The Student Room Group

Our teacher sucks, PLEASE HELP!

Hey all


This rant is probably going to be quite long so please bear with me as I would really appreciate your advice! I'm currently an A2 student and psychology is one one of the subjects I'm studying, but there's a tiny issue with my teacher. She's new to the school having only joined us in September since our former teacher left for a better position in another school.


She is a lovely person with a lovely personality and we tried so hard to like our new teacher when we started the course - we really did, but we're finding it so difficult. In short, this is the first time she's ever teaching the edexcel spec, and there isn't anything wrong with that other than we don't find it convincing that she has bothered to learn the spec before teaching us. We have so far covered criminal and child psychology and have recently just started clinical. Throughout, she has ignored the methodology sections in every chapter, taught the theories not accordingly to the spec, explaining studies in detail extremely briefly and when it came to the practicals, her instructions were unclear and not straightforward. I've been alright coping with the course and trying to keep my grade at an A because I'm fine with reading independently, but I worry for the others in my class as they're struggling with producing good work without good teaching of the material first - I mean at one point she gave us freaking GCSE notes for crying out loud! We called her out on it when it happened but she said she edited it to make it up to standard but we found the actual notes online later and found she didn't change anything!


To add to that, she has been absent from school in one half term more times than any other teacher in the school and we don't know why. I understand that her reasons might be personal as I've heard rumours about her mum being ill, but when she returns to school she just doesn't deliver. She was absent for a week last week but we had a substitute teacher come in and let me tell you, she was so much better than our actual teacher. She made us feel so dumb because she taught us everything our actual teacher was supposed to have taught us already but didn't. Before she took a week off we didn't finish covering child psychology as she only had autism left to teach. When she came back she immediately started with clinical and had I not reminded her that she still hasn't covered autism with us she wouldn't have at all. She covered it the next day and let me tell you how frustrated I was during the lesson! She was teaching us it at an AS level (just about the basic characteristics of autism), not teaching anything at all about the Sally-Ann test, theory of mind and nothing about the explanations for autism as stated in the textbook.


A lot of our parents have emailed our head of sixth form to express our concerns about her constant absences and teaching standards, but apart from hiring a substitute teacher, not much has been done about the below-expectations lessons. Everyone knows that the only reason she was hired despite not delivering up to standards was because she was the only applicant for the job. I honestly don't know what to say about where this whole experience is headed with our grades and as a class we honestly don't know how to handle this. We have tried to intervene ourselves by telling her honestly that we need more structure in the lessons and that she needs to teach strictly according to the spec and not just based on what she knows about the topic, but little progress has been made. PLEASE SYMPATHISE/ADVISE! We're at our wit's end :frown:
Original post by Lilyghz
Hey all


This rant is probably going to be quite long so please bear with me as I would really appreciate your advice! I'm currently an A2 student and psychology is one one of the subjects I'm studying, but there's a tiny issue with my teacher. She's new to the school having only joined us in September since our former teacher left for a better position in another school.


She is a lovely person with a lovely personality and we tried so hard to like our new teacher when we started the course - we really did, but we're finding it so difficult. In short, this is the first time she's ever teaching the edexcel spec, and there isn't anything wrong with that other than we don't find it convincing that she has bothered to learn the spec before teaching us. We have so far covered criminal and child psychology and have recently just started clinical. Throughout, she has ignored the methodology sections in every chapter, taught the theories not accordingly to the spec, explaining studies in detail extremely briefly and when it came to the practicals, her instructions were unclear and not straightforward. I've been alright coping with the course and trying to keep my grade at an A because I'm fine with reading independently, but I worry for the others in my class as they're struggling with producing good work without good teaching of the material first - I mean at one point she gave us freaking GCSE notes for crying out loud! We called her out on it when it happened but she said she edited it to make it up to standard but we found the actual notes online later and found she didn't change anything!


To add to that, she has been absent from school in one half term more times than any other teacher in the school and we don't know why. I understand that her reasons might be personal as I've heard rumours about her mum being ill, but when she returns to school she just doesn't deliver. She was absent for a week last week but we had a substitute teacher come in and let me tell you, she was so much better than our actual teacher. She made us feel so dumb because she taught us everything our actual teacher was supposed to have taught us already but didn't. Before she took a week off we didn't finish covering child psychology as she only had autism left to teach. When she came back she immediately started with clinical and had I not reminded her that she still hasn't covered autism with us she wouldn't have at all. She covered it the next day and let me tell you how frustrated I was during the lesson! She was teaching us it at an AS level (just about the basic characteristics of autism), not teaching anything at all about the Sally-Ann test, theory of mind and nothing about the explanations for autism as stated in the textbook.


A lot of our parents have emailed our head of sixth form to express our concerns about her constant absences and teaching standards, but apart from hiring a substitute teacher, not much has been done about the below-expectations lessons. Everyone knows that the only reason she was hired despite not delivering up to standards was because she was the only applicant for the job. I honestly don't know what to say about where this whole experience is headed with our grades and as a class we honestly don't know how to handle this. We have tried to intervene ourselves by telling her honestly that we need more structure in the lessons and that she needs to teach strictly according to the spec and not just based on what she knows about the topic, but little progress has been made. PLEASE SYMPATHISE/ADVISE! We're at our wit's end :frown:


Have you tried setting up your own study groups? Get a few revision guides in (CGP are good for psychology, as are Letts and Collins-you might have your own textbook to look at thought). This way those of you who are confident with studying independently can help others and gain some benefit from it yourself (explaining/discussing a topic reinforces it). I had a bad experience with a maths teacher, and some friends had a similar experience to you with a new history teacher (who eventually got fired) and all we could do was study ourselves and make the best of it. Make sure your parents keep voicing their concerns too-the school should listen, it's not fair for you to be disadvantaged.
Reply 2
Can I also just add that she's making AS harder for the AS students than it should be..
Reply 3
Original post by mscaffrey
Have you tried setting up your own study groups? Get a few revision guides in (CGP are good for psychology, as are Letts and Collins-you might have your own textbook to look at thought). This way those of you who are confident with studying independently can help others and gain some benefit from it yourself (explaining/discussing a topic reinforces it). I had a bad experience with a maths teacher, and some friends had a similar experience to you with a new history teacher (who eventually got fired) and all we could do was study ourselves and make the best of it. Make sure your parents keep voicing their concerns too-the school should listen, it's not fair for you to be disadvantaged.


thank you for the suggestion! That doesn't sound like a bad idea. I'll discuss it with the rest of the class and we'll see what we can do from there! Thanks again :smile:
Reply 4
Original post by Lilyghz
Hey all

Damn, My class is nearly in exactly the same boat a you :frown:. We haven't learnt anything and we have had 4 teachers in the last two months. We are getting worried no. If you find any useful websites or tips on revising please can you share them :P . Thank you, I really don't know what to do anymore! :s-smilie:
everyone usually has at least one bad teacher who doesn't really know what they're doing. I've got one. For that specific subject I just have to do more work outside of school in order to learn the content than other subjects. Just try to do as much work as you can and do reading before you start each topic. That way when the teacher tries to teach it to you you already have a rough idea of what she's trying to say so it will become easier.
Reply 6
Original post by Lilyghz
Hey all


This rant is probably going to be quite long so please bear with me as I would really appreciate your advice! I'm currently an A2 student and psychology is one one of the subjects I'm studying, but there's a tiny issue with my teacher. She's new to the school having only joined us in September since our former teacher left for a better position in another school.


She is a lovely person with a lovely personality and we tried so hard to like our new teacher when we started the course - we really did, but we're finding it so difficult. In short, this is the first time she's ever teaching the edexcel spec, and there isn't anything wrong with that other than we don't find it convincing that she has bothered to learn the spec before teaching us. We have so far covered criminal and child psychology and have recently just started clinical. Throughout, she has ignored the methodology sections in every chapter, taught the theories not accordingly to the spec, explaining studies in detail extremely briefly and when it came to the practicals, her instructions were unclear and not straightforward. I've been alright coping with the course and trying to keep my grade at an A because I'm fine with reading independently, but I worry for the others in my class as they're struggling with producing good work without good teaching of the material first - I mean at one point she gave us freaking GCSE notes for crying out loud! We called her out on it when it happened but she said she edited it to make it up to standard but we found the actual notes online later and found she didn't change anything!


To add to that, she has been absent from school in one half term more times than any other teacher in the school and we don't know why. I understand that her reasons might be personal as I've heard rumours about her mum being ill, but when she returns to school she just doesn't deliver. She was absent for a week last week but we had a substitute teacher come in and let me tell you, she was so much better than our actual teacher. She made us feel so dumb because she taught us everything our actual teacher was supposed to have taught us already but didn't. Before she took a week off we didn't finish covering child psychology as she only had autism left to teach. When she came back she immediately started with clinical and had I not reminded her that she still hasn't covered autism with us she wouldn't have at all. She covered it the next day and let me tell you how frustrated I was during the lesson! She was teaching us it at an AS level (just about the basic characteristics of autism), not teaching anything at all about the Sally-Ann test, theory of mind and nothing about the explanations for autism as stated in the textbook.


A lot of our parents have emailed our head of sixth form to express our concerns about her constant absences and teaching standards, but apart from hiring a substitute teacher, not much has been done about the below-expectations lessons. Everyone knows that the only reason she was hired despite not delivering up to standards was because she was the only applicant for the job. I honestly don't know what to say about where this whole experience is headed with our grades and as a class we honestly don't know how to handle this. We have tried to intervene ourselves by telling her honestly that we need more structure in the lessons and that she needs to teach strictly according to the spec and not just based on what she knows about the topic, but little progress has been made. PLEASE SYMPATHISE/ADVISE! We're at our wit's end :frown:



Gosh you must be stressed to write all this ...

I can assure you half of the teachers in the U.K schools (even in the private sector) are professionally unemployable.

I am not having a go at teachers but for a good graduate to become a teacher a minimum starting salary of around £50,000 (twice the current) is needed.

Unless of course his name is Jesus Christ and is passionate about teaching ...
TL;DR
TeeEM said "I can assure you half of the teachers in the U.K schools (even in the private sector) are professionally unemployable."

Totally incorrect. Have you heard of performance management? Teachers have to be regularly observed, their marking scrutinised and results put under the microscope. Teaching is far better than twenty years ago.

OP - make sure the Head of Sixth Form knows as they will be able to write to your unis if the problem continues.

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