To contact sons teacher and make her feel as shit as she has made him feel!!

[cherryberrymum]

I'm bloody furious and I'm counting on the Mumsnet massive to make me see perspective here.

Son is doing AS levels. One of his teachers who has been laid back to say the least all year has suddenly realised her entire class are not going to pass!!!!

I have done the subject previously and have been helping him the best I can but after a recent disaster in a class test I sent him to ask her for advice.

He said she sat back in her chair arms behind her head and just said he had written a crap answer and it only deserved 3 out of 20 but she felt generous and gave him 6 out of twenty. 😟

Who the hell is that benefiting???? He is home now feeling crap about the first exam which is next Tuesday! She didn't give him any guidance on how to improve his answer. Just told him to read the question in future. He finished tomo for study leave but I'm so bloody cross!!!

WIBU to contact her tomo morning and tell her she's a Knob! Or should I wait till parents meetings in October (assuming he passes AS levels and gets back to do A Levels)

they should be all grade A or B standard and therefore piss easy to teach.

Erm...because?

revisesociology.wordpress.com/

So you can either whinge and moan and bitch, and your son still fails, or he can use this as a learning experience.

I had literally the exact same situation happen to me during my AS levels. I got something atrocious like an E on some assignment and the teacher was a bitch about it. I went home to my mum and she basically said "get in the library and study, you aren't getting an E"! So I did and worked my arse off. I got an A and in one essay question scored 100%

As an aside I also had a GCSE teacher tell a class of us that most of us would be failures, my immediate reaction was to think "yeah, and I won't let that be me".

There are arseholes in every walk of life and you can either sit around or moan, or you can get up and do a fucking awesome job and show them how good you are.

Her relationship with your son does not sound great. Who is most at fault in that no one can know without being a fly on the classroom wall! If parents have a negative attitude towards a teacher children certainly pick up on that. The fact that you have mistakenly felt you were doing a better job than her (downloading the wrong past papers) suggests there is more to it.

Trifle. With the right teaching these children should naturally achieve well because they are all grammar school high flyers. It's hardly like the teacher is attempting to turn E grade kids into A grade kids.

Squishedstrawberry4

It doesn't work like that at all. In my subject, even a bright student can't achieve an A/A* grade at A level without a LOT of hard work.

They will be A or B mag students. I have one A Mag student and a sea of D and E Mags. My A Mag is much easier to get to a high grade.

If it wasn't so late in the day I'd advise hiring a tutor for a couple of two hour sessions to learn how to answer exam questions. As that's probably not an option I'd advise your son to revise like crazy and memorise ad much as he can.

There are two ways a teacher can respond to a student turning in a very poor piece of work. One is to assume that the student is lazy or careless and hasn't bothered to read the question. The other is to ask: what did I do wrong? How could I have taught this better? How can I help the student get good grades in future? Clearly a lot of Mumsnetters think the first approach is more appropriate.

There are two ways a teacher can respond to a student turning in a very poor piece of work. One is to assume that the student is lazy or careless and hasn't bothered to read the question. The other is to ask: what did I do wrong? How could I have taught this better? How can I help the student get good grades in future? Clearly a lot of Mumsnetters think the first approach is more appropriate.

Clearly, a lot of Mumsnetters think everything is black or white. Context is everything. If a student has done little work in lessons, rarely handed in homework or when has done, it has been late, not turned up to after school support sessions and hands in a very poor piece of work, then yes, it is pretty fair to say the student may be lazy (I am in now way saying this is the case with the OP's DS but is certainly the case with a student I currently teach and was shocked when I wouldn't offer last minute one to one sessions)

Equally, if a question very obviously states to cover something and has not remotely been referred to an in answer, it is also pretty fair to give advice to 'read the question' so that they don't make silly mistakes like that in the Exam.

hackmum

By May, just before exam season, I don't have to assume laziness or carelessness, and I don't have to sit there navelgazing about my teaching. I know who is lazy and I know what was taught well/badly. It's called professional judgement.

She didn't give him any guidance on how to improve his answer. Just told him to read the question in future.
I have a lovely A level class. About 2/3 month ago they did an exam answer. What 50% of the class wrote was good... but they hadn't answered the question so it couldn't be credited. Had they read the question, they knew enough to do well. I make them annotate the question to focus on it. It worked.
I'd be annoyed if a parent decided my entire class is going to fail because I gave low marks and reminded students to read the question.

Any past papers he has completed have been ones we (his parents) have downloaded ourselves. She prefers to use her own questions.
We'll this year's y13 are the first year through the new a level specifications so there's ONE example paper online for my subject from the board
Y12 are the second year through the new AS levels (if schools want to use them) and there are 2 online from the board.

Almost every teacher for new GCSE/A level is having to invent mock questions because they've only been started last year and there isn't a bank of them. I don't get why the teacher making mock questions really warrants some kind of judgement on their teaching.

If they've been rude then yes, address it. But I wouldn't go in with the "you're clearly a crap teacher attitude". At the end of the day, you're not a qualified teacher, aren't experiences in teaching a level so focus on your issue with the teachers attitude and not on your apparent ability to judge somebody's teaching without being in the lessons.

I have one A Mag student and a sea of D and E Mags. My A Mag is much easier to get to a high grade
Target A & exceptionally hard working % easier to get an A

Target A but got there because of extensive intervention, redrafting coursework (as was!) And being given formulaic essay structures = not easy to get top grades

Target C/D but very hard working and independent = will usually outperform targets and get Bs.

Conclusoon: biggest predictor in my experience is that the kids who've been spoon fed, given endless chances to redo coursework & feel everyone owes them a grade are the most difficult to get to do anything whatever the target grade.
Those who are diligent, proactive and hardworking are much better prepared for A level and university, whatever their target grade

64% at just over half way through the course.

Seems to match up with the amount of content that has been taught.

I'm also not sure why you think the whole class is failing and she is panicking? The results seem quite normal and good actually for mock as levels due to the amount of content taught so far.

Why have you spoken to her several times already? And why are you personally prepared for mammoth study sessions, surely your son has to do the study?

I think there is a fine balance between being an involved supportive parent and going too far and being over bearing and overly involved snf causing harm. Leave the teacher alone now.

I often find these threads start off with a knee-jerk reaction against information coming from DC but once informed posters start to say it may not be quite the case, the OP disappears!

Son is doing AS levels

Turns out Son is doing Linear exams so probably not actually AS Levels but an A Level (OP never came back to confirm)

One of his teachers who has been laid back to say the least all year has suddenly realised her entire class are not going to pass!!!!

Absolutely no evidence of this, especially with those good percentage marks stated by the OP - most likely what has happened is the usual 'talk' from the teacher for everyone to buck their ideas up otherwise they 'would' fail. DS has taken this to the literal and told you that the whole class is going to 'fail' in the usual Year 12 hyperbole.

I have done the subject previously and have been helping him the best I can

The new course and syllabus is vastly different from the old style modular exams and this may not actually be helping DS. Especially as there will be no new past papers to work from and the Exam Boards don't know what A/A* answers look like yet.

She didn't give him any guidance on how to improve his answer. Just told him to read the question in future.

She did give him guidance. Actually very useful guidance but didn't tell him step by step how to write the exact answer for him.

WIBU to contact her tomo morning and tell her she's a Knob! Or should I wait till parents meetings in October (assuming he passes AS levels and gets back to do A Levels)

If it is a Linear exam, there is no "get back in to do A Levels" as it is one course, solely assessed at the end of Year 13.

It's one thing to mention that the terminology used (if indeed the teacher did say the word 'crap') at the next Parents Evening but to be so sure of the 'wrong' being done to your DS, without actually knowing the new course and structure your DS is currently on, just shows how much some people are willing to hand teachers out to dry.

The only inappropriate language would be if OP goes in and calls the teacher a 'knob'. If OP does that, I would imagine the teacher might feel like complaining about the parent...but who to??

LOving the fact that someone who wants to complain about language used then wants to call someone a knob!
Or might it just be that she wants to use a term which implies 'knob' and actually the teacher didn't use the term 'crap' either, but something which implied it.

There are 2 separate issues here - one is whether the teacher hasn't taught the class properly all year. If OP thinks this is case and has evidence for it, by all means go in with a QUERY rather than a COMPLAINT. Isn't it always better to approach these things where we don't know the full story (and parents must see they don't know the full story as they weren't there and don't know context) as a query, not a furious complaint? Much more likely to be productive, which presumably is the outcome Op wants, unless really they just want a rant, which is what some people want.

Separate issue is the feedback about the essay. If essentially it was very poor, at this point before the exams, isn't it better to know the truth rather than have people pretend otherwise? Yes, there are ways to put these things, but we are talking about 17 year olds here, not delicate little 5 year olds....and a bit of plain and honest talking is often necessary and actually helpful and a sixth former should be able to hear such a message and accept it and move forward. If DC is unclear about how to improve, they should seek the teacher out and ask for more advice. Wouldn't that be a good idea?

Did she actually say 'that was a crap answer' or is your ds paraphrasing?

I'd make an appt to talk calmly to the teacher.

Your ds is year 11 - he should be taking responsibility for his own learning and revising.

There's absolutely no point waiting until October to tell her she's a knob - if there's an issue, do something about it now. But don't assume your ds's version of events is correct It may not be.

Teachers are v stressed at the moment - don't add to it.

I suspect the nub of the issue with thr paper is the son actually didn't read the question properly and as such the work he did in answering it couldn't be credited. I'd be concerned if this was the case and a lack of personal responsibility was being displayed.

When the op demonstrated both a lack of understanding on the process for the new a levels,a lack of comprehension in terms of what's good marks for this stage in the curriculum a lack of trying to understand if her son did not read the question correctly and a strong desire to attack the teacher because her son felt shit, probably due to his own poor performance, then she lost me.

Part of being a parent is teaching personal responsibility. It's not showing them that if you fuck up there is always someone else you should be blaming.

Ok so after yesterday's hysteria I have calmed right down.

Yes she did tell him it was a Crap answer. Also he read the question and answered it according to what he thought it was asking. However his interpretation was wrong. The issue I have is tha the teacher DID NOT then show him where he went wrong or explain how it should have been interpreted.

This is not new. She is well know for belittling the lads in her class and if they question anything in class she will quite often laugh or make disparaging remarks.

That is the issue I have! I'm not trying to make excuses for his lack of revision he works hard and is doing well in his other three subjects that is why this stands out so clearly.

I can see why you would be ticked off - she could have been more constructive in her support but you don't know how much she's tried in the past with the class - she may be in a pissed off mood herself

Students are so hot housed and spoon fed through GCSE that A levels can be a huge shock but he really does need to start studying - not just going to lessons but spend time reading the subject and putting the time in - talking to you about the subject is great but its no substitute for a few hours reading - he's half way through - he has time

Blissx

I'm happy to be told I was over reacting. I agree I was upset yesterday. However that annoyance was fuelled by a year of issues with this teacher and the boys in her class as a whole.

He is doing AS levels. If he doesn't do well in these. He will not be readmitted to Finnish his A levels.

Op. if he didn't read the question properly he didn't read the question properly. I'm fairly sure if he's as good as you say if he took the time out to reread the question hed get an altogether different score. Why doesn't he do it again?

Do you just not like this teacher is that it?

Trifle. With the right teaching these children should naturally achieve well because they are all grammar school high flyers. It's hardly like the teacher is attempting to turn E grade kids into A grade kids.

Er no, it isn't just about teaching. The biggest thing is the effort that they put in to get their heads around the subject at that level. I had a crap teacher for A level Biology, nothing she said made any sense to anyone but I got a B because I worked it out myself.

TBH I don't know if the teacher ibu or not. If DS handed her a pile of crap that he had knocked together in 10 minutes in tutor time prior to the lesson she has every right to be straight with him. If he is struggling and spent hours on it then she is clearly bu. So like all these teacher-moan threads I suggest you calmly have a word with her as a first step OP.

There are arseholes in every walk of life and you can either sit around or moan, or you can get up and do a fucking awesome job and show them how good you are.

So true. That's exactly the attitude needed to succeed in life. I had a "full set" of crap teachers at school. After failing all my mock A levels, after doing all that was asked of me (i.e. all homework/assignments done on time, 100% attendance, etc), I took it upon myself to learn the subjects and simply stopped going to lessons - initially I went to school as normal (so I registered as present) but spent all day in the library, then once I knew the exam applications had been submitted, I stopped going completely. Just to highlight how crap the school/teachers were, not a single teacher contacted me/parents to ask why I was missing lessons and then why I was missing school. I turned it around from failure to good passes without any teaching.

You really do have to take responsibilty for yourself and learn to stop relying on others. It shouldn't be like that, but it's how it is.