Teachers - have you ever taught the same lesson twice to the same class by mistake

[chomalungma]

And if so, what did you do when your pupils told you?
And showed you the worksheet in their book?

Did you

a) Realise your mistake, and either teach a new lesson or do some revision
b) Carry on, ignore your pupils, and do the same lesson?

Because that's allegedly what happened at DS's school recently.

I get why it could happen. Tired teachers, over worked and under pressure.

But when your pupils tell you that they've done this before....

Yes, probably a couple of times over a 16 year career. Once told "miss we've done this," moved on to the next part of the scheme. Wouldn't just plough on, it's embarrassing enough as it is.

Wouldn't just plough on, it's embarrassing enough as it

This is what the teacher did. Unfortunately the teacher has already lost the respect of the class in terms of their teaching ability, and this has just made it worse.

No, I did realise I was about to do this 10 mins before the start of a lesson this week though. I moved on to the next part of the SOW and was thankful it didn’t need much prep.

Many many years ago this happened semi regularly on supply though. In those situations it was often plough on/treat it as revision because a) I was never quite sure if the kids were lying or not b) I was in an unfamiliar school/often not teaching my subject and had literally nothing else to give them.

Meant to add it happens not mainly because of tiredness but when I've had 2 classes following the same scheme - that is really confusing!

I was on the receiving end of this as a teen. Our history teacher was renowned for being "confused" (he was close to retirement age and either didn't care or was in the early stages of dementia). He taught us the same thing twice despite us telling him we'd covered it before, and then a few weeks later gave us a class test on something we hadn't covered at all and wouldn't believe us when we all said we hadn't done it.

It’s easy enough to do if you’re teaching from a fairly rigid scheme of work and have multiple classes in the same year group - if there’s a training day or something and one class gets out of step with the others sometimes you have to do a bit of sneaky “can I just look in your book” while they’re coming in to check you’ve got to the right place! But to be honest you should always have an idea of where you’re going next in a topic anyway so if you’d already done something you should be able to go on to the next thing even if it’s not the most amazingly well-planned lesson!

Yes! I thought class 7A had done lessons 1 and 2 of a topic, and 7B had only done lesson one. Merrily set of to start lesson 2 with 7B, only to be told, very nicely that we'd done that!

We did the starter, which was different, then moved on to lesson 3.

I dare say the teacher won’t lose any sleep over a bunch of teenagers who have lost respect for him because of this. Of course they know how to teach and have much more experience than him.

I dare say the teacher won’t lose any sleep over a bunch of teenagers who have lost respect for him because of this

There have already been complaints about his teaching before this.

No never done this! Sometimes spend few minutes.recapping but then obviously move on. They should have changed lesson. Not sure whether it's worth a complaint tho.

What are the complaints?

Dd’s class did the same science experiment 3 times but were behind on the rest of the syllabus. They did lose respect for the teacher but luckily he retired at the end of year 10 and a new teacher came who had to help them play catch up.

Ds has the same teacher for French and Germa who teaches the same lessons each week in French and in German. He finds that very confusing.

I would stop as soon as it was pointed out. Maybe they carried on as they didn't have the next lesson planned. It doesn't show integrity if they didn't change to the next lesson.

AdorableMisfit I wonder if we had the same history teacher in our teen years. That sounds exactly like the one who taught me in years 7 and 8. He showed us the same crappy video about canals no less than three times, despite our telling him we'd already seen it, and then went to sleep while it was playing. I don't think he cared, or even had an alternative lesson plan.

Of course they know how to teach and have much more experience than him

They may not know how to teach - but if they were asked what a teacher should do if their class is telling them that they have already done this lesson with him and seen the presentation, I bet they would say that the teacher should check if this was true and then adjust their lesson.

And not ignore them and carry on.

Yes, but quickly moved on when corrected.
Also, recently had this with a shared class as tried to repeat a practical. That was more annoying as the other teacher had already done the practical so I couldn't repeat it but I didn't have the next lesson planned - ended up winging a revision lesson instead. That was caused by miscommunication.

You said there have been other complaints? Such as?

I teach at least two classes of each year group. Every lesson I double check with them is think we finished with this yes?' I write it in my planner every time but I'm always paranoid and want to double check.

If I started teaching the same thing and they told me I'd move on to the next lesson.

I wonder if your child's teacher is an NQT and maybe didn't know yet what came next? So couldn't move on? It sort of happened to me once during my training year. I shared the class with another teacher. They taught 'my side' by mistake, so I had to whip up another lesson in minutes. I asked a more experienced teacher, explain everything. They found a graph drawing activity for me, which took the whole lesson.

You said there have been other complaints? Such as

The complaints are irrelevant to the OP. This is about what a teacher should do if their class told them that they had already done a lesson.

What do you think a teacher should do in this situation?

No you said there are other complaints when I mentioned that he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it so it’s entirely relevant. You just sound like you are joining in with the bullying of this teacher, of course only taking the word of your child. I would hate to teach in schools and deal with spoilt pampered children and their gullible parents.

I've done this in an observation lesson :-)

I teach 3 classes the same stuff on a complex rotation. I'd noted down to reteach because they didn't get it but when I looked again after half term I forgot and thought it was the first lesson again.

Bless the kids, not one said a word until the observer had left.

This is very easily done. If you think a particular teacher is not great then do extra revision on these topics with your child. If you think your child doesn't respect the teacher then model and insist on respect.

Oh and OP I’m sure you have never made a mistake at work, being so perfect after all

No, but I once dropped a clanger by revealing a spoiler as I thought we’d read that chapter and we hadn’t. Tbf, I had two classes at the same level, studying the same book.

Ideally, the teacher should have made a joke of it apologised and moved on to something else. However, I can see some teachers panicking and not knowing what to do next and if it’s a class you’re not confident teaching it would be even harder.

You really don't like this teacher, do you?

It was a mistake. People are human. No need for a federal case.