Teacher marked correct work as incorrect

[MillionToOneChances]

This has been happening a lot lately, but today feels worse as the school's maths coordinator was taking the lesson. My DC had written that 36 was the square root of 1296. Maths coordinator marked it incorrect and said the correct answer was 936.

AIBU to be really frustrated? These incidents are really knocking his faith in school. I know he's a kid and the teacher is just a human being, but my DC does have form for being unfeasibly good at multiplication so a little faith wouldn't have gone amiss if it wasn't an easy sum for the teacher.

[MillionToOneChances]

I could almost forgive it as a momentary oversight if she wasn't correcting a boy she knows does big multiplications for kicks. This is (literally) child's play for him. If it's not for her, she should show some respect and pause to question herself. His impression of her tone when she corrected him... :(

[MillionToOneChances]

But of course, teachers are human, anyone can have a bad moment, etc etc.

Overall, though, the school is not currently meeting my child's needs. This is just an example.

[FunkyBoldRibena]

OP - I was a civil engineer and during our soils lessons [and I was a soil technician at the time] I found out the teacher made up MADE UP the formula for calculating soil strength from the test we were doing. I found the real formula and gave it to her both barrels. Also, my structures tutor would write up all the forces and if he got one wrong I would point it out - so much so that he would put the diagrams on the board and ask me if it was right. It invariably wasn't.

Basic multiplication though - it is shocking that they can't get this right.

[PenelopePitstops]

Million the teacher is definitely wrong with regard to the powers of ten comment.

I teach secondary so would only use this language with older pupils who understand the meaning of the words (hopefully!).

Teacher doesn't sound great at maths. I sometimes wonder why pupils come to secondary with so many misconceptions and errors. The level of primary maths taught has a lot to answer for.

[Integration14]

Chipping the red pen is the Ta. Some parents complained to the teacher about the marking, but I am the only one who complained to the Ht. One mum told me that she did not care anymore about homework because her daughter got a tutor to teach her.

[teacherwith2kids]

The sad thing is that the teacher may well be an absolutely brilliant teacher for another group within the class, or in another subject.

It is the attitude, not the failure in Maths per se that is the real issue here. Anyone can make a mistake. I made a times table howler earlier this week, but when a child pointed it out I was grateful, corrected it, laughed at myself and we all moved on. Equally it is a rare primary teacher who has an equal depth of subject knowledge across the board (we had a dive for the atlases yesterday, when I could't remember which was the Cape of Good Hope and which was Cape Horn).

The important thing is the flexibility and 'educate oneself' attitude that the teacher should show.

[MidniteScribbler]

I could almost forgive it as a momentary oversight if she wasn't correcting a boy she knows does big multiplications for kicks. This is (literally) child's play for him. If it's not for her, she should show some respect and pause to question herself.

The boy I have in my class right now is truly amazing with his maths skills and I have to be so conscious of this when doing numeracy lessons. The other day I had him propose a problem on the board (other students had done this as well), and even myself and the student teacher I had with me were quite baffled by what he had put up on the board. We asked him to explain it to the class, and it did make sense, but I could never have worked it out in my own head. When I have a student like this, I always ask them to show their thinking. It not only gives me time to think about the problem myself, but also shows how the student is coming to their conclusions.

[MammaTJ]

We had this little doozy recently! DD was sent home with a laminated sheet of times tables!

[Stealthpolarbear]

What's wrong with it mama? I can't see the details

[PossumPoo]

8x12=896. Clearly an error noticed but not corrected properly!

[Thumbwitch]

Permanent marker should work on the laminate, Mamma - you can block out the extraneous 8 - but yes, that should have been checked before printing!

[Nomama]

Sadly permanent marker can be removed by scribbling over it with a white board marker and rubbing it off - a few times.

It really should not have been possible to make that mistake, should it?

[Thumbwitch]

Yeah, straight typo - 8 and 9 next to each other on the keyboard - but it should have been noticed.

[bigdreadiedad]

AYBU? No way José.

It's UR that anyone with such a pitiful grasp of numbers should pretend to teach maths.

[MammaTJ]

4x1=1. 4x2=2. 5x2=40. 8x12=896

I sent it back with corrections in sharpie! New ones got printed! I know we all make mistakes, but to go as far as laminating them is a bit daft.

[Stealthpolarbear]

I don't understand how they could make such bad mistakes!

[MillionToOneChances]

That's pretty hopeless. Takes blinking ages to laminate stuff, too - worth taking care!

[sashh]

DadDadDad

Integration was on some of the old O Level papers. Fairly simple find the are under a curve not integration of sine or any thing more substantial.

[MERLYPUSSEDOFF]

Help me with this one then.
Last weeks maths said ''Betty buys a ball for 12p, she says she can only use 2 coins to pay. Is this correct? Explain''
We said incorrect as she could pay in any combination of coins to make 12p. It was marked wrong.
Surely the question should've been written ''Betty buys a ball for 12p. She says she could pay using only two coins. Is this correct? ''
Any ideas?
(to make matters worse, DT1 was marked correctly, DT2, different class, wrong)

[FunkyBoldRibena]

Merly - did the teacher explain their marking?

I think you should show them the two markings and ask for their explanation.

Write a letter to the teacher and the head with the problem... 'Two twins provide the same answer to a maths question. One is marked incorrectly and one is marked correctly. Is this correct. Explain'.

[ChippingInAutumnLover]

Merly. Did you send both lots of markings back to the head of department with a . I would have. 9yo would have answered 'No, it's no correct, she could have paid in lots of different ways [then listed them all]'.

[thecatfromjapan]

Sassh - yes! That was on my maths paper. It was one of the questions I chose on the long paper.
I have thought for ages that I hallucinated it's being there. AND it was a very easy sort of integration. I have wondered if I was going mad!

[thecatfromjapan]

By the way, teacherwith2kids, I really loved what you said about attitude. Turning not knowing something into a fantastic opportunity to learn something you didn't know before is what school is all about.
It should be an amazing, fantastic and indulgent thing: a time when you spend several hours of the day just learning stuff. Wow!
It's so sad that so many children come away with the idea that not knowing something is wrong and bad, and you must hide your ignorance if something at all costs, and feel shame at not knowing.
I think you are right, AND I would love to have been taught by people like you.

[MERLYPUSSEDOFF]

the teacher who marked wrong said '10p and 2p' as the correct answer despite DS providing a combination of coins to make 12p. The other DS got a well done sticker. Hmmmm?

[Marcipex]

Oh dear Merly.

DS further annoyed the maths teacher when they started teaching Probability.
The text book gives this as an example of 100% probability:'All boys will become men.'

DS argued this is incorrect as some boys will die. Teacher not impressed with DSs reasoning.