School Problems

[pookie1968uk]

amongs other thing i'm not happy with at my daughters school, about 5 seperate times now a teacher has not turned up in the lesson and the kids, 13/14yr olds have been unsupervised for an hour. 2 of them left and went to the shops on one occasion! i want to comment on it the next time i go to a parent teacher day, which will be soon, but my daughter will be with me and doesnt want me to. she has already had a few problems with bullying and is terrified the kids will trace it back to her. what should i do? a lot of the kids are horrible and my daughter gets on with her work and is doing very well academically and the kids may have a good guess and trace it back to her. hope that makes sense!

[Katy]

sounds a lot like my old school. At the time it was great not having a teacher doing a runer to the shop but thinking back it was really out of order. Try sending a letter. You could do it to the school ananymously (sp) signed a concerned parent and then there is no need for anyone to know it was you. Or send the letter to the school with your name and only the teachers will know they wont tell the pupils it was you. If it is just about that one teacher and they teach all the school it could be any person. Even a phone call to the school could work. I know my dad send a number of letters and calls aomplaining as did my mates parents and we didnt have a clue.

[Bryan]

phone up and report it, say the class and the teacher but dont mention who your daughter is. it cant be allowed to carry on the way it has, sounds disgusting to me, something had to be done to stop it.

[Katy]

Brys right and he put what i was trying to say a lot clearer and concisely.
There are plenty of ways to sort this without mentioning your daughter.

I always tend to waffle.

[Abigail]

Phone the school up and ask to speak to the head or deputy heads. They might ask your name and daughter's name but they shouldn't pass it on. Complaints are usually treated in confidence and only involve the teacher in question and whoever is dealing with the complaint.

If possible, have a list of the days and lessons that the teacher has been absent. They may be able to match it with the signing in/out book at reception if the teacher has had to leave unexpectedly (although five times is ridiculous with no cover provided).

Follow the telephone call up with a letter. If nothing is done within a reasonable time you should ask to speak to the head of the governoring body.

[Hollie-x]

This is exaclty what happened to us on two occasions. The last one, one of my friends had to go to A&E 'cause she fell over in class and broke her leg! My Mum wasn't best pleased! It was the same day as our parent's evening so she had a word with our teacher - he was out moderating so had no idea.

My Mum wrote a letter as well. She didn't sasy who she was, no address or anything but mentioned which class etc.

[pookie1968uk]

thanks for your replies. i will mention your ideas to my husband and we will decide which to do. the thing is while they are on their own the boys especially are up to all sorts and when they hear someone going past they make everyone go quiet. one of these days there will be an accident. the last time two boys went out to the shops which could have very serious repercussions for the school. we will definitely contact them and let them know.

[Chloe O'brien]

I know that you are concerned that your daughter isn't bullied for telling you this but it can't go un-reported. As you say anything could have haprpened to those young boys that went to the shops. I bet you won't be tihe only parent who is horrified to hear of this.

I agree with all the other posts that you should report it to the school to give the teacher and head teacher a chance to explain why there have been all these incidents of absent teachers. I would also keep a record of the reports as if things don't improve take the matter further with the education department.

Good luck Pookie let us know how you get on.

[Kim]

My school hasn't had a lot of problems with absent teachers that I've heard of, but there's numerous kids that continue to go off up to the shops, some of them even smoking in school uniform on the way. Someone must have complained somewhere along the line and now we have community police officers coming into the school grounds about one lunch time a week, and some patrolling the town. The school then put the children that were caught out of school on attendance report, so they couldn't go out of school without getting into big trouble as they had to have the report signed every 10 minutes at lunch. I'd be sure to mention that there are students walking out of the lesson - maybe they could do something similar as the ones that are going off to the shops are likely to be even worse behaved as they get older if nothing is done about it.

I'd do an anonymous phone call or letter, and use 141 if you're phoning so they can't get your phone number and then find out it was you through searching the school system for the number. Maybe get some other parents who are concerned about this sort of thing to complain as well if you know of any, so that the school is more likely to do something effective about the matter.