Trying not to be a teacher bashing thread, but should I complain?

[mathgenius]

My DS attends a private school and is currently in YR6. When he joined in YR4 he had a standardized score in maths of 120 which has dropped to 80. Before lockdown started I had already contacted the school to ask why his maths had slipped and apparently it is nothing to do with the school or the teachers it is all due to my son and his overconfidence leading to mistakes.

Since lockdown started the school has agreed to move him up a maths set to see how he does with the "elite children". The system set up by the school is brilliant and I could imagine it working well if the teachers could teach, lockdown learning has been a real eye-opener for me.

Every day, without fail, the teacher makes basic mathematical mistakes. He has taught the children to calculate the area of a circle incorrectly, he has told them the wrong way to calculate the volume of a cube and apparently if you divide 800 cups of coffee between 200 people everyone would have drunk 0.25 cups of coffee each. There has not been one day where the teacher hasn't made mistakes and I am talking about simple, basic mathematics. These children are starting senior school in September with the incorrect foundations.

I have already raised one mistake with the teacher and he said that he could not imagine how it had happened and that he is working from home whilst trying to homeschool his own children, but this is a mistake that has been made repeatedly over the course of several weeks so I'm lead to believe that he honestly feels that he is getting it right which is worrying.

Should I keep quiet or should I complain to the head teacher? If I keep quiet all the other children will move up to YR7 not knowing the basics but my son will, which could give him an advantage. I feel that I should complain as this teacher could use the same resources next year and the year after.

I'm also slightly peeved because the school is still charging 100% fees and I feel that the education should be better than this.

Any advice on how to deal with this tactfully would be appreciated.

To be honest I would complain with screen shots if you have them. I am a teacher and I check everything thing I do over and over as it is vital it is right. If the teacher is not strong in maths they should be supported to improve.

Also it doesn't matter if this is a private or a state school these mistakes as stated are not what should be happening by an educator.

Parents have been told not to record any of the teaching sessions, nothing was said about taking screen shots of presentation after the lesson so that is what I have been doing.
I'll email the head after half-term.
I'm relieved that the school isn't opening after half-term so I can keep an eye on the situation.
Thank you.

Private school teachers often have terrible teachers. Send him to a state school.

Private school teachers often have terrible teachers.

Indeed, numerous studies have shown the average quality of teaching is worse but that isn't why you send a kid to private school.

You do it for contacts, for opportunities state schools can't afford, because all the kids they meet will be of a similar class to yours, because lessons won't be bogged down by poor behaviour and because they are good at training kids to pass exams.

Private school kids dominate many professions- that's what you are buying.

I wonder how the school haven't noticed that the teacher isn't strong in maths. You would think the children would be all over it,

Teaching the wrong method to do something like the area of a circle is inexcusable. I can hardly see how that would come about. You will be ab,e to use the work that your son has completed to show the head I suppose. My own dd has had a year of a poor French teacher and the children noticed very quickly.

They were taught that TTr2 is the area of a circle which is correct. Then the teacher tried to step up his game and taught them that you can also use the formula TTd2/2 which is wrong, it should be TTd2/4, the children haven't noticed because as this is the way they have been taught and they're being told that they are right.
Apparently if you divide cm3 by 100 you get m3, this is also wrong, I would have needed to order over 30 lorries of ready mix to fill a foot squared hole in the garden.
If DS was in a lower year I would have already handed in our notice but we only have 5 weeks of online learning left.

Private school teachers often have terrible teachers.

Bite me.

How on earth do you think it would go down on a MN thread if I stated - with zero evidence to back up my post - that "state school teachers often have terrible teachers"? Quite apart from the illiteracy of the statement, obviously.

There's no need for a teaching qualification.

Now for some, this is fine. But knowing how kids learn, how to structure a curriculum and scheme of work, pedagogical thinking is important.

I do think sometimes private schools/parents conflate clever/academic person = good teacher.

I've worked in multiple state and private schools. Any school can have bad teachers. It's how they then deal with them that matters. A really good private school may well have a higher proportion of very good (or at least very highly qualified) teachers because they pay more. A poor private school may well have a higher proportion of bad teachers than a state school because they often take on teachers with no teaching qualifications. It's ridiculous to generalise about all state or all private schools though.

Anyway...yes you should complain, OP. This is not teacher bashing, it's a legitimate complaint about a specific teacher who is not doing their job properly (particularly galling as you're still paying 100% fees!).

Don't ignore incorrect Maths. I would raise it with him again first.

I'm surprised that none of the other parents have noticed. I suspect they have.