Can parents have any influence on teacher allocation for next term

[jackieuhoh]

DS' teacher for next year has for the past three years taken many months of school for depression related illness. This year she had to be replaced for a total of four months. I do not believe she is coping when she is "well". She is disorganised, too strict - bordering on aggressive and has made many of her current class of 7 year-olds not want to come to school. Quite a few parents have complained to the head teacher but she claims there is nothing she can do about it since it is a "performance issue" ie. this teacher achieves the grades expected. My DS loves learning and I don't want this to change. Is there anything the parents of this class year can do to get a different teacher? I do sympathise with this teacher - it must be a struggle to deal with depression - but how many years can this go on for?

Governor parent also leveraged influence to get his child into a specific class at our school.

Dd's school will brook no "input" from parents regarding their child's class. And I agree with them. What if every parent said they had to have Miss So-and-so for whatever reason?

Regarding the teacher - schools have now even greater difficulty trying to rid themselves of unsuitable teachers. New legislation prevents a school from seeing someone's health record, so a teacher could have had masses of time off sick but the potential employer would have no access to this information.

Schools have to be incredibly careful now about who they take on because it is almost impossible to get rid of someone once they have been offered the job.

The head of dd's school says she tries to get some word of mouth on teachers and visit their existing school as it is too costly all round to make a mistake.

I think it would be worth OP writing to the Head of Governors about this teacher situation. Obviously governors do not get involved in what is a management issue, but it will impact on the budget and maybe the Head's perceived performance.