To complain to teacher about state of DS'topic book

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DS is in Y7. His school went into special measures a year ago, after a bumpy road towards improvement it gained 2 new head teachers in July, became part of an academy and seems to be making good progress.

The mood is finally more optimistic, and the school emphasises that it encourages communication with parents.

DS has a physics exam on Monday.

It is on a topic that I think is quite complicated. One where you need a clear understanding of concepts, definitions etc..

I sat with DS last night as he asked me to test him. It quickly became apparent he was confused and had got his facts mixed up.

We got his book out and I found his work looked chaotic, was incomplete and factually incorrect in many places. For example he may have written a=B + c, which was completely wrong. Or that increasing something, decreases something else- but had his 'things' the wrong way round. Or he has mixed up and misused key terms.

I am sure that these are actual mistakes as I remember this topic from A level physics and have used google, and gcse bitesize to double check.

There was no sign that the book had been looked at or marked since the start of term. The book contains no worksheets- only written notes across 12 lessons for this topic. He has no text book.

The upshot is that he had spent about 2 hours learning factually incorrect physics.

DS is usually quite capable and engaged. He is in the upper set in maths, and this has automatically placed him in the top science set.

Maybe this is all too much for him, or maybe he is not concentrating. Either way I do feel that this should have been picked up on at school.

I would like to email his teacher. I'm actually quite annoyed, but I appreciate teaching is a really tough job and I don't want to be unreasonable.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

@Thisreallyisafarce when I say marking and feedback I'm also including whole class feedback which is what we've started doing, hence my question about green pen work and redrafting. It does beggar belief if they don't state the expected frequency of any kind of written feedback. I do agree with your point that marking and "tick and flick" for the sake of it does little for studenr progress.

Thank you all for the helpful feedback. I'm going to attempt a polite email to the teacher in the first instance, and I'll try to avoid criticism as far as I can.

Depending on his response I'll possibly escalate.

I do doubt that one parent bringing this up is likely to be able to make any meaningful change if the teacher is working in the way I fear.

I'm wary of causing friction with the teacher in case it then causes DS any problems.

RabbityMcRabbit

Not for me, it doesn't.

Is it actually a qualified physics /sciences teacher taking the class? Not a CS or an unqualified? Not all schools put specialists in because they can’t recruit. It seems odd he would get through a full half term taking down the wrong notes

I don't know if it a qualified science teacher. I would assume so, but I haven't asked.....

However, tbh I think that at year 7 level most teachers could cope teaching the basics with enough preparation.

As a teacher I marked all homework. Classwork was marked as I went around the class plus some marking done by the children themselves.
I didn't mark notes and examples unless I knew a child had problems with or was known for not writing things down. This was the departments marking policy.
Note taking in year 7 would be copying facts and examples.
It's possible that your child needs support with this and this is something to talk to that teacher about.

It could be that the teacher isn't not a science specialist. There's a big shortage in STEM teachers at the moment, and therefore anyone who is a specialist in this area is more likely to be working in a less stressful environment than a school in special measures.
I'd check with the school initially to see if this is the case. It might also be useful to get your son to have a friend over from the same class to do some revision together and see if their books are as bad.

As a primary teacher who has to mark over 120 books a day I find it frustrating that secondary teachers don't even mark once a week!

Not necessary this comment though is it? You have no ideas how many students work I go through a week. Less of the judgement.

I am secondary Physics teacher though at year 7 it would just be 'Science'

I am intrigued at what topic this was and what was written incorrectly?

We have a two week mark policy. So roughly every 6 lessons. Most students prefer to revise from revision guides though as the exercise book as we know it has changed. I would still highlight misconceptions though.

Stopit I was trying not to be identifying so hadn't mentioned the subject but for context it is electricity and charge.

So for example, DS has got the definitions for voltage and potential difference muddled.

He is the V, C, R triangle wrong.

He has drawn the wrong conclusions about resistance from a practical e.g. he said longer wires = less resistance etc.

He has written a title: Voltage and Current in series and parallel circuits and the whole thing is muddled and incomplete.

When it comes to charge he has muddled the concept of atomic weight and atomic number.

You are definitely not being unreasonable. I have also found this frustrating. My DS is in year 8 and many of his exercise books have not been marked and then he's using them to revise despite not knowing whether his answers are correct. I can't understand why they don't have sheets or booklets to revise from.

Would it be worth at the end of the week getting him to type up his physics notes? Which would mean you could check over them. Perhaps class is moving fast or he's distracted and not taking things down correctly.

Just to clarify....I really didn't mean all secondary teachers so I apologise. I am not assuming all are the same. I realise it sounded like that reading back but I was referring to this particular post. I know from experience there are some secondary teachers like this, specifically a friend of mine, obviously there are more. I don't know how they get away with it. Don't you have book scrutinies etc in secondary?

30 children x 4 lessons a day = 120 books. Expectation I mark every single piece or chn self mark (difficult to do accurately in ks1). They then have to correct errors asap that day or next day. It's not a competition of which person's marking takes the longest....

I just think this particular teacher (and there are others like it let's face it) should be picked up on and was letting the op know that it is in no way acceptable.

DS has got the definitions for voltage and potential difference muddled.
They are largely treated as the same thing to GCSE.

He is the V, C, R triangle wrong.
They'd have been given that, suggesting he's copying things down wrong.

When it comes to charge he has muddled the concept of atomic weight and atomic number.
Why on Earth would he be referencing those in Y7 talking about charge?

Is it possible you are expecting far great understanding than is realistic from him OP? Either way, what you describe doesn't seem too coherent and it's worth a chat with the teacher and working with your son on how he revises.

Would it be worth at the end of the week getting him to type up his physics notes? No.

30 children x 4 lessons a day = 120 books. Expectation I mark every single piece or chn self mark (difficult to do accurately in ks1). They then have to correct errors asap that day or next day.

Dear god what a total waste of time. When do you plan lessons?

Don Apologies: that should have said that DS has the definitions of voltage and current mixed up.

I accept he has copied the triangle wrongly, but this should have been picked up. I've also chatted to another parent today- their DD has copied it incorrectly too.

The atomic weight and atomic number stuff is written in his exercise book. I'm not a teacher so I can't comment on whether he should be covering it at this level, but it was listed by his teacher as subtopics for the test. It's in the context of electrical charge and he's got all the terms confused.

He told me a lot of the work is presented in a quiz type format, sometimes with practicals alongside it. So he is supposed to work out tings for himself, but he's got things wrong and they haven't been marked or corrected. He also claims he has been given no worksheets.

Agree with donq

All of that in year 7 is a lot. We don't genuinely introduce Ohm's law until GCSE. Then current would have the symbol I.

Pd and Voltage are treated as the same thing at GCSE. As in the work done per coulomb or unit of charge.

And the atomic number and mass when doing static is confusing me? I am doing static on Monday with year 8. I will let them complete a practical on bending water, balloons etc. Talk about the transfer of electrons and the repel/ attraction of charge but mass number and atomic number. Heck no!

Are you sure they haven't got a cover supervisor?

I accept he has copied the triangle wrongly, but this should have been picked up.

What I mean is, if he's copying down something that simple incorrectly, it suggests there might be an issue with his attention in class. The reference to atomic weight could be a clever kid trying ideas (wrongly, which is OK) or it could suggest overpitched teaching.

I think using an exercise book as notes and trying to correct copied errors would be a stupid marking regime for Y7. Marking has other, better, purposes. I would not be surprised to see those kind of mistakes in a Y7 book.

That said, a Y7 book should not have loads of copying for that reason- ultimately you need to give the teacher a ring and ask about the work being done.

I think using an exercise book as notes and trying to correct copied errors would be a stupid marking regime for Y7. Marking has other, better, purposes. I would not be surprised to see those kind of mistakes in a Y7 book.

This exactly

Thanks for the input.

To those teachers who feel that marking a Y7 exercise book is not the best use of time (which may be right, I'm not in the teacher's shoes)- how do you get found the end result of a chaotic error filled exercise book being used as a basis for revision by the pupil?

If he hadn't asked me to test him he would merrily have memorised all the incorrect info. He has got current, potential difference, resistance, all muddled over several lessons.

His classmates book is similar (a friend kindly sent my pictures from her DD's book with similar errors).

how do you get found the end result of a chaotic error filled exercise book being used as a basis for revision by the pupil?

It would have been picked up in the topic test and corrected. Topic tests aren’t the biggest deal in secondary schools because they are so frequent. End of year tests, yes, that is considered as the culmination of what has been taken in that year and carried forward into the next year.

Don't you have book scrutinies etc in secondary?

Yes we do, in all year groups.

I'm a secondary teacher and we are actively told not to mark class notes. We spend hours a week marking anyway and to mark notes that the student has copied off the board is a terrible use of time! I mark homework/classwork tasks that are their own work (ie not copying from the board) every week and twice a week for year 10 up. I teach about 300 kids and by sixth form each essay takes up to half an hour to mark to give good feedback. It doesn't sound great that nothing is marked (although are you sure he hasn't been forgetting to hand his book in or handing in loose worksheets?) But yabvu to expect secondary teachers to check he can copy off the board, that's an assumption! The exception to this is if he has an SEN. In that case I would check.
Ywnbu to contact his teacher/form tutor to say you're worried he isn't copying down well, then they can check and see if he needs more support/ let you know he hasn't actually handed the book in.

Thinking about the difference between secondary and primary Russel19, you mark the classwork, as you wouldn’t mark a separate homework task for every single separate lesson you teach, for your class. Is it not reading, spelling through a spelling test, some maths and a half termly project/set of tasks? Therefore, marking the classbooks makes sense.
We, at secondary, in turn, mark a homework task for each of our many separate lessons not the classwork. For classwork, we do peer, self or verbal feedback/mini tests but wouldn’t be able to manage full written feedback for both classwork and homework every week.

Thinking about this further, I can’t help but wonder that the OP’s DS has access to an electronic textbook, like Kerboodle, or some other electronic resources via the school’s chosen online system.
Definitely worth an email to the teacher to clarify.

What exam are we talking about specifically?

Is it something that actually matters, or just a progress/revision test?

If it's a progress test then I imagine the teacher will notice the rubbish mark your son gets, and then look at the work he's done, find that it's rubbish, and help him out. That's often what progress tests are used for when a teacher doesn't have the time to individually check the workbooks of individual students for whatever reason. Bit weird that there's no handouts or textbook though. A subject like Physics with such a focus on rote learning of formulae should at least have a crib sheet with the equation triangles on it.

I'd just email the teacher to ask if you could have a quick chat with her about it. Then you can speak to her about your concerns rather than writing an email which may or may not be misconstrued. My DCs teachers always return requests for phone calls.

I would check what access to online resources they have - took me years to realise that kerboodle was the online text book . I thought it was some kind of maths games website.