Would you say anything about this teacher?

[Putmorewoodontfirelad]

I’m not the type to tell on a person, especially a teacher as I know how hard it can be, but i’m wondering if I have a duty to say something or just to keep my nose out.

I tutor a Year 8 student and help with homework and revision for tests. We were studying for her History and Geography tests and couldn’t find much info in her books and she said that’s all the work they had done. She proceeded to say the teacher never teaches them anything, gets angry and says ‘I’m not teaching today’ and puts his head down and reads at his desk, on a fairly regular basis or walks out a lot.
He’s only 23, so a reason could be inexperience, but she’s told me a few times now and i’m not sure what i’m supposed to do with the information, if anything?

@Darkdiamond 100% similar experiences. Where were you, out of interest?

I would speak to her parents and encourage them to speak to the school if you can. It's really up to them to make a complaint.

You should speak to the parents to let them know what is going on and they can decide whether to complain or not.
I don't think a tutor should be ringing a school and complaining about a teacher because a tutee said the teacher does nothing in the lessons and just reads. I tutor and sometimes some kids say any old thing about their class teachers which I always take with a pinch of salt. I would never dream of contacting the school and complaining. One issue with that is that you should not reveal who you are tutoring and the school might be able to work out which child it was and then you haven't protected the anonymity of your tutee.
You are right to be concerned though if there is very little work in the book and you should certainly discuss this with their parents.

Absolute bollocks.... international schools rely on their reputation. Ive worked in several. The scrutiny is intense

So no teacher mentions their
Husband or wife? Come on....

If this is true, that’s genuinely bizarre. It sounds like the kind of burnout that would take decades of work to build up. If he really is like this after just a year or so, I wonder why he entered the profession in the first place. It’s also hard to see how a first year teacher could possibly get away with that for more than a day or two.

The only explanation I can think of would be if he was having an acute episode of some mental illness (eg depression). But even then, it would have been noticed quickly.

Sorry but I went to an International school and the standards were definitely not high. In fact, I remember our Maths teacher telling students that the sum of the angles of a triangle may or may not be 180 degrees - it drove me absolutely crazy trying to convince my fellow pupils that the angles of a triangle cannot be 181 or 179 degrees 🤯

Definitely say something. I don't bet a child would completely make this up. It may be exaggerated but there will be truth in it.

We had a biology teacher who used to leave us to write the information from text books into our exercise books - he would leave the room and not supervise us.

Turns out he was having an affair with one of the lab technicians

Not many of us passed our 'O' level biology

@Maddy70 Definitely not true in these International schools, I can assure you.

Definitely report it. There are so many terrible teachers phoning it in across the international schools sector. Definitely report it. He is 23. He can get a new job. The arrogance to think he could do this and there be no consequences makes me - as a teacher - furious!

No. At first let your Year 8 student speak to the form teacher. That’s what they are there for and can help/ You aren’t there and don’t know first hand and a 13/14 year old is capable enough of speaking to the form teacher.

I know we’re not supposed to leave the students unattended to use the toilet. I always assumed that rule also covers leaving the room to sleep with the lab technician.

So have I, and it's definitely not absolute bollocks. There absolutely are teachers like this on the international circuit. I taught in a school and the Year 6 teacher's only qualification was a TEFL certificate. And you could tell!

Are the standards high? Every child that I've had return to the English system from an international school (some in mainland Europe, some in the Middle East) has had significant gaps and been noticeably behind where the international school had reported they were to their parents.

I think I’d be having a conversation with the parents and getting them to complain.

My school made me teach the extended Maths class and 2 GCSE History classes and I’m an English teacher!

I would bring it up with the parents and let them contact the school. I had 2 teachers like this in secondary school believe it or not! Our maths teacher would quite often just get us to do our workbooks and swan off out of the classroom for half the lesson. Popping his head back in every so often to make sure we were being quiet. Our GCSE applied science teacher would disappear for a whole double lesson and tell us to read our textbooks. We didn't learn squat and obviously just pissed about the entire time. After the first year when it became apparent that she had taught us absolutely nothing, she was replaced with someone else. I've no idea how she got away with that. The only thing she ever taught us was that she was an enthusiastic member of a tractor club 😂 For reference this was in early 2000s and in South West England.

I am a teacher and that's shocking! I'd at least show the parents if not raise it yourself. The school will very quickly be able to look at other students' books to compare and establish the facts.

One would think

Sometimes we got a bit noisy and he would charge back into the room and slam the door and the test tubes would fall off the racks and smash and of course he'd shout at us

Considering this was a girls grammar school back in the 60s you would have thought they have better staff

We won't talk about the maths teacher and the history teacher, suffice to say they wouldn't be allowed to teach today

i would speak to her parents, tell them what she told you and leave it to them to follow up.

Oh Jesus! I literally could have let the ground swallow me up when trying to explain long division to a year 7 class 😭

I can believe this. I once walked past a classroom to see the supply teacher (long term cover, so not day to day) with his feet up on the desk reading a newspaper. I also returned to my own classroom early having finished an exam to see the cover teaching on social media while the class ran riot. I’d tell the parents.