to give dd my blessing to walk out of her English lesson on Monday?

[whysogrumpy]

Before I explain I should say that she, along with my other dc, is pretty much a model pupil - never been in trouble before, but both she and I are at the end of our tethers with this situation.

She is in Year 8 and in a mixed ability class , not a policy I agree with and not one taken up by any of the other subjects in her school, but, hey...
DD is a strong level 6 yet throughout the year has been surrounded by pupils who have never read a book and can barely spell their own names - her words, not mine.

Anyway, over the last few weeks the class have been put into groups by the teacher and told to write a play. They will perform it and be assessed on their performances. DD has had a pretty miserable time since this task was set, she doesn;t get on with any of the kids she has been placed with and tells me that she has been made to do all he work. She has basically written the entire script while they have sat there and yet they will now walk away with top levels thanks to dd .

That is not the worst of it though. DD is pretty bookish and not really one for acting. She hates getting up in front of the class doing stuff like this, plus she feels that, as she has written the thing, she should be able to take a minor role. Anyway, the other kids in her group have refused to take the main role as well and have told dd she needs to do it. The teacher has backed them up and told dd that she needs to take the lead role to get a level 6/7 .

So these little shits who have sat there doing nothing for three weeks have now had their behaviour condoned by the teacher, who seems to be using dd to get some work out of some very difficult pupils. DD was in tears over it on Wednesday night so I phoned the teacher. I couldn't believe what I was told. Apparantly this sort of task is just as important as the essay/story/poem writing that dd excells at . Does she want to be an actress? No, yet she must go through this ridiculous task or, according to the teacher, she will be at risk of failing her GCSEs!!! She's 13 ffs, in year 8! Pissing around doing drama activities with a bunch of kids who can't write - how is that helping her to improve her level?

The teacher ended by saying dd must perform, in the lead role, on Monday. When I told dd she said she'd walk out if forced to go through with this. AIBU to tell her to go for it?

"I can still tell you exactly who's done the work and who hasn't in the end result. Why are people assuming the OP's daughter's teacher can't?"

I am prepared to believe that teachers/examiners do exist who can send children off to work by themselves, observe the final product, and work out from this exactly who has contributed which bit of work. It's just I have never met any of them.

Maybe this is a difference between primary/secondary/university group projects? I would imagine primary school teachers are a bit more hands on?

However I would say again, nothing in my working life has ever, ever been anything like the hierarchies and peer pressure encountered at school. I have worked in plenty of groups as an adult. However, everybody has a defined roll based on their abilities and is paid accordingly.

Anyone else got a PM from Startail because you has the audacity to disagree with the OP?

Startail I made a reasonable comment on a public forum. If you have an issue with it address it on that public forum or report me to MNHQ. There was no need to question my teaching skills in a PM, which - whether you meant it to or not - feels intrusive & bullying.

Report it.

For those who think that the teacher won't realise that the OP's daughter has done most of the work, what do you imagine the teacher is doing whilst the students are working in their groups? Almost every single lesson I teach involves at least 30 minutes of group work, during which I circulate, watch and assess. In KS3 lessons I write names on the whiteboard of those who are clearly working well (it's our standard system) and in KS4 & KS5 lessons I take notes for assessment purposes and sometimes video students working. A number of posters on this thread seem to think that the OP's daughter's teacher is sitting at her desk oblivious to what is going on in her classroom. Perhaps those of you who think so are basing this assumption on your own school experiences. Very few teachers do that these days- whether in primary or secondary.

Speaking and Listening assessments were around in the 1980s.

Your daughter should do the task she's been asked to do.

They must have awfully big classrooms to be 'working by themselves'

My year 8s are currently doing a S&L task - in pairs, they have to annotate & produce director's notes for a speech of Lady Macbeth's, then one student performs it whilst the other 'freeze frames' him/her at intervals to explain why the two of them decided on particular tone of voice/timing/gesture etc.

I can assure you - I know exactly who's working & who's being carried, as the ETA & I spend the entire preparation lesson circling the room, encouraging, explaining & observing!

Your dd sounds very like mine. She's excessively literate and hates having to get up in front of the class. She infinitely prefers to work on her own and has always had difficulty with group work.

However, it is really important that she learns how to do those things. She wants to be an Egyptologist. Well, she's going to have to learn to work alongside a whole load of people for that, and it is better she learns now.

She will almost certainly have to do presentations at Uni, at job interviews, possibly - if she's lucky - pleas for funding. Better she learns to drop the shy self-consciousness now and gets on with it.

YABU, though I do have a lot of sympathy for your dd I do think you need to encourage her to do it.

x post EvilTwins!

That's why drama is one of the least popular cover lessons for teachers. Coordinating it well takes real skill.

I got no PM. Clearly I'm not special.

:(

Yanbu. My dd is also yr8 and sounds very very like yours in many ways. We've some awful worries over the 'drama' apsect of all subjects.

I don't think comparing it to a workplace presentation is relevant in this case either. This is about the mark she will (or probably won't now) achieve which seems mightily wrong to me. Working with people is one thing, relying on uninterested people for your mark is another. Why should she pull them up or be pulled down?

Having said that, I think you might be in danger of escalating this problem to a level that is going to cause more problems than it solves by encouraging her to walk off. Sanctioning such behaviour is going to cause all sorts of problems (although I can see why you are annoyed) You may well be left with the consequences which will be more of an issue than the original problem. I can only imagine walking out will be viewed as insubordination which never goes down well no matter what the provocation from the teacher.

Some things my dd has to do for English certainly baffle me, but she does do them. I do think that presentation skills are necessary and even my dd has admitted that doing them often has given her more confidence. I don't hear much from her these days about them, whereas she used to worry for days on end prior to one.

I 100% agree with you about the downsides of collaborative projects. My dd has been in exactly the same situation and got a poor mark for a piece of work thanks to the messing about and lack of committment from the majority in her group. I thought it was terribly unfair because she ended up doing such a lot of work. They had to put on a puppet show. She made nearly everything including scenery and others in the group deliberatley ruined it and the teacher marked them all down en-masse. Ok a lesson in 'life's not fair' blah blah, but I don't deny I was furious for her. It's hard to keep her motivated when that is the result. Thankfully such projects are only an occasional requirement.

'A number of posters on this thread seem to think that the OP's daughter's teacher is sitting at her desk oblivious to what is going on in her classroom.'

Actually in our case that is precisely what my dd's teacher was doing because I asked her. And it was over the course of a few lessons too.

Joanna- asked who? Your DD, or the teacher? If it was your DD, how would she know what the teacher was doing? Kids in my class may not realise that I'm observing them.

I admit that most of my bitterness about group work stems from having to do assessed group work from sixth form onwards - almost all the work was done unobserved because it was done out of lesson hours.

However, even at primary school I did non assessed group projects and met out of hours/in lunch breaks to plan - how do you write a play if you only have class time?

Anyway, my point would be, if some Ofsted person said "Right, to see how you all work as a group we are going to ignore your existing roles and make all staff responsible for everything including teaching classes, preparing the meals, planning the timetable and playground maintenance and see how you get on with it. We'll assess and observe you and tell you how we think you all did, and your pay will be awarded accordingly." - you might be a little annoyed.

(Unless this is what Ofsted do already?)

Anyway, this is really my personal vendetta against people who think 'group assessment' of students is a good thing, and may be different to the OP's experience.

Asked dd who said that the teacher was at her desk on a laptop. She may have been observing it's true, but why allow so much disruption to carry on without intervening at all?

In a task like the OP's dd's, though, merrymouse, each student will be assessed according to the descriptors I posted earlier. Individually.

There might in addition be a separate writing level awarded for the script.

If they've been faffing about with it for 3 weeks' worth of lessons, they could probably have written Hamlet by now, but I imagine it'll be a five minute scene - writing a three act play wouldn't be a typical expectation of year 8!

Let DD decide if she would rather do the play or take the day off school? I do think presentation skills and team work are good things to learn but I can understand if it's not her thing. Maybe the teacher wants her to lead as she is quiet and this may help develop her leadership skills?

What are the consequences for those that are not contributing to the task?
If the teacher wants the child to develop leadership or management skills, why is she not offering her some strategies to deal with those in her team that are doing sod all?
IRL there are consequences to not doing your job properly, or being part of a team and being a non-contributor, and a higher authority to appeal to.
OP, you and DD need to talk to the teacher.

You want to allow your child to bunk off school rather than get her to do something challenging?

The rest of the stuff about who did the most work in the group is a red herring, your DD should be aiming to get the best marks that she can for herself.

Exactly.
Just like Bolt ought to run in the Olympics without sandbags attached to his legs.
Individual work enables people to get the grade they are entitled to, group work should not be part of the grading system. Important yes, but other people's abilities shouldn't affect an individual's score.

Fallen I'm not sure you fully understand how group work is done these days... As I said up thread, most of my lessons involve group work. The vast majority of assessments happen in a group work environment, but all marks and grades are individual. I'm not trying to make out that I'm exceptional here- it's how group work is SUPPOSED to be assessed. I have assessed yr 8s this week. Within one group of 7, there were grades ranging from 7b to 5c.

If she wants to get a good level, she needs to take the lead role. If she doesn't take the lead role, she risks a lower level. As the performance is part of the task, that seems fairly straightforward to me.

Do you think she should get a good level if she doesn't excel at all areas of the task? Forget the other students and their level. If the poor sods can't read or write as you claim then this task isn't going to get them a GCSE is it?

I know that my son's secondary were fantastic for the most part at understanding his SN and the fact that AS impacts on his ability to function in a group.
They were flexible, open-minded and able to recognise and pre-empt trouble and work with the students to develop their skills of working with disparate members.
Which is why he did well in a MS environment and didn't crash and burn and refuse to go to school.
If I went in with a concern, the teachers worked with me and I with them to reach a solution, and my DS was by no means the exception. Which is why I think that the OP and her DD need to communicate with the teacher and ask her why.
The teacher needs to be aware of what's going wrong for the child.

I'm with the OP, I hate group work when some of the group are not working.
I also hate working in a group, it isn't my style, that's why I have a job where I can work alone most of the time.

My DD had this in primary school and it did piss me off that she was carrying the group. I can see how they thought it would be good for the less high achievers to work with DD but only 2 of them were interested and DD ended up with 2 children hanging on her every word and 2 who did nothing. she hated both responses.

Mind you, I've since become even more radical - I hate GCSE and think they are a waste of time. If DD could skip them and go straight to A level, I'd be happy.

And no, I wouldn't presume to know how secondary works from the inside, I'm just a parent.