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....

Btw can I just applaud and take my hat off to teachers who have to put up with spoilt brats and “those parents” on a daily basis.

You are marvellous

Oh god, my history teacher did this all the time. He was an alcoholic and drank in class and reeked of it. We did about six week's worth of work in the year. Was shocking but he was let go half way into year 11. Didn't get a good result on that exam.

Will you be going back into teaching then

No chance - because as @YourOpinionIsNoted , teaching is bloody hard. So much pressure, a demanding curriculum to teach, pressure from data, heads and yes, parents.

I totally respect anyone who teaches. It's an incredibly hard job.

However, there are some skills and qualities a teacher needs to have to be a successful teacher. I worry that this teacher isn't going to get the best potential out of his class as the relationship has been damaged.

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

I know a couple of failed teachers who couldn't hack it but are now unbearable as parents because they think they know it all. Sadly experience doesn't always lead to empathy and nuance.

@Chattybum

hat maybe so but what are you hoping to achieve by supporting your kid to continue to view his teacher in this ligh

I am trying not to. He ranted about it yesterday - as he really wants to well in this subject and is concerned about what's happening in his class.

He wants to do well. He is studying at home to catch up on the work that this teacher hasn't covered in the past.

I worry that this teacher isn't going to get the best potential out of his class as the relationship has been damaged.

Not to worry. I'm sure your child has excellent parents who will focus on helping them revise and teaching them to be respectful rather than wasting energy criticising someone for small errors based on second hand info.

Btw can I just applaud and take my hat off to teachers who have to put up with spoilt brats and “those parents” on a daily basis

DS wants to do well in his exams. He has this basic expectation of a teacher who is able to teach a subject. Evidence is that this teacher isn't up to it. Does that make him a 'spoiled brat'?

Is a parent who is concerned that a teacher isn't up to the job of teaching ' one of those parent's'? Or should they be grateful that someone is prepared to be a teacher and just be thankful there is someone prepared to stand up in front of a class?

But as we all know, there is a teacher shortage - so better to have someone rather than a supply teacher who may not know anything?

Evidence is that this teacher isn't up to it.

Because of that one mistake he made? Really?

Science technician here. And the amount of times techies have ordered the same practical for the same class. They've just forgotten that they'ed already done it with the same class as they have a couple for n the same thing

When I was a kid had a physics teacher who often repeated lessons. Over and over again. But never to do with the syllabus and we never made any progress

You don't think that the relationship between pupils and their teachers isn't a vital part of teaching? No I don't actually. For too many years this bullshit about child teacher relationship building and other fluffy nonsense has been peddled by the extremes of teaching groups.

If our standing in the world of education is anything to go by it could only be called an abject fucking failure. Most UK teachers haven't 'left' teaching, they have started teacher abroad where there is zero expectation of them becoming best friends with their students and other such bunkum.

Consequence? Major teacher shortage in the UK, and yet these questionable theories continue to do the rounds during training and it's seen as the gold standard. And everyone must agree.

My best teacher was absolutely barking mad, angry, hated kids but had such passion for his subject that it was absolutely contagious. No I didn't like him as a person, but he taught me a lot and instilled a true love of learning.

OP you are digging yourself a big hole. Please stop.

I'm sure your child has excellent parents who will focus on helping them revise and teaching them to be respectful rather than wasting energy criticising someone for small errors based on second hand info.

He has this basic expectation of a teacher who is able to teach a subject. Evidence is that this teacher isn't up to it.

Christ, that must be record time for me to be disappointed by human nature.

Is a parent who is concerned that a teacher isn't up to the job of teaching ' one of those parent's'?

Concerned? No, perfectly normal. Leaping to conclusions and thinking you know best- less normal

OP if you think this teacher ‘isn’t up to the job of teaching’ maybe it’s worth emailing or requesting a conversation with the HOD. I certainly wouldn’t do so on the basis of a relatively small issue (repeating some lesson material) but it sounds as if that may be part of a bigger picture. Bear in mind though that the teacher may be having quite a hard time with this class.

I've done this as I teach multiple classes from some year groups. I just say whoops, sorry and we move on. But if I didn't have the next class ready/set up then perhaps I would repeat a lesson to help embed the learning. Maybe he/she got flustered with a difficult class and just ploughed on when they shouldn't have. It's not great, but it's not something I'd be annoyed about, unless it became a regular thing.

Most UK teachers haven't 'left' teaching, they have started teacher abroad where there is zero expectation of them becoming best friends with their students and other such bunkum

There is a massive difference between being 'best friends' with your students and having an effective student - teacher relationship so you get the best out of your pupils.

If a thread was started on 'How to be an effective teacher' - I would hope that establishing an effective student - teacher relationship would be one of those key factors.

We can all look back at those teachers who got the best out of us, and those who didn't.

I had a really unpleasant teacher once who did this. None of us said anything as I’m pretty sure some didn’t notice and others (including me) didn’t understand the concept of a specific lesson and thought she was just repeating herself a bit. Other teachers did that quite a lot. At the end, she asked a question and lots of us knew; she said she was surprised(!) and someone pointed out she’d told us all the same stuff the week before. She got furious with us, accused us of wasting her time, and was really nasty about it.

As an experienced teacher I’d be able to teach something else. As an NQT I wouldn’t have been able to ‘move onto the next lesson’ as I wouldn’t have planned it yet, so yeah, I might have just ploughed grimly onwards too panicked to think of anything else in quick enough time.
Not that in maths I’m ever teaching the same scheme to different classes as we tend to have one class of Y11, not several of them as in other subjects, so that hasn’t happened to me.

Some parents think that when there’s a crap teacher, there’s an excellent teacher waiting in the wings to take over. I know of an NQT who was hounded out by parental complaints who was replaced by a string of supplies. Not sure they were as happy with that outcome as they’d thought they’d be.

I would agree OP. But I really hate the sense I get from you that it should be the teacher seeking the approval of the kids. If everyone comes to the table with respect and engagement then it build, which is ideal. Your child has got no idea what factors are coming into play with this teacher, nor should he but it's not fair to base his level of respect on that. Everyone has an off day.

How experienced is the teacher?

As a trainee, NQT or even RQT I'd have struggled to pull something else out of the bag. There would be literally nothing there so I'd probably have ploughed on and treated it as a revision lesson.

Now I'm experienced and could pull something out of my head/resource bank and move on to the next topic with confidence.

Hounding teachers out of positions often doesn't have the consequences parents expect either. Our trainee has just left, to be replaced with day supply cover because we can't recruit even long term supply let alone a permanent replacement. I would have preferred the consistency of a trainee to long term day cover. But the parental complaints were too much so said trainee joined a grad scheme, earns 5k a year more and said bye to teaching.

@Teachermaths

^ this ^

If you were a teacher yourself then why on earth are you asking random people on the internet how a reasonable teacher should have addressed this? Surely you can answer that yourself based on your own experience.

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

How do you know this? Surely you only ok now what your son thinks rather than the whole class?

You mentioned other complaints yourself, then said they're not relevant. A little contradictory.

Anyway, I'm a cover supervisor who was given a lesson to do that the children had already done (I could see it in their work books). After the starter I put the class in groups of three and asked them to write a 10 question quiz on the topic and we had a quiz towards the end of the lesson. I didn't know what else to do to be honest so I was winging it.

I started to do this yesterday in PE! I'd been away for meetings for that lesson last week and completely forgot which lesson we were on. Luckily the kids put me straight right after the warmup - no way would I have continued. No point if they've already done it (and no way would they allow it!)

If he's 'lost the respect of his class' which means they're badly behaved little shits hunting in packs, it won't hurt them to do it again, as they wouldn't have put enough effort in first time round.

Hounding teachers out of positions often doesn't have the consequences parents expect either. Our trainee has just left, to be replaced with day supply cover because we can't recruit even long term supply let alone a permanent replacement. I would have preferred the consistency of a trainee to long term day cover

That's an interesting point - there is a massive issue about teacher recruitment and teacher retention at the moment - especially in certain subjects.

It's not ideal having a teacher who may not be able to teach a subject effectively.

It's also not ideal to have day to day supply.

It's hard to recruit long term supply.

Ideally, a school needs teachers who are good teachers and want to stay in a school.

But we don't live in an ideal world.

I do feel for the teacher - it's got to be hard teaching a class where there have been issues such as this.