AM I EXPECTING TOO MUCH FROM SECONDARY SCHOOL?

[cabbage67]

My eldest son is in year 8 at secondary school. The school seems to have an awful lot of supply teachers, who seem to just "babysit" rather than interact or teach. For instance his supply teacher for his French lesson didn't speak French. Is this the norm? He tells me that most supply teachers just tell the class to look through their books for the lesson.

Also his class was meant to have a science test today, but not enough pupils had revised so the teacher said he'd give them another week to revise. I don't agree with this and I would have made them take the test regardless. Is he soft or AIBU?

I'd love your comments as I don't have anything to compare it with or have much experience with secondary school

Thank you

Sorry, just plucked Grimsby from the air. It's the "Grim" bit that does it. Substitute a place that is a bit off the beaten track and deprived - Great Yarmouth, for example. Now I'm probably offending people from Great Yarmouth!

You've clearly never met a child with pathological demand avoidance have you?

Erm...has anyone?

It's the "Grim" bit that does it.

I agree, it's the least appealing-sounding place in the whole UK. But Great Yarmouth is definitely grimmer and I'm not from either of them..!

'if you make the lesson engaging enough, the children will behave'

Utter tripe, isnt it? Well-planned lessons with activities designed to be engaging will generally incite better behaviour than poorly planned lessons. But it is by no means a silver bullet. Some students will disrupt no matter what you put in front of them. They need to have higher expectations applied across the board, not to have a succession of entertaining activities that they ignore or get, at best, surface learning from because they are continually disrupting learning.