Let's get back to a time when students, not teachers, could be blamed for exam performance

Good teachers should never under estimate the huge impact they can have on a child's motivation for a particular subject. My DD now in Yr 6 loves Maths, this is entirely down to wonderful inspiring teachers and on the flipside, her art teacher I question why she entered teaching in the first place as she seems to have a real dislike of the children and as a consiquence my daughter hates and believes she is 'rubbish at' art. That said as they get older yes, they should share the responsibility, you can lead a horse to water and all that.

It's a shame that we didn't have pressure on teachers to perform back when I was at school. I started secondary school as an A student across the board and ended up with just one O level grade B. If they'd had targets to hit based on my primary leaving SATs, then I'm sure they'd have taken steps to keep me at A or B level!!

Teachers did absolutely naff all for me. I went down a grade every year, every subject, but not a single teacher bothered to ask why or give me any support to get back on track. My trouble was that I was no trouble! I was invisible to them - I turned up and sat quietly in class. Never a single detention in 5 years.

But throughout that time, I was miserable and suicidal due to physical and mental abuse from other pupils - I spent each lesson worrying about what would happen to me at the next break, or which of my abusers I'd be forced to sit next to in the next lesson. So, simply didn't learn anything. Resulting in me handing in poor homework efforts and poor test scores.

When I told teachers about the problems, they basically inferred it was my fault. "Try to stay away from x" was all they could say. Then the same teacher would allocate me a seat on the same table as x during the next lesson! Doh!!

I even had the same useless form teacher for all 5 years. He could clearly see my results going down in every report, but did absolutely nothing for me, even though he'd taught me his subject in the first year so should have know my behaviour and abilities were good!

Bring it on, I say. Teachers need to be accountable. Yes, I fully understand they're only part of the problem, and yes, parents and the pupil themselves also share responsibility. BUT, teachers and schools are in loco parentis do are responsible and can't just shirk their responsibilities by blaming others!

As a parent, I believe it is my responsibility to make sure my children are educated in a suitable way and to a suitable standard. Main stream schooling is one of the tools I use to achieve this.

I think it is my responsibility to plan good lessons, assess work, differentiate, communicate with parents, apply the behaviour policy and be available at certain times to help those who want/need more input. I don't think it is my responsibility to run round like a blue arsed fly after kids who can't be bothered.

Yeah, I'd never been a teacher. Having spent the last few years working with/for them I have realised that no matter what you do it will never be enough, and it only takes one asshole to ruin it all.

Some kids and some parents will never take any responsibility for their own failings. It's flogging a dead horse.

I fully agree with you Noble. Would you stand for election and become our new education minister?

I had no support with exams and very few people in my year did (did GCSEs in mid 90s) so I am absolutely for teachers supporting and encouraging their students to achieve- it's performance management for both sides. That said I totally agree it only goes so far and you can't be expected to turn round kids who are genuinely not interested. Although, presumably someone makes the effort to find out why they are so disengaged?

oops - small but significant, not insignificant

That's why I would never be a teacher. They will always blame you for everything, everything is your fault. I think it is very unfair on teachers. The thing is, as long as you go into class, do your best, explain the material you are teaching and carry out all your duties as a teacher, this is where your responsibility ends. The rest is not your problem. If certain students are too lazy to do their homework or study for their exams or show up in class at all, it has nothing to do with you. But lots of parents nowadays want to blame teachers for everything that happens to their kids while they are in education.

You sound like a brilliant teacher. At my DC's secondary school I got the impression (possibly unfair) that the ethos was, 'Work hard and we'll support you. Slack off and you'll be dismissed as a wrong 'un'.

DD was advised to consider dropping one of her Scottish highers (roughly equivalent to AS levels but used by Scottish universities to offer places) after a poor prelim result. This would not have affected the school's stats because of the way they're measured in Scotland - data is for 3+ highers and 5+ highers but it would have limited DD's choices hugely. Fortunately she sat the exam and got an A.

DS got 4xA and 1B in his highers. Which was great, but the B was unexpected - as were a couple of the As - and he was one of quite a few pupils who didn't do as well in that subject as their prelims and teachers' reports suggested, which does make me wonder if there is a problem in that particular department. Btw not English or Maths. Things like these, unfortunately have a demotivating effect on both my stubborn and rebellious DC.

It can't help when the exam system is so complicated, with assignments etc contributing to the final grade. I sometimes think some of the exams are a test of organisational skills, which is unfortunate in the case of my DS.

I completely agree with you in principle, but as a parent I wasn't willing to let my 17YO's very important grades suffer because of his lack of organisation. TBF he does have a diagnosis of slight ASD which doesn't help. Unfortunately the senior management who bend over backwards to support pupils to get into Oxbridge and medicine, were unsympathetic to his small, but insignificant extra needs.

When HE was free I was of a let them fail - and learn from their mistakes mindset - but now I think it's such a hugely expensive lesson to learn that I made huge efforts to chivvy my two along.

FWIW, IMO schools are asked to do far too much. Teach in complicated ways without text books, provide huge amounts of extra-curricular activities, cover everything in PSE, have policies for every last teeny tiny thing, do ridiculous paperwork, cope with disruptive children and demanding parents. Unfortunately they sometimes get my back up by participating in the 'modern' culture of selling themselves by 'bragging' about their achievements, obsessing about uniforms etc, while failing to address important problems such as drugs being sold on the premises, horrendous sexist language and inappropriate use of mobile phones etc. No wonder so many teenagers have mental health problems. Gah, it's all so complicated.

In principle I agree with you though

I think education is a three way relationship between the school, parent and the child. As a parent I am there to offer support, test subject knowledge (eg mfl vocab) and ensure my son had a comfortable place to revise. The teacher's responsibility is to ensure ds is aware of the deadlines for exams/coursework, has covered all the relevant material with the class, provides past papers or information on where to access past papers and gives suggestions on how to revise, how to put together a revision timetable etc. Advice on how to revise should be covered in a pshe type lesson rather than taking up subject time. My dd had a lesson on this and she is in year 7 - so plenty of time for students to work out which revision method works best for them and how to manage their time.
My ds is now in lower sixth and studying for the IB diploma. Deadlines are set by the teachers, if students need extra time they need to approach teachers, there is little parent involvement and students are expected to manage their own time and commitments - good preparation for university imo.

I think it is a balance and maybe it has swung too far particularly with results at 16 being predicted by SATs at 11. My yr7 is being set really high targets (in maths), which she was able to achieve in SATs because her primary school basically cancelled everything but Maths and English in yr6. She is more into arts, science and humanities and whilst an 8 or 9 in maths would be lovely it is not really fair on her or her teachers to expect that she will attain that based on a test in yr6. Nor is it fair on other classmates who might not have done so well on the day in their SATs but are nevertheless just as able that the school will be happy for them to get lower grades. I know it isn't always that simple though.

Having said that I wouldn't want a return to my school days when it was a job for life. Some of my teachers couldn't have arranged a piss up in a brewery. They couldn't explain things or give the reason why, but being a selective school many of the children would do well regardless. Don't get me wrong, we did have some very good teachers too but some did not really add to our understanding and my grades were as a result of revision books not the lessons even at A level where 'you don't need to know why we do it' was their catch phrase.