Ask a teacher

[TeachWithMsL]

I am a secondary school teacher, so I work with teenagers and families every single day! I find that often parents have lots of questions about school and how teachers support their kids, but nowhere to ask.

Feel free to ask anything about secondary education and issues that we see every day (mental health, exams and revision, social media, general teenage chaos)

Thanks OP. Eldest started year 7 in September. Settled well. They have a 3 set - top, middle and “mixed”. Child is in middle. Bright but not motivated. Will happily coast along in the middle which worries me. Do middle-ing children who have no behavioural issues just get overlooked?

@LadyGAgainWhile I admit that it is true that the kids that “shout the loudest” tend to pull the most attention, we are always tracking academic performance compared to predicted performance and I know that if I had a student that was relatively underperforming I would be trying to get to the bottom as to why! I can only speak for myself but I have high expectations of all my students and will drive them to do the best that they can - though how much the kids lean into this approach can be very different.

Thanks for this - two questions from me:

1. What method do you use to teach the children (e.g. chalk and talk or own research) and which do you find more impactful for the students? and
2. What impact does poor student handwriting have on their education?

Residential trips... are tge teachers coerced into going or are they doing it as they genuinely want to?

No one is forced to go on these trips. We go because we like kids, then we just get slagged off by parents the whole time. They're brilliant but utterly utterly exhausting.

Every school has different policies and normally these policies change every two years when you get a new deputy head. At the moment it's very much of a back to traditional teaching, but less of the chalk obviously.

I'm pleased to hear that. Both my DDs have got so much out of school trips and the other "Extra Mile" stuff the teachers do and would hate for them to be doing it under sufferance.

I'm also appalled at some of the petty complaints I've heard after trips. If 150 children have managed to apply sun cream but yours hasn't... surely that points to your child being at fault rather than the teachers for example.

Very often you can take away 100 children for a residential and only two parents thank you

Do you resent parents of well-behaved, academic children taking up places at parents evening? I know it can be a real battle for some parents to get a place and I am sure there are some parents you very much would want to engage with. I always feel a bit guilty taking places, when essentially almost every teacher gives glowing feedback. Is this a waste of your time?

Ps I know I sound like a tosser with an angelic child, that is definitely not the case, he is autistic and faces many other challenges that he and school are managing well, but as far as results/ focus/ learning, he does very well.

No, of course not. It's lovely talking to parents about their children whether the children are well behaved or not. I think parents evening probably could do with being reformed but I always come away from it pretty happy.
you also have to bear in mind that often parents come with their own baggage about their own school experiences, so the more experienced you are the better you are at handling it

Thank you @catpigeon that makes me feel better! And lovely to hear that you enjoy talking to parents about their children. 😊

Thanks @TeachWithMsL- academic performance compared to predicted…so in year 7 is this against SAT results. Ours didn’t do science only maths and English and one other and the year group as a whole performed below other local schools - many of whose pupils are now at this secondary. This worries me. Like the junior school failed them so the next 5 years they are on the back foot…

@gato21most of my lessons are teacher led - I will briefly introduce some new information or skill, we will spend time practicing as a whole class (usually on mini whiteboards) until I can see that everyone has mastered it, then they will do some independent practice while I go round and support those who need additional help! In terms of poor handwriting- it really depends if it is legible or not. With my lowest sets (where some students genuinely cannot produce written work) I do a lot more verbal work or will scribe for them as to me it is more important that they have the understanding. With higher sets where I know they are able to write but being a bit lazy with handwriting I will chat to them individually about needing to improve it!

We are absolutely not coerced - trips are actually something I really enjoy (though they can be super tiring) as you get to build a relationship with the kids outside the context of the classroom which can be really lovely

I absolutely don’t resent it - I think talking to the parent of any child is meaningful and important! I’m also very aware that just because a child is well behaved or academically performing well that doesn’t mean that they don’t need additional support in some way. For me, parents evening is the best time to have discussions about supporting students and what I can do differently and that applies to every single student I teach.

At my school we actually don’t use the SATs results at all because we find that they are pretty inaccurate as a measure, instead we do our own testing in the first week of year 7 and then use this. I agree that it isn’t always perfect, and we sometimes will use teacher judgement to alter the predictions if it becomes clear that they are not right.

My DS is currently in Year Six, he has an IEP and SEN support but no EHCP.
How much information will his teachers have about him when he walks into their classes in September? What can I do as a parent to help make sure this transition goes smoothly?

Unfortunately his classroom teachers probably won’t get that much advanced information (depending on how fast the SENCO is at information sharing) - I know for many of my year 7s I was aware that they were on the SEN register but had very little additional information as to why at the beginning of the year. I would strongly recommend arranging a meeting with his form tutor and the SENCO before the transition to share information and come up with a plan to support him that can be put in place from the start. When you have a child with SEN, particularly at secondary level, there is no such thing as being “too pushy” - the parents who push are the ones whose children get the best support (which is very wrong but unfortunately how it is)

Neither of these methods are used in comprehensive secondaries.

Teacher explains the new content, models the questions on visualiser or similar, pupils try the questions, move onto new content then revise old content at the beginning of the next lesson. This frees the teacher up to check in with SEND pupils.

Lessons at my (admittedly nice, leafy) comp are silent with some pair work (e.g. keyboards, science practicals, conversations in mfl).

SATS are only part of the picture; there is usually a range of contextual data used to set targets. Your child will probably not be playing catch up for long and should find their ‘level’.

I’m SENDCo and transition lead and spend a chunk of my summer holidays making learning plans for SEND children. At my school, this info is shared immediately with teachers.

Thanks, this is really helpful, I'll do that.

Roughly how often are you [pleasantly or unpleasantly] surprised by your kids' performance in GCSE or A level vs how often are your predictions/expectations [written or unwritten] more or less spot on?

We have two bright children, both test at 130+ for English and Maths (the elder is 140 for both). We're sending them to a state secondary after state primary (the experience of which has been variable based on teacher to be honest). Will they be challenged and pushed in lessons or is this going to be a repeat of primary.

Eldest is ASD and we've been pulled in several times over her correcting the teacher / supply when the teacher has it wrong. Hoping specialist teachers at secondary will alleviate this problem but really struggling to know how to manage without sounding like a dick.

They already do a lot of extra curricular of their choice - chess, music, sports etc.

Not coerced exactly. It's very unequal though, in that some departments (MFL, geography) have to or are expected to run trips. My school has been doing French, German and Spanish exchanges for well over a decade with the same partner schools. I'm Head of French, so I pretty much have to run the French Exchange. It causes massive extra workload which other departments don't really have. Though PE and drama do loafs of extra outside-of-school stuff too. Some parents are appalled that staff fares and accommodation are paid for by the money parents pay for the trip