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Original poster

Worst student teacher you have seen on placement

178 replies

icecreamandapple · 01/09/2021 20:44

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?

OP posts:
Suetully · 01/09/2021 22:26

Ah I see you said 7, not year 7 haha my bad. In fairness most 7 year olds wouldn't have a clue what was going on in the film in regards to the concentration camps and just see it as a friendship between 2 children.

JudgeJ · 01/09/2021 22:27

@Threearm

As a year 10 student I did 2 weeks work experience in a junior school with a class teacher whose maths skills were so shockingly poor she kept turning to me to correct her. It was painful.
In my first term of teacher training I had a placement in a Primary school where the teacher wrote the word 'hampster' on the board in a list of pets. I didn't know whether or not to say something, think I didn't.
notHarris · 01/09/2021 22:29

It is a 12s and I read this with a year 7 class and watched it. Didn't see the problem. Don't be so precious.

Didn't @Suetully say they were 7 years old? Not in year 7? Hmm

ohfook · 01/09/2021 22:33

Every student makes some mistakes and that's fine because if they could already do the job there'd be no need for teacher training. Most more than make up for it with ridiculously high levels of enthusiasm which I haven't managed to muster up in at least a decade.

The only ones that I would possibly describe as terrible are the ones that arrive on the first day knowing it all. Won't listen to advice and get angry when you try to guide them and blame the kids and their circumstances before they'd question their own practice. I'm not saying this is the case everywhere but everyone I have personally came across like this has been male.

Suetully · 01/09/2021 22:33

In my first term of teacher training I had a placement in a Primary school where the teacher wrote the word 'hampster' on the board in a list of pets

All teachers make spelling, grammar, math errors at some stage. That doesn't make them 'bad', it makes them human. It's only if it's constant.

me4real · 01/09/2021 22:34

Me probably! I attended 6 weeks of a PGCE and then had 6 weeks off sick, then left.

School 1) Slagged off the deputy head. That placement was pretty awful TBH, they didn't even show me where the staff room was.

School 2) Fell asleep in class (other teacher was teaching, not me, but kids were giggling as I had my head on the desk.

Turns out I had some serious health problems and stuff, and I couldn't handle the long days. I resented my evenings consisting of work too, so I couldn't have a life and see my friends.

Most people change in some ways over the course of it I think.

Backtomyoldname · 01/09/2021 22:34

We had one who was escorted from the premises mid way through the day. Whatever caused it was hushed up.

I mentored one who would pick unwinable arguments publicly with pupils. She passed but wasn’t warm and would never win anyone over.

Another copied another, qualified, teacher’s lesson plans and passed them off as his own. Didn’t go down well.

English wasn’t my subject but I had one lesson/week as a timetable filler. This group had a student, I learnt loads off her about teaching English, analysing books etc. If you’re out there Stacey well done.

One of my best learnt my form’s names in a couple of days, could talk to them as if she’d been teaching 10 years, won them round etc.

My wife worked with one, teaching IT. Never made eye contact with pupils, mainly because he continually faced the board as he filled it whilst giving a monologue/lecture. Very clever but no teacher.

Bluenotgreenmilk · 01/09/2021 22:37

Years ago I went back to collage to study hairdressing

We had a student teacher who was downright nasty in our first year

She’d follow random students around making nasty comments,if you made the smallest mistake (and being new and inexperienced I made a lot-we all did) she would scream at you in front of everyone and she’d think nothing of putting you down in front of other students/clients and then she’d laugh like it was funny-she had a few of us in tears and quite a few clients complained

She was one of those who if your face fitted then you’d be fine-only two girls did-we once had to do an up-do of a theme

She let one girl do a really good ‘Alice in wonderland’ theme-it looked amazing and took over two hours to do-then she started screaming in this girls face about how she should have shoved a playing card in it somehow and because she didn’t,this teacher failed her-another girl did the same theme but only curled her models hair with bendy curlers-half hour tops(and most of that was standing around chatting) a toddler could have done it-she passed her with a merit

She failed me for not putting make up on my (then 16 year old)daughter to ’really show it to its full advantage’ even though there was nothing in the brief about make up-my tutor had to point this out-it was hair not makeup and overturned my fail

She’d listen in on private conversations and tattle to the main tutors about you-I got into trouble for saying ‘I dont get on with my mother’ and she twisted it to ‘I wish she’d die of cancer’ which I never said and I certainly wouldn’t have said it in front of clients like she claimed I did

She passed and went on to teach in a college a few miles away

Suetully · 01/09/2021 22:37

Won't listen to advice and get angry when you try to guide them and blame the kids and their circumstances before they'd question their own practice

yea but they blame the kids because often times it is the kids who act up for the newbies. Then the experienced mentors and slt will say do x, y and z which wouldn't work for the newbie like it does for the veteran who gets automatic respect and the mentor then blames the new teacher.

Backtomyoldname · 01/09/2021 22:37

@Suetully

My daughter had a student teacher who put on the boy in striped pyjamas to watch while she marked papers. They were 7 so totally inappropriate. She told me years later

It is a 12s and I read this with a year 7 class and watched it. Didn't see the problem. Don't be so precious.

Good book and film - but not suitable for juniors.

I did this book (+ film) with my student.

KitKatKong · 01/09/2021 22:38

Don't plan, not organised, too lax with discipline and lack of resilience. It's not easy, you won't be the teacher you want to be straight away and you will make lots of mistakes. Learnt from them, listen and don't think you know best!

AttaGirrrrl · 01/09/2021 22:38

@justasmalltownmum

One who forgot he had a lesson and didn't come. Carried on sitting in the staff room.
To be fair, I’ve done this twice as a teacher Blush
BluebelllsRosesDaffodills · 01/09/2021 22:40

@Hcolhcsra

Worst one ever couldn't maintain eye contact with me or the students. He was just painfully introverted but adament this was the job for him. It was incredibly difficult watching him desperately trying to persuade his tutor he could do it whilst staring at his shoes. He should have been weeded out at interview stage.
Why can’t introverts be good teachers?
Suetully · 01/09/2021 22:41

Won't listen to advice and get angry when you try to guide them and blame the kids and their circumstances before they'd question their own practice

do you mean juniors in secondary? It's on the curriculum for them or at least it was the last time I taught English a few years ago.

Suetully · 01/09/2021 22:42

Why can’t introverts be good teachers

because many schools want the opposite these days and want teachers to build relationships with the kids and be confident and outgoing.

ProfileInsteadOf · 01/09/2021 22:42

@Verbena87

You’re going to be grand, don’t worry.

I’m an experienced teacher with consistently good or outstanding lesson observations. Here are some ways I’ve screwed up in case you need them for reassurance in the coming months…

*rushed round whacking out post it’s for a plenary activity without realising a year 9 had cunningly vandalised one or two in the middle of the stack. I walloped one down in front of a kid on his final behaviour warning and he went white with shock. It said ‘wanker’ in capital letters.

*started teaching a lesson I’d already taught that group the previous week. They told me, but not till about 10 minutes in.

*taught for 2 hours with clay smeared into one of my eyebrows

*burnt myself badly enough to blister whilst doing a health and safety demo with a glue gun.

That first story made me laugh out loud. Grin
BlueMongoose · 01/09/2021 22:44

@Threearm

As a year 10 student I did 2 weeks work experience in a junior school with a class teacher whose maths skills were so shockingly poor she kept turning to me to correct her. It was painful.
My brother had to correct his 'presumably a specialist in maths and qualified' teacher at secondary school when she loused up examples on the blackboard. Not sure which example is less excusable, yours or mine....
VeryQuaintIrene · 01/09/2021 22:44

Why can’t introverts be good teachers?

Of course we can and are, but there is a bit of acting involved and definitely a bit of downtime alone after classes is needed!

JudgeJ · 01/09/2021 22:46

@Suetully

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.

I did it once and I'd been teaching for many years, it was the Tuesday after a Bank Holiday Monday off and I got the days mixed up, thought I was on the Monday timetable.
me4real · 01/09/2021 22:47

Why can’t introverts be good teachers?

@BluebelllsRosesDaffodills They can, but my dad was a teacher and he quit as he cracked up. I know it's not rare for teachers to do that, but my mum said it was harder for him as he's quite introverted/shy. It's easier for someone more out going as you're to an extent putting on a performance every class, you're in front of an audience.

Brigante9 · 01/09/2021 22:47

Very outing but hey! A Geography student, mature lady, was failing spectacularly. She was so bad she was asked to leave. She sailed blindly on through the day despite being told quite clearly to leave. Eventually, the (male) Headteacher took her arm as she tried to escape into the toilets and walked her out. We were all mouths agape!

Another potential Teach Direct student came to be interviewed to see if we would take her on. She claimed she was fluent in Spanish. She was not. Embarrassingly, she then turned up at a different school a couple of years later for a position. My then head was very keen for me to interview her in the language. She just couldn’t manage a conversation, plus hadn’t asked for copies of the worksheet she wanted the kids to do and hadn’t written a lesson plan to give us. She was really lovely, but just hopeless, bless her!

Suetully · 01/09/2021 22:49

Of course we can and are, but there is a bit of acting involved and definitely a bit of downtime alone after classes is needed

depends on the level of introvert, some people are just really bad at connecting to others despite great subject knowledge etc.
So I saw a few in uni who were highly intelligent but socially awkward and they didn't last long in a secondary school setting and left the profession after qualifying. However I think if a few of them had gone on and done phds or whatever they'd have made brilliant university lecturers as 'building a relationship' isn't as important there.

BrozTito · 01/09/2021 22:50

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas is recommended to not be shown to kids by all sorts of holocaust remembrance organisations. Its ahistorical and has very dodgy themes like the jews being compared to other creatures and the whole 'tragic ending' being an aryan child mixed in the killing by accident

Onelifeonly · 01/09/2021 22:50

Lots of good teachers are introverts! Doesn't mean they can't relate to and communicate with children. You don't have to be bouncing off the walls to be a teacher.

BlueMongoose · 01/09/2021 22:52

@Suetully

Why can’t introverts be good teachers

because many schools want the opposite these days and want teachers to build relationships with the kids and be confident and outgoing.

Introverts can be good teachers. Being introverted doesn't mean lacking in confidence or authority (though it may mean they are not gushing 'I want to be your friend' or 'jolly hockey sticks' types- types I could never stand myself when I was at school).

Hcolhcsra's example was a problem not because he was an introvert, but because he had no confidence, and had not been properly taught in his teacher training how to become/appear so- a completely different problem.

I speak as a lifelong and dedicated introvert who despite being a 5 foot tall female who taught mostly male teenagers had a fearsome reputation for both high levels of discipline and effectiveness in terms of learning.