Y7 Eng: Teacher's remark in book...

[ampere]

'Great discription. Try not to say to much at the beggining'

This is at the 'top performing comp in the county'. Not that that should really make any difference, I grant you, except the school's 'reputation' should allow them to be fairly selective regarding the standard of their teaching staff!

Frankly, I am aghast. AM I a billion years behind the time assuming that a secondary school ENGLISH teacher should be able to spell such basic words?

Ok-a-a-y..

It transpires that (deep breath) DS doesn't actually know who wrote that!

I admit I had never heard of the concept of peer review within a school setting, at least, not like this where a DC is given another DC's work to critique, although I can certainly see it as a beneficial learning tool for all concerned, so it strikes me it absolutely must have been written by a fellow 11 year old! Even though DS says he wasn't asked to comment on anyone else's work, BUT the class 'ran over'.

So I am actually not going to officially 'react' at all, but see what transpires, but I am increasingly feeling I may have sent out a false alarm, so sorry if that is the case!

I will let you know when all become clearer.

I think it's a perfectly reasonable complaint, teachers should be able to spell and use a dictionary for complex words. Beginning and description are Y3 spellings.

I'd mark it with a red pen. (I'm a teacher).

I'm afraid it is true that we do lots of eye-rolling at the things that parents get upset about. I know it's a bit , but really it is sometimes a siege mentality. I spent the first two weeks of term on the phone to parents who have issues with our setting, or the teacher their child has this year. Every free minute, and hours after school - on the phone. I hope I am sympathetic and approachable in manner, but I am certainly rolling my eyes as they assure me their child should be in the top set and I know they shouldn't.

To the OP - if it is the teacher then that is bloody awful. However, as others have said, peer marking is big, so ask your daughter who wrote it the comment first!

If I post "evidence" Feenie I will be accused of supremely bad form in dragging up other threads

and it was a general, highly subjective comment

although from my own experience, the thread where I complained about the Y1 teacher who put my 6yo through Y6 SATS tests without asking me first - I was told I should trust the teacher and not interfere

and when I asked for opinions about my children's ideas for home-made Christmas p0resents for their teachers I was laughed at and told the teacher would think we were mad

lots and lots of examples come to mind

Oops

son not daughter.

And cross post!

To a point Greensleeves, I think you are right, we teachers can get a little defensive.
However there is a lot of "My PFB's teacher swore under her breath today, I'm going to call Ofsted", "My DD (14) was told off today for biting the teacher, AIBU for thinking she should be allowed to do that? Should we move schools?" - type posts on MN, so it is natural to defend others who are in a very stressful and picked-apart profession.

Better to eye-roll and sigh on an anonymous forum than to or at parents in RL.

the examples in your posts are exaggerations though loopy - the ones in mine are true

I see far too much sneering and "they will laugh at you in the staff room" and "your dc will be known as the one with the bonkers mother" etc

defensive I can understand, but sometimes it spills over into a spiteful ganging-up, which I find really nasty

I always think twice about posting about school difficulties now, because I am virtually guaranteed at least 50% of the responses will be derisive and of the order of "teacher knows best, you idiot - keep0 your head down or they will laugh at you and think less of your child"

See, there you go again. If you are going to accuse teachers, en masse, of 'a spiteful ganging up', then you need to say where - it's (another) damning accusation.

Or you could carry on airily throwing bitchy generalisations at MN teachers - but at the moment, it's you who looks nasty, actually.

Oh, and several people disagreeing with you = just that, not a 'spiteful ganging up'.

I am nasty

but either I am making this up because I enjoy usetting people, or I am genuinely perceiving a problem here

up to you which you choose to believe really

but I really don't think I can trawl for individual comments on other threads

I have felt hurt, belittled and angry after receiving this response many many times when posting anything to do with school

Ah now, I'm sure I agreed with you on the SATs thread...

And I'm a secondary teacher so am always very of presents of any type.

But yes, we probably do resort to staffroom manners sometimes!

I really don't hate teachers

in fact I love most of the teachers I know - have had the odd crap one, much like any other profession

but I do think sometimes when you get a group of people together like this, habits are formed, people pile in and a culture develops

and on MN I find there is a culture of teachers sneering at and belittling parents and being needlessly mean

I know their job is stressful - so is mine - but I often see threads where it has happ0ened and think "why? how horrible"

"I really don't hate teachers"

Really? I can't remember a supportive post of yours in Primary Ed, for example - you seem only to dive in to criticise teachers when you post. And I would say that actually, in general MN teachers are very supportive of people's queries, especially on Primary Ed. I still think you're confusing parent posters with teacher ones.

Actually, Greensleeves has posted some very lovely comments about her DS's teacher IIRC. I think you're being a bit unfair.

Actually, I don't really mind if not care what teachers say in the staffroom as backroom 'unprofessionalism' goes on in all professions, in my experience! It's how they present to a) my DCs and b) me that matters! It's a useful way of letting off steam or pent up stress and, perhaps perversely builds a sense of 'shared experience' within a team.

Anyway, as mentioned earlier, it hadn't occurred to me the work might be peer reviewed but it seems like a credible explanation to me, which is fine! I will let you know as soon as I do if this indeed is the case!

Sleepinglion

Can I point out that teachers are not a homogeneous group with a hive mind? I am frequently shocked at the attitude demonstrated by some teachers on the TES forum. I haven't actually seen it here tbh. But some people are nasty, and some people are nice. That's life, ain't it?

""Actually, Greensleeves has posted some very lovely comments about her DS's teacher IIRC. I think you're being a bit unfair."

Okay, if you say so. I haven't seen anyhing pleasant lately - quite the opposite - and I think, on this thread, that it is Greensleeves who has been very unfair.

So true Adair re the TES forum, it is horrendous and a bit scary sometimes. And any teacher knows that in their staffroom (well, can't speak for primary but in secondary) there will be a wide range of characters, good, bad and ugly!

But most sane teachers would think they ought to be setting a high standard literacywise, I think..

ampere If dc didn't mark anyone else's work that's a bit odd, as usually peer marking would be done in pairs. Could still be worth asking.

Greensleeves having present ideas laughed at is not nice, those teachers were v mean and ought to swap places with secondary teachers who rarely get anything unless they work somewhere v nice indeed.

Greensleeves, could you post a link to your Christmas present thread? I can't find it. Am convinced no MN teachers would have laughed and said it was mad. Some MN posters, maybe.

I read the thread Feenie. Perhaps it was in Chat? She isn;t misrepresenting. It wasn't every teacher. Some were very lovely about her suggestions. But some weren't. And they were teachers. Or said they were at least - which all any of us can do.

I read and commented on that thread. She had some absolutely lovely ideas for presents that she and DC could make for teachers, and I was infuriated by some really nasty comments by teachers. (eg. she'll laugh at it/throw it away/who would want to ea something made by dirty children?).
I'm a secondary teacher too and somewhat bemused by the need for teacher gifts, but had I received one of her presents I would have been overjoyed.

Really? I can't believe that the teachers on here would say stuff like that. I vaguely remember the thread. I agree that it would be a different story on TES, but I still think MN teachers are on the whole quite supportive.

Really. And I'm usually in the support-the-teacher camp. (Being one and everything!)