Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

do i have a bad reputation at school or something?

113 replies

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 20:11

I'm not really sure how to describe this as i don't know what happened myself! I was talking with some other mums from my Dc's primary school last week and I said that I thought schools should tell parents a bit about the teachers e.g. how many years teaching experience they have, what specialisms etc. The five other Mums took me up wrong.. thought I was talking about our school and got a bit heated, saying that I needed to trust the head and similar things. I tried to explain, then got fed up and left and put it out of my mind.
Then three days later the head asks to see me in private. I follow her to her room with no idea what she wants to talk about, and guess what it was? One of the mum's had spoken of her concerns and the head wnated to tell me that the teachers won't accept it and it is the school governors business anyway! She backed down a bit when I repeated exactly what I'd said and a bit more when I said I had a right to hold a private opinion. But this is weird isn't it? For that mum (whoever she is) to run to the head and for the head to request a mettign with me citing the data protction act! Or am I being unreasonable?

OP posts:

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 20:14

Oh and I suspect i know who the mum was and I am mad with her tonight! but very disappointed in the head too for listening to petty gossip and thinking it appropriate to take me up on it

OP posts:

scurryfunge · 24/05/2010 20:15

Sounds a bit odd.

Though for 5 other people to misunderstand your meaning suggests that there were communication issues here.

You are entitled to an opinion, sounds like you struck a chord with the headteacher though....facing being summoned by her, you naughty thing!

The head is being a bit defensive about something that really shouldn't worry her.

islandofsodor · 24/05/2010 20:17

YANBU.

My children's school does publish a little biog of all starters and leavers in its annual magazine and I think in newsltters too but it is an independent school.

How very odd of the other mum.

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 20:18

i think three weren't really listening and so tuned in when it seemed to be getting interesting. The other two.. one is a mean cow and the other seems to blow with the prevailing wind (as she was agreeing with me and then changed her mind). I think it was the blows-with-the-wind one who played tell-tale-tit!

OP posts:

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 20:21

They were asking me odd questions like "and what would you do if you thought your child was going to get a bad teacher next year". I said I'd talk it over with the ehad and consider changing schools. (They all gasped at this.. as though it was an outrageous thing to do).

OP posts:

scurryfunge · 24/05/2010 20:22

Just ignore them...somebody is feeling a little insecure and wants to tittle tattle to the head to gain favour.

islandofsodor · 24/05/2010 20:24

Publishing those details isn;t likely to make you think that anyway, in all schools the parents know who are the good and bad teachers.

echt · 24/05/2010 20:27

For what it's worth, I think information about a teacher's qualifications, the level, and specialisms should be available for parents. Your doctor and dentist are happy to have these pinned up on their walls.

There's only one reason for keeping this secret, and it's because a teacher is teaching outside their qualification.

They may not be bad at it, but they are not qualified. See the threads in the TES about teachers being obliged to teach a subject they only have at GCSE level!

BTW, I am teacher.

islandofsodor · 24/05/2010 20:28

echt I know an mfl teacher teaching a language that they hadn't even studied at GCSE. She learnt with the kids and actually took her GCSE that year.

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 20:29

islandofsodor - I know. we were talking about new teachers and the situation faced by parents considering sending their children to a school.
I am actually thinking there is more to this than meets the eye. But I don't knwo what. Its just really weird that the head has time to listen to reports of private conversations like this and then act on them. I mean I wasn't being racist or trying to plot to blow the school up or something!

OP posts:

islandofsodor · 24/05/2010 20:31

Well I know the qualifications and where they trained of all the teachers at the dc school and also where some of them worked beforehand.

It helos you to build a picture and makes them seem less of a strnager when your child goes to their class.

scurryfunge · 24/05/2010 20:32

I suppose she may see it as a challenge on the integrity of the school or maybe there is an ongoing investigation or complaint about the competence of one of the teachers that you don't know about.

If it is a state school, she is totally accountable and should be transparent anyway.

RunawayWife · 24/05/2010 20:33

Wow the other mum sound like a bit of a nutter.

I see no harm in saying how many years teaching someone has done or if they specialize in math, English so on.... When DS2 got a new teacher at his school who would be taking DS2s class in September there was a meeting held for the parents to come and meet him and he gave us a run down of how many years taeching, what kind of schools he had been in and what ages he had taught,

He was a great teacher and DS2 enjoyed the year he spent with him

chipmonkey · 24/05/2010 20:33

Jeez, you'd thing the days of someone running off to the head to tell tales would be left behind when you finised school yourself, wouldn't you?

She needs to get a hobby or something.

oldandgreynow · 24/05/2010 20:34

I don't think what you said is unreasonable at all.
I really don't know why schools are so sensitive about this and I don't know why school's don't actively seek feedback on teacher's performance from 'service users' ie children and parents.Can you think of any other public service that doesn't do this?

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 20:35

maybe you are right.. maybe there is something that the head is trying to hide and i have inadvertently put my foot in it.

Now I am curious, so she'd have been better off leaving well alone.

OP posts:

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 20:40

I'm afraid I was a bit annoyed and told the head that if she really wanted to know my private thoughts then I'd tell her there and then so she did not have to rely on inaccurate 2nd hand accounts in the future. By this time she was saying that she was just "giving me a chance to tell my side of the story". WTF?

OP posts:

scurryfunge · 24/05/2010 20:42

I bet you felt about 6 years old....what a cheek!

thisisyesterday · 24/05/2010 20:47

how utterly bizarre!!!! i wonder what on earth this other mum said to make the head react like that, she must have really taken what you said the wrong way!!

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 20:53

thisisyesterday - from what I could make out, she'd told the head that I thought there should be a short biog about the teachers on the school website.

(BTW I didn't say that.. or anything like it...but that seems to have been what was reported.) But still is it worth the head's time to pull me into a meeting to tell me off about it?

OP posts:

clam · 24/05/2010 21:02

Actually, I'm with the other 5 parents here, in that I don't think schools should have to justify/explain their staffing to you. It would give rise to all sorts of judgements and assumptions being made about teachers who, after all, have to be adequately qualified in order to teach - in the state system anyway. And length of experience/class of degree has nothing to do with quality anyway. There are superb teachers early on in their careers and some crap ones heading for retirement.
Having said that, I don't think it was necessary for anyone to dob you in in this way. Don't know whether this will make you feel better or worse, but at least you had a chance to explain yourself to the Head, as opposed to just being grumbled about in the staffroom!

sapell3 · 24/05/2010 21:09

Are the other parents friends with the head?

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 21:12

Clam .. I am glad to hear your view. I don#t mind one little bit that you have a different opinion from me. That's all mine was too.. I wasn't lobbying my MP for a change in the law or anything.

IMO.. there is qualified and then there is good at the job. Often the difference is experience.

But, no, I am not happy to be asked to explain myself and I don't feel better having dodged the bullet of the staff grumbling about me because I would never have expected it anyway.

OP posts:

BuzzingNoise · 24/05/2010 21:13

I'm a teacher too. I do supply at the moment and I am finding it hard to find a permanent job because of cost. I have 9 years experience and I am therefore expensive. One school was openly honest and said they employed a new teacher instead because it was £15k cheaper.
So what's better, experience or cheapness?
Perhaps the head of that school has gone for cheapness (and maybe the super-cheap option of unqualified staff)and is concerned about it.

Original poster

cryingfoul · 24/05/2010 21:13

sapell3 - I don't think so, not out of school anyway. But they have been around since she came to the school (I'm newer) and they do call her "a saint".

OP posts:

Flip

1 2 3 4 5