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Do schools ever get rid of crap teachers?

40 replies

LuLulota · 09/03/2018 10:00

Just that really .
Despite multiple parent and other staff complaints, poor pupil performance and terrible pastoral care a particular teacher continues to be employed in our school .
Absolutely dreading next year where I anticipate another one of my children will have to ensure a year of shitty instruction .

OP posts:
filga · 11/03/2018 11:16

I taught for over 20 years and have come across some poor teachers. In the schools I taught in they never lasted long.

filga · 11/03/2018 11:24

Posted too soon,
They were generally 'performance managed' out, failing observations led to more scrutiny and more observations, and in the end they jumped before they were pushed.
A bigger problem than poor teaching, is parent gossip about teachers. I've seen ok teachers have a great reputation with parents (because they're good at parent chit chat, or positively target children of 'those parents' ) and solid teachers have poor reputations (for a variety of reasons).
SLT also favour some teachers over others for reasons beyond teaching.

AlexanderHamilton · 11/03/2018 11:28

It took about 3 years to get rid of a poor teacher at dd’s School. Dh teaches at the same school so I had some insight. Her gcse class just chatted about world issues for 1 year covering none of the syllabus. There were several child protection & confidentiality issues (she told dd’s Class confidential medical/mental health info about a 6th former & when dh complained she took it out on Dd.

Problem was she was high up in the union.

BlarneyRubble · 11/03/2018 11:39

@Olennaswimple - I’m not sure why the scenario I outlined is ‘exactly the problem’. It happens in many industries, not just teaching. In the case I referred to, the teacher left education altogether.

I think there is a lot of witch hunting by parents. I remember at my son’s primary school there was a teacher loads of parents were bitching about, apparently she ‘hated boys’ and was going to be a big problem, parents were already up in arms before the children even started with her. My son had a good year with her, liked her and made good progress Hmm

BoneyBackJefferson · 11/03/2018 11:43

OlennasWimple
Fewer than 20 teachers have been dismissed on performance grounds in England in the last ten years. I think most teachers in England are bloody marvellous, but no-one could seriously think that there have only been 20 poor performers in that time...?

I have seen teachers teachers that have been dismissed on poor performance grounds excel at other schools. It is not always so simple as "they are a poor teacher".

But then I have also seen very good teachers being hounded out of positions by parents, SLT and governors because they dislike the teacher.

Appuskidu · 11/03/2018 11:45

Poor performance is ignored (in my experience) if they're cheap

I totally agree!

TheFallenMadonna · 11/03/2018 11:49

You can get rid of a teacher in 6 weeks if you have the stomach for it. Usually it doesn't happen like that because school leaders recognise that there are complexities with measuring teacher performance, even where parents don't.

Sillybilly1234 · 11/03/2018 11:50

Bad teachers do exist. We had a terrible teacher.

DS learned nothing.

Homework designed to no markings necessary. Basically, play a game with your parents and tell me who won!

Six week project work handed back with the next project title and no comments on first project. Not even a mark to show she had read it. No praise or constructive criticism. What a waste of time.

When I complained, she became vindictive with my son.

He was terrified of her.

We were allocated her for year 6 so we took him out of the school. Could not risk his education and mental health.

Awful, awful woman.

preggersteach · 11/03/2018 11:52

I have to say i disagree, in my experience, that poor performance is ignored if they're cheap. I tend to find that staff who end up on some form of capability resign before they are sacked.
Teaching is such a hard situation due to lack to recruitment these days as well that if there is a panic that is a teacher is gotten rid of what is the alternative? Inconsistent supply? There is a real recruitment crisis in teaching and so it's not that easy especially part way through a year. Staff are usually worked with to improve on areas they have seen to have significant weaknesses in and most usually do pull it back enough to get the competency off their back for the short term but often these teachers are on these support plans for much of their career.

RandomMess · 11/03/2018 11:53

There was one at the DC primary the SL were supporting her etc. She asked to go part time - they declined, she left and no longer teaches. Nice enough but control a class.

YoureAllABunchOfBastards · 11/03/2018 11:59

If teachers are genuinely dreadful it's very very hard for them to keep going.

However, it depends on what the issue is as to what course of action is taken. Any serious safeguarding issue is dealt with under strict guidelines. Poor teaching requires a support programme. Gross misconduct can be pretty much instant dismissal. None of this information becomes public knowledge - I am a senior leader in a school and I'm not privy to details in many situations.

The other issue for schools is the massive recruitment crisis - is it better to have a weak teacher with support in place, or potentially a string of random supply staff with no subject knowledge?

grasspigeons · 11/03/2018 11:59

something I have seen since working at a school (4 years in admin v a 19 year not working in education career) is how 'watched' teachers are compared to a lot of office type jobs. Its hard to be really terrible as they are constantly being monitored and having to justify their data.

So every teacher in the school I work at has a peer observation and feedback, a SLT observation and feedback and a governor observation and feedback, each term and then practice OFSTED inspections, and then they have pupil progress meeting where they literally talk through how each child is performing and why x y an z haven't made the right level of progress. They have 5 training days as well. I can see how they can vary and some aren't as good at some things as others - and how they can try things they think might work, but they don't work how they expected on that day - but its not an environment that its easy to coast or be really terrible in.

ChocolateWombat · 11/03/2018 13:21

There are a number of things which make judgements about teachers and discipline or sacking if needed difficult.

One is that parents are understandably very invested in their children, but don't see the full picture. This isn't the parents fault ...of course they don't know the full picture as they aren't there all day and don't necessarily know about lots of things going on outside the classroom that the teacher is or isn't doing and other demands from the school. Individual parents and groups of parents do make judgements about teachers and some make complaints. Some of these are justified and warranted and some aren't really....but especially when a group start jumping up and down, schools have to investigate of course. And some schools are better at spotting the differences between parental dislikes and things which make a poor teacher and throw which aren't. There are schools which lean over backwards to keep parents on side and are not supportive of staff.

Of course there are things which parents need to complain about....but it is all complicated by parents thinking they have the full story and know exactly what the teacher is and isn't doing.....but they don't.

Schools need to investigate complaints from parents or issues raised by children or other staff sensitively but objectively too. Sometimes someone gets a bad name with parents or children and it can be difficult then to be dispassionate in investigating and helping.

And what warrants dismissal or disciplinary action? For many parents it's a lack of obvious marking in ex books. But schools will,tell you that feedback needs to happen, but it's not just written feedback by staff but peer feedback, self feedback, verbal feedback by staff etc etc....it all becomes a bit more tricky then for parents to judge....quality isn't just the amount if red or green pen. And marking is just one element of teaching. There's lesson preparation if individual lessons, fitting them into the wider schemes of work which develop skills and content over a longer time period, there's tracking of progress, there's classroom control, there's explaining, there's making fun and interesting, there's developing test skills......most parents would be very hard pushed to comment accurately on an individual teachers strengths in each of these areas...but they all make up teaching.

Parents do get a sense from children about teachers. Sometimes the sense is that someone is not popular,msometimes it's that they don't have great control, sometimes it's that they don't explain clearly. Or all kinds of things.

Personally I'd simply say it doesn't help to decide or state 'X is a bad teacher ' but if you have concerns,more port the exact things you are concerned about. Then it has to be left to the school to investigate and decide if this particular thing is an issue or not and if it is part of a bigger problem or not.

In most jobs, people have to carry out many tasks. They might be better at some than others, but being weaker at one won't necessarily make them overall incompetent.....but this is the judgement many teachers seem to get from parents.

All of this isn't to say that there aren't useless people out there. There are some who simply don't work hard enough or efficiently enough or who don't think ahead enough to a manage the multifaceted thinking ahead which is needed to make it all work and get everything that needs to be planned, covered and recorded dealt with. Absolutely,me very child deserves teachers who can teach them effectively, even if they do have areas of strength and weakness.

Is it going to improve? Well teachers are under great scrutiny as mentioned above. They are observed and observed and their paperwork is looked at they have to give account for progress frequently....things don't stay hidden for lomg. And at the same time and because of both workload and scrutiny and pay issues and morale, huge numbers are leaving and they are massively struggling to recruit....so will the top quality people be coming into teaching? Probably not.

In my view the funding crisis will make standards in state schools decline to a point of such crisis that by the time the government decide to invest and act, it will take a generation to turn it around from a very low base for the industry.

How depressing.

Hoppinggreen · 12/03/2018 09:32

I remember being at a wedding where the Bride was a teacher and there were quite a few teacher guests.
I ended up in a ( friendly) argument with one who was telling me that there was no such thing as a bad teacher because even if they weren’t very good at actually teaching children they might have other skills! Most of the other teachers agreed but some didn’t. One who didn’t agree said that unless he actually punched a child he was pretty safe, whatever his abilities which he thought was nuts.
I would imagine that teaching children would be a key skill for being a teacher
We have some amazing teachers here who work long hours and have to deal with a huge amount of shit from parents and children that they shouldn’t have to but there are some who are pretty bad and unfortunately I think that unless they do something awful they are pretty untouchable

OlennasWimple · 12/03/2018 13:03

Hopping - I have had similar conversations with groups of teachers

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