PGCE student being told to ignore bad behaviour

[TheSquitz]

I currently have a PGCE student working in my class (Y4) on her first placement. In my class there are three 'challenging characters' who like to push boundaries and the student deals well with their behaviour. She was abserved by her tutor last week, and was criticised for 'speaking sharply' to two boys during the lesson. The boys were dicking about and she told them to stop (who wouldn't?). Apparently that was wrong and she should have ignored them. Trouble is, the pair of them would have carried on being little sods if she'd done that and probably set other kids off. I've been teaching for over 30 years and have never ignored bad behaviour. Surely the tutor was giving crap advice?

As tutors tend to, in my experience!

Clearly she hasn't been in charge of a class for some time.

I remember my tutor visit. It was my first time with that class and my first time teaching my second language. His advice was full of how he would have done with no knowledge of how my placement school worked, what technology was available to me etc.

This is your chance to build her back up and show her that she is the one in the classroom.

I assume you make some sort of written report on her placement and it’s not all just assessed by tutor visits ? In which case just be very positive about her behaviour management and how she adapted it to the class situation.

I found some of the tutors I dealt with quite out of touch tbh. These particular tutors would speak as if their position put their opinion at a higher level than an actual teacher's and would often criticise the student unfairly for some things but they were also overly lenient with other things.

I had one student who made virtually no progress at all, did not do the work he was required to do, would try to concoct some lesson plan as the children were entering the building in the morning, wouldn't engage with the parents at all, ignored the children where ever possible, and amongst other things was incredibly rude and inappropriate to one child (told an 8 year old to "shut your fucking mouth") and when we had a meeting with his tutor about my concerns I was told I was being over-sensitive and that I would be wrong to fail his placement as this student hadn't gone backwards in his teaching ability and was still consistent with his previous placements. So basically saying he had been equally shit at his other placements.

Then another student I had was amazing, just a naturally fantastic teacher, and the tutor criticised her heavily for incorporating a required skill within the lesson because it was nothing to do with the objective. When I defended her I was basically told I was wrong.

In your case, it's absolutely ridiculous that that student was told off for responding to poor behaviour. As we all know, behaviour management is such a huge and complex area and the earlier student teachers get to grips with it the better. The tutor is being ridiculous.

Yes I told the tutor that her behaviour management is very good and have also referred to it in the observations I have done. Luckily she has her head screwed on so wasn't too upset by the tutor's remarks. It just annoyed me that some people who are training teachers obviously haven't a clue!

I had a student who was observed once by her tutor and that was how her final grade was decided. Really weird.

Where I am the local tutors have either heavily bought into the 'relationships = behaviour' agenda or have been told their jobs rely on it.

Thus, students come out and their only behaviour management techniques are 'getting to know you' lessons.

The tutor also told her that she 'needs to be the children's friend'

This tutor sounds like a bit of a muppet. A good opportunity to teach your PGCE student that teaching is full of conflicting advice and that it's up to her to sort through it for the true wisdom (although I suppose she'll have to play the tutor's game during observations).

I find tutors very out of touch and give generally terrible advice.

Classroom pressures change so frequently that even being out of the classroom for 2-3 years is a HUGE gap.

The best advice comes from in school mentors who understand the context of the children.

Wow. Your update is mind boggling! I’m sure your student will listen to you and just jump through the hoops for the tutor.

I'm cautious about listening to tutors from our university after my ex head of department who was quite honestly the most ineffective teacher ever got a job as one! The other tutor they have has been in the role for at least 20 years. So no recent classroom experience at all.