What does one do about bad teachers?

[FriendlyLadybird]

DS is in year 8. There is a subject that he likes a lot and is very good at, but the teacher he has had last year and this has absolutely terrible classroom control. He has continued to do well in the subject because we can support him a lot at home but he says he really, really does not want to have this teacher next year and into his GCSE years.

Is it possible to talk to the school and make this sort of request? My instinct is to support teachers and to feel sorry for those who have poor classroom control, but DS had started to hate these lessons and I don't want him to lose interest in the subject.

Schools do not generally pander to parental requests regarding who teaches their child. If you think the teacher is poor, then phone the HOD listing your concerns. The teacher could be given more support, or it could be that the school are aware of the problem and will get rid of said teacher, or make sure that groups who had him this year get a good teacher next year.

if there is really a problem, get each of the children to complain through their pastoral tutors
and the following week the parents to put FACTUAL points to the SLT (email / letter, not phone .... proof)

it may be that the school already knows there is a problem so will act

in DCs (non selective comp), said teacher got put on 100% observation and was gone in 4 weeks.

noblegiraffe I've contacted the HoD about poor teaching before and been told that my expectations are ridiculous and the teacher goes above and beyond the call of duty for every child they teach. Last year the GCSE results dipped 8% 12% at A and A in the subject. only the pupils being privately tutored got A/A grades last summer. My daughter was predicted A* throughout year 9 and 10. Half term in the autumn term she had dipped apparently to grade D. I don't think that was all about her personal performance and I don't think the decline helped her self confidence or motivated her to work harder.

Having explained all that, what should we do as parents? She is leaving for a different 6th form by the way. She has a private tutor now for two sciences. We are lucky, we can afford the £40 ph it costs in London. I think it's really sad; sadder still that the school is pretending there isn't a problem.

Write to the Head. Explain that your approach to the HoD has effectively been ignored. Be very specific about the problem - detailed incidents.

If the Head doesnt respond in a week (or passes the buck back to the HoD), phone the Head. If that fails, write to the Chairman of the School Council and then Ofsted (who take 'communication with parents' as a criteria during inspections ....).

Can your dd mobilise the pupils who want to study and are frustrated by the situation?

My Y9 dc has been in a similar situation with a teacher. One of the other pupils wrote a petition explaining the problem and got most of the class to sign it. They then sent it to the Head, who interviewed them about it. The following week their teacher attended and observed other classes that this group took and had held up as examples of what they were capable of when the class was properly controlled and given work at an appropriate level. Within a couple of weeks the teacher had changed his style and manner, and the class improved enormously.

My dd has about three teaching weeks left before her GCSEs. The curriculum for this subject has not been completed yet! The tutor is filling the gaps. My dd needs to focus on her GCSEs now and we have to focus on supporting her to get through them rather than corresponding with the school. The school is in denial and I don't think I can change that. That is why my daughter is leaving.

Can I ask what the subject is?

I would complain and ask what steps are being taken to ensure smooth learning. If students are being disruptive are they removed? Does the teacher have extra support?

I would still make sure ds doesn't take the subject. To have this much of a problem in year 8 is very worrying.

Do they start gcse in year 9 at the school. Wondering if students know they aren't continuing the subject.

When you say the teacher has terrible classroom control do you mean that the entire class behaves badly for this teacher or that there are specific individuals whom the teacher cannot control?
What specifically is going on in the class that is different to how the class behaves in other subjects?
My instinct is that if this teacher generally has poor classroom control then the HoD will already be aware, but if it is specific individuals that are creating disturbances this might not be so obvious. In any case, you do need to be as detailed as possible in your feedback to the HoD in order to get the situation dealt with. I would very much suggest NOT demanding a different teacher as this will just put backs up, but rather ask fo a solution to the immediate problem. And from the teacher's point of view, if their behaviour management problem is because of lack of support from school management, a parental complaint may even be helpful.

If school management is poor, though, there is a high chance they will do nothing about the problem because they have their heads in the sand! A good management team will already be monitoring the situation and looking at predictions for grades very carefully and the progress made by the children in this class. Year on year there will be highs and lows in grades attained because each cohort is different. The A/A* could have been a brilliant result for last year. It is of course worrying that so many are tutored. I would speak to the school again about the class control and look at other schools, maybe. You have time.

It depends on the subject but in some there was a national decline in A/A last year - and it really does depend on the cohort. In literature we usually are 'expected' 18-20 A - last year only 12 got them - this year 28 are predicted them - it's variable

Does the class not behave for him or is there an issue with certain students? If the class doesn't behave my advice would be they need someone to bollock them and get them to behave But yes I would echo contacting the HOD for an appointment to discuss specific concerns- wouldn't mention dip in A/A*s as lots of subjects had that last year.

Do not do what Oinkballoons DD did. Can't believe she's proud of a daughter who made a petition against some poor sod just doing their job. Just the sort of thing a teenager would think to do, but adults should have told her that's not quite the way we go about things...

Oh sorry Oink I totally misread and thought it was your DC! Apologies.

No, it wasn't my child, but had it been I would have been proud of their approach. I see nothing to be ashamed of. The children dealt with a problem in a reasoned and mature way. Their petition was polite and well-thought out. The Head had no criticism of their actions. Their relationship with the teacher has actually improved, because the class as a whole now all make an effort to study, rather than just a few 'favourites'.

I wonder how the teacher really feels about what happened?
I know I would be really low if at work some people made a petition about me and took it to my boss! Imagine if you did that at your place of work?! Madness! It's good it turned out well but it surely could have been much different.

I'm sorry your DS is having a hard time but it really is nothing what so ever to do with the teacher. it is the behaviour of other pupils, and most likely, the lack of support the school is getting from the parents of those pupils.

Teachers are not there to "control" people, they are there to teach, and this teacher may be brilliant at that for all we know.

Teachers are not allowed, in fact to refer to "control", to attempt to "control" or to assess their own "control" or anyone else's. "Control" is not a concept that is allowed in education.

This is a common misconception by parents that behaviour is somehow the responsibility of the school, which it is not, it is the responsibility of the pupils, and their parents. The school is responsible for management, which is an altogether separate issue, and can only be done by consent. The governors will ultimately be responsible for the behaviour management policy anyway, even that is completely out of the hands of the teacher.

I get that Charis1. However, I think disruption in schools is a very serious issue indeed and those responsible for it are too often allowed to interfere with the teaching and learning of the majority. I have a real issue with schools who refuse to deal with this problem and think teaching staff are too often unsupported over it if the head has a misplaced ethos in relation to equality and inclusion.

Behaviour is the responsibility of schools because there should be strong rule frameworks in relation to it and these should be enforced to ensure that teaching and learning is maximised for all. Equal opportunity is not about allowing a significant minority to minimise the learning of the majority. If any child is preventing others from learning they should be removed from the learning environment until they are able to comply with the rules. If they are not then schools NOT parents and not the majority of pupils are responsible for the behaviour and culture that ends up prevailing.

I am responsible for the behaviour of my children. They are responsible for their behaviour in school. If others are not folllowing the rules and the school does nothing about it then the school and its management are responsible for the declining standards of behaviour that result. Not the parents and not the pupils but those who are paid to deliver the promises they make at admissions. When this doesn't happen schools fail and only schools can be blamed for it.

I entirely agree with you Beaufortbelle. The massive damage caused by a disruptive few to the education of the majority is a huge issue, and urgently needs addressing, right across the country.

Schools need proper powers to address behaviour, and also to be rigorously applying the powers they do already have.

parents need to be taking proper responsibility, and should be sanctioned if they don't.

All I was saying is this poor teacher being lambasted actually has no real influence over the situation at all, it is a systematic problem, out of the hands of individual teachers.

We are on the same page then. But, if behaviour is worse in this teacher's lessons isn't that a teaching issue? Shouldn't that teacher be receiving support to perhaps differentiate teaching a bit better to limit the disruption? That aside, I do think it's a leadership issue and if Heads are particularly "woo" - I'm sorry can't think of a better phrase, and it's affecting learning why do they have so much power?

Sorry talking from experience of what was an excellent school that made excellent promises but has deterioriated under a new (actually she's been there for 8 years) head along with the school's academic results and reputation. It makes my teeth itch that this Head has pulled down more than £100,000 a year for eight years and was allowed to pull the wool over people's eyes for so long. There are inadequate mechanisms in schools to deal with inadequate management and ethos's that are out of sync.

Making the governors annual meetings with parents no longer a legal requirement was one of the worst things to happen because it closed down a channel of transparent communication when things weren't working. And Ofsted isn't working either. My daughter's school was graded outstanding although teaching and leanrning was only good. The school, four years later, certainly wouldn't be outstanding now. The results it got then were from when the school community was still operating under the influence of the previously excellent head.

I also agree with Beaufortbelle.

My dd is in the final stages of her GCSE's and one subject in particular, which she hopes to do well in and go into A level with, was terribly disrupted. She told me the teacher had to spend ages trying to reason with a couple of particularly disruptive students and that often they were so noisy she couldn't hear what the teacher was saying. Quite alarming considering she's about to take the exam.

I sent an Email to the HoY and things have improved. But to be fair to the teacher (who happens to be an excellent teacher, I have no issue with him at all) he didn't seem to be allowed to send people out of the class for being disruptive. I think they might have reassessed this. He did phone me, obviously he couldn't say much, but he almost sounded almost relived Id brought it to the attention of the HofY.

So often teachers are disempowered to do anything and those intent on being disruptive know it. How on earth can a teacher control a class if all authority is taken from them?

That sounds so familiar chocolatecherry. It resonates. It isn't Physics is it ?

No Geography

It does seem to be a problem throughout the school. It's supposedly a school which is doing well. It does ok on the whole, but like many others, the disruption in classes can have such an awful knock on effect. I now have younger dc at the school who say exactly the same about their lessons and they get sick of it too. Dd2's maths class sounds an absolute shambles.

There seems to be a somewhat limp approach to dealing with it which I can't understand. I think parents should be contacted each and every time for serial offenders and teachers should be supported. Without the respect of their class they can't do their job.

I'm with a PP about the petition. How utterly degrading and demotivating for a teacher to have an entire class signing a petition against them. It's such bullying underhand behaviour. I cannot believe that any adult actually said yeah this was a great thing to do...it's totally acceptable to gang up on another person like this.
Newsflash:teachers are people too. You wouldn't dream of doing this to a colleague or to your boss in the workplace.

I agree that teachers need to be given more authority to discipline instead of being to scared and frightened of kids complaining about them.

That's the other big nugget where dd is .

I agree with it not being straightforward and it isn't just down to the teacher. I posted a few weeks ago about a similar problem.
My DD severely provoked 'lost it' and punched on the arm and kicked one of the trouble makers in her lesson. (DD knows it wasn't the right thing to do and thankfully it doesn't seem like the boy has said anything and she isn't going to get in trouble but she could have done)
To be fair to the teacher there are quite a few disruptive pupils in the class, they picked the subject because it isn't particularly academic, could be seen as one they could mess around in. This boy has a reputation in the school and has 'pestered' my DD (and others) for the last 3 years around the school and in lessons - and been disruptive but not to the same extent as in this lesson.

For my DD (very bright but struggles to concentrate -recently diagnosed as ADHD) we picked this as a subject that would increase her self confidence and presentation skills - and also it was more active - a rest from sitting at a desk writing all the time which she finds difficult. This should have been her favourite subject .
She has had the same teacher and been in the same class for 2 years, the teacher at both parent's evenings admitted these pupils caused problems etc and spoiled the lessons for my DD and others. The teacher said 'the school' were being fully supportive in managing their behaviour .
Luckily is seems the timewasters won't be in DD's class as she approaches exams next year, the real problem one has already just been removed from that class, the week after the incident with DD.
(The disruptive pupils had taken DD's bag and were throwing her things around and at her. The teacher was out of the room for part of it but did see some of what happened - actually mouthed 'well done' to my DD )

I do think this teacher is not very effective - maybe not the teacher to have a class like this ...but then on the other hand what can the teacher or even school do with pupils like this? (I know another pupil made another teacher cry in English!).
Just low level constant disruption - the worst pupils get constantly suspended, one or two have been permanently excluded - sent to disrupt another school . This isn't a school in a bad area - it is actually a good school and the vast majority of the pupils come from 'good' areas...I dread to think what some secondary schools are like.
I guess if they are streamed, the pupils in the GCSE classes don't have lessons with the worst behaved ones...but some teachers will have to deal with them.
I don't know what the solution is.

No, I wouldn't encourage a petition against the teacher. My DS wouldn't do it either. In fact, I think he's now regretting having said anything to me.

But I have spoken to my brother, who teaches the same subject (in a totally different county). He thinks I should say something, and that it would be reasonable for me to position it as worry about DS's rapid disengagement from the subject. Hopefully this will prompt some support to be put in place for this teacher.

Incidentally, my brother does view 'class control' as part of his job as a teacher. Yes, bad behaviour is ultimately the fault of the misbehaving pupils, but it is often the case that exactly the same class behaves totally differently for different teachers. Even when I was at school an independent, academic girls' school we hounded a young male French teacher out within two terms. We didn't behave badly for any other teacher, but somehow managed to smell his fear and ran him ragged. He didn't stand a chance. Perhaps one-to-one he would have been a brilliant tutor, but he was totally unsuited to teaching a class of 24 girls. He was not a good teacher.