Teacher Accused my Son of Teaching:(

[Clarita12345]

A Teacher Accused my son of Cheating...should I complain to the head...?

My son's tutor made him practise past papers exams including the one from 2014. Unlucky..:(.. He sat the same paper for his mocks early January. My son got an A*, but instead of being rewarded & encouraged to keep working hard, he was told off.
I went to see his physics teacher (my colleague!! as I work part time in the same school...), to clarify what he had said to my son... Well, not only he was so defensive in his argument but he told me on my face that me & my son cheated and when I asked him whether my son saw either the paper or the answers in the school, he replied No but my son's tutor is being dishonest when she made my son practise past papers.
I tried to explain to him that none of us knew that the same paper my son practiced would be used for his mocks, he kept repeating that he cheated and that the mark he got was not valid.
Back to the office, I felt so bad, I felt that he didn't handle the situation in a professional way.
Should I complain to the head.!!!

'BoneyBackJefferson wrote' "By interesting I mean that if he puts this mark in a projected of a "C" (just an example of a lower grade) he will have to justify this and have all his tracking gone through in detail.

It could also mean that his work/teaching could be put under scrutiny as in extra observations, lesson plans, justification of any systems put in place by the teacher (catch ups, extra work, revision sessions etc.)

All because of one dodgy grade on a mock"

Anybody with an iota of experience teaching knows that someone will do something to make their life more complicated than it should have been. It goes within the territory of teaching.

Accusing someone in public of academic dishonesty because it is complicating your life is not within that territory. Actually, anybody working within education understands this is a very serious accusation that is dealt by specific people following specific procedures.

I would not entertain any discussion about my son's feelings and how upset I am about having my child taught by a person who does not seem to have the qualities required for the job. I would make sure this 'professional' does not call anybody a 'cheater', within the academic meaning of cheating in the future. This is not an opinion thrown during a coffee conversation with friends about whether or not this is cheating. 'Cheating' has a very specific meaning within the walls of a school building. OP, don't let it go.

camaleon
At no point have I said that I agreed with the accusation of cheating. My response was to GettingFiggyWithIt as to how using the result would make life "interesting" for the teacher.

Also is the word "not" missing from

"knows that someone will not do something to make their life more complicated than it should have been."?

asking as it makes more sense that way

English is not my first language, but I meant that, when you are teaching (as I guess happens with many other jobs) this kind of scenario will be pretty regular. You will go to work and a student would have made a personal decision impacting your workload. So someone will 'do something' that will result in your life being more complicated than it should have been in an ideal world. In this context, a student would have practiced the mock exam beforehand. This will have an undesirable impact on the teacher's life. The teacher is not to blame for the irregular result. it does not mean s/he can misbehave

Apologies if I'm repeating someone else's point - I've only skimmed the thread.

There is a very good reason why we use the most recent past paper for mocks. Every now and again, a pupil is unable to take an exam due to an emergency. In those cases, the exam board will often accept evidence of a pupil's ability in support of a teacher's assessment to award a grade, if the supporting evidence is the most recent past paper, taken under exam conditions. The tutor should not have used this paper and evidently isn't aware of this arrangement.

A colleague in the last school I worked in was sacked for printing off a password protected paper and leaving it unsecured.

If the tutor works in a school, and have used password protected material in tutoring, that is gross professional misconduct, and a sackable offence.

yes, it is cheating, although it might or might not have been intentional by the OP and her son. ignorance would be no excuse in the eyes of the law, though.

A colleague in the last school I worked in was sacked for printing off a password protected paper and leaving it unsecured.If the tutor works in a school, and have used password protected material in tutoring, that is gross professional misconduct, and a sackable offence.

Seriously?! This shocks me. That CAN'T have been the whole story.

Well honey suckle, a student found it and photocopied it and distributed it far and wide!, if they hadn't the teacher might have got away with it. Then we had to let the exam board know, and other local schools, and no one had a mock, and we were not popular, and my colleague lost her job.

Gosh! I could understand if it were the actual exam... But last sessions paper, which is prob on the internet somewhere anyway? Seems pretty extreme. Poor teacher!

Ffs, that's ridiculous really, when anyone with ten seconds to spare could find stuff like www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2711808 .

I do think that any use of past papers as exams and the expectation that it will have the same value as the actual exam is ridiculous, and in that case the system is all wrong. It would be fairer for everyone to have actual mocks prepared nationally. Or just a second set of exams for those who couldn't attend the first set, as in other countries.

Totally agree Lweji... Using past papers when they are so easy to access may have been a good strategy 10 years ago. It is not a good strategy now. There are many persons who would be exposed to the papers, and many potential leaks.

But this is beyond the scope of the OP's request. She wanted to know how to deal with a teacher who seems unaware of any rules or professional codes when it comes to 'cheating'. What have you finally done Clarita?

The thing is that I don't think it's really cheating. Once it's out there, it's out there and the student could have done the test regardless of the tutor.

Was he forced to sign anything saying he wouldn't look at the last exam? If not, it's not cheating.

Agree with this too Lweji. If it is out there, what particular rule has he broken with this? Do schools tell students that the mock is normally a past exam? Or is this something we should all know and respect?

I understand it was probably detrimental to the OP's son he had already practiced the paper. Still, unless this is clearly written somewhere, I would also blame the school for not informing about the practice. Ignorance of the law may not be an excuse. But I suspect we are facing a case of 'punishing' without any law whatsoever.

The crux of the matter is, WAS it actually a paper that was "out there", or a secure one?

Hi there,

Thank you all for contributing with your different ideas.
I e-mailed the head requesting to see him regarding a confidential matter and he is happy to see me this Friday at tutoring time.
My aim is to get his advice on the matter and make the point that the teacher was right in saying that the mark my son got doesn't help him know where he might have any gaps and need help but what I disagree with is the way he handled the whole situation and his arrogance and rudeness towards me both as colleague and as a mum.
X

If the mock done at school is invalid because the boy has done the same exam with the tutor, couldn't the tutor provide the exam the boy did with them so the school could use that for analysis?

which would rather be the point of there BEING a tutor, Quite! .

If all you need is someone to watch your child have a go at a past paper, it's much cheaper to get a stopwatch app to 'bing' at them to time them per question, than it is to hire a tutor just to watch them.

Honestly. I occasionally tutor. I start by establishing weak points (by using a mocked up paper I've prepared, based on my knowledge of recent MS), & then I work on that particular skill (with more exam-style tasks I've prepared).

A lot of them are resources I've created & used for work, so tutees won't have seen them as we don't tutor our own school's students.

Any 'tutor' using recent, protected past papers is doing you NO favours - that IS lazy. They'll at best be duplicating what's covered in school, & at worst undermining it, as per OP.

After reading this I'm quite astonished at some of the comments on here by people I assume are in my profession.

The teacher shouldn't have said that your son had cheated. He hadn't and this needs to be addressed so that there's no ill-feeling. The teacher should know that it was the tutor who gave your son the test.

To address some of the ridiculous comments on here...for someone to say that the tutor had 'hindered your child's education by denying him a proper mock exam' is utter nonsense! If the teacher can't give an accurate predicted grade for your son then there are issues with his teaching. There's no way that one mock result is a fair representation of your son's capabilities. His teacher should know this and should be able to gauge your son's ability on much more that just one test!!!

For someone else to suggest that your son deserves a 'U' grade is also utter rubbish without knowing his previous test scores.

To blame the tutor, who had no proof this would be the mock, is insane too. As a teacher and a tutor myself I know that going through past papers with students is the best way to prepare them for their exams. For someone to say this is 'lazy tutoring' is nuts!!! Students need to know how to answer 'exam style questions' and this can only be done by doing exam questions. The tutor can't be blamed for this unless he/she knew this would be the mock, and even then he/she will probably expect the predicted grade to not be based purely on this.

Finally I have an issue with someone suggesting that doing mocks tells you where the gaps are in your son's knowledge. This 'teacher' upthread should know that a mock is not the only way of doing this. If your son's class teacher is any good he will know where your son needs to focus his revision...and I'm sure your son will have a fair idea too! Examinations only focus on a few sub-topics and will only test your son's knowledge on a tiny part of the whole specification.

Also, as someone else has written...if a student wanted to find out what's on the most recent paper they just need to look at 'the student room' website anyway.

In essence, many of the last 73 posts are VERY narrow minded views!

How did it go today clarita?

Hi there,

I had the meeting with the head teacher who was very supportive and confirmed that the teacher shouldn't have used the word "cheating" and that he will talk to the head of Sciences Dept and have a word with the teacher himself.
He went on saying that my boy was a good lad and that he will write to me by next week.
Oof.... Out of my chest....
Thank you all for your Contributions & Support. X