Teacher won’t talk with parents on the phone

[JustlookingNotbuying]

My dd is in year 9.
She is really struggling with her maths and I wanted to speak with the teacher regarding her progress, struggles and how to help her etc.
I sent 3 emails to the teacher and received no reply.
Left a voicemail message and have had no reply.
Had a phone call from the year head today to say the teacher has received my messages but couldn’t call me as he has anxiety and can not speak to anyone on the phone so could I relay all my concerns to the head and go from there?
I am far from impressed.
I have many concerns regarding this teacher, he sometimes swears in class (he is also DS’s friends form teacher and he does this in his class too), he eats and drinks in class and just appears to have a very lackadaisical approach to teaching and an almost disdain for his pupils.
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Dd recently did a test in class and got 1 out of 50! Apparently that was the average score for the class and the highest score was 15.
I can not help but feel that this teacher should not be teaching a low set class when the pupils obviously need someone enthusiastic and engaged helping them.
I feel that I am banging my head against the wall, I can not afford after school tuition but feel the school is failing her.
Apparently he has had many complaints over the years but it feels like the school protects him all the time.
What should I do? Where do I go from here?

[Post edited by MNHQ to remove offensive comment]

I would contact the Head of maths, and say you have serious concerns about your child's progress.
I can understand why you are concerned OP.

@Debroglie

Ten minutes to talk to every students’ parents? Even if each set of parents just has 1 issue they’d like to discuss each year that adds up to an hour and a half each week added to my workload. And I’m part time. Plus, as I have learned from experience, if you are available and receptive to parents’ every enquiry they will only keep contacting you, increasing workload even more. Like I said, if the op wants to help her dc with maths then they can do that without harassing the teacher. To me it sounds like, as is often the case, the parent has a bone to pick and wants to be heard. That’s not constructive either and is one of the things that causes teachers additional stress. Fortunately my school understands this and mostly protects teachers from fussy parents.

No one is saying you should talk to every parent! But if a parent wants to discuss something you should respond.

Maybe she wouldn't 'hassle' the teacher if he responded the first time! Honestly it's no wonder we get a bad rep with attitudes like this.

Recently retired teacher here. I would have been in trouble for not responding to a parent's emails, and rightly so. It's not as if all of them want to speak/meet all the time.

If this teacher has difficulties, they can meet the OP with another teacher in the room. This is standard where things can be a bit awkward.

While I'm here, a near-identical thread where the child was a boy was around a few months ago.

Get a tutor, ds wasn't doing well in maths, I got a tutor & after only 8 sessions he managed to get a grade 4 which was all he needed.

@DogsAndGin, your comment about class sizes being too big. They probably are bigger than would be ideal but I was at school at a time when the birth rate was at an all-time high. Thirty-five plus was a normal sized class and there were thirty-eight of us in my maths exam class. No TAs then, of course.

To the op. I agree with previous posters suggesting a tutor. My daughter was clever but struggled with maths so we paid for her to have extra tuition in order to pass her GCSE. It was the best thing we could have done.

@DogsAndGin, your comment about class sizes being too big. They probably are bigger than would be ideal but I was at school at a time when the birth rate was at an all-time high. Thirty-five plus was a normal sized class and there were thirty-eight of us in my maths exam class. No TAs then, of course

When was this? I left school in 86 and started secondary teaching in 93. I never had or was in classes of that size.

I have a sister who was in a “bulge class” - GCSE year would have been 1994. Can’t say for secondary, but she was 35+ in primary.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow l did O levels in 1981. I think the birth rate had started to decline by the time you were born. My school year was those born in 1964-1965. I was born in December 1964 and l read that there were more people born in 1964 than in any other year since the end of the Second World War; over a million of us.

Hi OP

This is just a heads up to let you know we've edited your opening post as there was a line in their that was causing offence.

We're hoping this will keep the thread on track.

@Kipsa

You need to put in writing that the maths teacher needs to be signed off work with I'll health and an unfit for work note if he can't take a simple phone call which is part of the job and copy in the governors.

Yes. She definitely needs to do that

That's totally the action of a sane person

@LilyMumsnet

Hi OP

This is just a heads up to let you know we've edited your opening post as there was a line in their that was causing offence.

We're hoping this will keep the thread on track.

It wasn’t off track though - and it certainly wasn’t veering off track almost 24 hours since anyone had posted on it, with the OP having abandoned ship.