Class not allowed do Maths paper 1!!

VEILED MOON · 05-02-2014 2:31pm #1

My son's class were not allowed to do the pass Maths paper one in the Mock exam. Apparently as the teacher has not covered the course to enable them to sit the paper. Has any other school had this problem? Should i get grinds for him as time is running out. Or should i contact school as have had no contact from them regarding this. Thanks.

lostatsea · 05-02-2014 2:52pm

The class will almost certainly have covered some parts of paper 1. Algebra is on paper 1 so they have been doing this since first year.
The teacher should have set their own paper creatively inserting the topics already covered. If the students are sitting mocks they should do both papers.
Many classes have not finished the course at this stage which is perfectly ok.
Most teachers set their own mocks compensating for parts not covered The idea is to allow students to sit a full paper and get their timing and exam preparation sorted out for the real exam. All that was required on the part of the teacher was a little imagination.

spurious · 05-02-2014 3:52pm

Some schools don't do Mocks at all.
By all means contact the teacher if you wish, but it's not the end of the world.

VEILED MOON · 05-02-2014 4:40pm

I am surprised to hear that some schools dont do any mock exams. But it is important as you need to pass Maths to get onto any course from what i have seen re entry requirements.

rainbowtrout · 05-02-2014 6:49pm

VEILED MOON wrote: »

I am surprised to hear that some schools dont do any mock exams. But it is important as you need to pass Maths to get onto any course from what i have seen re entry requirements.

More schools than you think don't do mocks. It's more important to get the course done properly and for students to be able to understand the material and answer questions on it than do a dry run of the exam.

If your son has friends doing mocks in other schools he could ask one of them to give him a copy of their mock and he could do it at home for practice but other than that my main concern if I was in your position would be how much of the maths course is left if the teacher didn't think the students would be capable of putting in a decent effort on paper 1. The mock part is fairly irrelevant.

d1234 · 05-02-2014 7:02pm

Maths is quite a broad course and there are not too many schools with the whole course finished. However, most schools will let the students sit the paper and see how they get on and mark accordingly. Students should be able to attempt most questions at this stage.

Regarding grinds, it really depends on how far your child is on with the course and their ability. There are a few months left to finish off on work but at the same time it would be very difficult to get the whole paper 1 covered in 16'ish weeks.

Perhaps the teacher will give your son's class the paper at a later time so maybe talk to him/her and see what the plan is. If you don't feel comfortable with that, maybe contact some other parents and chat to the principal.

Also you could contact some of the companies such as DEB or Examcraft and perhaps get a set of maths papers off them or ask your son if they know anyone who sat the pre and make get a lend of their papers.

It really is one of those situations which you want to react to but not overreact to at the same time! Well done op on taking the interest in your child's education as there are many parents who barely know when their child's mocks are on!

Memories · 05-02-2014 7:17pm

My school doesn't do mocks. We are extremely behind on covering the course and quite frankly, I don't think we'll have it covered in time for June.

Your sons teacher should have a plan for covering the curriculum over the course of the two years. If they don't get some stuff covered for whatever reason the class may sit some extra classes nearer to the time or during lunchtimes. Or at least I know this is the case here.

I wouldn't panic

If in a few weeks time he says they haven't moved on with some paper one topics, then i'd worry.

Good luck to your son in June

robman60 · 05-02-2014 7:37pm

It's not anything hugely abnormal.

For my mocks we're doing two paper ones and leaving paper two for now. If you're son feels he needs grinds then maybe you could get them, but I know I feel pretty confident about mine overall, even without having all paper 2 covered.

05-02-2014 7:40pm

I have a similar problem in my school.

My maths teacher doesn't have the course covered, and even though I started grinds last year I still feel very behind and a bit clueless. My teachers original plan was that we wouldn't sit the mock paper 2. The school eventually had to bring in a past maths teacher on Monday evenings, so we have her once a week covering paper 2 with us.

Is the maths course really "too long" or should my teacher just hurry up?

Pwpane · 05-02-2014 11:33pm

The course is very long, and if the students find it hard it takes longer to do it. Also, it is very early in the year to expect to have the whole course finished.

There is no point in a student doing a particular Mock paper if they haven't enough topics covered yet - waste of time and money. Of course contact the teacher if you wish, to find out the story behind it. It seems a fair enough plan to me to cover all of one paper instead of a portion from each. The marks are then a fair reflection of how the student is doing on the material they've studied. Otherwise, they would do badly on both papers - and how would that help?

ProjectManager · 06-02-2014 9:45am

VEILED MOON wrote: »

My son's class were not allowed to do the pass Maths paper one in the Mock exam. Apparently as the teacher has not covered the course to enable them to sit the paper. Has any other school had this problem? Should i get grinds for him as time is running out. Or should i contact school as have had no contact from them regarding this. Thanks.

I agree with the contributors who say that you should not panic and I do think you are doing the right thing by becoming concerned about this issue. However this is precisely the type of thing that the system is sweeping under the carpet in the hope that it will go away and be hidden by so called Project Maths.

Our LC system is a competitive system whether we like it or not (I happen to like it because life is competitive in most areas). so your son is competing against 100,000 other students for places in third level. btw this is not meant to alarm but merely to state reality.

When i mentor students in Maths I tell them that the LC is similar to an academic olympic games. The students spend years building up to a two week event during which time they need to be at their mental peak.

In most schools, the mocks are an integral part of that preparation and one which i support although I do disagree with the harsh marking tactics generally used.

Our system facilitates teachers moving at different paces for what ever reason (poor teaching, lower student ability etc) but then this means that some classes are more prepared earlier than others. This is something that needs to change.

As a parent i have been in exactly the same situation. There are the lucky few that can fully understand a maths concept in a few weeks, but for most it takes time and practice, so the earlier your son competes the course the better. I try to encourage the students to complete the course by end Feb and then practice from March onwards. Remember they have other subjects and their ability to learn new stuff will decrease as the time gets closer to the exam.

So, my advice is not to panic and tbh don't even bother going to the school that will just frustrate you. Do take the matter into your own hands and get someone to help your son finish the course.

Good Luck.

forgot to sat that it is crazy to have the mocks so early. They used to be in March which gives the classes more time to be properly prepared and for the mocks to be a true dry run.

ProjectManager · 06-02-2014 9:51am

Pwpane wrote: »

The course is very long, and if the students find it hard it takes longer to do it. Also, it is very early in the year to expect to have the whole course finished.

There is no point in a student doing a particular Mock paper if they haven't enough topics covered yet - waste of time and money. Of course contact the teacher if you wish, to find out the story behind it. It seems a fair enough plan to me to cover all of one paper instead of a portion from each. The marks are then a fair reflection of how the student is doing on the material they've studied. Otherwise, they would do badly on both papers - and how would that help?

The course isn't too long. Its much shorter than the old course. I do agree that the mocks should reflect what the students have covered and I do think that they are held too early in the year.

ProjectManager · 06-02-2014 9:55am

robman60 wrote: »

It's not anything hugely abnormal.

For my mocks we're doing two paper ones and leaving paper two for now. If you're son feels he needs grinds then maybe you could get them, but I know I feel pretty confident about mine overall, even without having all paper 2 covered.

I am surprised at your comment. do you not think you should be tested on everything you have done. Rather than 2 paper 1's why not have the second one examining what you have done in paper 2?

seavill · 06-02-2014 2:07pm

ProjectManager wrote: »

I agree with the contributors who say that you should not panic and I do think you are doing the right thing by becoming concerned about this issue. However this is precisely the type of thing that the system is sweeping under the carpet in the hope that it will go away and be hidden by so called Project Maths.

Our LC system is a competitive system whether we like it or not (I happen to like it because life is competitive in most areas). so your son is competing against 100,000 other students for places in third level. btw this is not meant to alarm but merely to state reality.

When i mentor students in Maths I tell them that the LC is similar to an academic olympic games. The students spend years building up to a two week event during which time they need to be at their mental peak.

In most schools, the mocks are an integral part of that preparation and one which i support although I do disagree with the harsh marking tactics generally used.

There is no such thing as harsh marking tatics, a marking scheme is done out for each subject as in the real leaving cert. The difference being the one in June is altered several times to match the standard of student that year. The Pre scheme does not get altered. Hence the difference. The marks are awarded the exact same way as they are in the real exam, the only difference is that students may not have all aspects of a course fully completed and do not have a large amount of revision done like they will come June. This harsh marking thing is a myth that people use to help justify bad grades. it is simply untrue as set out above

Our system facilitates teachers moving at different paces for what ever reason (poor teaching, lower student ability etc) but then this means that some classes are more prepared earlier than others. This is something that needs to change.

An education system must facilitate teacehrs moving at different paces. Say I use the exact same teaching methods this year as I did last year. Even though I am the same teacher, with the exact same material presented in the exact same way it will take 2 different lengths of time to complete with the two different classes. This is our job to differentiate. We must change our teaching methods year by year to match the class in front of us. If we do not do this we are failing our students and we are by definition bad teachers then, not because I am not on the same page as the teacher next door. Your understanding of the education system is severly lacking with comments like that. Being prepared for the mocks (finished the course) is the last thing on any teachers mind as it should be. We are there to prepare our students for teh LC/JC not the mocks. The mocks are a waste of 2 weeks teaching time that we could be using to finish the course. (although they do have the benefit of showing students exam conditions)

As a parent i have been in exactly the same situation. There are the lucky few that can fully understand a maths concept in a few weeks, but for most it takes time and practice, so the earlier your son competes the course the better. I try to encourage the students to complete the course by end Feb and then practice from March onwards. Remember they have other subjects and their ability to learn new stuff will decrease as the time gets closer to the exam.

So, my advice is not to panic and tbh don't even bother going to the school that will just frustrate you. Do take the matter into your own hands and get someone to help your son finish the course.

I completely diagree wit this to be honest. Ringing the school will help you understand where the class are at and what the plan is, which will calm your fears slightly. Why would it just frustrate the OP? I don't understand that comment. Before you go wasting your money on grinds find out what the story is first. There will be a plan in place to finish by x. And the teacher will be more than happy to tell you if your son will need grinds or not. getting a grinds teacher to do parts of the course that the class teacher has not yet covered will most likely confuse your son, as may be different to the way the teacher might show him. If you still want to get grinds to go over the bits that have been already covered thats fair enough but I would not be using it to cover parts that are to be covered in the coming months.

Good Luck.

forgot to sat that it is crazy to have the mocks so early. They used to be in March which gives the classes more time to be properly prepared and for the mocks to be a true dry run.

Mocks take an extremely long time to come back if they are sent away to be corrected. As a result doing mocks in March you may not get the results back until when you return after the easter holidays. this gives 5 weeks of school left including orals, practicals etc. this is far too late to be finding out what level you are at.
As I said the mocks are irrelevant in terms of the grade received at this stage of the year, but doing them later would be less suitable

ProjectManager · 06-02-2014 3:45pm

seavill wrote: »

Mocks take an extremely long time to come back if they are sent away to be corrected. As a result doing mocks in March you may not get the results back until when you return after the easter holidays. this gives 5 weeks of school left including orals, practicals etc. this is far too late to be finding out what level you are at.
As I said the mocks are irrelevant in terms of the grade received at this stage of the year, but doing them later would be less suitable

If handled correctly, mocks can be a useful dry run in a number of ways, e.g. the students ability to manage time, what sections does the student need more preparation etc. In order to gain most benefit from the exercise it is best that students have the course covered before they sit such a test. They stand a better chance of being prepared in March than in Jan / Feb. Saying that the mocks should be in Feb because the system can't correct the papers in a timely manner is unacceptable as an excuse. e.g. why cant two schools get together and correct each others papers?

you also said "There is no such thing as harsh marking tatics, a marking scheme is done out for each subject as in the real leaving cert. The difference being the one in June is altered several times to match the standard of student that year. The Pre scheme does not get altered. Hence the difference. The marks are awarded the exact same way as they are in the real exam, the only difference is that students may not have all aspects of a course fully completed and do not have a large amount of revision done like they will come June. This harsh marking thing is a myth that people use to help justify bad grades. it is simply untrue as set out above"

Have you read what you have written -"the one in June is altered several times to match the standard of student that year" Thats an incredible admission. So if the standard is high on any year, it means that the the marking scheme is made harder? please clarify. As regards the Mocks, i have seen it with my own eyes. Students coming to me wondering why they didn't get the marks they were expecting and when i looked into it i could see small mistakes being harshly penalised.

You Said An education system must facilitate teacehrs moving at different paces. Say I use the exact same teaching methods this year as I did last year. Even though I am the same teacher, with the exact same material presented in the exact same way it will take 2 different lengths of time to complete with the two different classes. This is our job to differentiate. We must change our teaching methods year by year to match the class in front of us. If we do not do this we are failing our students and we are by definition bad teachers then, not because I am not on the same page as the teacher next door. Your understanding of the education system is severly lacking with comments like that. Being prepared for the mocks (finished the course) is the last thing on any teachers mind as it should be. We are there to prepare our students for teh LC/JC not the mocks. The mocks are a waste of 2 weeks teaching time that we could be using to finish the course. (although they do have the benefit of showing students exam conditions)

Please don't make insinuations about my knowledge or lack of it re the education system. I speak from long term experience. How do you defend a situation where my sons teacher was not maths qualified, took at least one smoke break every class, had to ask the students how to solve some project maths related questions and never ever gave one single chapter test. Compare that with the teacher next door (literally) who had high levels of focus, was qualified and gave chapter tests every 2 weeks for which the students had to study. Most of the students in that class got an A JC where as 2 students in my sons class got an A and the classes were not streamed. All of the other classes in the year could do a full mock paper and my sons class couldn't. Whether you want to accept it or not the country is rife with this problem.

I am not the type of person to complain and I like to see solutions. But we need a radical overhaul. We need to stop protecting teachers that don't want to work. That man didn't want to give chapter tests because it meant he had to correct them. We need more inspections and standardisation of teaching across and within schools. But I wont old my breath.

FYI, that teacher mentioned above told me that my son should consider OL for JC and under no circumstances should consider HL for LC. so i stepped i and mentored him (my son - not the teacher). Now he is flying in HL LC and loves it.

You said I completely diagree wit this to be honest. Ringing the school will help you understand where the class are at and what the plan is, which will calm your fears slightly. Why would it just frustrate the OP? I don't understand that comment. Before you go wasting your money on grinds find out what the story is first. There will be a plan in place to finish by x. And the teacher will be more than happy to tell you if your son will need grinds or not. getting a grinds teacher to do parts of the course that the class teacher has not yet covered will most likely confuse your son, as may be different to the way the teacher might show him. If you still want to get grinds to go over the bits that have been already covered thats fair enough but I would not be using it to cover parts that are to be covered in the coming months.

I suppose they should of course call the school as a starting point. however from experience (myself, colleagues, friends all of whom were in the same position), all they will get are excuses -ah sure the teacher is a perfectionist, ah sure some of the lads in the class need a bit more time, ah sure blah blah blah. The bottom line is topics have not been covered compared to peers. Some topics in maths can take a long time to sink in and should be covered by March at the latest. At least contacting the school will allow the parents make their own assessment. So, in hindsight, i would agree with you on that - just don't get their expectations up that the issue will be solved.

Please please don't mis understand me. There are some fantastic teachers out there and teaching maths to a unstreamed class of 30 is a very difficult class. But our system does need changing and culling high level topics from the course and sticking the word 'Project' in front of it isn't the solution.

It would be interesting... if Veiled Moon did go to the school - to hear what type of feedback was given

spurious · 06-02-2014 3:53pm

ProjectManager wrote: »

Have you read what you have written -"the one in June is altered several times to match the standard of student that year" Thats an incredible admission. So if the standard is high on any year, it means that the the marking scheme is made harder? please clarify. As regards the Mocks, i have seen it with my own eyes. Students coming to me wondering why they didn't get the marks they were expecting and when i looked into it i could see small mistakes being harshly penalised.

This is standard in examination systems all over the world. Google 'bell curve'.

This will not became a teacher-bashing thread. Fair warning.

ProjectManager · 06-02-2014 4:21pm

seavill wrote: »

Mocks take an extremely long time to come back if they are sent away to be corrected. As a result doing mocks in March you may not get the results back until when you return after the easter holidays. this gives 5 weeks of school left including orals, practicals etc. this is far too late to be finding out what level you are at.
As I said the mocks are irrelevant in terms of the grade received at this stage of the year, but doing them later would be less suitable

spurious wrote: »

This is standard in examination systems all over the world. Google 'bell curve'.

This will not became a teacher-bashing thread. Fair warning.

Did you read my summation about teachers? I am trying to be fair and honest and have no intention to 'bash teachers'. Please read my comments fully (including the comments in the middle of the post) before making such insinuation.

Also thanks for the advice but I don't need to google bell curves. I use them almost every day of my life. They are very useful tools as inputs to solving our problems - but we use them as inputs. What your comment implies is that we should accept the force fitting of our exam results into a desired output. in other words the student that works hard to to get 85% may only get a B because he is in the wrong percentile? i don't think that is acceptable.

I thought we wanted to increase the standard of maths. But following on from your comment we will never so that because we will force fit the results into a bell curve.

seavill · 06-02-2014 4:45pm

ProjectManager wrote: »

Did you read my summation about teachers? I am trying to be fair and honest and have no intention to 'bash teachers'. Please read my comments fully (including the comments in the middle of the post) before making such insinuation.

Also thanks for the advice but I don't need to google bell curves. I use them almost every day of my life. They are very useful tools as inputs to solving our problems - but we use them as inputs. What your comment implies is that we should accept the force fitting of our exam results into a desired output. in other words the student that works hard to to get 85% may only get a B because he is in the wrong percentile? i don't think that is acceptable.

I thought we wanted to increase the standard of maths. But following on from your comment we will never so that because we will force fit the results into a bell curve.

In fairness the tangents you have gone off on in your last two posts have nothing to do with the OP.

We are not saying that the world is perfect or anything. We are trying to explain to you how the system works, and you won't believe us and don't agree with it which you are entitled to do however arguing an irrelevant point with us gets you no where. This is the way the system works whether you agree with it or not is besides the point.

In relation to your previous post
I will not get into an argument about bad teachers, you referenced standardised teaching across the board in your first point. This would go against every teaching method and system in the entire world. You may have had a bad experience but one teacher cannot be always on teh same page as the one next door, nor can the same teacher be on the same page as this day last year due to different students. We must differentiate, an argument about bad teachers has nothing to do with the first post you made.

Harsh marking system conspiracy verses bad marking are again two different things. Did your opinion of the harsh marking example you gave line up with how exactly marks are taken off in the real exams, or was it just your opinion as to the fact that they should have given an extra mark or two in that example. I have corrected pres and taught exam classes for nearly 10 years and at no point in that time were the marking schemes in January any different to those in June or at no time was I asked to or did I ask someone else to mark pres more difficult to bring grades down. As I discussed already bad grades are down to course not being covered, and revision and study not being done to the same extent to that it will be done come June

Again in relation to your point about two schools getting together etc. I'm not arguing the point about what the ideal world is I'm explaining to you and others that clearly don't understand why things are done certain ways the reasons they are. If people did understand the questions wouldn't be posed here or inaccurate information would not be given out

In relation to your point about you, your friends, colleagues, family all ringing schools and teachers and all getting the same answers/excuses I find this very hard to believe that numerous different people can ring numerous different schools and teachers and all think the exact same thing or get the exact same response. Exaggeration can weaken an argument at times and it has here. I am not defending bad teachers for one second if you read my posts carefully I have not commented one way or the other on anything like that, you have taken my points and gone off on one about them, ranting about your own experience with one or 2 teachers. You cannot generalise about the entire country based on one experience and also like I said before some of your points are perfectly valid in the utopian world however people have been discussing how things actually work, I and others have given honest facts on the way things work, you don't believe us and don't agree whcih is fine but that does not mean that anything we say is any less true

jam17032010 · 06-02-2014 9:11pm

ProjectManager wrote: »

The course isn't too long. Its much shorter than the old course. I do agree that the mocks should reflect what the students have covered and I do think that they are held too early in the year.

Simply not true. And anyone who thinks that this course can be comprehensively finished in time for mocks in February is in cloud cuckoo land.

randylonghorn · 06-02-2014 10:59pm

VEILED MOON wrote: »

I am surprised to hear that some schools dont do any mock exams. But it is important as you need to pass Maths to get onto any course from what i have seen re entry requirements.

Maths is not essential for all courses, but yes, a fairly high proportion, and it is definitely an important subject.

There are two issues here though: one is about how far along in the course your son is (and presumably his class are the same); the other is about the Mocks.

The latter is pretty minor tbh; there is much debate about how valuable the Mocks are as an exercise, in fact. I think most would agree that they have a certain value in terms of practising timing under exam conditions, etc., but they also take up valuable teaching time; the standard of paper-setting and of correcting by the various companies often falls below that of the actual LC, and that can often stress students (or occasionally cause them to feel unduly confident).

As someone pointed out, a simple solution which is often employed where a class do not have the full course finished before the Mocks (which is not unusual, believe me ... remember the LC itself isn't until June) is that the teacher will set a paper themselves which allows for that. I'm not sure why that didn't happen in this case, but it's pretty much a minor issue really.

The other and more important issue is whether this is simply a matter of a couple of topics which the class haven't completed yet, or whether there is an actual problem which you need to be concerned about. This may be a mixed ability class; the teacher may be struggling to cover the material properly with them; there may be other problems.

As a related but separate issue, how is your son at maths? Does he himself struggle with them, or find them easy?

These are the issues you should consider when deciding whether some extra help outside school would be a good idea.

user.name · 07-02-2014 2:17am

Regarding the OPs original question, I find it strange that the teacher just simply stopped the students from sitting any kind of paper whatsoever. I sat my mocks this time last year. Our teacher was a good bit behind but they told us to sit the exam anyway and only to attempt the questions on topics we had covered. Realistically we all failed paper 1 but then the teacher changed our grades to reflect the questions we were able to attempt disregarding the blank ones. I would get in contact with the school about this. Although the mocks aren't the real thing, I found them extremely helpful in knowing what kind of grades I would of been looking at in my actual lc and what I needed to work on etc.

Flickka · 07-02-2014 8:59am

jam17032010 wrote: »

Simply not true. And anyone who thinks that this course can be comprehensively finished in time for mocks in February is in cloud cuckoo land.

We've finished the course. We had an entire paper 2 for Christmas and since then have been finishing the paper 1 material so that we can do the whole thing for the mocks. We will also have a second mock in a few weeks time outside of school time and the next few months for revision. Our teacher powered through the course from the beginning as she's been saying that last years Leaving Certs never got it finished and she didn't want that to happen to her class. She's been giving a lot of time outside of school hours to maths though. Classes on Saturdays, classes after school, revision courses. It's insane but it seems that this is what has to be done to get a good maths grade.

VEILED MOON · 07-02-2014 9:44am

Thanks to all for your replies. Just a few further points- it's pass maths not honours. I did my leaving cert 33 years ago and we had mocks then. Regarding my son's ability he gets a high B in all his maths exams and is in top 3 in class. The teacher is an experienced one and while i accept there may be mixed ability in class as a parent i find it unacceptable that she would not allow them do paper one- even if not all the topics are covered. My daughter did her leaving cert 3 years ago and did papers one and two in maths in the mocks. Whether the fact she did her 2 year leaving cert course in a private school is a factor i dont know but i have seen there is a huge variation in teacher's ability to actually teach. I often wonder what training they get to actually impart the knowledge to students. I tend to have little time for anyone in whatever profession they have if they are not competent in same. From a parent's view point i have to say i have come across more incompetent teachers and sorry to say but the good ones are few and far between.

jam17032010 · 07-02-2014 9:23pm

Flickka wrote: »

We've finished the course. We had an entire paper 2 for Christmas and since then have been finishing the paper 1 material so that we can do the whole thing for the mocks. We will also have a second mock in a few weeks time outside of school time and the next few months for revision. Our teacher powered through the course from the beginning as she's been saying that last years Leaving Certs never got it finished and she didn't want that to happen to her class. She's been giving a lot of time outside of school hours to maths though. Classes on Saturdays, classes after school, revision courses. It's insane but it seems that this is what has to be done to get a good maths grade.

And this is a major flaw in the system. It should be possible to do all of this work in school time. But the course is too long and not enough hours on timetables are allocated to maths to get the course covered.

Pwpane · 08-02-2014 2:51pm

VEILED MOON wrote: »

Thanks to all for your replies. Just a few further points- it's pass maths not honours. I did my leaving cert 33 years ago and we had mocks then. Regarding my son's ability he gets a high B in all his maths exams and is in top 3 in class.
Then your son is not in trouble

The teacher is an experienced one
Then your son is not in trouble

and while i accept there may be mixed ability in class as a parent i find it unacceptable that she would not allow them do paper one- even if not all the topics are covered.
You have no right to say this when you don't understand the exact situation. What you actually mean is that you don't like that they didn't do that mock paper. You can't judge without information i.e. until you ask the teacher why she decided this and what her plan for the class is.

My daughter did her leaving cert 3 years ago and did papers one and two in maths in the mocks. Whether the fact she did her 2 year leaving cert course in a private school is a factor i dont know
You don't know if a private school was a factor? Where students are highly motivated, well behaved, well supported at home? Where the class was less likely to be mixed ability? Where in any case they were different students and the teacher had a different plan?

but i have seen there is a huge variation in teacher's ability to actually teach. I often wonder what training they get to actually impart the knowledge to students. I tend to have little time for anyone in whatever profession they have if they are not competent in same. From a parent's view point i have to say i have come across more incompetent teachers and sorry to say but the good ones are few and far between.
Again you are judging from a position of little information and very little understanding. You don't know why your son's class didn't do that Mock paper. And you have made no effort to find out. Yet it has now become 'evidence' for you to judge most teachers. If you heard someone on television state that in their opinion most dentists are incompetent (from their point of view as a patient), would you think that they're probably correct or that they're wildly exaggerating from their own small experience?

tldr - Ask the teacher why it happened because neither you nor we actually know.

VEILED MOON · 08-02-2014 4:38pm

In reply to above post, I have no difficulty with someone having a different point of view but please be civil in your response. I have experience of of 6 secondary schools and the amount of incompetent teachers i have come across is high. That is a fact whether you accept it or not. In speaking with other parents it appears to be a common problem. Believe me i was being restrained in my comments regarding such teachers. As regards the private school my daughter attended there were mixed ability students in her class yet the course was covered. My son tells me that the teacher said they didnt have the course covered in order for them to do paper one. And even though he is a B student in same subject i think it is in order that i would be concerned if they are unable to do any of paper one at this stage. When i stated the teacher is experienced that does not mean she is good at her job but that she should know better and have her students better prepared. It is a fact that where teachers are weak that parents are getting grinds at some expense i might add and this should not be necessary if they were doing their job in the first place.

seavill · 08-02-2014 4:54pm

You are jumping to all sorts of conclusions here without knowing any facts and I think this is what bothered the previous poster rather than you actually slagging off all teachers.
There are good and bad teachers as there are good and bad everything in life. There can be various reasons for all of the above but slating basically the whole profession is counterproductive to your argument and in reality nothing to do with your OP.

The point several people have made, yet you still continue to slag off this person and many others, is that you have no idea why they are not ready for paper 1. It could be several reasons. Your statement that they are not prepared for any of the paper 1 exam is a big jump to make and highly unlikely. It is most likely that they are prepared for some but this particular teachers opinion that it would be a waste of time to do the paper and only mark a certain portion of it, or why waste 2 and half hours for something that could be done in maybe 45 mins. Etc. I could go on with numerous other reasons why it could be that this is not the case. I for example have the entire OL course done in my subject with my class, but due to a project that starts in Sep and finishes only 2 weeks ago we have not had a chance to cover HL material. Now all the students in the class, including the OL students have covered a certain portion of the HL course but not enough to be capable of answering a HL exam. However I am comfortable with this fact. I know the exact week I will finish the course, I know that I will have time left for revision etc. however at this moment in time they have not enough knowledge to complete an exam paper. If a parent rang me up and asked me I would be more than happy to explain. However I would be quite annoyed if they were jumping to conclusions and completely slagging me off to all their friends and strangers on the internet without any basis for such accusations.

In the end of the day you may be correct, however there is as much of a chance that you are so far off the mark with your conclusions and accusations that it is unfair to that person.

We have no idea

Neither do you, until you ring and ask, which in reality should have been the first thing you should have done.

And just so you know there is no such thing as a standard mixed ability class. I could compare my 6th year mixed ability class this year to my 6th year mixed ability class last year and they are so different you could not even imagine. I am basically having to drag them kicking and screaming through the course this year. There are some top students in the class but unfortunately the majority are making life difficult. We will get there in the end and the top students will still do very well and I'm sure I'm called every name under the sun including a bad teacher by those that don't know the true facts but I know where I'm at, I know where each will get to and usually this time of year before the pres I will make my own notes on predictions of their grades in August. 99% of the time I am at most 1 grade out, i.e. B1 to B2 or something like that. However my point is I know how I am going to achieve this with each of my students based on their abilities regardless of the makeup of the mixed ability class. I will still make sure they all get what they deserve

VEILED MOON · 08-02-2014 6:42pm

This is pathetic at this stage and i am not "slagging off all teachers". It seems teachers will not accept criticism of any kind and i am done with this. This is my personal experience with my children and their teachers. I will not reply to any further comments from any teachers. I am fed up with your attitudes.

seavill · 08-02-2014 6:45pm

VEILED MOON wrote: »

This is pathetic at this stage and i am not "slagging off all teachers". It seems teachers will not accept criticism of any kind and i am done with this. This is my personal experience with my children and their teachers. I will not reply to any further comments from any teachers. I am fed up with your attitudes.

If you note I did say there are good and bad teachers. My point you missed was that you don't know the reasons until you ring and ask.

I did say you may be right about the teacher. I also says you may be wrong. You don't know until you ask.

If you are going to ring and this is the best option go into it open minded and level headed you cms make you mind up after just be open and then decide later

Aside from that you come on to a public forum and ask for opinions. You won't always agree with or like some. You will like others. You have to accept various opinions or else there is no point in coming on in the first place. Like in your example you can choose to ignore the bits you don't like if you want but you can't control who answers

seavill · 08-02-2014 7:06pm

VEILED MOON wrote: »

This is pathetic at this stage and i am not "slagging off all teachers". It seems teachers will not accept criticism of any kind and i am done with this. This is my personal experience with my children and their teachers. I will not reply to any further comments from any teachers. I am fed up with your attitudes.

Out of interest did you actually read past the 1st line in my previous post as you didnt respond to anything else I said only the first line

teach432 · 08-02-2014 7:45pm

I don't understand what all the fuss is about. The teacher doesn't have the course covered so has decided not to examine something that hasn't been taught yet.

Has anyone thought of asking this teacher if she plans to give them the pre later on? If so, fair play to her. She is not just going along with the rest of the school for the sake of it. She is taking control of and properly managing her class' learning.

Pwpane · 08-02-2014 10:38pm

VEILED MOON wrote: »

i have seen there is a huge variation in teacher's ability to actually teach. I often wonder what training they get to actually impart the knowledge to students. I tend to have little time for anyone in whatever profession they have if they are not competent in same. From a parent's view point i have to say i have come across more incompetent teachers and sorry to say but the good ones are few and far between.

VEILED MOON wrote: »

I have experience of of 6 secondary schools and the amount of incompetent teachers i have come across is high. That is a fact whether you accept it or not. In speaking with other parents it appears to be a common problem.

VEILED MOON wrote: »

This is pathetic at this stage and i am not "slagging off all teachers". It seems teachers will not accept criticism of any kind and i am done with this. This is my personal experience with my children and their teachers. I will not reply to any further comments from any teachers. I am fed up with your attitudes.

LOL - who is it exactly that can't accept criticism?

It seems your mind was made up already before you posted and that's why you haven't taken on board any of the points made. Perhaps that's why you haven't contacted the teacher involved - because you've already decided that you won't accept anything she might say.

I'm sorry for wasting my time. :cool:

seavill · 08-02-2014 10:39pm

The OP closed their account after last reply to me

Class not allowed do Maths paper 1!!

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