New recruit teacher is inadequate

OP, surely you know there is absolutely no way that you can say someone is not up to their job without upsetting them and making them defensive? Hiding behind a euphemism does not make the pill any easier to swallow. It is also not necessarily an accurate judgement.

All you can fairly do is point out what is concerning you, state why it is concerning you, and ask the school to explain why it is happening and what they are doing about it. It is up to the school to decide whether the reasons for it are teacher inadequacy, lack of appropriate teacher support, personal issues temporarily affecting the quality of teaching and marking, poor quality materials etc, etc. You have absolutely no way of knowing whether this teacher is genuinely inadequate or if there is something else going on behind the scenes. All you know is that whatever it is, it is having an unacceptable effect on the class. You shouldn't be so judgemental of a person you hardly know: it is the school's job to decide the cause of the issue and your job as a parent to highlight the issue WITHOUT giving subjective opinions on the cause.

My issue (which some posters have been helpful with) is choosing the right words to describe someone who is clearly not up to the job in the least offensive way possible, and in terms teachers use and understand and aren't offended by. You don't need to create a new language to complain about the way the teacher is teaching! If you are unhappy, say what you mean and give concrete examples of where the teacher is getting it wrong! You said you are a native English speaker so just don't understand what all this beating around the bush is supposed to achieve?!

How about "I am concerned about the way in which x subject is being approached by Mr(s) Y in 7xxx. My DC doesn't understand how his/her work has been corrected. Please see attached photocopy of homework from xx/09/15."

Ask who the Assisstant Headteacher/ Head of Faculty is who manages the HoDless dept and address this to them.

Jeeves, its September 15th, ok students have been back 11 school days, not a week and a half, its not that big a difference.

I was simply advising caution, the recent example since given shows that there should be a concern logged, but, coming on here full guns blazing, caling people morons without knowing the full situation is way out of line. Parents are often caught out, when using their childs statements having gone blazing into school only to find out that their DC hasn't quite told the whole truth.

Secondly, you should only ever approach the school on behalf of your own child, don't go in saying "We all think" when raising a complaint because the school will in most cases only deal with you, about your child. The other approach, and getting the persons CV from linkedin, makes it seem like a witch hunt.

'Baroque' Latin, though.

Latin with twirly bits.

I'm not a teacher.

She's in France.

I think the subject is Latin.

It was Revd Green in the drawing room with the lead piping.

Oh FFS, if you want people to help you be clear about the problem. This helps those people who have taken time out of their day to offer you advice to actually ensure you have the information you want. If you have a problem with the teacher just go and speak to the Head don't try to sound like some sort of authority on education.

Jeeves, unless you are the OP, how do you know the evidence isn't flimsy? Have you seen it?

I agree, BTW I'm not a teacher

Think she is in France, but we've got to guess the subject...

I'm not biting anyone's head off. I have got exactly what I wanted from the thread: an example of how incredibly sensitive teachers' egos are, how they frequently jump to defend the indefensible and some useful words and phrases to think about using in order to try to put the point across without finger pointing.

A number of posters have said they aren't teachers. I'm not

You seem rather defensive

Jeeves, unless you are the OP, how do you know the evidence isn't flimsy? Have you seen it?

Are you in the UK? What subject are you talking about?

What surprises me are all the massive assumptions people on the teacher side of the fence are making without evidence. For example, mumofthemonsters, where do you get the proposition that there has been a maximum of two lessons? How do you know the evidence is flimsy as you haven't seen it?

Bobo why are you assuming that all the people answering are teachers and overly sensitive ones too ? .

It's tricky.
There are some teachers who are drafted in to teach subjects in which they are not experts.

Often this won't be a problem providing they stay one step ahead. However, it can become problematic if the pupils are very advanced in that subject, or where the teacher quite simply doesn't know enough and/or is out of date.

If for example this were a teacher of MFL teaching, say, endings of the imperfect tense and marking correct endings as wrong because he didn't know the endings, then that would be pretty indefensible.

However, if this were a teacher of MFL marking conditional tense as correct where actually it should be subjunctive, because it's better not to get into that murky water just yet (particularly in a mixed ability class), then that's more understandable.

Um ... you came into this thread asking for 'jargon'.

Some people told you it was a bit bizarre and premature.

I don't see how you're seeing that teachers' egos are sensitive. And god knows, if you mean me, I couldn't give the tiniest flying toss about what someone thinks of their school kids' teacher.

I just posted because I thought it was likely you'd make yourself look a bit of an idiot charging into school on the warpath, if it turned out you'd misunderstood some basics.

There wasn't really a need to throw a strop over it.

This is a lot more baroque!

I love a bit of harpsichord continuo, I do.

Schools that are 'sous contrat' still refer to the 'academie' for recruiting as the teachers are paid by the state, even if they are 'une ecole privee'.

The only schools that don't are fully private which is where I said 'unless they are fully private schools' (eg some international school that may or may not follow the French curriculum etc...). In that case, go to the HT and take your case up.