A2 Biology teacher has been away ill for a whole month!

[mrsrhodgilbert]

DD1 is 1/2 a term into yr 13 and her bioloy teacher has only been at school for 2 weeks. There are 2 teachers who split the course so they have had some teaching, and a supply teacher has been brought in for 2 lessons this week. Unfortunately she was apparently completely useless and dismissed the class 15 minutes early. I understand there is a shortage of science teachers but would it not make sense for the school to move a teacher from a younger class to teach these A2 students? They have exams in January ffs.

I assume the school kept thinking she would soon be better and back but that hasn't been the case. We have spoken to head of 6th form who maintained she would be back this week (not) or after half term. The plan seems to be to do catch up lessons after school as it would be impossible to timetable extra classes during the day. I feel stressed that school have allowed the situation to drift for so long. If a student misses lessons they are quickly jumped on, but this is a joke. I know nobody can help, just needed to offload.

A student missing lessons will only be jumped on if there is no good reason - the teacher will have a sick note. It is a pain, and you can't help worrying, but ti is difficult to know what the school could do differently if there are no science supply teachers availabe in your area.

Moving someone from teaching a lower year group into teaching A2 could create more problems than it solves. Not all teachers have the experience or subject knowledge to teach to A2 so they could be 'useless' like the supply teacher. The school shouldn't let this go on much longer though, we would have taken the other teacher who splits the class off the class s/he was teaching and have them take all the A2 lessons.

Difficult to comment on, not knowing why the teacher is off. It's not easy to find suitable cover teachers for A2 courses as the knowledge is so specific so if they know the teacher is likely to be back they probably haven't felt it would be worthwhile moving classes around yet.
For all you know the teacher could have a very good reason for being off (and probably feeling really rotten having left her class without a teacher). However, I would be worried if the teacher doesn't return after half term and something hasn't been done about it.

You can't just "move a teacher from a younger class" to teach A level if they've not taught it before, would be worse than useless. I agree with pp that the most sensible suggestion would be to use the remaining A level teacher to take classes and re-jig their other lessons to fit. It might be tricky if she / the school thinks she's coming back and then isn't well enough, but agree they should put something in place for after half term.

At A2, can your daughter take a bit of responsibility for her own learning here? I know she shouldn't have to, the school are being fairly useless, but she should have a specification and a textbook, and the other teacher should be able to tell her what they need to have covered. Past paper questions are available online at exam board website.

If she's doing AQA, PM me and I might be able to help!

My problem is not with the teacher who is ill, she has every right to be ill and i wish her well. But this is a big school, 1800 pupils. I think they may have another suitable teacher somewhere. DD is looking through books herself, but I assume that will be nowhere near enough for her. Will see what happens after the hols.

If only it was that simple!

The sickness could be an ongoing thing which means the school (and teacher) are not sure how long she will be off, this would make it hard to completely rearrange the timetable if she returns next week. It is also hard to find a 'decent' supply teacher who can fill her void (rather than covering - this is meant in no way disrespect to supply teachers who are fab!)

Like others say, some teachers in the department may not be experienced in A2 teaching - from my experience in my subject, A2 is very specialist and requires a solid knowledge of the subject and exam board.

I speak as a teacher, and head of department, who has been off sick a fair bit in the last year, and soon to be on maternity leave, and have had to deal with parents getting arsey about my illness/time off. I feel bad enough about not being there for exam classes, but just could not work.

Hmmm - I would disagree with some posters here: I teach secondary English and there is no-one in our department who would not be able to pick up an A2 class in an urgent situation such as the one you describe. Yes, they may need to pick up the details of the course quickly, but that is really part and parcel of the job. Once they got to grips with the specification, they would all be certainly qualified to teach the skills needed at A2 level - I am surprised at the suggestion that there are teachers who are not able to do this, TBH.

Is the sick teacher setting work for the class?

They have been given a few sheets to do, not sure where they came from but they have had no actual teaching for 4 weeks. Even the supply teacher gave them sheets and told them to read their course book. They now need a teacher urgently I feel. They had 3 different teachers for this 1/2 of the course last year. Only their 2nd teacher has been consistent.

I am concerned that the teacher may make it back after half term but will she be willing/able to make up the missing lessons after school as has been suggested? I'm sure she would be within her rights to say no.

I still don't believe they can't move an existing teacher to cover this class, even if it means them quickly getting up to speed themselves. It's got to be better than putting the kids in for the exams with only half the teaching.

Problem with moving another teacher is that their own exam groups may well lose out. In my department I would have set work, tried to move the other teacher to at least some of the lessons, and put on lessons at other times with an experienced teacher, after school or during PSHE or something.

At my school, we would move things around and share the load. We have a policy in our department of covering within the department where possible. However, it would not be right to make another class to take the full hit. Even KS3 students are entitled to the best teaching possible. However, if Year 7 are having a test in a given lesson, the teacher could be freed up to cover their absent colleague. It's not that hard to be flexible.

I would expect a subject expert to be available at some point in the week to run a clinic and help students through any stumbling block.

It is very tricky for a school to not know the length of the absence. If the absence is more than a couple of weeks, then they should be thinking of getting a replacement teacher who does the full job on a contract. If the absence is expected to be just a few more days, they can't realistically do this. Unfortunately, no one has a crystal ball.

Having been in this sort of situation several times, we haven't moved around classes for short term absences (few weeks) but have done for the one occasion when a staff member was off for much longer. This meant changing about 4 teachers timetables to swap around classes so the other GCSE classes had permanent staff leaving KS3 with the cover teacher. Not ideal but the best you can do in these situations.

In the sciences, staff tend to specialise at A level and while I can teach 2 subjects to A2 level, I certainly wouldn't be able to cope with Chemistry or Physics to A2 level and would be no better than a supply teacher. It may be that they only have 2 biology specialists in the department.
However I would say that if I were the other biologist, i'd be running after -school sessions to help the class keep up.

It is an awful situation but with regard to your DD not losing out too much, this is what she should do (speaking as a teacher but not science):
Knowing (?) the topic of her January exams she should be looking at past papers on the exam board website and practicing them.
She should be looking through the topics in her text book and seeing what she understands.
Doing these two things should throw up areas she doesn't understand and questions she can ask her remaining teacher.
Does she have the email of the remaining teacher? Even though it is half term I would be very pleased if any of my students emailed asking for help.

I agree with tigerstripes. I did my A level biology fairly independently, as both my teachers had a lot of absences. It's not ideal, but it's not impossible.

TeamDamon - while I would imagine that any secondary English teacher should be able to teach A level, it's not the same in science - you need to be a subject specialist. The idea of me teaching A level physics when I don't have an A level in it myself is rather daunting! It's almost like suggesting a French teacher could teach A level German - after all they are both languages, right? The school may not have any more biology specialists available. Even if they do, those specialists will presumably have classes of their own to teach.

Mrsrhod - is it a big school? How many A level classes are there?

There are 1800 students, 400-450 of those in the sixth form. 18 science teachers, 7 specialising in Biology. Maybe only 2 of those can do A2. I have never looked at the breakdown of staff before, it's all on the school website. Still think this needs to be resolved next week even if it means taking the 2nd teacher away from her normal classes. It's not as if these students have until next summer to make up the lessons, it must be done by Christmas.

As do year 12, 11 and 10 in my school. It' s a rubbish situation and the department should be doing mire than providing a few sheets. But changing another teacher's timetable is not always possible. I would though be asking for some sessions for catch up though. Possibly after school.

Hmm, in that case they should be able to sort something out. There must be other biology groups still being taught? I can't imagine that they only have 2 biologiest capable of teaching A2 - usually there are more biology specialists than physicists in schools.

Agree though that you can't just take the other teacher from her classes, as years 11 and 12 will probably also have exams after Christmas.

The biology specialists should be able to pick up A2 work. They have done the degree and should understand the concepts, and be able to explain them.

The A2 teachers will have far superior knowledge in the demands of the exams, but all the teachers should be able to make a contribution to learning.

If I were one of the other teachers, I would jump at the chance of getting A-level experience.

Oh yes - all the biologists should be able to do some teaching. It's just when that can be done. Re-reading the OP, it seems that they are indeed suggesting after school catch up, but I would be making sure it happened straight away after the break.

We would move staff around for long term absences, and have done so - but you have no way of knowing if the ill teacher is only getting signed off for a week at a time, and hopes to be back each time. There would be no point in the school rejigging everyone's timetables for a week - the time taken to do that, and disruption to the other exam classes (Y10,11 and 12 all will also have biology exams in January) would not be worth it for a week. I'm sure mind the gapp that all the teachers will already have A level experience, I don't think you could staff such a large sixth form without all the staff teaching A level.

To those who thought I was suggesting that other science teachers should be able to teach Biology to A2 - I wasn't; I'm not that stupid!

It's just in our school, we have six Biologists alone, all of whom could teach an A2 class if required, and I assumed that a good-sized secondary school would be in a similar position.

Could I please have a reality check. The biology teacher has returned fit and well. 2 lessons so far this week where she has picked up with the work they would have been doing in week 3 of term in September. Dd1 asked today what arrangements were being made to catch up with the course and continue with this terms work. The teacher said not to worry, there was time in lessons to cover everything. In other words no extra lessons will be offered.

They missed 4 weeks of this teacher, approx 10/11 lessons .Effectively she is proposing to teach most of last 1/2 terms work and all of this before Christmas in normal lessons. I can only assume she will be doing it at record speed. We were promised by the Head of 6th form that this wouldn't happen.

Does last 1/2 terms work have to be completed before this next 1/2 terms? In my mind I expected they would run the 'missing' lessons after school and continue with what they should now be doing in school time. I see that this may actually be impossible but what else could be done?

I don't really think it's acceptable to cram it all in so I guess another call to school is required, but just wanted to know if i'm being ridiculous.

She'll be having to go some to catch all that up! Depends on a few things, really - are they taking any modules in January? Is there coursework / assessment to do? You probably could fit it all in, just, at the expense of revision time before the summer.
However, if the teacher has only just returned from a fairly long absence, not sure she should be expected to run after school classes immediately.

Thanks for replying. They do have exams in January, so its very tight. Have not heard of any coursework and I assume after Jan. they will be doing new stuff. Could not get hold of anyone at school today so will try again Monday. Just wanting to know if I have a valid point/concern. Sounds like I have. Dd will not do well if it's rushed and we were promised it wouldn't be.

However, if the teacher has only just returned from a fairly long absence, not sure she should be expected to run after school classes immediately

I agree. She's just getting back to the workplace and surely you don't want her to be ill again? In fact I'd question whether teachers should be expected to add after school classes to an already tiring day in any case.

I suppose it would do no harm to ask the HOD how the situation re catch up is likely to pan out.