Any advice on the most effective way to deal with a bad teacher

[threesenough]

I need advice. My dd's teacher is failing her whole class. I think she has been a good teacher in the past but I - and other parents I have spoken to - feel that she has been in her job too long and has become jaded and can't be bothered.
In every other year at school my dds has enthused about her teachers and in turn teachers have told me how much she loves learning. This year she has become disengaged, bored, despondent. It can only be down to a poor teacher. Next year we are faced with another notoriously poor teacher. In that case I know of mums who petitioned to have her removed or at least shifted to teach a different year that was less crucial to children's educational development (! Not sure which year that could be!!!). Nothing was done.
I feel really powerless to counteract the adverse effects that the combination of two lazy teachers can have on so many children in Y4 and Y5. Other parents who have already been through this stage at our school refer to this as 'the lost years' or 'the wilderness years'.
What is the most effective way to address this issue?Can anyone advise?

Much better post mrz.

really amillionyears? So you now agree that the OP is gossiping and acted unwisely?

Im, agreeing with your post of 18.42, no no no not the rest.

You just have no idea what is actually going on with this teacher.

I completed my NQT year in year 1 and stayed for a second year. I did very well. Everyone was really happy with the children's progress, so the Head - in his wisdom - gave me a year 5 class the following year who were notorious for being a difficult class. At the same time, he decided to theme all of the planning, so we started from scratch (I had never taught in year 5, so that was difficult in itself). I was also given a core curriculum responsibility and was in charge of all the ICT (teaching and technical support). I also had a student teacher to mentor and 3 after school clubs to oversee (I was music co-ordinator too).

It was way too much. I did my absolute best, but it was completely impossible. The class (many of whom had not made progress since year 2), had completely got out of the habit of working. They didn't want to do anything. No matter how much I threw at the lessons to spice them up and get them interested, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming (literally at times) through every lesson. They were more interested in arguing with each other.

After the first half term, the Head decided to give them a fresh start and mixed up the two year 5 classes to make two new ones, but gave me no time to get a handover from the other teacher. No time to set up systems, reading folders, Assessment data, books...anything.

I worked so hard, but things started to slip. I know for a fact that I wasn't giving the children what I needed from them. I wasn't keeping the marking up to date. My hair fell out. I lost tonnes of weight. I was sick every morning on the way to school.

After a couple of unpleasant incidents involving the Head appearing in my classroom demanding to see my books and calling me in to his office to berate me about being behind with my marking, I had enough and ended up in a psychiatric unit.

..and now I think there may have been parents gossiping about me failing their children at the school gates. The parents would have no idea what I was going through. They would also have no idea how the dynamics of that class were having such a bad impact on the children's learning. They just didn't get along and could not focus on anything for more than a few minutes. I was two years into teaching - and had been good with infants. I was way out of my depth.

The Head has since admitted that he failed me by putting way too much on my plate, but the damage to my confidence has been done.

Please accept that the Head is probably aware of any difficulties, but will not tell you exactly what is happening with an individual teacher. I have long believed that confidence is vital to teaching and, if it takes a bashing from something like this, it can have a downward spiralling effect on the standard of learning in a classroom.

Forgot not to engage with mrz!

if I'd waited to canvass opinion on an internet forum or even gossiped in the playground it is doubtful that events in post of 18:42 would have occurred amillionyears so there you go.

So sorry how your teaching career ended Lifeissweet.
And after all your hard work.Doesnt sound as if the Head was sensible about what he or she did.
If you dont mind me asking,do you think it would have been better with hindsight, if you had left teaching earlier,or did you try and get put back to the classes you were fine with and they didnt let you.

I am still teaching! I just managed to carve out a less stressful path. I teach in the same school - I didn't want to feel like a failure - I needed to get straight back in and achieve something.

I teach ICT to the whole school now while the class teachers take their PPA. I am doing all the bits of teaching I love to do without so much of the rubbish paperwork. I know I am a good teacher and I love it. That year, though, I can imagine just how it looked from the outside - like I was a bad teacher and the children were suffering. I'm not saying I'm brilliant, but Ofsted came in a few months ago and were really impressed by my planning and and progress tracking for the children in their ICT lessons (I gave birth the day they called, so I missed them - cheers, DD!) - and I met my performance management targets for the year in the first term before I went off on maternity leave.

I really dislike that idea of petitioning to get rid of a teacher- unless there is something horrendously wrong with them, like peddling sexist or racist propaganda in the classroom (how often does that happen?). Complaints should be about what you have actually witnessed or have a firsthand account of from your own child.

Petitioning becomes a witch hunt- the sort of thing that people commit suicide over. You need to be very careful. See the Head with definite concerns about your own child.

cory, my guess is they didnt know there were "proper" ways to go about it.
My guess is they just did the thing they could think of.

Lifeissweet, that is great.
So glad for you.

Lifeissweet your example shows one thing though. Children might a 'bad year' with a teacher which isn't caused by the teacher herself (or himself) but by the bad decisions of the HT.

In which case, going to see the HT isn't going to help unfortunately.

I think most people realise that ganging up on someone isn't acceptable

hmmm 12 hours later and no OP?

amillionyears Sun 20-May-12 19:27:00
"cory, my guess is they didnt know there were "proper" ways to go about it.
My guess is they just did the thing they could think of."

Yup, and the parents who march into reception and shout verbal abuse at the staff are also doing the thing they could think of because they didn't know there were proper ways to go about it. Doesn't excuse them imho. Any adult has the responsibility to think through what it would be like to be on the receiving end of their actions before they act.

Besides, ime most schools do actually include information on the complaints procedure in their prospectus.

Oh yes, second that bad year thing. Classes can just be awful for no reason atall. It is just the mixof kids! Often removing one or two changes the whole class dynamics

Any changes in your child's behaviour should be discussed promptly with the classteacher. There is no point waiting for ages, discussing it with others on the playground and then deciding that it must be the teacher's fault. It may well be the case but if the teacher is not aware then s/he cannot change their behaviour. This will not help your child.

I don't believe that there are lots of bad teachers. Most enjoy their jobs and the rewards of inspiring children. Sometimes a teacher gels more with some children than others (and that is why it is a good thing that most classes have a different teacher every year in primary) but they should care about all the children in their class regardless.

Talk on the playground about teachers can be very negative. Very 'us and them'. Surprising considering that surely both teacher and parents want the same things for a child.

Teachers are accountable to HT, lesson observers, Ofsted etc. I should imagine it is quite difficult to be a 'rubbish' teacher.

aniseed has one of your dcs had a bad teacher?

Because I have seen some and one of them was very bad.
eg she told me it was my fault if my dc has problems at school because I am bringing my dcs bilingual.
She also said that dc has no issue with language (even though I did raise the issue with her several times in the year). Move a couple of months and a different teacher. The language situation was bad enough that the teacher asked for a SALT assessment. She was, amongst other things, saying that my child couldn't understand her and she couldn't understand what he was saying either.... The first teacher said he was lazy....

That teacher is teaching at the same school and, from I can gather, hasn't change that much.

I have come across bad teachers in my day. But I still don't think
jumping to conclusions is very helpful to anyone, certainly not to the child. The OP has not provided any evidence of anything unhelpful said or done or omitted by this particular teacher: even if I were privately convinced that every other teacher on the planet is crap I would still like to see that before I make my mind up.

What comes first? Chicken or egg? Do parents gather in the playground and talk about school teachers not performing because said teacher is rubbish or because they fancy a fight?

In my experience teachers are discussed in the school yard. If they're doing a great job there will be lots of praise. If they're doing an acceptable job not much gets said. If they're doing a god-awful job, parents talk. Kids are unhappy and parents feel the need to check, is it my child having an issue or is this down to the teacher?

I accept that teachers can have a bad day/week/term/year, but if it's your child that's caught in the middle of it all, you have every right to complain. It's not about witch-hunts, it's about looking after your kids and ensuring that problems with education are highlighted. If Head teachers don't know there are problems in their classrooms, generally they won't be able to sort them out.

flabberghasted - totally agree. All I was trying to say in my previous post was make sure you have some facts to back up claims that teachers are failing, before going to the head. Yes, there ARE bad teachers ... but there are also good teachers who are wrongly assessed by parents who have never been in the classroom, and in the case of a couple of people I know - easier to blame the teacher than to accept that their DCs have problems (NOT aimed at OP, based on past experience) ... which isn't fair on the teacher OR the children IMO

Surely, that's why you go and see the teacher first and then the HT?

And also why it is worth asking (eg on MN) before going to see the HT flaming a teacher that is actually doing their job.

I do think that having a chat with others about teachers can be useful if you are able to make up your own mind afterwards and not just rely on gossiping on the playground.

eg by gossiping on the playground, I learnt that the person in charge of dc2 class 1.5 days a week is actually a teacher and not a TA as I thought she was. For me, she was a TA who worked with dc2 class the previous year. It was nice to learn that she is a teacher and actually such a good one that schools in the area are doing their best to make her change schools to theirs.

Thanks for all the feedback. I posted a plea for advice on what to do. I am not leading a vendetta against a teacher or asking for her to be sacked. It's the second child I have in this teacher's class and first time round I thought she was brilliant. This time round she just doesn't seem interested. And I've just discovered that there are lots of other parents who are thinking the same thing. Parents need to share their concerns. Is that then gossip?

So glad you are back.Sounds like the teacher may have personal issues.
How long ago was your other child in her class?
Do the parents think the teaching has been slowly going down hill, or is it a recent/sudden development.