Teaching staff - actually getting worse?

That's a question for you to ponder, and reach your own conclusion. But heres a few points to consider;

1) One particular member of the Languages staff has, for a short while now, been on maternity leave. Congratulations. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I want to talk about is the replacement. Not naming names, this teacher (whom, presumably, is now filling in for all of the departed teacher's classes) is, in this templar's opinion (and that of quite a few others), a terrible attempt at a replacement. I pray it is not full-time. As well as having a rather poor grasp of the English language - which is not a good thing when teaching in England - but her accent, at times, reduces her clarity to the equivalent of an escaped mental patient. Throw in her lack of decent class control and lack of any emotion other than anger, and you don't have an ideal teacher. Rumours, possibly true, but as of yet unconfirmed, are running that she has been seen screaming at Year 7's in corridors and breaking down during class. I make NO claim to the validity of these statements. But if they ARE true, then this teacher may possibly be one of the worse we've seen at Temple Moor.

Revision: I have been informed that the first rumour, of her screaming in the face of a Year 7, is true; as seen by a packed German class, as well as their German teacher. Things are really piling up against this particular "replacement".

2) Speaking of poor replacements, another certain teacher (whose name I, rather fortunately, do not know, nor wish to know) has been doing the rounds to several lessons at the back end of last week. As well as filling in for a Maths session last week, in which he repeatedly had to ask the students if he was correct, tried to indicate a curved line graph using three rigid board pens (looking nothing like a curve, from any perspective), corrected himself at least 10 times, AFTER the students had copied down his board notes, and paid no attention to what the students were doing. As a previous guest writer wrote about him, he was oblivious to both the fire alarm, and that a cohort of pupils were actually conducting a music quiz. He knew nothing, or very little, about Maths; so why exactly was he filling in during a higher set Maths lesson? And, again, he appeared during an ICT lesson that same week, despite having little to no knowledge of ICT either. Again, why? Please, find teachers who understand the subject - we're reaching the end of our GCSE courses.

3) A related note is that the ICT teacher was absent for two lessons last week due to apparently being in some manner of technology conference elsewhere in the country. That's all fine and dandy of course - but leaves two very, very important questions unanswered. Firstly, was this convention really that necessary? More necessary than crucial coursework lessons of a GCSE class? A teacher should be teaching, not discussing computing with a 70-year old computer nerd at the other side of England. And secondly, obviously the school were aware that she would be attending this conference way before hand - that's plenty of time to find a replacement teacher, is it not? How long do they want?

4) Final note now. A certain English teacher, whilst discussing the religious themes in Lord of the Flies (which, presumably, she does every year with her class), she seemed utterly oblivious to just about every religious reference thrown forward. Unless it was about Jesus, everything flew past her head, and she constantly needed people to explain who the figures referenced were. For example, Prometheus. Fair enough, he's not commonly known, but how can you truly discuss religious themes without knowing anything other than Christianity? It's not the only religion out there, and other religions; such as those of the ancient Greeks or Egyptions, actually have great comparisons to be drawn with Lord of the Flies. Please, teacher in question, research some of these points - you can't expect every pupil to be oblivious to the fact that there are religions outside of Christianity. And, interestingly, she didn't know a GREAT deal about that either.

So, readers, are teachers getting worse? Send your views to the email address on the right hand information bar.