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.

Dh has spoken to H of 6th form and received a call from class teacher. Both are still insisting that the course can be covered in normal lesson time. I remain unconvinced. Last week they did the work they should have done in week 3 in September. At the very best the work will be covered, but much much more quickly than if some proper catch up lessons were on offer. That is obviously something the school are resisting.

Of course I don't want the teacher to be ill again, thats a silly suggestion. But I do want this large establishment, supposedly an outstanding school, to get real and fulfill its commitment to its students. I don't think thats unreasonable. I guess we will never know what might have been and will always wonder how this will affect the grades.

DD2's Chemistry teacher was off for a long period of time when she was in year 12 and the work was never covered or caught up so DD2 ended up teaching herself things from a revision guide. The whole thing was very frustrating and it meant that DD2 went onto A2 with a shaky understanding of things that she would have perhaps had a better grasp of if she had actually been taught the work. Year 13 wasn't much better and we tried to get DD2 to have some tutoring but she thought she could sort it out for herself. In the end there was only one child in the class who actually got the chemistry grade they needed for their university place everyone else had to go to their insurance choice or as in DD2's case were lucky that her first choice still took her.

My advice would be to assume the worst and cover the work at home and get extra help if need be and don't rely on the school.