No teacher turning up to class. Is that normal?

[LadySeaThing]

My teenage DS told me recently he had a class at school where no teacher turned up - and it's not the first time either. DD remarked that a friend told her the same thing happens to her big brother, and they all have an unwritten rule that if there's no teacher by half way through, they just leave.

These are 15yos coming up to exams. It's a state high school (Scotland) that prides itself on its great ratings and being a renowned school. But that's pretty shit surely? Just not having teachers to teach and not even bothering to say so/explain but just leaving the class to sit there?

I think I should raise it with the school but just wanted to check if this is familiar to other MNers. Is this a widespread result of teacher shortages and just what happens sometimes, or is it unacceptable?

Apologies if I don't come back to the thread immediately as I'll be busy/out but will come back later!

Teachers don’t just not bother to turn up, that’s just nonsense, pupils can’t just wander off either. If the register system is sims or similar the office should know when it’s not been taken. Probably a cover issue. If the pupils are in a year group bubble, like at my school, then cover may not have been assigned to the right room. Why did a pupil not notify staff ? It’s very easy to tell the teacher next door or get a message to the office.

Happened once or twice. We knew we were supposed to get someone to go and tell a member of staff but peer pressure meant no one did. We'd just chat and mess around for the period.

It would have been more common in the past due to paper registers but now that most schools use online systems it should be picked up by the office. We get someone checking up on us if they’re not done within a certain time limit

Yh that's poor if it's a regular thing.

I guess it's not impossible - for instance if there was a late cover - teachers are not supposed to cover but sometimes have to and now and then you'd get a v late notification (say a teacher was taken ill suddenly) and I guess you might miss the email, but in the school I worked in, they would quickly realise no register had been taken and find you or someone else.

So if it's happening a lot I would raise it op.

The class should have alerted staff to the situation so cover could be arranged.

There will have been a mix up where perhaps the cover teacher has gone to the wrong class or the usual teacher forgot to request cover.

This happened all the time in the '80s. We missed a whole year of French as we never actually saw the teacher that we were meant to have.

I think online registration and schools being generally more competent places means that it happens much, much less, but I'm sure that a combination of teaching staff shortages/office staff shortages and general workload does mean that it happens from time to time.

Has happened several times at dc school. Usually where it was known the usual teacher was absent but cover was not organised adequately.

Please please please get your children to report it to an adult if the teacher doesn't turn up, it just doesn't happen in schools now unless something has gone very wrong. Years ago my insulin pump malfunctioned and my insulin went into free flow effectively meaning I overdosed on insulin. The resulting hypoglycaemia caused me to lose consciousness in my office, on my own. If my class hadnt alerted colleagues that I didnt turn up to their lesson I wouldnt have been found for at least an hour and longer if the next class also failed to mention it to anyone. The outcome for me could have been very different.....

At my son’s school they apparently have a convention that if a teacher hadn’t turned up by a certain time, I think it is 10 mins late, the boys can have, I think it is called, a “run” and can just bugger off. There seems to be controversy as to whether they can be gathered up in corridors by the approaching late teacher - boys consider this bad form. I was utterly staggered to hear this was the case. In the last days before covid closure this happened a fair bit.

it just doesn't happen in schools now unless something has gone very wrong

I think it obviously does happen quite a lot, judging by this thread! But I agree it could be because of an emergency and they should alert staff.

I can see how it's much less likely with digital registers, or at least much more likely someone will notice and check.

It seems a stretch to say it’s happening a lot. It’s happened a couple of times (?) to your son, and you’ve heard fourth hand that it apparently happens a lot to someone else. Pretty much everyone else is saying it happened to them years ago or that it doesn’t and shouldn’t happen.

Also, if the kids aren’t telling the school if it does happen, how does the school know if it has a problem?

Unless it's a particularly rough school and the class were especially irresponsible I'd have expected one of them to go to reception and let them know about the mix up. I think it highly unlikely the teacher just didn't bother turning up.

It happens very rarely. Obviously if you start a thread on it you'll get responses from the few cases where it has happened.

Happens every so often if someone has not read the cover sheet properly, or cover has been missed. Or the idiot teacher is sitting in her office having completely forgotten not, not me, never

Usually either a kid goes and tells someone or somebody notices. I once went into a class with no teacher where an enterprising little shit soul was ringing the main school switchboard and not getting through, I did spend a few minutes laughing at his monologue about the answerphone message before sorting it out.

When I had a pastoral role I could sometimes be late to lessons because of sudden emergencies. My classes all knew they had to sit down and look busy, and be ready to start the second I walked in.

I'm a TA in a secondary school and have only seen this happen once. A teacher had got her days mixed up and thought she had a free when she should have been teaching. Luckily I was in the class to support a student so I was able to find the teacher and tell her.

When a teacher is absent, cover is arranged.

Ok not a lot, I suppose what I mean is I find it amazing than it happens at all especially in what is supposed to be a brilliant school. And I feel a bit uncomfortable with it being the kids’ responsibility to alert someone. Yes they should just for safety reasons but It can’t be beyond the wit of a basic organisational set-up to have a checking system. What if someone did get hurt in an altercation or whatever - would they blame the kids for waiting?

I think I may have offended some teachers here, so I apologise for that. I didn’t mean to suggest it’s a normal thing for teachers in general.

Electronic registers are the alert system. Teenagers are more than capable of nipping next door to tell someone

@LadySeaThing - well, I can imagine that if the person responsible for checking the electronic registers of scores of simultaneous lessons in a secondary school is off sick, that this could easily be missed. There are plenty of able bodied children in the class who could report the problem in real time, however.

And tbh, I feel very uncomfortable with the idea that a class full of students coming up to their exams should not feel the need to take any responsibility whatsoever to find out why their teacher has not turned up.

I asked DD if they've ever been told what to do if a teacher doesn't turn up, and they haven't. (She said she was sure that after a little while a neighbouring teacher would notice the noise.) We were always instructed at school that someone should report to the office if no teacher arrived (probably with a threat of a class detention if we didn't).

In recent years, standard secondary set-up is that teachers stay put and kids move, and they often aren't allowed into the classroom without a teacher. That means that if a teacher is off, the teacher next door is well aware and keeping an eye out to see that the cover has arrived.

This year, many schools have suddenly switched to pupils staying put and teachers moving, which means the teacher next door probably hasn't a clue who is supposed to be next door, the kids are in the classroom not the corridor, and so it won't be noticed until the noise levels rise. Perhaps the schools therefore need to go back to instructing kids on what to do if there's no teacher.

To be fair we knew what we were supposed to do we just didn't do it.

I also think they know what they should do but there may be a lot of peer pressure not to go off and report it. It might be be difficult for kids with some types of SN for example.

Talking to my DS, I think quite often the teacher turns up 10 or 20 mins late so they’re waiting rather than assuming no one’s coming. Then they just keep waiting and then it’s the end of the period.

Not common in my school. Register is taken in every lesson by the teacher so any register mark missing from the system would flag up a truancy call. A truancy call for an entire class would alert the SLT.

@Walkaround

And tbh, I feel very uncomfortable with the idea that a class full of students coming up to their exams should not feel the need to take any responsibility whatsoever to find out why their teacher has not turned up.

Have you met any teenagers?