School Outstanding but no teaching going on here

[Neapolitanicecream]

Dd school is < 10 yrs outstanding, great. She has 2 time wasting teachers in a couple of key subjects this is GCSEs year recent test showed that key areas are not been covered, l teacher is clearly treading water until 2nd retirement. emails to school ignored, head more interested in looking the part but not dealing with v. Poor teaching moral so v. High staff turnover in key areas. Dd bright and using online resources, my question is, is this enough or should I get tutor in ? Not much money but willing to try.

How do you know:

Two teachers are timewasters? If you do, it's a serious matter so send your evidence to the HT.

Key areas not covered? Speak to the teachers. Cite your evidence. Do you mean the test tested untaught material?

Teacher coasting to retirement - a serious accusation based on what exactly?

Follow up on emails. Refer to previous ones and require a response by X date.

HT focused on appearance? Based on what?

You cannot infer poor morale based on high turnover, many factors can affect this.

Other than "high turnover", what are you basing all of your views on?

It's January. Is it likely that the key areas not yet covered are going to be covered between now and exams?

Which year is your DD in? If Year 10, this is Term 2 of the new spec. I would have taught one unit by now, and be starting on the second on the old spec. I aimed to be finished on the entire syllabus in March in Year 11,to allow for revision time, but ran after school revision classes from after the October half term up to the exam. Mine was one of the earliest exams.

How do you know key areas haven't been covered and that your DD simply didn't remember them? I've had kids swear blind to me that they haven't been taught something when I say they should have done it last year. It wasn't until I had a class that I'd taught the previous year say this to me that I realised that it wasn't the teacher not teaching stuff but the kids not remembering it.

If you think that your DD is missing key areas in vital subjects in her GCSE year and the school isn't interested, then yes, hire a tutor if you can afford it.

Yes will have to think about tutor. I think if a teacher nearly always turns up and says I can't be bothered today let's do a game - that's unrelated to subject and daughter knows the other class is progressing and wants to be moved

My DCs were/are are at a school (though the opposite of Outstanding) where I recognise a lot of what you have written.

The only solution was for my DCs to take full responsibility for their own learning. They played the game in terms of attending lessons and doing homework etc but the real work in some subjects just had to be done outside of school.

DCs were very proactive, they did a lot of past paper work, used online resources.

Ultimately my DDs came out with very good GCSE results (straight As) but I do feel that a lot of this was achieved despit rather than because of the school.

IMO tutoring isnt necessary if your DD has the self discipline to self tutor.

DD1 is also in her GCSE year. We've just had a very informative parents' evening and there are certain subjects where it was made clear that they haven't yet covered the whole syllabus (Triple Science in particular). The difference is that I'm 100% confident that it's all under control and they are going to cover it in good time.

In your situation, particularly given the lack of meaningful communication from the school, yes I think I would appoint a tutor. Yes, it's possible that they have covered everything and she's forgotten stuff. But if you can't get a dialogue going to reassure yourself that this is the case, I would use the window of opportunity you have between now and May to give your daughter some other support.

I had similar concerns about dds school. Always been ofsted rated good. Since forever.

Her grades weren't improving from year 7. Her reports and open evening were excellent. She was hardworking yada yada yada. Her maths teacher put interventions in place as I raised the fact that she hadn't moved since starting in y7. This was jan in y8.

A new head had been appointed at the start of dds y8. Ofsted were in back end if that school year. Ofsted rating was dropped from good to 'requires improvement'. New head had raised issues with teaching, management, results, behaviour and attitudes of teachers. I think the while philosophy of the teachers was 'we are a good school, therefore we are good teachers'.

We are in year 9 now and things are slowly improving. When is ofsted due? Do you think complacency is a problem? If we can afford it we will have a tutor in y10 and y11. Regardless of teaching standards it can can only help imo.

Which subjects? Is maths one of them?