Does it matter that dd is getting a s*** teacher next year?

[hectorthestandbyhawk]

DD will be in year 2. She will only be getting this teacher as a result of another shit teacher being removed and a consequent re-jig. I feel sick. I kept dd in a class without her group of friends because the teacher she was meant to be getting is so nice. The new teacher is wishy washy, children make little progress and she is shouty. Will teaching spelling/numeracy at home be enough to make up for this or is it going to be a nightmare? Thanks

Why do you think you know so much about the new teacher?

I suggest you carry on being positive about the school and supplement the learning as your dd requires it.

I'd be a bit worried. I'd wait and see how it went for a few weeks and then decide what to do/say. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I so hope you haven't told or indicated to your daughter your opinion of the teacher ....

Give her the benefit of the doubt and keep on top of her progress, reading ...

children make little progress I dont see how you could possibly know this without being her TA or on the senior management team. You cannot base it on previous DC experience or on the gossip of other mums. People may say she is a 'bad teacher' but you cant make a statement like the above without any evidence. I am a teacher and have no idea how much progress the children in my colleagues classes make.

Very annoying that you didnt move your DD based on the teacher but nothing you can do now and no point worrying. 1 year can have a huge impact but it can also have very little. Different experiences are what make us who we are.

To the OP I feel your pain, my eldest is about to go into a class with a teacher who is hopeless. This is know from my youngest having her last year, a year when the teacher failed on basic classroom control resulting in my dd having very little experience of 'small group time' with the teacher. This was something the teacher admitted but attributed the blame on my dd aged 5 and 6 years old. To Wellthen there is no point denying that some teachers are just not up to scratch. It is very stressful for Mums especially those who have learning disabilities which makes them vulnerable. My dd is dyslexic and her teacher next year just refuses to 'believe' in learning disabilities and is incapable of recognizing or accommodating it. I know this from a previous parent of a dyslexic child who was humiliated in front of the school and described by the teacher as 'not very bright'. 1 year can have a huge impact for some children, less for others. If your child is one of the ones whose learning is vulnerable to expertise (or lack of) of a teacher then it is no laughing matter. To the OP it may or may not make a difference, it depends how robust your daughter is in terms of her core learning skills. You might find you are pleasantly surprised so try and stay positive.
HW

Thanks for your replies. DD was extremely quiet in reception to the extent that she often couldn't even speak to her form teacher. In year 1 she has become confident and is settled (tho still shy). We were twice offered the opportunity for dd to move classes to be with friends but each time I favoured continuity. Now change is inevitable I am going to try to get her moved in with her friends.

And you know this teacher is shit because?

I had this situation this year (yr 2). The net result was 1/3 of class failing at KS1 sats . Feel let down by school TBH.

Really, don't listen to the rumours; make your own judgements. It varies massively depending on your child, the dynamics of the class etc etc. DS had a teacher in Y5 who was apparently "awful", and he got along very well with her; DD2 has had similarly good experiences with her in Y3.

Having said that, it is inevitable that at some point in your DC's school career that they will have not-so-great teachers. I certainly wouldn't fret about it at Y2.

We have similar here- DD2 is just moving up from Reception to y1 in Sept into this teacher's class. DD1 had her as a teacher last year for y4 and made little to no progress over the entire year. Her handwriting, reading, spelling, grammar- completely stagnant and I got fobbed off all year and told she was 'fine'. DD1 also said she was really shouty to the whole class. (within a fortnight of y5 DD1's new teacher and I were on the same page with helping her out of struggling).
The shouty teacher has now been moved to Infants from Primary and my friend's DD has been in her y2 class this year. She hates school now :( she hates the shouting and says this teacher doesn't like her. Come Sept she will be taking y1 and will be DD2's teacher :( DD2 is very clever with a love of learning and I'm dreading the possibility that this teacher knocks all the love for school out of her.

In my school, EVERY parent knows who the shit teachers are. And every parent without fail groans with disappointment or grimaces when they hear that their DC's have got that teacher next year.

Some of them are very good infants teachers but awful junior teachers, and some are very good junior teachers but awful infants teachers. And this school has a habit of shuffling the teachers round to teach infants even when they are not very good at coping with littlies, all in the name of 'professional development'.

Which is crap if YOUR DC gets them during that year!

DS1 this coming year has a teacher well-known for being shouty and nasty. Properly nasty. But I have explained to DS1 that she is a better junior teacher than infants teacher (he also had her for part of Y1 and hated it), and that if he quietly does his work, he should be ok.

DS2, however, has a teacher that ripped up my DD's friend's maths book when she didn't understand the question and got it wrong, and called DD's friend 'thick' in front of the whole class, and actually SWORE in front of the whole class on that occasion. I am not looking forward to the possibility of her doing that with my DS2 who has LD's...

Neither of them got the teachers I wanted them to have.

After 8 years at a school, and your 3rd DC going through the school about to start Y4, there aren't many of the teachers that you don't have personal experience of, and the few that you haven't, your friend's DC's WILL have had IYSWIM.

And there IS one teacher almost universally hated in the playground - but I find him an excellent teacher, who went over and above the call of duty with my DD with LD's. He spent every break time for two months teaching my leftie DD to write joined up. She now has neater writing than me, despite her LD's! I WANTED my DS2 to get him as a teacher this year!

I don 't go by playground gossip, but I know which teachers would 'suit' each of my DC's, and sometimes a teacher that DD hated, DS1 will love, and a teacher that DS1 hated will do wonders for DS2...

My problem is that DS1 had bloody awful teachers for Y3 & Y4, to the point that the school have paid for after-school tuition for over 70% of the class over Y5 to get them up to the standard needed to show a decent amount of progress at the end of KS2 based in their KS1 SATS results...

If even the school can see that two duff teachers in a row is affecting their possible league table results to this extent, why don't they get rid of the teachers?!

DS2 had a crap teacher for Y3 this year, and now has a crap teacher for Y4. I'll bet the school gives the DC's tutoring through Y5...

In yr 1 my daughter got one of the favorite teachers in the school. It was a disaster. In yr 2 dd got the teacher who had a reputation for being brilliant with problem children. In fact he shoved them all in a corner with each other and let them run riot. I know as my dd was one of them.

I've learnt my lesson and I'm refusing to listen to the gossip for the year 3 teacher and will wait and see.

We've had "good" teachers and "bad" teachers - if the kids are willing to work, and you keep them going on reading and times tables, it doesn't really matter who the teacher is ...

Wonder why they put the crap teacher on the year 2 sats class? Do year 2 sats not count as much now? Rule of thumb it wass often year 3 that got the weaker teacher if there is one (obv I am not saying all year 3 teachers are weak).

What are the sats usually like at your school? And the ofsted?

If you were thinking of moving her anyway, then try again. Otherwise, a year of ineffectual teaching is recoverable from. I'd rather that than a year of awful shouty nasty teacher that affects their morale. I might move school if I had a teacher like some of you describe!

I teach but not in primary. We all know who the good and bad teachers are. I thought it was a teacher skill thing - am surprised some of you who are teachers don't have a good vibe for the bad ones? Really? Or you just don't like admitting it on mumsnet?

I would say make your own judgments. Your dd might well get on really well and thrive. If it turns out that the rumors are true then document the evidence and speak to the head. If you are calm collected and have a well thought out and presented case then they might well take note and do something.

And as you have said you can always make up the short fall at home. Again if you keep this separate and keep hold of the work and books etc then that is something else that you can present to the head if you need to :£

Of course people know who the rubbish teachers are especially at the infant stage because so many of us help out on school trips, extra reading, etc.

When six months in the teacher still takes over twenty minutes to settle a class down for registration then you don't have to be an ofsted inspector to pass judgement. The reviews from older children are surprisingly spot on and most can separate out that a someone can be disliked on a personal level but be good at their job. Several teachers want to be 'friends' with the kids and then get shouty when the little monsters play up.

How do you know about progress? Do you analyse the data?
I am so glad you are not the parent of someone I teach.

I too am very surprised if a truly weak teacher was given y2 to teach.
I can suggest we form a support group, OP, if you like. For y4 DS has teachers that I am convinced won't "get" him and that it will be long year of behaviour problems (sigh).

hectorthestandbyhawk:

Just because a teacher is 'wishywashy' doesn't necessarily mean that your DD will have bad results.

What I will say is that for both DDs we've had good and bad years and we've found it pretty obvious to predict by Christmas. There are so many internet sources now and fantstic websites that given a bit of homework on your part, you can easily support learning in Y2.

Some useful websites:

KS1 bitesize from the BBC www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/ - reviews skills for KS1 SATs test (taken end Y2) through a series of games and you can control difficulty level.

BBC Learning [BETA] - www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/ - From the teacher's page (menu selection on right but link above gets you there) select KS1 in the orange outlined box mid left of screen and then select curriculum area. There are tons of worksheets/ activities and game resources to support learning at home.

Crickweb KS1 www.crickweb.co.uk/Key-Stage-1.html - learning resources/ games

Coxhoe primary school: www.schooljotter.com/showpage.php?id=35490 - from their menu select Curriculum links and then the area of the curriculum and then select KS1 links by topic.

Primary Resources: www.primaryresources.co.uk/ = select area of curriculum and then select by appropriate topic.

All of these take a bit of hunting and exploring - but they've been really helpful in supporting work at school and at home.

HTH

I was nervous too OP as my DD is getting one of the weaker teachers for Y3/Y4. My personal opinion and way forward on this is to get a tutor once a fortnight to keep an eye on things, make sure she is doing some work on the basics and keeping up with what she should be keeping up with. If I had more time available I would probably do it myself, but I don't so I am happy to pay someone I know to do it for me.

If someone is shouty and nasty then I don't know what I would do, as we don't seem to have had anyone like that in our school so far...