To phone the school

[Tryingtokeepalidonit]

I am a secondary teacher who works in an adjacent LA to where I live. During the Easter holidays a friend asked me to help her daughter who was struggling with her Eng Lang/ Lit revision. I happily helped but was struck with how little of the Lit syllabus she had covered ie no poetry at all and no notes on The Crucible. But tbh I just thought idle girl who is finally aware time is running out. We had some useful sessions although it was difficult not knowing which cluster she would be studying.

I am still on Easter break but local schools went back on Monday. Friend's daughter came in yesterday with revision pack they had just been given because there was not time to teach the Lit poems so they had to do this at home. Now firstly what they have been given are good resources from TES but designed to be taught but secondly I feel parents need to be aware that their children have been treated this way.

I wonder whether the HOD/SMT of the school even know, last year this school taught an A Level text that was no longer on the syllabus. I am very tempted to phone up the school and speak to someone. I told my friend she ought to but she seemed to be a bit well my DD has you to help so I won't rock the boat.

I don't want to get a fellow teacher in trouble but I would be furious if any of my department let the children down this way and ultimately the pupils are the ones who matter. Friend's DD is targeted A so these are able children. Would I be unreasonable to phone/ email HOD?

no
do it

Could HoD be responsible for the problem?

I am sure parents phoning would have more impact than you. Can you tell your friend the situation and get her to contact the school with the concerns? She can ask a couple of other parents to also call/ write.

I have spoken to my friend twice, first I said maybe she needed to check if any extra sessions were being run etc but the second time I made it clear she needed to tell other parents/ tell the school. But she is very much I have a child in Y9 so I don't want to rock the boat and now dd has help that is fine. I really do not want to interfere but I also had 3 children attend this school and know how hard the majority of staff work. I just think if I send a quick e-mail maybe it will be picked up with time to sort it out somewhat.

I think your friend's "I'm alright Jack" attitude is a bit off, TBH.

She knows that there's a problem with the teaching her DD and her DD's friends are receiving in a key GCSE subject but she won't raise it because you are going to rescue her child.

I would inform either the head teacher or one of the governors.

At the moment there is time to pull this back for all of the pupils and it would be a great shame to miss that opportunity for fear of rocking the boat, especially when a jolly good rocking seems to be exactly what that boat needs.

I wish someone had stepped in for me when I was in 6th form. I suspect a similar issue was going on. All along I was predicted an A and then I got a D. School refused to request a remark as my D was the highest grade in the class of 12! I presume the thinking was that the entire class had been taught wrongly/poorly prepared so the grade was a true grade even though I was considered capable of much more.

Keep it anonymous, send an email and say you're tutoring 'some' children, you teach at x school and you are concerned about y

I think the mother ought to be raising this with the school.
It might be an idea to refuse to provide any further free tuition to plug the gaps.

I had to teach myself some poems for my eng lit GCSE as the teacher forgot about them. It was the only a I got in a run of a*s and I swear that's the reason. Tiny violin and all that but I wish someone had stepped in for me!

I'd be furious if I found out my kids were taught wrong syllabus! She bloody should rock the boat.

You should contact them and say you teach the subject, and have helped a friends child- but not which child.

I'd thank oh if I were a parent/child at that school

In sixth form around 20 yrs ago, I did A Level RE and had 2 teachers.
The first one went off sick with an unknown problem but the second one was an alcoholic and spent a chunk of the year off. This information was validated much later by several sources.

The school changed the syllabus and drafted in anyone they could to teach us, it was a small group. Iirc around 8-10 girls.
Most of us got a "u" ungraded mark:(
The best was an "e" these were different circumstances but we were badly let down and I ended up missing out on my first choice uni due to that grade.

I had been predicted a "b" which I got in English literature and an "a" in French.
It still annoys me now.

So phoned the school said I was tutoring a pupil in named class and this was the situation as had been told to me. Asked for help in supporting the pupil and whether this was an accurate representation of the current situation. 5 min later the HOD rang me back. I did not name the pupil but couched it in the 'I do not know what the real situation is but...'

I have also had a ring from my friend to ask if I would coach her DD's friends. No! I am doing it as a favour.

I did PE GCSE which consisted of practical and written. Only found out 2 months before that we had only been fought one of the four sections of written that we needed to know. Noone got higher than a D and a few people lost out on sixth form places because of it.

Id send an email but not with any identifying info. You definitely need to do something tho.

But what did the HoD say? Did they explain? Did they admit there was a problem?

He said he would look into it, he wasn't aware of a problem but would get back to me.

I think it's very unfair of your friend to put the responsibility of filling these gaps in the teaching onto you. Presumably you've got your own teaching work load and commitments between now and May and obviously your own family and other demands on your time- it's a real ask to expect you to do this as it could require quite a lot of your time in the evenings or weekends on a regular basis over the next few weeks. It's one thing do offer some revision tips but quite another to actually teach large sections of missing syllabus.
And she's now offering you to all and sundry .... I assume she's not offering to pay you for this ?? Also if she has this assistance from you will there be any expectation that she will then achieve her predicted grade and if not will that affect your friendship??
Any parent concerned by this must first contact the school as it's the school's responsibility to put it right initially as they have the lesson times in school lunch times and after school and a whole department of staff that can do this which is more time and resources that you will have available for her.

To be fair I think it is more her daughter who is offering my help. I cannot substitute for a class teacher and I have explained to my friend that her DD will be lucky to get a C at the moment so the school need to do something. However we are more playground friends, my youngest Dd was best friends with her eldest, and I think she is only concerned with her dd.
I fee really bad about it but feel the school needs to intervene, there is still time.

In several GCSE classes my mum ordered the syllabus and found big chunks/topics missing from my notes. Some extra info was handed out as photocopies at end of year in some subjects but still whole sections of work not covered. We didnt stand a chance.
Some other classmates got the sylabus to study from (us swots!). Similar thing in 1 of my A level subjects. In retrospect I/someone should have confronted teachers as my siblings went through same school (comprehensive) with similar occuring in some subjects - so nothing changed.

I've no idea what good schools are like and I probably have assumed this is widespread in comprehensives (this school didnt get too bad marks mainly due to being in a good area and keen parents imo)

This was a while ago! But what I'm trying to say is if no-one points it out, nothing will change