How much difference does a good teacher make

[rainbowjoy]

My Dd has been moved down a maths set for the second year running going into year 10 down. She really hated teacher but unfortunately will have him again in this new set. Whilst I believe she could have worked harder and is of the age where nothing is her fault she is very upset about it. I have tried to explain to head of maths the situation but obviously in a year of 300 kids there is little they can do. They wont let her stay in set above. So my question is how much difference does liking a teacher make.

I agree with others... If it is a case of poor teaching this can have a huge impact on how well children do. If it is a case of just not liking the teacher then the impact it has depends on the attitude of the child. There is a French teacher at my school that is almost universally disliked by the students... She gets amazing results, I've never seen better marking in exercise books and she is actually a real softy at heart. The kids she teaches find her crotchety, strict, unreasonable and are convinced she hates them... But they do really well in French. We had another member of staff who was disliked strongly; her classes were chaotic, her books unmarked, she would sit texting on her phone whilst the TAs dealt with the kids and she left loads of work including coursework unmarked (She didn't even last a year). If the teacher is like my first example your DD will probably be fine... If she's like the second then I'd make sure the HT knows about it. Good HTs will be quick to deal with staff like that if they get enough reports of such poor teaching.

My dd liked her primary school maths teachers alot but she didnt do very well at the subject. She only got 4c at ks2. Despite she didnt like her yr7 maths teacher but she went up by 4 sublevels in one year. So as a parent i know which teacher i like best.

Unlikely, Cricketballs - he's the HoD and has been there for years, I should imagine it's very improbable he'll leave before retirement.

we currently have a very long standing HoD on long term sick leave, another who none of the staff would never have imagined leaving is going at Xmas not that we aren't jealous as he's going to a very leafy private school without the pressures we face

This together with timetabling/number of classes etc is why both I and Foxyloxy1plus1 have pointed out it is advised at school not to base choices on current teachers

I think teaching style makes more of a massive difference as our DS has discovered. Despite "liking" most of his teachers, his year end test results have swung up and down from year to year without any reason other than the teacher!

In year 7, he constantly got A and A* grades for Physics and English homework but only got 50-60% in the year end tests which was a massive surprise. In year 8 with different teachers, he got 90%+ for the year end tests in Physics and English, despite not actually trying any harder. Opposite happened with maths where he got 90%+ in year 7 but only 67% in year 8 due to the teacher not setting homework and not giving any practice questions for the class to do themselves. In Biology and Chemistry, he's had the same teacher and the year end test results were remarkably similar - just a couple of percentage points different!

In fact, in both years, he absolutely hated his French teacher, but got 89% in year 7 and 86% in year 8 end of year tests, so not liking a teacher doesn't necessarily mean a poor result.

Hi OP, We are in a similar position. DD1 loves Art and wants to do it at A Level. she just started Y10 and found out, she will have a teacher who she doesn't get on well with. She had this teacher in Y7 and during all year her level stayed between 4b/4a. Move to Y8, with a different teacher and her levels went from 4a to 6a. Move to Y9 and she has the teacher that she had in Y7 and her level went fro 6a to 7c. She started Y10 yesterday, and she found out that she will have the same teacher of Y9 for Y10/11. She is very worried that her work won't be graded well. She was expecting to have her Y8, who is the head of Art, after a chat with her at the end of Y9 about her grades in Art. She is not happy, and I am not happy either. I am not a parent that blames the teacher for bad grades and my DD know she cannot choose teachers just because she doesn't like them, but she and I are worried about how this teacher will grade her work. She will be talking with a member of Senior Leadership Team about it. We know, she won't be able to change classes as timetables are set, but she would like to have second opinions on her work/ course work grades as she doesn't trust the teacher.

May be there s difference between good and likeable. Not all teachers are both likeable as well as good some are neither.