Mental health and effects teachers can have on pupils

[Bianca]

Originally Posted by Emmie2016

...I don't think I agree that any child shouled be marked on commitment during these times. ...

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Or, maybe, any time! As a teacher you don't really know enough to label something as big as commitment so definitively.

It would be better purely to comment on apparent classroom interaction and regularity of homework/assessment completion.

I was taught (as a teacher) always to be specific in record-keeping and report writing, rather than resort to general labels -- and numbers are as general as it gets! That's primary and I do recognise it must be tough with so many more students at secondary level.

As you say, in current circumstances, everyone should be encouraging everyone else as much as possible!

[Gryff]

Many moons ago as a student nurse I got a rotten assessment it knocked me for 6
I’d never met the sister or nursing officer in charge of the unit it was theatre I challenged them only because I had rock solid back up my mum we had different surnames and nobody knew we were related
They hadn’t a clue who I was till challenged and called out it’s awful but treat/it as a life learning curve and shove her from behind to call the teacher out (so it’s not the pushing parent ) it will give her a much needed boost and a valuable life lesson challenge every thing about you you know or think to be unjust learn from it grow stronger move on and vow to make sure you never do it to an other young person without discussion time to improve and then discuss their progress before any set in stone assessment
She can turn it round in her favor if she ( you call it right ) for uni statements etc

[Vinniecat]

Originally Posted by Gryff

Many moons ago as a student nurse I got a rotten assessment it knocked me for 6
I’d never met the sister or nursing officer in charge of the unit it was theatre I challenged them only because I had rock solid back up my mum we had different surnames and nobody knew we were related
They hadn’t a clue who I was till challenged and called out it’s awful but treat/it as a life learning curve and shove her from behind to call the teacher out (so it’s not the pushing parent ) it will give her a much needed boost and a valuable life lesson challenge every thing about you you know or think to be unjust learn from it grow stronger move on and vow to make sure you never do it to an other young person without discussion time to improve and then discuss their progress before any set in stone assessment
She can turn it round in her favor if she ( you call it right ) for uni statements etc

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Thank you, I do want her to understand that there will always be challenges and learn to deal with them. It’s just so difficult when I am already worried about her. Mainly because of the fact that she does nothing other than school work. She has applied for a job so fingers crossed for that. She does have a job in a restaurant but was furloughed after four shifts. Hopefully we will be getting back to some form of normality soon.
I bet it was a good feeling having your mum there without anyone knowing when you were a student. There were times as a student when I came across a ward sister that I would loved to have set my mum on!😂

[DonnaD]

My daughter had the opposite problem in Year 9. She was really struggling at home with her health and emotional state. Homework was a nightmare. I will never forget hearing she was doing fine at Parent's Night from all her teachers that were actually there. Shortly afterwards she was tested for dyslexia and failed the test very badly. When the school was then asked to fill out an autism questionnaire I found out she was barely speaking in class and actually turning to face the wall in the hallways. Only one teacher had finally raised concerns and that one had been feeding her essay plans and quotes to cover how badly she was doing. I don't think most of them had any idea who she was because she didn't cause trouble and just hid at the back of the class. The worst part is that I had chosen the school for its "excellent pastoral care".

[caj]

Agree with whats been said. But I'm also reminded that reputation of a teacher may help her. I had an English teacher who was always really harsh. I'd usually get 3 out of 10. The celebrations of a 5 were immense! We all knew he was harsh and whilst soul destroyed initially, grew to understand his demands.

[Fluffypenguin]

This is the problem sometimes with 6th forms I think, they’re very similar to school and a lot of them still treat the pupils like children, rather than young adults.

I went to an actual college separate to a school and it was a totally different learning environment, it was actually very similar to the set up at university and this helped massively for confidence as we were treated like young adults, rather than children.

There wasn’t any “school work”, or any assessments on effort, it was all mainly self led to instil independence, whilst still giving a gentle nudge every now and then if we were slacking, but we didn’t have reports or anything else like that.

I really feel for your daughter I do, especially when the assessment has been unfairly done. I always remember I always struggled with P.E because I have the coordination of a goldfish (actually that’s insulting to goldfish) and I used to get embarrassed that I couldn’t do a lot of the sports and because of this I wouldn’t really join in and I was scored very low on my school reports for P.E and one P.E actually hated me because she thought I was just lazy! Instead of someone bothering to show an interest and ask why I was struggling I was just criticised and it was hurtful.

[EllieP]

I am a tutor in a FE college and I would definitely say speak to the tutor. Possibly email, all our students have our email addresses and explain how this has impacted and ask for reasons of where she feels your daughter is not engaged/committed. What does she need to do to improve, this will open the communication and you can request a Google meet 1-1 as you are concerned etc. It is very difficult at the moment and our setting is doing 1-1 with lots of students at the moment because of low feelings. Having this type of report with no explanation doesn’t help anyone. Hope this helps. Also going through similar with my 15 year old daughter who is feeling very low at moment. Always been excellent in school but lost interest and motivation and it is heart breaking to see. Possibly ask you daughter to speak to her personal tutor as she could benefit from some mentoring to support her with her feeling low at moment, it also gives them an outlet too.

[duchy]

Whilst working as a classroom assistant, when it came to report time I used to get so angry with the minority of teachers who would ask me who particular kids were as they didn’t have a clue. Usually the ones who were no trouble and just got on with it. I’d usually try and prod their memory but if that didn’t work would only give positives about the student so they didn’t suffer for the teacher’s shortcomings.
It was a minority of teachers but it does happen. The good teachers knew all their students .

[Fluffypenguin]

Originally Posted by duchy

Whilst working as a classroom assistant, when it came to report time I used to get so angry with the minority of teachers who would ask me who particular kids were as they didn’t have a clue. Usually the ones who were no trouble and just got on with it. I’d usually try and prod their memory but if that didn’t work would only give positives about the student so they didn’t suffer for the teacher’s shortcomings.
It was a minority of teachers but it does happen. The good teachers knew all their students .

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I think the worst thing that would happen in our school was that in certain classes, certain teachers really took a shine to the brainy popular children, who were from good homes and obviously had loving parents. The children who struggled or who had problems, were just sort of overlooked and left to get on with it, whilst the teacher spent their time chatting with the popular children.

I was one of the problem children and this is something I noticed a lot and it did make me resentful. I didn’t have the motivation to work hard because things were tough at home, but no one bothered to find out why I was so withdrawn. Some teachers even made certain groups of us feel second class compared to the rest, it was tough at times.

Don’t get me wrong though, we also had some teachers who showed no favouritism and who tried to help us all, which was nice. The school got closed down anyway not long after I left due to failing ofsted reports.

[123]

For high achievers, commitment scores are irrelevant.

I frequently got dinged as low commitment in Maths, I could just do it, didn't need to try and it showed.

I got the highest marks but I was in no way committed to the subject. I walked out with an A at A Level and an A at Further Maths A Level (in the dark days before A* was possible)

Was I ever commited or motivated in the lesson? No! Did it ever impact my ability to get the grades needed? No!

In the OP case it is either a case of missed identity, or maybe the child is shy or reserved, in these days of remote learning only the talkative (in a good or bad way) stick in the mind - so if she isn't "putting herself out in front and centre" she may well be being overlooked - and hence thought of as not committed

It's not right, far from it, but ultimately if a school insists on such a pointless and useless subjective grading system people will end up with wrong assessments