What to look for if you suspect your child's teacher isn't very good

[Sparklywheeelbarrow]

Have NC'd for this.

If your child is a bright and capable child but you suspect their teacher is letting them coast rather than challenging them or getting them to reach their potential?

The reason I ask is that my dd is in a class with a teacher who may be doing this. The teacher in question used to work with the parent of another child in the class (job share) and long before this teacher joined our school the parent (whose judgement I totally trust) had mentioned how disorganised she was, that she was very wishy washy when it came to keeping up with the curriculum and didn't stick to lesson plans etc - then she joined our school and is now teaching our kids ... so much uneasiness ensued.

We are now halfway through the year and my dd has complained many times that this teacher treats them 'like babies' (they are year 4 for context), which makes me wonder if she is underestimating the capabilities of the class and has lower expectations of them than she should? I believe she taught Year R prior to this, if it's relevant.

So I'm wondering what I ought to be looking out for here - other than the fact that my dd doesn't like her, and that other parents aren't happy with her. What should good a teacher of Year 4 be doing to get the best out of a class?

Yep, I would highly recommend IXL if you don't want your child to have any knowledge gaps, it's cheap compared to others, and follow the NC in maths and English. Duolingo and memrise is great site for MFL.
And Khan for science/history/coding.

IXL was recommended to me by mmzz years ago and we love it. It goes up to yr13, and there is no limit for access. But not for those who hate repetition. It's very tedious. You can use it for free up to 10 question a day.

@BubblesBuddy the mentoring is a good idea, as long as it isn't used as a filler (and it often is used as a filler).
If you were a parent of a highly able child, would you be happy if every lesson in the thing they excelled at went something like this:

00:00 - 00:05 Teacher explains something at the board that your DC already knows. Maybe but has a slight twist on it from what was taught yesterday, but they can see that connection without it having to be spelled out.
00:05 - 00:10 Class starts working through worksheet. Your DC is directed to miss the first third and do the last two thirds, including extension task (which is still really easy)
00:10 - 00:15 Teacher realises that too many DC don't get it, so she stops the whole class and runs through it on the whiteboard again.
00:15 -00:25 Your DC finishes the tasks, including the extension task
00:25-00:45 Your DC helps the children nearby who are struggling. If they help well, they explain how to do the work a few times. if they help badly, they just tell them what to write.

It sounds fine for one lesson, or maybe 10 times a term, but would you be ok with it every day for several years?

I'm not aiming this next remark at you, BubblesBuddy, but I do wonder why people who would never dream of letting their talented musician child, or talented tennis player spend half the time they are supposed to be developing their skill going on what they already know in agonising detail and then spend the other half of the time teaching another less able child the basics, but yet think that is just fine for highly academically able children? It is a good thing that we don't do that or we'd never have any British champions at the Olympics.

mmzz I wouldn't be happy if that was the format of a lesson for lessons regardless of ability - the whole lesson is undifferentiated to anyone, the high or low ability.

And your analogy with the skills required in sport or music is bad - because in those it is repeated practice and repeated fitness development that leads to excellence, it's not endless new skills being taught, it's re-enforcement and repetition of the same. If maths was taught the same (and your example lesson makes no sense with most subjects, as that's not how they're taught at all) then it would be loads of practice of concepts the child felt easy.

Your child really doesn't have a right to a 'brilliant' teacher, I'm afraid. She has a right to a competent one. Providing there are no major issues, this is the luck of the draw.

@sirfredfredgeorge you say that's not how they are taught, but I was a parent helper for a long time (i.e. several teachers - mostly not my DC's class teacher at the time) and that was exactly how it was always done. Note the differentiation referred to on the worksheet - that's what it looks like in practice.
Now at secondary school, my year 11 son described to me the other day what happens in his top set class, and it is still how its done, except without the extension work, unless specifically requested.

I actually think that if you have a very able child, you do them a dis-service by insisting that they shouldalways'read q's carefully, check answers' etc
That's how you get arrogance. Nobody is above and beyond reading the question carefully.

Things I've seen in GCSE mock papers from able pupils:

• exam says choose ONE of 2 questions. Able child does both, neither to a high enough standard.
• exam says 'talk about the extract and the whole text'. Able child does just extract/just the whole text. Gets marks capped as AQA say it is a rubric infringement.
• question asks candidates to outline the differences between 2 texts. Able student writes about the similarities
• teacher says 'do not analyse for this question'. Able student analyses
• question asks students to analyse structre and teacher says repeatedly "do not analyse language in this question". Able student analyses language in a structure question.
• question says write a piece of description. Able student writes a story
• question says compare TWO poems. Able child decides to do 3 even though they've been explicitly taught the question and told only compare 2.
• question says write a letter. Able child doesn't use letter conventions.
• question says to analyse the EFFECTS of conflict. Able student talks about EXPERIENCES of conflict.

Now, for some of those it was just a bad day in the exams, others realised later they'd messed up and they saw me after and said 'Mrs Pops!! You know thr structure question? I think I've done language' and others kicked themselves later on. All students who've acknowledged they forgot to do x y z. That's life. It's fine. Move on.

Some however make it very clear that they think chunking the question is below them and that annotating the text is below them and that planning and extended piece is below them. They were the ones who got arsey and complained to me about how I was picking on them/had marked their paper wrong/could their parent call up for a 2nd opinion on their grade. Apparently they 'don't see' how other children (who they percieve ti be weaker than them) could possibly have out performed them. Anything was responsible for their grades other than them ignoring all my exam advice.

mmzz you asked if I would happy, and I wouldn't, and it's nothing to do with having an able child or not. And it's what your experience looks like in practice, DD does not always have worksheets in her class (both from her report, and in looking in her books) and differentiation is certainly not done within a worksheet - that I would be particularly sad about with the less able having it so thrown in their face that there are all these questions they simply cannot grasp.

None of our experiences are universal, so please don't take your experience of helping out a bit and generalise it.

And again, worksheets don't make any sense at all in year 11 English or other subjects. Even if they are an option, it's an option for such a narrow range of subjects.

@MaisyPops exactly. DS2 has a bad habit that needs to be eliminated. He's not arrogant. He just tries to race through exam papers at 100 miles an hour, which includes skin reading the question. He is in year 9. My aim is to get him to stop this before September. I'm hoping nagging will do the trick. If not, then I might ask one of his teachers to make him re-do a whole test. He'll hate me for it, but he'll get the message.

Year 11 have pdfs that they download with questions on them. They are still worksheets though - some are just not printed out any more. the rest are and pasted into their books (just like the way i pasted the year 2s work in when I was a parent helper). Pritt Stick is still an important part of the pencil case, along with a pair of scissors.

Examples:
In History they fill in the boxes (e.g. match the policy to the description).
In geography, the worksheet has diagrams that they fill out.
In English they do PEAs etc but they also get worksheets with preprinted tables on them.
In maths, its worksheets or online platforms with questions - still with easy, medium, hard statuses attached.
RE has loads of worksheets that look a lot like the History ones.
French worksheets again - write the sentence in the space below.

I could go on, or get you screenshots, but you will never believe me that it will happen to your DC.

I could go on, or get you screenshots, but you will never believe me that it will happen to your DC.

I believe it is your experience, of course I do, I don't need screenshots, but you cannot claim it will be everyones experience, and you seem to have a problem with it only because your children find some parts of these worksheets easy. I would have a problem with it full stop. As it's not my experience though, I don't yet need to worry about it being a problem.

sir, I know your dc is younger than mine. Give it few more years, then you would have different opinion. Or maybe your school is great and you never experience it. But reading on G&T board, having a adequate education for extremely able child in state primary seems very rare.

Can you not argue for your highly able child to sit in a higher year groups lessons, if they can demonstrate the knowledge of previous years? I have seen it done before, although didn't timetable it myself so couldn't give details.

My ds was sent to yr2 in reception for literacy and maths, but it only lasted until part of yr2. Time table clashes etc. Doesn't work well if school is not totally on board.

I may have missed this, but have you seen about getting a tutor, if they are not exceptional all round and cannot therefore move up a year? Lots of ppl do, although usually for additional help the teacher cannot provide in a class of 30. Which is the same thing really.

Are you in UK? Moving up a year/years isn't a thing in normal state school, I believe.

No it isn't normal, but it has been done.

And have you considered a tutor?

Maisy, I think I didn't express myself clearly, as I totally agree with you that no-one is 'above' reading the questions carefully; and that this would be arrogant, and cause children to achieve less than they could.

My point is merely that telling a child that questions must ALWAYS be carefully read, is not the same as teaching them this very thing, and can have the opposite effect. In primary, questions are often of very similar formats. E.g. times tables tests, in my friend's kid's Y3 class they have 3 TT tests/week, 'reading the questions carefully' would actually cause the kids to fail the tests (in that they wouldn't be fast enough). Questions can be super easy and obvious to very able children. What they will learn is that 'this is something that teachers say but that doesn't apply to me'.

If you want children to develop a habit of reading the questions carefully, of showing their workings/writing down the intermediate steps, of neat presentation - then you need to regularly /frequently give those children work where these things are necessary. For very able children, this means they will need work that is a lot 'harder' than the rest of the class.

You can't just start in secondary to provide challenging work and expect a child to simply immediately change their habits, after 7 years of primary where they were 'told' to read the questions carefully, but 'taught' (by the fact that the problems were always very obvious) that this didn't apply to them.

Children need to learn never just to assume that a question is obvious. But to teach a child this, they must regularly encounter questions that aren't obvious.

In primary, questions are often of very similar formats. E.g. times tables tests, in my friend's kid's Y3 class they have 3 TT tests/week, 'reading the questions carefully' would actually cause the kids to fail the tests (in that they wouldn't be fast enough).

brilliotic
I see what you mean there.
Yes. I do see that at secondary.

We get some students who are apparently greater depth students but greater depth seems to mean anything from genuinely highly achieving (some of my 7s are bloody brilliant and doing GCSE material already to around grade 5, albeit not in exam conditions) through to 'my independent writing wasn't really that independent because I drafted my sentences on a whiteboard and someone told me where to put a semi colon and now I'm in y7 I can't write more than 1/2 a side of A4 in 35 mins'

Regarding a mentoring programme, of course the bright child does not do it all the time. I did sugggest other ways a school can help a very bright child. However there is evidence to show that the mentoring system is a benefit to both children if it’s done correctly. The Sutton Trust are to be believed I think.

All the teaching in schools I have seen has been highly differentiated when it comes to work. Especially the maths. We have hard, harder, hardest and Herculean tasks with above that for the very able. The worksheet scenario isn’t the same in every school.

If you are talking about future Cambridge maths grads, there are few primary teachers who can cope with this ability. Therefore they need to acquire help and advice. A good school would want to do this. What about lessons in another setting? What advice have schools sought? In effect the very bright child has Sen. What are the schools doing to recognise this and support their needs?

Children who have learning needs due to a low iq may be in a special school because there are enough of them to make this system worthwhile. There are not the same facilities for the extra bright. However if you look around Oxford and Cambridge, most extra bright children have arrived there happily and plenty have been to state schools. It is difficult to say they are being failed in their brilliance.

I'm a firm believer in the wisdom of going to university with your age peers. It can be tempting with maths to just teach ahead, and with most primary school maths, it's so self-evident that there isn't much else to usefully and interestingly do without learning some new concept first. However, UKMT style questions are more challenging and they could fill some of the gap.
TBH, I think part of the problem is that only a low level of maths (a C at GCSE) is needed to go to teaching college, so if your unusually mathematically-able DC lands in their class for a year, they may well struggle to teach them about the breadth of maths even if they wanted to and didn't have a class full of other children who also needed help.
The best teachers seek outside help, but many just kick the can down the road until it's the next year's teachers problem.

What I used to hear around now was that whilst it was ageeed that no progress had been made so far this school year, things would get more challenging soon. Then after Easter, I'd be told that I could expect some progress in the coming term. Then in June, I'd be told that there was only so many weeks left to the end of term, but next year was a big step up. (Next year has never been a big step up yet.)

At the end of year 9, a maths teacher cum SLT told me, unprompted, at parents night, that DS1 would not be challenged in maths until university. I really appreciated the honesty and expectation setting. It made it easier at home to convince DS to try to manage the boredom rather than be frustrated by the slowness and feel irrelevant within the class.

mmzz
I always think it must be harder stretching a very able child in maths than English.

If I'm doing Shakespeare with y7 then it's also a text covered at university too (it annoys me when we get calls like you aren't challenging DC because they 'did' Macbeth in y5. Like, what do you mean they 'did' Macbeth. I've taught Owen at Ks3 and A level. It doesn't mean thr a level students are doing ks3 work) so there's ways to stretch and challenge within the same lesson. Different thinking prompts etc.
Maths always seems to me to be 'we are doing that topic' and that's the topic.

DD's in yr5, Monday to Wednesday they have a very capable teacher, Thursday and Friday they have a teacher like you describe. I've accompanied them on a trip, she has no control over them, even DD, who masks in school, takes the piss, she talks to them as if they were EYFS. I've no idea who to approach about it.