To be annoyed at this teacher regarding parents evening?

[Blownspeakersandvolcanos]

My dd is is in year 9 and had a parents evening tonight which she came along to.

When it was our turn to approach her art teacher, he had to ask dd what her name was again.

There was an instance in his class where she asked him for a fresh piece of paper and he had a go at her because he had assumed she had come in from the classroom next door and should have therefore asked her teacher

I get in secondary school that you obviously teach many children, but he also taught her during year 7 too.

I just didn't want to listen to his report on her because he doesn't seem to have a clue who she was!

I teach a non-core subject. Each week I teach 1x yr 7 class, 2x yr 8 classes and 4x yr 9 classes for one hour each. I also see my yr 10 & 11 groups for 3 hours and my 6th form class for 6. It dawn be tricky - have a bit of sympathy.

I was in London for the day yesterday (still on hols here) and saw a yr 8 I teach at a tourist attraction. I looked up his name on our online praise system on my phone because I wasn't 100% sure and didn't want to get it wrong. Obviously he was thrilled to see me, not mortified at all

I used to be able to skive certain lessons and the teacher never really noticed

My maths teacher realised that I was in her class when I came third in the Christmas exams. I had missed nearly all her classes so she was a bit miffed.

The Zeppo you now have to tell us your trick. It is the law.

I just had a Parents Evening (Year 7 not Year 9) and I must admit I didn't know every child's name because (and this will be the same with Art too):

I teach them for 1 hour a week.

I have 3 classes of Year 7 (2 of yr8 and 4 of yr9 + all the KS4 and 5 classes). That's 240+ pupils per week.

When they are in their seating plans-I can identify everyone of them. When they are often not even in uniform and out of context, such as at a Parent's Evening, I can make mistakes.

I am able to accurately provide data on every child due to marking their classwork, homework and assessments, but I may not be able to put a face to a name for every pupil when I have no break in between seeing a new parent and pupil every 4 minutes for 4 hours.

Please understand that I am mortified if I forget a name and try my best to memorise them but mistakes happen. It is easier when you are one of the core subjects and teach only one class and see them up to 5 hours a week (I've taught Maths in the past so have experience of this). Some of the practical subjects see their pupils so infrequently that it is surely understandable, no?

I can be perfectly good at the kids' names when they are sat in their seats in the classroom, knowing them by location as much as by face. So I think I know their names.

Then one of them catches me outside the classroom at the start of a lesson and earnestly tells me the dog has eaten their homework. I look at their face and nope, nothing.

Then I change the seating plan, get to know their faces as well as their location. I'm sorted, I think.

Then at parents evening some child out of uniform with different hair, make-up, whatever comes up and says 'can my mum see you early?' And then I get that brain blank panic.

It happens.

It used to be my thing, to dismiss each child by name as they left a class. What can I say now, years in, teaching hundred plus students in a week - all the Joshs sit in the same place, all the Chloes, Pritpals, you get the idea...name knowing is powerful, important etc but sometimes you have to help yourself out!! Parents' evenings are fine as long as you learn which Chloe is which...and like a pp said sometimes you get pairs of students that are difficult to identify separately even though you absolutely know their work - these days I can recognise and match handwriting to students than I can faces to names!

Lots of very sensible stuff but this is Parents' Evening - he knows who is coming, will have appointments scheduled a d I don't think it's unreasonable to prepare for that and expect it.

I work in a school, albeit small and primary, it just today our HM was talking about the importance of preparing for PE properly and being sure of the children you are talking about.

If the parents accosted him unexpectedly then all of the above is completely valid - and expected, scheduled meeting? He should've done better.

Pls excuse typos and autocorrect oddities!

I work in a school, albeit small and primary,

Then that's completely different to teaching in a large secondary school. I'm sure it's pretty easy to remember kids' names when you only teach 30 and see them all day every day.

An entire one-form entry primary of say, 210, might be smaller than one single year group in secondary. We can't know 'em all.

YABU - I'd rather a teacher check they have the right child than waffle about the wrong one!

I used to teach English in a Spanish Primary and even there, when I saw students twice a week for an hour I taught 3 different age levels, with three classes in each year of around 30 children, so I had 270 children to teach. By the first half term I knew the "standout" children - the loud ones, the high achieving ones, the struggling ones, the good ones, the naughty ones, the cheeky ones and the bossy ones - maybe 4/5 in each class and more or less the rest by Christmas.

That didn't mean I was infallible ... if Aitana in 3B asked me a question in class, I knew her name to call on her, but if she ran into me in the corridor between classes then it might take me a minute to recall her name or which specific 3rd grade class she was in, but I'd remember during the course of conversation. However, seeing the same child at Parents Evening (when I may not have taught her or even seen her in the hallways for days), with her parents and out of the school context during an evening of talking about 89 other children in her year group to their parents, I can easily imagine (and I'm pretty sure if I really thought about it can remember it actually happening to me) totally blanking on the odd name or two or ten

I agree with others that the in-class incident is poor, but at least at PE he did ask.

:) at noblegiraffe, I am the same. We had a year 9 options eve last term and a student I teach twice a week came in to talk to me about doing my subject. No appointment and she could have even been from a different class as I was just on duty in that class. I genuinely didn't recognise her. Out of school, not sitting in my classroom, not in uniform. In my slight defence I have only taught her this year. Luckily I managed to wing it without using her name and only realised who she was the next time I saw her in class

Anyway OP I think there is some excuse for a teacher of art (or music, tech, textiles etc) who may see all the KS3 students in rotation over the year. I agree it means your DD is good, quiet and no trouble :)

Thezeppo yes yes what is your secret??

Moanyoldcow

But the problem is parents don't come at their exact appointment time.
Some pop by an hour early and say can I see you now? Some come late because of over-running other appointments or arrived late from work. Or some just turn up without an appointment!!!!!

And yes, a small Primary is vastly different to a secondary school of 1500 pupils...

Yes, YABU.
Great post by Apotheke

Not having a great memory for names of 240 people, out of context, 12 hours into a working day, does not mean the teacher hasn't got a handle on what is going on - it just means they want to be 100% sure they are reporting on the right child.

Blimey, I regularly call my dc by the wrong names and I've only got 3, and I've lived with all 3 for over 15 years

Also, Moanyoldcow not all schools have appt times. At ds's school all staff sat at desks in the hall and you joined whichever queu you fancied whenever you fancied it.

It actually worked FAR better than at my dds' school, where you have theoretical appointment times, but then it all goes to pot once one subject starts running behined yes, I'm looking at you MFL. So you just put your head round the door and see whoever is waiting.

Lots of very sensible stuff but this is Parents' Evening - he knows who is coming, will have appointments scheduled a d I don't think it's unreasonable to prepare for that and expect it.

Except when your PE appointments don't actually run to schedule, some parents butt in early, some don't turn up at all, some get stuck with another teacher elsewhere so turn up at a different time to their appointment ... just because Johnny Smith's parents are scheduled at 6:40 doesn't mean it's Mr and Mrs Smith who are sitting in front of you at that time.

BackforGood I don't mind it when students call me 'Mum' but I really hate it when my DC's call me 'Miss' and ask permission to go to the loo! Yes I get DC's names wrong sometimes but only within the family names.

elephantoverthehill my mum used to work as a TA in Y2 in the primary school where all my younger cousins attended (there's about 15 of them so at least one pretty much every year) ... it was always cute when they got to her class and went through the stage of trying to come to terms with the fact it was "Aunty Jane" at home and "Mrs Smith" at school ... so you'd hear shouts of "Aunty Jane, can I go to the toilet?" across the classroom and then we'd be sat at home watching a movie and you'd hear a little voice pipe up "Mrs Smith, can I have some orange juice please?"

As a pupil in secondary school I had a incident after changing schools mid way through the third year. I attended a language class on my timetable - but it was not a language I had studied ever before - in fact it wasn't even taught at my previous school.

The teacher conducted her entire lesson in said language, I was utterly clueless and was caught asking the person sat next to me what the hell I was being asked. Next thing I know the teacher is screeching at me that had I paid attention in her class for the last 3 years then I would know what she was talking about. I was utterly humiliated but managed to calmly reply that had SHE paid attention to her class for the previous 3 years she would realise it was the first time I had ever attended it.

She threw me out for being rude. After being sent to the head teacher's office and my point being validated we had a mutual agreement that I would do library study rather than attend her lessons !

Teachers are not infallible - they are human. He forgot a name, it doesn't mean his assessment of the work wasn't valid

I've got one child who will definitely be the invisible one in secondary school - and one who is already there and when I turn up to parents' evenings I start to dread the "oh, your X's mother.... she's definitely a character......".

I may feel a bit put out (though agree that it must be really hard in large secondaries) if this came from someone who taught my child a few lessons a week but it must be really hard in subjects like music and art where they spend much less time with each class and also have so many more different classes across the week.

OP there has been a bit of 'banter' on this thread but if I have taught a student in Y7, perhaps in Y8 and then again in Y9 I definitely know who that student is and their attitude and ability. I do not teach a 'core' subject. I think you have a point to raise.

apotheke brilliant post.

I dont know the names of all my students all the time. Names escape me. I see 240 a week. Some once for 45 minutes, some twice, some three times. However, once i have their name i can use the extensive data and notes in my planner to tell you all you need / want or dont want to know.

Also op, once he knew your child's name what was the report?

I'm sorry but bloody hell - as a teacher, is it not your job to know who your students are? As a basic requirement of the job? Like as a banker, I need to remember who my clients are and what they do/need. And in my portfolio yes it's many hundreds. OP YANBU.