Worst student teacher you have seen on placement

[icecreamandapple]

About to start a PGCE very soon, just wondering are there any teachers who's had a teacher student who's been shockingly bad? Not that I am planning to be by the way, I'm just curious. Hopefully I will be ok but I keep telling myself that I'm sure some teachers would have seen some bad student teachers. Also what happens if a teacher is so bad can they get removed from the placement if it's affecting the children education and progress?

Equally as a trainee I was on the receiving end of poor mentoring, and I was probably seen as being shockingly bad, so don’t be afraid to ask for more support if you need it. I really regret not pursuing it with the university at the time as it really affected my early career. I always aim to be the mentor I wish I’d had.
Absolutely this. I had a terrible mentor (aforementioned teacher who just wandered off during a lesson I was leading, and never came back). I complained to the university and made a big fuss and was moved to a different placement. You are paying the university £9k for your training, make sure they are putting you with mentors who will actually provide that training.

@Hcolhcsra I don't want to diagnose anyone over the internet but could it be possible he may have ASD given that he struggled to make eye contact with people.

One that sat very confidently in the staff room (of a primary school) saying he was going to train for primary because all the hard work is in secondary.

The one that didn't seem to want to be around children at all (as in ewww they're getting too close)

The with so little enthusiasm it was painful watching her singing songs with the nursery children.

The one that didn't like people looking at her.

The one that started random rumours about staff.

I had one who tried to sit at the desk for the whole lesson and teach from there (Cocky 22 year old lad who had got his English degree at Oxford). He clearly thought that his degree status would mean the kids would hang off every word he spoke. They didn't. His class room was mayhem. Though he wouldn't listen to my feedback and then was shocked when his uni lectures gave him poor feedback too. 🤷‍♀️

I think it is important to remember that it takes time to develop the skills both to plan and teach. I have mentored trainees that start off poor and who develop into good teachers. The only really poor teacher trainees are those who won't put in any work or won't listen to advice. For the most part, they nearly all improve.

Basically I found that the ones who can take on board feedback and learn from mistakes (we all make them) will get through the year and become good teachers. The ones who don't, or think they know more than those who have been in the job for over a decade, fall flat and struggle to get jobs even if they do pass the course.

One PE teacher teaching science, who was just telling the kids stuff that was plain wrong. (I can't remember exactly what but something like the air you breathe out has no oxygen on and deoxygenated blood is blue)

I remember one of my secondary school science teachers saying both of these things! He also said that nobody would ever see the blue blood because it would just turn red as soon as the air hit it. This was in the 1990s - maybe PE teacher was in the same class

Mostly I had good trainees but a couple stood out as struggling...one, when asked in conversation why she wanted to be a teacher, said she thought office work would be boring and that teaching might be less boring...well, not a great start! Another wanted to pick the children up...def a no no, and spent a lot of her time with her arms folded...no time to fold your arms in a class of 30 6/7 year olds...there is always something to do!

The one who let the children draw all over her legs springs to mind.

So many! The one whose dad came from South America so claimed to speak Spanish. He didn’t, but backed me up in the staff room almost into a wall when trying to cajole me that he needed to pass.

Another, actually a very experienced teacher, who was put on competence procedures because his lessons were so awful. The headteacher told me he thought his lessons were like a student teacher but worse.

Another student who would complete the week’s target then totally ignore it the next time she was observed. Like, you have to keep hitting the targets consistently, not just once then move on!

Then me, I was probably awful. I planned a poster for my tutor coming in. It was humiliatingly awful. The host school didn’t want us, we’d been sent there immediately with zero training (very rural area without many schools) and our school mentor basically ignored us bar telling us where we couldn’t sit in the staff room!

I had a TP student in my class who came in with a huge erection in his trousers! I didn't know where to look- thankfully it didn't last long 🤮

I had some nightmare lessons as a trainee, I do have a tip I was given though. My mentor teacher told me when I was nervous and so click watching that every time I looked at the time I should compliment one of the middling kids, you know the ones, not the outstandingly good intelligent ones or the naughty ones, one of the ones who are often overlooked because they just get on with it

There are so many, but I can't share as it would be too identifying. Let's just say if you happen to teach a subject with large PGCE bursaries to tempt people in you get A LOT (the majority) of people there for the wrong reasons. Most with very little subject knowledge/interest but have done the subject conversion courses. Very few make it through to produce decent teachers at the other end.

Trainee teachers from high ranking universities assuming that just because they were successful in studying themselves, they could just walk in and the kids would listen and learn from them.

Overconfident newbies who wouldn't listen to any advice from in their view lowly support staff, TAs even though these people had been there longer and knew the kids better.

The number of teachers that l have come across who are jealous of my good relationships with students and blame their lack of classroom management on the kids listening to me and not them. Not bothering to get to know the students as individuals

@icecreamandapple quite possible but nothing diagnosed that either the school or university were made aware of. It was a tough school and if he couldn't look up at the kids he wasn't going to last long unfortunately (they were rioting).

We had one whose skirt fell off in an observed lesson. It was tight and it sort of burst and fell down. She was a lady in her 40s of stout figure wearing a g string.

How she came back from that I will never know.

Separately, she was a poor teacher anyway but oh my!!

DS1 had an NQT as his Reception teacher. She was an absolutely brilliant teacher in terms of pure teaching, but her knowledge of SEN was less than zero and she had absolutely no interest in learning.

We’ve had students with dreadful literacy skills which don’t improve despite support, inappropriate behaviour in the classroom which continues after discussions with the mentor etc

What type of inappropriate behaviour?

Not what you asked, but the best teacher by far DD had was a probationer. She did inclusion way better than all the other teachers with decades of experience.

One who forgot he had a lesson and didn't come. Carried on sitting in the staff room

Loads of people have made this error in fairness, it's not the signs of a bad teacher necessarily, just a mistake as long as it's not repeated.

The number of teachers that l have come across who are jealous of my good relationships with students and blame their lack of classroom management on the kids listening to me and not them. Not bothering to get to know the students as individuals

eugh the arrogance-get over yourself. There are teachers like you in every school who undermines others and tries to get down with the kids, it's pathetic.

The worst trainee teachers I have are ones where they think they know it all and don’t listen to advice. Most are really good.

Many of my trainees have been middling to start with but have put in the effort, prepped their socks off, responded thoughtfully to feedback and developed well in a short time. I'm sure many of the posters here have committed some howlers in their time too.

Not a teaching student but a graduate teacher in their first year of teaching and they didn’t know their times tables. One of the pupils had to repeatedly correct them. The school’s roll has decreased noticeably over recent years.

I had one who wouldn’t stop making sexual comments towards me! It was horrific. He got a verbal warning but still passed the year (on top of that he was crap too )