To send college an email after no teacher for a year?

[Mnetter11]

My DD 17 attends college and will be taking her 3 A levels in 60 days. She is very upset as she is currently getting D’s in one of her subjects (background: she is achieving A’s in her other two and was achieving A’s in this subject last year.) This subject has had no teacher for the whole second year and have had around 10 supply/agency teachers. She is very disheartened as her dream universities and apprenticeships are now out the window.

We’ve both made many complaints throughout the year to the head of year who has promised there would be a permanent teacher soon. I’m not in a financial position to pay for private tutor but feel very sorry for DD and not sure what to do next.

AIBU to contact the college about emailing somebody higher to put in another complaint (I am worried the college will turn on DD if I do this as they’ve been no help previously) ?

Is there any educational boards I can put in a complaint too?

It is usually much more expensive for the college to pay for supply and agency teachers. They will be very keen to get a permanent teacher if they can. It's not from a lack of will on their part, or stinginess.

I don't think complaining will do any good at all.

As for the suggestion upthread of contacting your mp - I had to laugh, what can they do in this situation?! If no one is applying to teach there, they can't get someone. The best an MP could do is lobby for better working conditions etc to boost retention in general. Not magic up a shortage-subject teacher out of thin air

Depending on the subject I know some students have used uplearn to cover the course. Though at this late stage she would have to put serious work in.

It has a cost but it much less than a tutor. If you say the subject someone here might be able to help as well.

Putting in a complaint shouldn’t affect your daughter and with only a couple of months to go they couldn’t disadvantage her now. But what do you hope for an outcome? They can’t change the crap teaching.

Ask for them to print out the curriculum for that subject (you can do it yourself too) so she can cover everything herself at home or the library. My son’s A level teachers were woefully poor so we did it ourselves. Not ideal but he did get to uni.

You and DD are going to have to throw some time and/or money at the problem yourselves.

Forget the teacher situation. It's too late. You need:

A CGP revision guide for the right specification
The exam board endorsed textbook
To say what the subject is either here or on the Staffroom thread so people can point you towards good quality free resources
To download all the past papers and DD needs to start practicing all the different types of questions and then use the resources above to fill any knowledge gaps
(Possibly pull some strategic sickies if the cover teachers are actually confusing her - this is more of an issue than lack of teaching ime)
Change her mindset. She is independent and resilient. She is going to succeed!

Signed, a teacher who taught myself Physics GCSE, Statistics A level and most of an Economics degree in similar circumstances...

Yes and the specification! Make sure it's for the right board and course. They're all freely available on the exam board websites.

My sons school did this for his Maths GCSE and were adamant that while it wasn't ideal, they were doing nothing wrong.

3 strategies here 1. do make the formal complaint to the relevant authorities and cc your mp. 2. Inform ucas that they have not had a teacher since summer 23, and supply if possible her interim grades from then, then state predictions now. Finally and most importantly 3. Help her get the full specs for the course off the internet and order the study guides for that specification, cgp are what we used.

Many sympathies because this happened to one of my dc, though thankfully she was doing 4 a levels, she was able to drop it therefore.

Hi everyone, thank you for all the advice. I understand that there is a struggle to recruit teachers but DD is the second year of the college offering a levels which I don’t think it should offer the course if there is no long term plan of a teacher.

And for the other posts about it being something else, it could be but it doesn’t seem likely when the other 7 people in her group have also seen their grade drop dramatically.

Tough one. I feel for your daughter but there are things that can be done. Why is she getting Ds exactly? Is it lack of understanding or lack of content?

Years ago I had a terrible teacher for one of my A levels. Everyone got Ds and Es apart from me. I got an A because about 3 or 4 months before the exams I figured nobody would teach me so I had to do it myself. I sat down and figured it all out on my own (and it was a complex subject). I even stopped going to school for a while so I could revise. Ended up with straight As and went to Oxbridge. It's doable but she (not you, not the school) needs to take ownership of her learning. If she's genuinely smart she can do it.

It is Economics A level!

if anyone had resource suggestions which could help with that :)

she is fine with the knowledge but unsure of how to structure her answers. She is scoring low on her tests but there is no feedback given so she’s unsure or how to improve .

To be brutally honest, with 6 weeks to go, she should be purely in revision mode. I don't think any remdial action is going to make any difference now.

I would look at specific revision texts from her exam board. They cover content and also provide structures and worked example.

BBC Bitesize show videos on how to answer questions for the different GCSE exam boards so I’m sure they will do the same for A Level.

You can also contact the exam board. E.g what is the structure for a 20 mark question.

If this is her downfall, is there anything you could cut back on so your daughter could have 1-2 hours of tuition on the topic of how to structure her answers

Which exam board is she doing. My DS and his friends have written themselves a revision guide that he’d be happy to share. He’s doing Edexcel. It might be more content than how to structure questions though.

DS was in similar position last year with maths and is re-sitting this year and doing much better. He decided to re-sit economics too, despite getting a good grade, as he was disappointed not to get an A star.

It’s actually been really good for him, he’s reflected on his course choices, matured, worked and saved money.

60 days is honestly too late to do anything other than revision plus some intensive tutoring if you can find a suitable one at short notice. Get hold of the syllabus and any exam board resources.
Complaining won't make a jot of difference unfortunately as there is a massive teacher recruitment crisis.

Which subject OP? Does your DD have a scheme of work to at least follow and text books? Could you get her a tutor for a month to sort out gaps and improve skills?

This is the state of education in England today. Fewer and fewer teachers available. Less and less specialist teaching.

Use your vote carefully.

I feel quite sure that the school are acutely aware that the class has been let down, OP. At this point, I would be asking if there is anyone teaching the subject to other classes and/or other years in school and if their timetables can be rejigged to support this class in the time they have left. But don't be offended if they say no.

https://uplearn.co.uk/economics/?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=UK_Search_Generic_Economics&utm_content=A%20Level%20Economics&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw7-SvBhB6EiwAwYdCAWmxYCn0GkEtxqPe6uPg9tBmTN50SygCMuPAg-I2XN06Z_BJC0b6pRoCAMYQAvD_BwE

they have a 3day free trial so your daughter can see if it works for her. I’m using it for my son in Physics as he has missed a lot of course due to ill health.

Going to address the first part of the course, they probably did have a plan for the future and then the teacher left. Teachers aren’t tied in to guarantee 2 years (and with teaching both year groups that would never work) and can give 1/2 terms notice to leave which is already a longer notice period than most jobs. It is just really unfortunate that the college weren’t able to replace the lost teacher.

To be honest I think I would finish the year, see what grades were achieved and then take a year out, get tutored in Economics externally and retake next year, get a part time job and reapply for uni next year.

You certainly should complain. The college have totally failed her but there's very little they can do about it now.

However I would urge her to not give up on the universities that have higher minimum grades. The admissions tutors are real people not "computer says no" automatons and you can phone them and talk to them. Many courses with normally high admissions standard grades will make an exception for a bright and keen student who has been without a teacher for a year and achieves a lower grade basically self-taught. At university the skill of being able to self-teach is vital as you don't get spoonfed the answers so portaying herself as more university-ready due to this challenging experience may actually work in her favour. She may need to do an extra "foundation" year but there's funding for that so not a huge barrier.

Schools and colleges generally do have a plan. Then something happens and that goes out of the window.

No educational establishment wants to be in that position, but it isn’t until families are so directly affected, that they begin to realise what a shit show the current situation is.

My daughter was affected at GCSE. Certainly not so badly, but she dropped from an A* to a B, some years ago.

Education is in crisis. Those who are in power have no concern, because their children are either past the age of formal education or in fee paying schools.

I'm a teacher and in these circumstances would advise your daughter to take a gap year and not to sit exams for the problematic subject this year. This is because if she gets a disappointing result she will have to enter it on her UCAS form even if resitting and it may reflect poorly on her which is unfair given the circumstances. Given that she is an A student I would be unwilling to compromise on my choice of courses due to these circumstances. There is no penalty whatsoever for deferring and it may be of great benefit if she uses the year off wisely to travel/gain relevant experience/thoroughly research and prepare for the course of study she wants

Look at the exam board website for past papers and matching mark scheme and Examiners report which goes through common student misconceptions on the specific paper, it'll help her know what to include and how to phrase her answers.

60 days is not too late if she focuses but she'll need to get a move on and probably to do it with you to help her.

So you think teachers are not particularly relevant to the success of students. Wow. Great way to insult teachers.