly academys

Haven't read the entire thread but we've had no end of bother with ds school. Science department is awful and ds has learnt more with his dad (not a scientist) than in 2 years of GCSE work. French has been a nightmare - entirely the schools fault by their own admission. He'll probably do well in his GCSE's but that will be in spite of the school rather than because of it. Needless to say, he's not staying for 6th form!

Charis.

If, for the sake of argument, I believed that your mate genuinely got something he thought was an 'official warning' for too much teacher-talk - he should be challenging that in the strongest terms.

I'm a Union rep - it's just not how capability works, OK?

Presumably they then put a support plan in place for him, right? There's been follow up observations etc?

If the SLG at his school did attempt to 'give him a warning' in the circumstances you've described, then they are wholly inept & in contempt of every PM (& indeed Ofsted) policy going.

Now if this actually happened, & for some reason he didn't challenge them on their failure to follow proper procedure, then the solution is simple - he's a 'brilliant' teacher, so he can move to any of the many, many schools who are currently crying out for even competent Maths teachers. His current school can be left to implode in their own craziness.

I'm sorry, it is EXTREME luck, you would be threatened with capability here , my closest friend is a brilliant maths teacher, I have sat in on many of his lessons, yet he has had an official warning for standing in front of the class for more than 5 minutes.

just that. nothing else, he was seen to be speaking to the class for 5 mins.

If his kids are engaged, behaving, all making the progress that they are supposed to, practising what they've been taught and demonstrating they've understood it I find this really hard to believe. There must be more to this.

Maybe his lesson in front of ofsted wasn't up to his usual standard, perhaps because of nerves. It happens.

They don't go putting teachers of core subjects on capability so long as they get positive residuals & don't turn up pissed, frankly.

He was given a warning, and that was the reason no back story, nothing, just that. This was done according to instructions and advice from ofsted.

Have you and Charis taught in the vast majority of schools?

Whilst some on this thread disagree/give evidence that OFSTED don't formulate lessons unfortunately Charis is right in that SLT in the vast majority of schools haven't had that memo!

Am I being in naive in thinking that the core skills in maths are n't changed by the way they are examined?

The sample assessment materials released by some exam boards (and now deemed too difficult by Ofqual) were incredibly wordy. You can ask the exact same question but change its difficulty level by the changing the words you ask it in. A dense block of text with technical language is harder than one split into paragraphs with a diagram. Helpful labels on the diagram makes it even more accessible. Previous maths exams have had structured questions broken down into parts (e.g. show 'algebraic fraction' can be rearranged into this quadratic (2 marks) Hence solve 'algebraic fraction'=0 (3 marks).) Lately exams have been more unstructured ('solve 'algebraic fraction' =0 (5 marks). ) We had a couple of years where there was a multiple choice paper which required a completely different type of exam technique to be taught.

Knowing what the exam will look like is vitally important in preparing kids properly for it, even in maths. The really wordy questions we thought we were going to be faced with would have required a real focus on our students' literacy skills.

He's probably been listening to your advice charis