Ineffective teacher

You don't become a genius by relying on teacher's, I'f the knowledge is there then its down to the individual to make the most of the texts

@chopc of course she was rightly replaced if there was no improvement despite support. They were fortunate to find another physicist though.

At my DD's private school - there were numerous complaints about the GCSE physics tutor. She has lessons observed and was given time to improve. There was no improvement , so she was replaced.

The school CAN do more. Especially as you are paying for your DS to receive a good education.

There are some teachers you just wont gel with. But it doesn't sound like this is what this is

Well, there is something wrong with your child having to teach themselves when the parents are presumably paying the school a lot of money to do that.

However, as previous posters have said, schools can't magic teachers out of thin air. However, they can better support struggling teachers.

Private schools have no obligation to hire qualified teachers... I also don't see anything wrong with your child putting in effort to teach himself, that's a highly valuable skill.

Well said.

As an independent school teacher who is teaching an A Level equivalent subject that is not in my subject area (alongside my actual subject) this year because of cost cutting measures, I sympathise with your son's teacher.

Please bear in mind that this isn't your son's teacher's choice. She will have been asked to teach the course by senior management and it is therefore senior management's responsibility to ensure that she is adequately prepared to teach.

In my case, I was sent on a weekend residential course at the start of the school year, and I have a very supportive and proactive Head of Department who has given me comprehensive resources and planning to help me. If I hadn't have had this support, then I would be struggling massively.

Stop gossiping and going behind this teacher's back to find out about how shit she is from as many people as you can - how unkind! - and go to the Head of Department directly with your concerns, with whatever SLT member who is responsible for Teaching and Learning cc'd in. The Head of Department for the subject area should be ensuring your son's teacher has the support and resources they need to teach the course. If the school has put this poor teacher on the spot due to their own staffing or financial issues, they need to be taking responsibility for mitigating the damage to students through choosing to put an essentially unqualified person in front of them. The teacher is, I'm sure, doing the best she can, but senior management at the school need to be held to account to ensure she gets the support to teach effectively.

I might also add that this situation is going to happen more and more in independent schools, who are trying to attract more bums on seats to pay the increasing bills by offering a wider variety of subjects at sixth form level, without considering who is actually going to teach these subjects. Throwing non subject specialist teachers in at the deep end and just expecting them to get on with it is really not on, and parents speaking up about this is what's needed to ensure teachers are given the support they need. Complaining to the poor teacher is really not going to help the situation when the problem is not of her making.

This. A friend works in a prestigious grammar school, she's head of economics. Her biggest stress is recruiting staff. Last summer they had one application for an A level economics teaching position. She had no choice but to appoint him and now has to manage a minimally motivated person. And remember, this is at am outstanding grammar school with a good reputation for treating teachers well and with generally highly motivated pupils. There is an enormous retention and recruitment crisis in teaching and many excellent and hard working teachers have left because the job has broken them.
So, to all the mumsnetters who told teachers to leave if the supposedly easy job was too hard, we've followed your advice and you don't seem to like it.

Just made a post go over there to vent its not fair to take over someones thread.

You could always take your own advice.

Off you pop.

It's a shame you didn't engage more with your own teachers. Especially the literacy ones.

@LegalAdvice4Education amazing how quickly you found this thread "Hannah".

Sheesh, bots aren't what they used to be.

Using previous examples of good work is used by many teachers as a teaching tool. It's encouraged by exam boards who provide them too.

The teacher will have been thrown in at the deep end. It happened to me with GCSE History a few years ago.

You dont have to quote do you read and move on.

Here we go again... 🙄

Ha ha ha. Are you serious?!!!!!
Your son says.....
And parents wonder why people wouldn't go into teaching even if they were paid a salary that matches skill & responsibilities. Maybe your son would like to critique his GP and the NHS or perhaps your local Police officers???

Hannah's not getting an A* 😂

For some subjects this is surprisingly common.

Subjects like economics or psychology are often hard to get teachers for as there isn't enough teaching for full time, so a teacher who teaches something else gets it dumped on them.

It's really bad for both teacher and students as the school usually don't bother providing any resources or support and the teacher is on their own trying to figure out the spec and find resources.

Realistically if you complain either you may find the subject gets pulled completely - so the class is told to transfer to different A levels - or it might be given to a deputy head with more experience and figuring out as they go along.

This sort of situation rarely ends well though - if it is given to a more experienced teacher the lessons will improve but if they are not familiar with the subject and exams the results can still be pretty bad.

There are 4 errors in Hannah 5 line post.

The inspection body for independents is ISI anyway...

Dear Hanna - Online Law Advisor, stick to your day job, which clearly isnt giving accurate legal advice about education!

’Go to Ofsted’? The first thing to do if you have a complaint is, as you first said, raise it with the Head. Then the next stage is to follow the school’s complaint procedure.
Ofsted does NOT deal with complaints from moaning parents - they would just redirect said complainant back to the schools complaints procedure.

Stop gossiping with other parents!

Hi OP, it's not Economics is it?! If it is (or any of the other mostly 6th form only subjects) you might suggest to the school they send the teacher on one of the Tutor2u subject crash courses and buy their PPTs.

I teach Economics (which I have a degree in) and have lost count of the colleagues over the years I've had to help out who have had the subject dumped on them without so much as an A-level in it. And some schools are too tight to even give these individuals a budget for off the shelf resources.

Don't push too hard though or you'll simply drive the teacher out, end up with cover for the rest of the course and/or the school will drop it.

I left an independent school because of how they treated their staff.

At school, I taught myself microeconomics and statistics at A-level (due to those teachers being MIA - the macro and pure maths teachers were good though). I got the top grade in both. There are great resources available nowadays too. You don't really "need" a teacher if you're motivated.

Fair point.

ChatGTP.

It reads like the shite my students think I can't see through.