Is Yr 3 the place to put weak teachers?!

[Lycraphobe]

I've been having problems recently with my son's Y3 class teacher but 4 friends who send their children to completely different schools have also found that their Y3 / P3 (Scotland) teacher is the weak one after a series of good teachers.

Is this just a coincidence or is Y3 the place to put less able teachers because KS1 sats are over and KS2 sats are a long way off?

(I don't mean to ask if all y3 teachers are bad BTW, just if there is a general trend by heads to put the worst teacher in that class)

In DD's school it is definitely NOT the case.

The yr 3 tacher DS had last year is certainly the least 'on the ball' in the school, afaics.
The year after Yr2 SATS, and 3 more yars to go before Yr 6...

It's usually Y4, but could be Y3, I guess!

Our school alternates - crap one, strong one up till Yr5 & then I think you get 2 strong ones in a row. Year 2 is crap - lots of talk among parents that it's done to help with the Sats value added score in Yr 6,

A consultant once told me a weak teacher can do least damage in Y3 (don't know if that's true)I've seen heads move weak teachers around year after year.

Children are expected to make 2 sub levels progress each and ever year, regardless of which year group they are in. No decent headteacher would expect the Y3 teachers to turn in results that have barely improved on Y2. However, cramming for Y2 tests, where it occurs, can make it seem as if children make little progress in Y3, when really they weren't secure at the end of Y2 anyway.

Haven't given much thought but just as tactically some secondary schools do with setting, think it must be true of some primaries too.

I damn well hope not as I teach y3/4!

I do agree to some extent with the statement that you can do less danage in these year groups so you do often get NQT's or those with only a couple of years experience there. However the transition between KS1 and KS2 can be quite hard for some children both on an emotional level and with respect to the curriculum.
Every year I have problems with children whoes reading and writing are weak and this has a serious impact on their attainment levels in Y3/4. Staffing tends to be lower in terms on TA's etc and so those who can't read or write to an appropriate level really need additional adult support which is often simply not available. I only have TA support for the mornings - so that will be numeracy and literacy - for the rest we have to do our best! If you have full time TA support available I find it goes to the Y5/6 classes due to the pressure of SATs, where if I child had had a little more help earlier on they might not need as much now! It's a vicious circle but speaking for all the staff at my school who teach year 3 children, we don't think of ourselves as second rate at all!

Mmm, not sure. My son is in Yr 2 and the two teachers are definitely two of the weakest in the school. I thought this seemed strange because it is a SATS year but I had heard the 'value added' argument too, which kind of explains it.

The Yr 3 teacher is, however, a very experienced and well-liked teacher who is a bit of a superstar within the school. So may be he is there to pick up pieces for Yr 2??

Year 3 (and Year 1) are the hardest years to teach IMO.

Lots of developmental things going on with the children, cross over of the curriculums, the transition between the two Key Stages - new routines, playgrounds (usually), staff, older children to contend with, different lunchtime/break times. sometimes it is these smaller things that make all the difference.

Often teaching styles differ between KS1/2 staff and the more immature year groups seem to suffer when they are taught by someone with a style and/or experience more suitable to upper KS2.

Often support given to Yr3 at the beginning of the year is then moved to Yr6/2 as a school lives or dies by it's SATs results and the need is greater in those Yr groups at this time of the year. Sad but True!

My school places staff according to the needs of the year group - the least experienced staff go to the least demanding Year Groups. Good teachers with lots of experience get the better not say it more difficult classes. Although saying that, the school is 2-form entry so you may well have an experienced teacher paired up with a not-so-experienced teacher to mentor them.

YR- NQT, NQT, satisfactory teacher. Y1- excellent teacher, good teacher, excellent teacher. Y2 - not-so-good teacher, good teacher. Y3 - satisfactory teacher. Y4 - good teacher, good teacher. Y5 - bloody awful just been sacked rubbish evil teacher, good teacher. Y6 - satisfactory teacher, not-so good teacher. A lot of it is teachers that the curent head 'inherited' from the previous one, the current good/excellent teachers are all new to the school bar one, one of the excellent teachers in Y1. The Y3 teacher is improving year on year, she was an awful teacher 3 years ago when she was an NQT when my DD had her, but is satisfactory now my DS1 is being taught by her, and she will probably be a good teacher by the time DS2 has her!

Loudlass - it is funny to see you describe how an inexperienced teacher can move from bad to good with a bit of experience. It makes an awful lot of sense, but in my DC's school there are 3 relatively inexperienced teachers. two of them will be very good one day (I believe) but the other one will always be a problem to the children in her class. The difference is that two of them want to learn form their experiences, but the third thinks that when she got her degree, it meant she knew it all already!

It is possible that in a Junior school, where the children move up from Yr 2 in another school, the teachers in Yr3 will be the more patient, caring and 'motherly' to aid in the transition from little to bigger school. Therefore they may present as not as focused on attainment and progress as teachers in higher years (this is just gueswork, trying to figure out how parents might assess a teacher as weak). I cannot believe that they are weaker as a general rule, though. In a Junior school it is hard to show progress in Yr 3 as children come from a different school with different assessment methods and Yr 2 also have to show SATs results. I have worked in Yr 2,3,5 and 6 so am clearly a mixture of weak and strong

I guess everyone has their own idea of weak, but mine is when a teacher fails on two or more key areas:-

to progress the children in numeracy
to progress the children in literacy
to shout regularly at the children
to be able to emphathise with the children who might be in the junior school but are not in year 6 (and therefore to help to settle the children into the class and school)
to be able to control and motivate her class

NOT shout regularly at the children - oops!

Lycraphobe, I was going to declare myself a raving success because I DO shout at the children regularly, but then you ruined it. Boo.

Worst teachers in our school-only progress the 'average' children in literacy and numeracy, G&T and Sn dc make no progress. They regularly shout at the children. They don't empathise with infant children, never mind junior children. And can't/won't control the class. Or in some cases accept that sn dc's should even be in MS.

Best teachers-progress all children in their class in literacy/numeracy. Rarely shout at the children (I won't say never as I'd say that's impossible!). They empathise with all children, be they YR or Y6. They control the class. And do their very best to set extension work for the 'ahead' children that need it whilst also effecxtively differentiating the currculum for SN dc's.

An experienced head teacher once told me that Y3 is where you 'bury' your weak teacher. This is obviously not the same as saying that all Y3 teachers are weak!

That said, the Y3 teachers in my DCs school are widely acknowledged by the parents as being great.

My daughter is in Year 3 now at a junior school and her teachers are great - but it is a jobshare though so she has two. I think with a junior school the year 3 teachers should be good otherwise parents might want to move the children.

My daughter is progressing much faster in junior school than she did in infants where she seemed quite average.

Juniors is a 2 form in-take and Y3 is taught by deputy head (evangelical about teaching and if ever there was someone with a calling 'tis her), presumably mentoring newly qualified/probationary teacher (high turnover year-on-year). Y4 experienced teacher with newly qualified/probationary teacher in other class. Then swopping around from Y3/Y4 so deputy head in Y3 followed by new teacher Y4. Y5/Y6 teachers both experienced and strong.
The problem seems to be the retention of the new teachers for whatever reason. I always thought that this was a budgetry issue, ie. schools couldn't afford so many long-serving teachers (ie. on higher pay bands). Inexperienced teachers seem to leave for a number of personal reasons "health" (stress?) or "family" (the commute?). Then when they get a good one they go on maternity leave! Thus the cycle continues...

Yes I'd agree that Y3 teaching (seen with 2 consecutive children) is a weak year, add poorly managed job share to the mix & you have a year of pupils treading water, redoing Y2 topics to the new schools satisfaction(or is it the national curriculum). My children moved from infants to juniors, yet both schools are on the same site with the same class of children moving schools together. Yet the juniors Y3 didn't seem to believe the SATs results from Y2 infants?
I did suggest a continuity inprovement would be a merged primary school with one head, would take away the politics of infants to junior transition. Has anyone else had similar issues with "next door" infants to juniors?

For us year 3 is great as was year 2, year 1 was the bad egg, the teacher now covers classes and no longer teaches classes.