we need a way to remove teachers who are not up to it

[sun1234]

or at least a replacement for them whilst they re-train!

DS2 had a new, nice, but useless teacher last year when he was in year 2. The warning signs were there from early on but it takes time for your nagging doubts to become a strong possibility that your child's teacher isn't really going to be great for your child but I knew by early December. Then it takes a while longer for the other parents to start telling each other that their children aren't really progressing either - late February. Even by the end of the year when its blatantly obvious, there will still be a parent or two who will swear blind that the teacher is fine and that their child is making good progress. By Easter, the head still denied a problem when speaking to parents (each was made to feel that they wanted special treatment for their child alone and we were each assured that the head was happy with the teaching in our children's class). However, for the last term, there was a whole slew of initiatives to bring the children up to level 2. Most of them ended up at level 2c and barely anyone got a 3 in anything, but the end of year newsletter boasted about the results even though they were below the national average (in an area where everyone speaks English as their mother tongue).

I didn't want to risk it for year 3 and I moved my children to a new school. my (bright) soon is now far behind his new classmates in some subjects but I hope he will catch up. However he is confused about what is expected of him because last year he learned not to try to do the work quickly or well because it annoyed the teacher who wanted everyone to progress together. He'll be fine because he's in a better environment and he is young enough to catch up. But what about the 29 classmates that he left behind?

If a teacher is performing badly the school has to ensure they are supported and given training to meet expected standards. Their day to day classroom practice will be closely monitored by senior staff and the LEA.
All teachers have their teaching monitored by the SMT and by a LEA appointed Advisor /inspector as a matter of course throughout the year

As a governor I went on a "recruiting teachers" course. Governors are involved in appointing the Head/Deputy Head, but it's at the Head's discretion whether there is a governor presence on the recruitment panel for ordinary teachers.

Anyway, it was stressed over and over, and then over and over again for good measure, that you have to be so careful when hiring teachers as they are virtually impossible to get rid of, however incompetent. It was also stressed that teachers (or rather, teaching unions) are very litigous, and a school could find itself in very hot water if procedures were not followed to the letter.

I agree that having a passionate Head is essential. At ds's school there was a teacher who joined who started taking sick leave straightaway. Stress, bad back... all the usual culprits. I don't know how, but the Head managed to oust her after a year. A less inclined Head vs a more dogged teacher would have resulted in that teacher probably coming and going for years. Teacher sick pay is highly generous (six months full pay, six months half pay - and if they return to work the clock resets at zero so they can start all over again) - I'm frankly surprised it isn't abused more often.

I am sure there will be bad teachers, there are incompetent people everywhere. However, I don't think that there are more incompetent people in the teaching profession compared with other professions. Also, I think that it is very difficult for parents to judge whether a teacher is 'rubbish', you are not there when they are teaching, you don't see what is going on in the class etc. Clearly, any incompetent employee needs to be dealt with, including teachers. But I don't think it is a huge problem. If you don't like the school and/or teachers you simply vote with your feet and move your child, pretty straight forward I would think.

Not straightforward at all, dikk. If my child had one rubbish teacher at secondary and all the others were tip top and the school was within walking distance and my child was settled with friends, would I move her? No of course not. And things wouldn't have been much different if one primary teacher had been rubbish.

There are very few rubbish teachers so people are never really faced with having to run away from a whole rubbish school.

The school should be able to do more about it. And monitoring someone constantly and offering training doesn't necessarily make someone any better as the months and years pass.

dikkertjedap - its not just a theoretical idea: there really are bad teachers out there. By bad teachers I mean teachers who are unable to teach.

My son had one such teacher last year, and she's only at the beginning of her career so unless somethign happens (like she improves with experience or gets another job) then she'll have 30 years+ of children pass through her hands.

Changing schools is far from easy because finding places at a better school is extremely difficult as they are so often full.

Hi last year my son (then Year 4) had an NQT who "left for personal reasons" in the February - roughly the beginning of the second term. I think he had had loads of coaching from his mentor but there must have been things that just didn't work. It wasn't great for us after either though because we then had two supply teachers and it felt like a very disrupted and uncared for year.

I don't know what would have happened if this hadn't been the teacher's NQT year and how much harder it would have been for him to part company with the school. He was very nice though and I did feel sorry for him. He said he was going to to supply teaching and I hope this has helped him get more relevant experience.

I saw a newspaper article last year that said that 18 teachers had been dismissed for incompetency over the last 40 years. Doubtless others left before they were pushed, but only one in Britain every two years since WWII? It just defies all common sense.

The report said that often the incompetent teacher gets moved on within the system through heads writing them glowing references so some other school will hire them.

let's face it... the problem lies with the teaching unions and whatever it is that is going on at teacher training colleges.