So in high school you watch videos do frequent tests and sometimes there's no teacher?

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

Slightly concerned now that ds is in Upper School. Y9. He very frequently reports what videos they have watched in history, mainly documentaries, this week "the imitation game" (great film but ds saw it last year and we visited Bletchley park). Also this week there was no teacher for one lesson.
His school was previously rated 'outstanding' but has been relegated to good following the latest Ofsted. So is this level of teaching/ understaffing standard in high schools? I understand there are funding and resource issues. But more communication with parents about what that means in practice and how things are being managed, prioritised might allay concerns.

Ds will start his GCSE timetable soon and I am a bit underwhelmed by the quality of some of the teaching. There are excellent school trips and other opportunities but don't you need to get the basics right? This is my eldest so I may be unreasonable in my expectations, maybe videos are the best way to teach history?!

I can't believe they don't have a teacher for a lesson. Needs addressing

I don't even leave my class to go to the toilet.

I think videos have their place. The visual side will make things more real and more memorable (which might be why your DS reports on them). Plus they may not be the whole lesson. It might be 20mins video, 40 mins follow on learning and discussion.

Occasionally a teacher may miss a lesson, but there should be a cover supervisor and some work left. Though the work left might be revision / 'easy'.

DD had been 'doing' dystopian fiction in English. They watched the Hunger Games in a lesson this week!

"The Imitation Game" is not a documentary, so lazy on the part of the History department. But then I wax furious about Science using "Gattaca" as a film about genetic manipulation. Just filling a hole when they need to get on with "their" content.

What do you mean when you say there was no teacher? Do you mean the teacher was away and there was a cover teacher (who may not have done anything more than supervise them doing private study), or that a class of year 9s was left alone for an hour? One is normal and fine, the other is really not.

I use videos a lot!! Usually it’s a 10-15 minute clip halfway through a lesson. Gives them a break from me and helps them visualise something. They often have to analyse what they have just seen or answer questions on a worksheet about the clip I have played. We watched New Rules of the world by John pilger a week ago because it looks at globalisation and the work of the IMF and world bank in Indonesia- very relevant.
Videos can be excellent. I’d be concerned that there was no teacher but is that exactly what your son meant?

Apart from what the others have said, what’s the issue with frequent tests?

Lisa, the latter. Ds wanted to go get a teacher, his classmates did not want him too! Admittedly as a teen I would have been trying to stop ds as well, which is why 13/14 yos need a teacher!

Ds is autistic (Asperger's type) so is very factual, but the details he finds important are not necessarily the same as other kids would find important. Going to lessons and doing things properly are very important to him. He notices when he feels that his expectations are not being met. He is very interested in history and his history lessons have been a disappointment.

When the tests seem more of a priority than the learning. But I agree that is a personal preference.

Videos yes. Sometimes They seem relevant, war films for instance, others not so much.

No teacher, as far as I'm aware, has never happened. I'm sure mine would tell me that, they'd be delighted!

Even in good schools "no teacher" does occasionally happen......

I've been a teacher at 2 different 'outstanding' selective schools.
No teacher for a whole lesson wouldn't happen, if it did there would have been a riot (esp Year 9's) which in my experience was the most difficult year behaviour wise to manage.

You would need to know the context in which the videos are being shown- as a previous poster said, there could be discussion about it afterwords.

Films and documentaries are a great way to introduce the context of historical events, and would lead the students to a deeper level of understanding if used as part of a wider lesson plan.

I wish I had been taught like that, I found history boring. We were delivered information “transmission” style and asked to read and summarise from a textbook during class. I barely remember any of it!

We used to frequently have videos in geography one year. The teacher was excellent and used it as a way of generating discussion. It was the only year I found geography interesting.

The without a teacher may be an accident. I can remember on an odd occasion supply falling through and no one turning up and our class deciding that if we stayed quiet and good we'd get away with it.

We were a fairly well behaved class and were capable of keeping quiet and at our desks so no one realised although on one occasion we were told later that the deputy head had passed, and noticed, and because we were being so quiet decided not to worry-but positioned himself down the corridor so he could hear if anything was going on.

When one time we had a prefect looking after us for a lesson we were nothing like as good. Though to be fair, prefect turned up with girlfriend and they were somewhat preoccupied. The sign of "Orgy in here" on the window did go down rather badly with the prefect when they actually came out from the kiss about half way through the lesson.