Impressed with teacher

[Ltdannygreen]

There’s always teacher bashing threads on here but I wanna big up my dd 8 teachers. Yesterday was the first day of virtual learning and he was soo good with the kids, he eased them in, didn’t jump straight to the hard stuff. He gave them a child friendly tour of his flat, I did laugh when he showed the, something educational he had on his wall and mentioned his girlfriend you heard them all giggling 🤭. He then did the register and asked them all what they enjoyed about Christmas. He had organised 2 further check ins throughout the day in case they needed any help. Anyone else impressed with their childs teacher, they are in this too and learning as they go.

[donquixotedelamancha]

YABU. Almost as bad as getting along with your MiL.

Complain to governors and Ofsted about this teacher's lack of professionalism or get off MN.

[Ozgirl75]

My son’s year 2 teacher would sit with her dog on her lap when we were doing online learning back in March and the kids loved it. Loads of the kids the next day were there with their pets.

[kobo]

I'm a primary school teacher and surprised about the flat tour. It is a safeguarding issue, and I'm surprised any teacher hasn't been reminded of that by their head. Ie an angry parent could work out where the teacher lives, or something inappropriate could be in the background. Also I'm sorry to say male primary teachers get away with more of this. I wonder if a female teacher showing her flat and talking about her boyfriend would have made the mums watching giggle or whether they'd be raising an eyebrow and be waiting for her to be professional and start the lesson.

[SchrodingersUnicorn]

We have cameras on but are asked to have a relatively plain wall behind us and no pictures of family etc. Also for no family members to walk in, but that's impossible with an under 5!

[SuperbGorgonzola]

I don't have a problem with the camera being on with a limited background. I also raised eyebrows a little bit at the flat tour because I'm not sure what educational value that has, and it always gets on my nerves when teachers assume the kids are interested in their personal life.

My teaching will primarily be screen sharing with my voice over the top. I might pop up on screen at the start and end of a lesson to take questions or give some general feedback. It'll be a mixture of lives and pre recordings, though I will be live commenting on students work on Google Classroom every lesson.

[HappyNewYear2021]

I'm impressed with LOTS of teachers. There are some (like any profession) that are lazy and some of their views mean in my opinion shouldn't be teachers.

[ScrapThatThen]

This is an easy way to send a thank you to a teacher, our school circulated it at Christmas thankateacher.co.uk/thank-a-teacher/thank-a-teacher-form/

[LadyCatStark]

DS’s teachers have been excellent. They’ve taught lessons via Teams as they would have at school and dealt with tech issues really calmly, which must have been hard! The only problem we’ve had is that his PE teacher set up a Teams lesson 3 minutes before it was due to start and DS had started using the time to do homework as we thought he didn’t have anything on and he missed it. That was the first day though.

[balancingfigure]

I was very impressed with teachers last year when they had to start online teaching out of nowhere and I emailed the school to say.

New school this year and so far also impressed. Especially yesterday as a new teacher just started this term had to meet the class online!

[Sparklingbrook]

I think the flat tour is lovely. OP said it was child friendly. I take it that the teacher was saying-'you are stuck at home and so am I'! Not sure the children will be scarred for life at seeing their teacher has a settee or a kitchen or a girlfriend.

I would imagine showing the OUTSIDE of his house would mean you could work out where he lived, but my two knew where loads of the teachers lived when they were at school.

[louisejxxx]

Yes I was impressed yesterday too. Dd had a teams check in at 11 (and they will have one every day starting from Monday) which was like a “post-Christmas catch up” including the keyworker kids in the class room as well which I thought was great. It’s very early days but the signs are it’ll be much better than our experience last time around.

I’ve tried to change my own strategy too - no printing of sheets unless it’s really necessary (and therefore cutting down on the time I spend printing, gluing and sticking!) and I’ve generally tried to encourage now yr6 ds to try and tackle most of his work much more independently. He hasn’t had a teams meeting yet but his start every day from Monday too, and the teacher has said it’ll be 30 mins long so I’m hoping this will involve an element of explaining their work and setting them off.

[Ohdoleavemealone]

Yes it is much better this time although can be hard to juggle around our own work commitments.

DS has been able to do most on his own once he is logged on and DD is only reception so it has helped to see how little they expect of them in school so I can manage my expectations at home.

[Lovelydovey]

Our school told children and parents the wrong timings, couldn’t operate the tech and have tried to merge all 4 classes into one online session. Chaos is the word I’d use.

[Makingnumber2]

@user1471530109 not just you that this raised an eyebrow with. 10 years as a secondary teacher and part of extended safeguarding team in my role and our school would absolutely not deem that to be appropriate. We have cameras off for lessons and audio only apart from tutor time where students and tutors have cameras on to allow tutors to see how students are and are looking (in case it helps us flag up concerns). I am sure the OP's son's teacher had the best of intentions but staff need to be very careful to protect themselves from allegations of anything inappropriate and for me it crosses a professional boundary as well. I've never been one for divulging too much about my life outside school with students tbh.
However- that is a bit of a tangent to point of OP's post and I am so pleased OP to hear your son's school is doing so well and you should definitely share positive feedback with the school- it will really boost morale for them. Thanks for starting a positive thread

[Ltdannygreen]

Okay, he literally did a quick 360 of his front room and I think his kitchen but it was kind of fast and I wasn’t sitting close Enough. He had a map of the world on the wall and was showing the kids. That was technically it. He’s seeing them at home I th8nk he thought it would make them feel a bit more comfortable to see he’s in the same position. He only mentioned his girlfriend, we did see a picture clear eno7gh to make out a face. I will email the school and let them know, obviously I won’t be mentioning the flat tour as I wasn’t bothered by it and I don’t want him getting in trouble for a seemingly innocent thing, the new head they have isn’t very nice and she doesn’t know them all very well.
Why does a seemingly nice post have to end up as a someone making a mountain out of a molehill. Thanks to everyone that got the true point of this post.

[user1471530109]

Op, do email the new Head and say how impressed you are with the teacher (don't mention the camera thing). I think your thread idea was wonderful and I'm sorry if I've derailed it.
But the lovely teacher (and he does sound great and I get the impression new to the job ) really has done something that another colleague should mention without mention(if you get my drift) for his benefit. We've been reminded again today that any live lessons done at home should absolutely not have cameras on (only in school). It's for our benefit and I'm sure the kids enjoyed it and it was done with the best intentions.

I've had a tough week and hearing positive feedback is very much appreciated. So do big him up to his boss. Especially as the head is new

[MutantNinjaCovid]

do send an email to Ofsted- they have had 5000 today

[Ltdannygreen]

@user1471530109

Op, do email the new Head and say how impressed you are with the teacher (don't mention the camera thing). I think your thread idea was wonderful and I'm sorry if I've derailed it.
But the lovely teacher (and he does sound great and I get the impression new to the job ) really has done something that another colleague should mention without mention(if you get my drift) for his benefit. We've been reminded again today that any live lessons done at home should absolutely not have cameras on (only in school). It's for our benefit and I'm sure the kids enjoyed it and it was done with the best intentions.

I've had a tough week and hearing positive feedback is very much appreciated. So do big him up to his boss. Especially as the head is new

He’s not new, well he’s been there at least 4 years, I don’t know about his job before. He was the first male teacher to come after the only other male teacher left. He’s had nothing but good things to said about him from all kids and parents that I know have had him as a teacher. The video chats are endorsed by the school, it’s how they are teaching. It’s is only year 3. If it was high school I’d say he’s made a mistake especially with teenagers, they will use anything against you. We also have the teaching assistant join aswell. So he has back up if anyone tries to say anything bad, not to mention the kids and parents all adore him so I’m pretty sure he has nothing to worry about. I will be writing an email to big him up. He even talked about my son (who’s in year 8) and he knows well and relayed a message from my sons favourite teacher. DS has asd so he was delighted.