Acceptable for year 11 class?

[DorothyL]

Today I heard that from January my daughter will have one of her five French lessons a fortnight "taught" by a cover supervisor, with work set by the subject teacher. How much do you think this matters, with just months to go to the exam?

It’s not ideal. It’s unacceptable as a normal timetabling decision but in practice it really depends on why they are doing it. If a French teacher is leaving and they have not been able to recruit a replacement then a year 11 class having one lesson a fortnight taught by a cover supervisor might be a necessary evil to make sure that another year 11 or sixth form group has at least some lessons taught by a qualified French teacher rather than being stuck with a stream of supply teachers. Some schools are finding it impossible to recruit at the minute and although I wouldn’t be happy in your shoes they may not have much choice.

DumbledoresApprentice
What you've said is spot on.

It's probably better to have most lessons by a specialist and then an internal, familiar cover supervsisor overseeing a lesson of mock questions etc (which can be marked by the teacher) than a stream of supply.

By y11 I'm setting at least one lesson a fortnight doing mock questions (which is probably what's being done by the cover supervisor) so whilst not ideal, they may not be missing out that much.

I teach MFL and I agree with PPs, best thing would be for teacher to set past papers or revision questions from workbooks.

Not ideal but a recruitment issue I suspect.

If they had any other option they would use it.

Agree - it will be a recruitment issue.

A cover supervisor may speak French fluently so would put them in a great position to help instead of a non specialist supply. I have worked with cover supervisors who have a maths degree, psychology degree and one who was a qualified personal trainer, they decided not to peruse the full teaching qualification.

Unfortunately, you cannot magic a specialist supply teacher out of thin air. Recruitment crisis.

Agree with everyone else.
It's not ideal, but sometimes you have to think - well, what it s the alternative?