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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

crap maths teacher

17 replies

IreneA78 · 04/03/2015 22:43

DS came home from school very angry.He is in lower 6th and does maths, FM phys, chem.
They have 2 teachgers for maths and 2 for FM.Since xmas they have new maths teacher for the maths stats 1 module and he says her classes are a complete waste of time.He thinks she hasn't done maths for a long time and is very rusty.So for example the kids are telling her she is doing something wrong and she doesn't get what they mean until she looks in the answers and realises they were right.She sets loads of questioins the same when the class have already 'got it' and are baying to move on.
DS understands it easily from the textbook and him and his friend have taken a couple of new exercise books from the cupboard and started working through the textbook (on the bus!!)
He is now adamant that her lessons are a waste of his time which could be better used in private study in the library and is saying that is eexactly what he will do in future..
It is a grammar school and the kids are generally quite quickminded and very motivated.Why the school have given an A level group such a crap new-to- the- school teacher is anyone's guess.
What is the best way for the kids to deal with this.Of course they should show respect for the teacher, but this should not outweigh any prejudice to the kids education, which after all is what the school is about.

OP posts:

PollyCazaletWannabe · 04/03/2015 22:51

Get your DS to speak to the head of maths and/or head of sixth form. That isn't right. As a head of subject in a secondary school, I know that these kind of complaints are usually taken seriously.

roisin · 04/03/2015 22:58

ds1 has a similar situation with one of his maths teachers (yr13 FM); I could have written your post (except not a grammar school, so not the same one!). He had a few confrontations with her when he pointed out her mistakes, but he's realised now that really doesn't work (because she can't cope with it and gets defensive). So now he just mostly ignores her 'teaching' and works from the textbook.

At parents evening said teacher was paired up with another one, so was clearly expecting flak/complaints. IME/IMO there is no mileage in complaining: it won't achieve anything. The school will back/support the teacher and in any case they couldn't get rid even if they want to.

S1 is pretty easy; I'd advise your ds to just keep his head down and work through the material independently.

BossWitch · 04/03/2015 22:58

Kids can't deal with this one themselves - it will put whomever they go to in order to complain in an impossible position.

Email or call the head of maths yourself stating that you have serious concerns regarding the quality of teaching for these lessons. Discuss (calmly, politely, sensibly) the issues raised by your son, acknowledging that this is second hand info and not necessarily the gospel truth, and ask them to investigate and get back to you. Monitor the situation via your ds. If no improvement, get back on the case with head of maths and head of 6th form. Get a face to face meeting if poss.

Grammar schools live and die by their results so if there is poor teaching and it looks like it might cause problems they will be concerned. However if the kids are all bright enough to essentially do it themselves from the textbook, and results might be ok, they may want to avoid acknowledging a shit teacher and ride it out to the end of the year and just not timetable her for 6th form again.

noblegiraffe · 04/03/2015 23:02

Why the school have given an A level group such a crap new-to- the- school teacher is anyone's guess.

Because there is a severe shortage of maths teachers and she may well have been the only person to apply with any experience of/qualifications for teaching maths A-level. It might have been a case of her or nothing.

That doesn't mean you can't complain though. They might be able to bump her down to only teaching KS3/4 and get another teacher from the school to teach more sixth form. Or she might get more support if she is just rusty.

MillyMollyMama · 05/03/2015 12:54

Schools can get rid of teachers fairly quickly these days, but they have to give support and help first to see if there canbe improvement. They cannot just fire a teacher due to incapability without making the effort to help make improvements. However, I feel for you. The samethinghappened to my DD in History A2 and it was catastrophic! Definitely see the Head of Maths. However, if they get rid of the teacher, do not expect themto be able to recruit a good one quickly, or at all! The teacher can be taken away from exam groups though. Being "rusty" should have been addressed before the teacher got into the classroom.

As an aside, I went to a grammar school. All 5 of our Maths teachers held first class degrees from Oxbridge. We were so, so lucky - according to the school. However, could they all teach? Sadly not. One was utterly abysmal! Two were excellent and two were pretty average. With the one who was useless, we refused to go into her lesson one day. Regrettably, she sat and cried in the classroom. She clearly should not have been a teacher and maybe we were unkind. However, she decided teaching was not for her. There is something special a good teacher brings to the classroom.

treesntrees · 05/03/2015 21:04

we had a crap maths teacher at my small grammar school. Even if everybody including the maths wizzes got the same answer to a problem, if the answer in the answer book was different we were all wrong. We had no respect for her whatsoever. No wonder the maths wizzes had to go to the boys school, a bus ride away for maths A level.

jemstipp · 05/03/2015 21:12

I had this problem when I was at school. My a level biology teacher was shite. My whole class complained to each other about him but never formally. He would basically throw up lessons on the overhead and read it and if we asked him to explain or elaborate he would just repeat it. I was always good, very good in this subject and blame his poor teaching for what I believe is a lower mark than my potential. I wish my class had spoken up. Definitely go to the school or put it in a well thought out letter and send it to the school. This is simply not fair on your son.

Callooh · 05/03/2015 22:06

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mineofuselessinformation · 05/03/2015 22:13

What Polly said. If the teacher is struggling, it needs to be dealt with.

PeaceOfWildThings · 05/03/2015 22:13

Please complain to head of year! My DD could be in the same class! I made a complaint today.

tropicalfish · 05/03/2015 22:48

let us know what happens. Its a difficult matter. On one hand, you feel sorry for the teacher but then you are afraid of the impact of poor teaching on your child when alot of courses have offers of a,A and A

stn24 · 05/03/2015 23:26

You can complain to the Head of Maths but it is unlike to resolve in a new teacher being dragged in to teach the class due to the time of the year and it is almost impossible due to timetabling problem. I had the same problem this year and couldn't not do it.

Finding a decent Maths teacher is difficult. I taught at 2 grammar schools and you are talking about top ten in the league table, state school of the year etc, the number of candidates for each job could be counted on one hand. Current grammar in a popular area, same problem. However, I don't think you should settle for this, let the school now so at least they fix it for next year.

Original poster

IreneA78 · 06/03/2015 01:49

I think he wants to just not go to her classes any more and go to the library and self teach there instead.I doubt the school would allow it though

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Iwasbornin1993 · 06/03/2015 02:02

This exact scenario happened to me whilst I was studying A Level Maths in Sixth Form. My statistics teacher was completely useless and was forever having to ask us students to explain things to her! It turned out she didn't even have a Maths degree but had been teaching Maths in the school for 40+ years yet never A Level before us! I and a few fellow students managed to scrape by S1 (but many others failed and dropped Maths all together) by teaching ourselves from the textbook as a complaint to our head of year wasn't a possibility - because she was the Maths teacher herself!! Unfortunately due to this and the fact that S2 is much more difficult many of my class who were predicted A Maths A Level done extremely badly in the S2 exam which affected our overall Maths grade massively (I got a C despite getting As in all core Maths modules!). Luckily I had done 4 A Levels so I still got into my chosen University course but others in the class didn't! I'd suggest definitely bringing it to the attention of your DS's head of year (who hopefully isn't the awful maths teacher like mine!) as soon as possible before he starts his S2 module - could you perhaps do this in conjunction with other parents from his class? They might take it more seriously if there is a few saying the same thing. Hope it all works out for your DS in the end, he sounds like an intelligent boy!

Callooh · 06/03/2015 06:31

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Whyjustwhyagain · 06/03/2015 09:00

My DS had a similar situation, in the end we paid for a private maths tutor for 1 hr pw to cover the content. The teacher left after 2 terms teaching 6th form, and the timetable was re-jigged so they had the head of maths teaching those lessons but it did mean having a twilight lesson each week (ie, at the end of the school day)
Wasn't ideal, but as others have said, there is a shortage of good teachers. The tutor was fantastic though.

Original poster

IreneA78 · 06/03/2015 13:17

Luckily the 3 other teachers he has (over maths & FM) are great so I think he will be able to approach them with any problems.

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