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....

Out of interest, what subject is this? Is it possible the teacher is teaching out of specialism, so wasn't sure what to teach next?

I can totally see how this could happen with shared classes or if you teach multiple classes in the same year group!

Once or twice. I just moved onto the next lesson when reminded. Its easy enough to work around not having the right photocopying with a little creativity.

I do think the context is important OP.

If the relationship between the teacher and the class is already poor the teacher may have felt that the students were being misleading.

It may also be that it was a revision session, or reviewing something because the class struggled with it initially and the students are misrepresenting or have misunderstood that.

It can be an easy mistake to make if there are several classes and a complex timetable.

It seems pretty clear that you dislike the teacher and I think that might be influencing how how view this.

I’ve done this before. Because I have a very strong record of results at GCSE I often end up with more than one Year 10 or 11 class. One year I had 3 classes of year 11, one in every option block due to staffing issues. They are all following the same specification and it is so easy to get confused when the classes get out of synch because of a missed lesson.
If I go in and introduce the lesson and they say they’ve done it before then I’d just move on to the next lesson... but, and this is a big but, I’ve been teaching over a decade, the behaviour of pupils at my school is excellent and the school provides every student in the class with a textbook for my subject.
If you’re in a school where the behaviour deteriorates if you take your eyes off them for a few minutes to get the next lesson lined up on the computer, or where there are no textbooks and so the resources for the next lesson have to all be printed off for the kids to work from, or you’re new to teaching and not that confident about adapting your lesson ideas at the last minute, then I can see why you might plough on.

I started teaching some stuff to a class this week (from a booklet I made on a topic) and they told me another teacher had already done all of it with them. I think she’d found my resources in our shared area and used them to fill in a few gaps last year. I couldn’t go on to the ‘next lesson’ because they’d done that too. I just ploughed on, made more of the bits they HADN'T done and framed it as revision. I have a good relationship with the class tho and it’s 6th form. If the class already had a problem with me this would have potentially been quite tricky.

f the relationship between the teacher and the class is already poor the teacher may have felt that the students were being misleadi

They said they had seen the Powerpoint.
They showed him the work in their books.
They showed him the same worksheet.

This is GCSE time.

It can be an easy mistake to make if there are several classes and a complex timetable

Totally agree - it's how you handle it that's important.

You just sound like you are joining in with the bullying of this teacher, of course only taking the word of your child

And that's why the word 'allegedly' was used in the OP

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

I have made mistakes. It's how you handle mistakes which are important - and that's really important in teaching where you have to earn respect from pupils - it can be very hard to gain respect as a teacher but very very easy to lose it.

(Oh - and I used to be a teacher)

Yeah I think I did back in the day. I had a horrible timetable full of year 7 and 8 classes in one of the my early teaching years, it was easy to lose track of who did what.

I think I probably went with "you seemed to struggle a bit with some of the points of this lesson so we're going to run through it again so that it's really solid before we move on".

A good 60% of being a teacher is the ability to blag it.

Mistakes happen. The class need to get over it.

Oh give over OP. It's an mistake. They happen and it's hardly newsworthy. I really don't get the glee some parents take at the opportunity of hounding a teacher out of a school. They just get snapped up elsewhere anyway and your kid is left with short term supply teachers scrabbling around doing one off lessons with no vested interest in the class either way. Seems foolish to me but hey.

Used to be a teacher? If this is true then it makes your OP even more ridiculous.

Mind you you could always try home schooling your child as you I’m sure would do a much better job.

Used to be a teacher? If this is true then it makes your OP even more ridiculous

As someone said, a massive part of being a teacher is the ability to be flexible,think on your feet and adapt to circumstances.

Which is what this teacher should have done.

What would you have done if your class had repeatedly told you that they had done this exact lesson?

I know what I would have done.

I don’t think this is a very big issue as a one off mistake. It sounds as if the previous complaints might be more of an issue, and the teacher will need to address those as appropriate depending on how valid they are.

And by the way I don't happen to agree that the teacher should 'earn' respect from children. Some amount of respect should be automatic and then built on. In good schools there are high expectations of children's behaviour that include having respect for the professionals who provide them with an education.

If this happened in my specialist subjects that I’ve taught before and am comfortable with the SOW then I would move on. If this happened in KS3 where I am only one week ahead of the students in terms of planning and printing the work I would have to carry on and try and frame it as revision or ask them to do something new with the material.
We are not allowed the leave our classrooms so it’s very hard to just move on to a brand new hour lesson off the top of your head if you are not comfortable with the material.

And I have a bit of sympathy for this teacher on the basis of the facts here. Yes it’s important to be flexible but we don’t always just have an alternative lesson up our sleeves. It takes enough time to prepare for what you’re doing in the first place. I’d have apologised, asked them to bear with it (surely SOMETHING would be different) and then done my best to ensure it didn’t happen again.

As an aside - your point about teachers having to earn respect is fucking awful and one of the reasons I left teaching last year. So teachers have to be perfect, day in and day out, working probably 60+ hours a week, giving up their free time to run trips, extra curricular activities, clubs, never make a mistake, to get and maintain a basic level of respect from their students? Fuck right off. Why isn't respecting your teachers the starting point? How many hoops do they have to jump through before they've done enoy to gain your children's respect? At what point have they done enough? I'm teaching my children that all people deserve respect. Especially when you come across someone, anyone in a professional capacity - if someone is doing their job, you respect that, from the start. It doesn't mean you are blind to problems, but respect is the starting point, always. Don't raise your kids to be such entitled brats.

I know what I would have done. Excellent! Sounds like there will be a vacancy at your kids school soon, will you be thinking of applying OP?

Some amount of respect should be automatic and then built on

Totally agree - but it can be so easy to lose any respect from your pupils even though respect should be automatic - and once you 'lose' your class, it can be very hard to rebuild that vital teacher - pupil relationship.

@YourOpinionIsNoted I came back to say the same thing!

rebuild that vital teacher - pupil relationship.

Remember when kids could learn without needing to be in a relationship with their teacher?

This sounds like blaming the teacher for the shitty attitudes of the kids to me.

@YourOpinionIsNoted well said

Remember when kids could learn without needing to be in a relationship with their teacher

You don't think that the relationship between pupils and their teachers isn't a vital part of teaching?

You don't have to like a teacher - but if the relationship between a teacher and their class has been damaged, then that can be really bad for learning in the future.

I can think of several teachers who I had whose attitude towards their class was appalling and that affected the whole class learning.

Will you be going back into teaching then?

@chomalungma that maybe so but what are you hoping to achieve by supporting your kid to continue to view his teacher in this light? It's a lose lose situation. If he stays, your kid will have 'lost his respect' for him and if the teacher goes, currently your son will be lucky to get a supply teacher whose specialism is even related to the subject. Parents are totally clueless to how bad the teacher recruitment situation actually is at the moment, and I can't help but think attitudes like you and your child's are part of the problem. Teachers are not machines.

Even a really good teacher can struggle to gain respect / rapport. Students can be resistant to new teachers, unfamiliar methods, a teacher who operates in a different way to another. Mistakes happen but will be harder to deal with for a teacher who’s in a less secure position with the class. It’s also harder to be flexible if your class are a bit antagonistic/ resistant. It’s a tough job at times and we just have to do what we can.

Yes, I have once. I wrote the wrong thing in my diary and half way through the starter a pupil sheepishly put up their hand and said “you know we did this last week, don’t you?”. I apologised, whipped out the right PowerPoint off the system and we moved on. Never mentioned again.