Teacher deliberately didn't help kids to revise for upcoming mock to teach them a lesson!

[Stuckinarut23]

D's did horrendous with his GCSE history mock as did his class mates. He normally is very good at history but this exam was based on local history which he covered a long time ago, plus there are no revision books in this section. Anyway we went to his parents meeting and teacher basically said she deliberately didn't revise for it prior to the exam and that they covered it a while ago (possibly last year) so she wanted to put the responsibility on them and for them to basically learn that anything could crop up in the exam so they should be studying all of it. Apparently the other class did revise the local history and did well. She did mention that they do have a handbook on the local history although again this was given a while ago and guess what D's can't find it! This was the same teacher that when we first met said she waited to instill confidence and that she is a specialist in history and has the best degree blah, blah.

Sounds like the most important lesson your son has ever had....

This is a key parenting point where you can properly drive the point home or completely undermine it

To be honest he has been attending after-school revision and revising at home he said he wasn't expecting it to come up in the exam and it was studied last year so totally forgot about it.

to be fair it does sound like he learned a very valuable lesson then, with no long lasting repercussions. I imagine the teacher had been telling DC to revise everything and they didn’t listen. Whilst I’d definitely prefer the teacher to help with revision, it is ultimately the students job, and your DC had all of the resources available to him. If he chose to lose books and notes and not cover the full subject then that’s his choice.

Now he'll revise it for the actual exam - and probably be a bit more rigorous in revising everything and making sure he does have all the notes - so the mock has done it's job.

So because you say that his current teacher is 'putting down' the previous teacher, you feel the need to put her down? Why? It sounds as though you are jealous of her qualifications and determined to pick on something, and it's petty really.

And it's nonsense for your son to say he 'didn't expect' this topic to come up in the exam - unless he is a secret GCSE Examiner (which I doubt) or has a hotline to the Exam Board, how could he possibly know what will, or won't come up in any exam (or even a mock)? He's trying to wriggle out of responsibility and you are facilitating him - put the blame where it belongs, on him, and maybe that will make him more responsible at organising his own revision in future. The teacher won't be doing the actual GCSE - he will - so he needs to revise properly. He's not five, he's old enough - and if you encourage him not to take responsibility then how on earth will he cope with A Levels - and possibly Uni afterwards? It'll always be someone else's fault when he messes up.

What everyone else said. Also, 'putting down' the previous teacher could be an attempt to assert herself as a new teacher for the class if they were always going on about the old one and how he/she was better. I'm currently supporting an ECT who has a class that is always going on about the teacher they had last year and how he was better. In some cases, classes really do go on like that and this history teacher may have just been countering that from the class. It does sound like there are at least a few kids/parents there making her feel she has to justify everything she does.