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)

Have you actually witnessed the teacher being laidback? Did you see the teacher have her hands behind her head? Was anything said at last parents evening?
You can't judge the situation if you haven't got all the facts (keeping my head down)
Your son has to take some responsibility, surely he must have realised time was running out.
The important thing is to concentrate on the exam. The teacher may be completely innocent and faced with a challenging pupil.
Sorry if this isn't the answer you were hoping for but kids blaming the teacher is the oldest trick in the book along with the dog ate my homework.

I was revising with my year 11s today, and I said "mmm, but what does the question actually ask?" a lot.

Not reading the question properly and then giving the wrong answer is one thing.

Not having been taught how to interpret the question so that you can answer it properly is quite another.

OP - Can you post the question here so maybe people could see if it is possible to misunderstand the question??

Well done Kitty for checking the syllabus - I was surprised in the OP that it was AS as they are mostly gone now.
And yy to kids not reading the question.
I have a Year 12 class which I have virtually spoonfed - given the mark scheme for the to digest and they simply don't bother.
They come to class unprepared, miss classes ( legit reasons) and have no initiative in coming to find out what they have missed - just plain lazy!.
Needless to say, coming up to EOY exams and they are panicking and asking for help at weird times like in the lunch hall...

The first sitting of the AS on the new spec was last year, so there is at least one past paper, and any exemplar material from the board, although there has been a woeful absence of it across the majority of new specs.

I have two older children, dd and ds. Both of them had this kind of crap,lazy teacher for at least one subject. Same old story, they haven't taught the subject properly or kept their eye on how the students are actually doing, then at the eleventh hour they tell the kids they're not gonna pass. didn't study hard enough etc (even if they did). One of my dd's exams was even not the curriculum that the teacher had spent 6 months teaching them and all the kids just sat there wondering if they were in the right bloody room !!

The first sitting of the AS on the new spec was last year, so there is at least one past paper

That will be under username and password on the exam board site, as it will be used for this years internal Year 12 exam-the one the OP's DS will be sitting. It is not a public exam, which I think the OP misunderstood.

I am a mature student with exams looming and it has been drummed into us again and again to make sure that we read and understand the question when doing exams. I'm doing past papers every evening after I get the kids to bed (when I'm not on mumsnet!) and it's definitely helping. I would recommend this as a good way to make sure his exam technique is up to scratch. Hopefully, he'll pass and you can address any issues you have with the teacher later. Hope it all goes ok.

How ill making her feel shit help your DS?

I'd ask her what practical guidance she can give and what additional resources he should look at to be able to give a better answer next time. If there's any nonsense back from her, take it to the head of department/faculty or year and complain about her attitude.

OP the general consensus on MN is that teachers can do no wrong.

Blimey, you can't be on here much! I'd say it's a split and until this week, mostly negative. Apparently, most primary teachers have favourites and ignore non-favourite students for their entire career.

There are resources available and exemplar answers, which I know my lot found very helpful last year. I don't know if your ds' exam board allows free access to these. The examiners' reports are incredibly useful.

Sadly, the teacher does sound a bit crap and if it's her first time teaching this subject (?), I'd be worried too. Despite being a teacher, I'm not going to lie about some teachers I've known over the years, even if they have amazing subject knowledge and ability, they might still be crap.

OP glad that you've calmed down.

One incident of a teacher referring to work as a bit crap, when speaking to a 6th former isn't a disaster. It might not be the most professional language, but it also isn't belittling. At this point in the class, a teacher knows the kids, has a relationship with them and is being honest in the weeks just before the exams, rather than giving flannel. If work is rather rubbish, most kids at this point would rather be told and can cope with the word crap.

Forget this individual incident. If you have ongoing concerns about the teacher not teaching well over the course of the year, then get on and gather your evidence and raise a query. Sometimes teachers do t do what they should and if this becomes a concern, a query should be raised. However, you need to decide if this is really the case or just that you felt annoyed yesterday.

It is hard as a parent or someone outside to judge because you weren't there and don't know exactly what was said or if reports you hear from your child tell the full story in context. Things that I would think worth querying would be a failure to set or to mark work. These are concrete things to query.

I think it would be more sensible to talk to the head.

OP the general consensus on MN is that teachers can do no wrong.
Funny that.
I'd have said the general overview on MN is

1. People who want to complain about thinks teachers have done and are only interested in an echo chamber of "go to the head". They feel their child can do no wrong, think their child is the exception and everything is always the teachers fault because they had a bad time at school. They love giving advice to kick off, get the head involved, humiliate and undermine the teacher etc.

1. People who seek advice and guidance and are actually interested in discussing issues, they listen to others including teachers and it's a perfectly amicable discussion because they understand we all want kids to do well. They (parents and teachers) accept things sometimes don't go well at schools but are interested in coming to a resolution or way forward.

1. Teachers who try to give advice based on their professional experience and knowledge. But get routinely shouted by type 1 people. When teachers repeatedly point out how/why type 1 people are wrong it becomes more 'proof' of our meanest you can get extra points if somebody says "you shouldn't be working with kids" (variations accepted).

By the time we've been told how awful we are and had accusations like "clearly teachers are never wrong and they can't accept mistakes" (go to criticism if you say being rude and confrontational doesn't help and makes us unwilling to help), we remember why we are so grateful that the majority of children are amazing and the majority of parents are type 2.

MaisyPops - a great summary!

And it's a good summary of people and their approach to life too.

There are those who are aggressive and have knee jerk reactions, thinking everyone else is always in the wrong and they need to fight fight fight. Everything is black and white and they struggle to see a broader context or point of view.

And then there are the reasonable people. They accept that things can go wrong, but don't have a mentality that everyone is out to get them and a fight is always needed. They can see the nuances in situations and that things might have grey areas. They are willing to query and discuss rather than complain and look for ways to move forward positively, working with others if at all possible.

And you are right, that thank goodness there are more of the second type. The first type seem to come on MN frequently, either to post, or to hear a 6 line report on an event which is sufficient for them to reach the judgment that the teacher or other person is definitely in the wrong, that a complaint should definitely be made in the strongest terms and retribution sought. Sadly it's all rather Daily Mail!

Maisy-you rock!

Hi
I am a teacher but I wanted to share something as a parent. I have been here at GCSE. Told my child would not get a good grade, asked him to speak to the teacher. It was a 'creative' subject and I asked him to ask what good answers would have had that his did not. He was given a similar answer - claims of 'kind' marking, told to pay attention to the question (which is to be fair a common difficulty). Consequently he felt that he was just not able to succeed because he did not have the talent. It was hard to hear for me and is hard to hear for you but please keep a cool head now. There will be exemplar answers online, there will be a specification and probably preferred text books or revision guides. I joined amazon prime and bought these books. I downloaded the subject specification that very day and we went through the paper and fixed it. He felt better. He carried on, teaching himself and I helped. Forget about this teacher she/he does not matter. Your son matters. My child got A* - he taught himself (with my help). I understand your feelings. I was so angry for a while. But trust me, it is better to discard things that are not working for you. I do admit to feeling a frisson of delight when years later this teacher and their even more arrogant and useless head of department were hauled over the coals by a group of parents who were true experts in this field. I am smiling at the memory this very moment. Search the web and the exam boards for what you need, re-motivate your son and teach him what the exam needs. It took my child a couple of weeks to turn everything around (even with all the other subjects to revise) because once they knew what the exam needed their confidence came back. Forget this teacher and please accept my apologies on behalf of my profession.

I used to teach at this level and believe me there are a number of staff that are in the job and hate it and actually get off on being difficult to students. I have even witnessed staff WITHOUT QUALIFICATIONS bullying students, physically assault them and think it is funny. The education management system is spineless and won't rock the boat so it doesn't give them more work to do. I could be in the system no longer and gave it up because I didn't want to be tarred with the same brush. You definitely need to complain and make a lot of noise about it. Good luck.

But how can you know a complaint is needed? Isn't a query the right possible approach? The Op has some (pretty limited information) and relies on the reports of the student and doesn't have the full contextual info. Surely Santina, it's a query that needs to be made about what is happening.
You sound like the posters MaisyPops referred to who wade in demanding a fight, based on scant evidence. I'm just surprised if you were a teacher once and must have experienced this kind of knee jerk reaction yourself that you are not more measured in your approach and advice.

CW It doesn't sound too good though does it? You can understand OPs distress.

I do agree though that concentrating on the members of staff is probably not the best idea. And this teacher in the OPs post seems (from the evidence given) more frightened to me than anything else. As well she might, you are only as good as your average grade level and dips are always noticed aren't they?

Some pupils genuinely just don't read the questions then go on to write a load of rubbish for their answers expecting fabulous marks. They do not listen in class prior to the exams then ask for advice last minute - this infuriates teachers. If pupils are really trying teachers don't mind helping them at all but when they can't be bothered why waste time on them when other pupils really want to pass? Pupils always give one side of the story to parents but can act completely different in a school/college setting...

CW It doesn't sound too good though does it

Actually, I found a lot of inconsistencies in the OP and subsequent posts. When I tried to ask the OP about them, they never returned.
I am not suggesting the OP lied. I think he opposite. I, however, think that the OP didn't have the full facts-only what the DS had told her. She'd know about the upcoming exam not being a public one, otherwise...

Well I'm biased, but the only teacher that said that kind of shit to me also was very pissed off when my mum got equipment for me out of school and got an A in his class. She sounds like she has forgotten she's a teacher.

It's a tricky one.
I teach that year group. Despite a massive amount of spoon feeding, revision clinics etc. , some can be incredibly lazy and blame everyone apart from themselves for a bad mark. The teacher could be at the end of her tether and it's difficult to know the full circumstances. I gather your son has reiterated her comment re: the whole class not passing? If so, that's not a great thing to be telling them now but could come from frustration?
Most teachers are so accountable in terms of results it's very strange she didn't offer any guidance.
Before firing off that email, perhaps it's good to get the wider picture. Not doubting you OP. I just hear students make disparaging marks about outstanding teachers who bend over backwards to help them.