Teacher not returning calls/email

ThinkingOutLoud_2

Teachers work very long hours typically during term time.

As noted they have little time during the day.

If you really feel you need to address and not wait - the face to face is the best solution.

To achieve that - the school should have a way you can book for a FEW minutes with the teacher after school usually.

That way you keep your "relationship" and both have a fair chance to align / understand.

All that said. You want your child in the right class - that is the one they can do best in and that is not down to a class number.

Good luck

Newly_retired

Please take on board all the advice already given.
In addition, here are a few points about Sets.
Setting is usually decided at a meeting of the teachers of a department after all the assessment results have been collated towards the end of a school year. It is a numbers game, as much as anything else. As Head of Dept, I used to fill up the top sets, leaving the lowest set with the smallest numbers, so the children get a bit more attention in class. So set four may be the set where there was room, and space for the teacher to assess your child's progress. If your daughter arrived after the setting had been done she may well have had to go into set four to start with. How many sets are there? Maybe more than four, maybe they are allocated differently in this school.
Would you expect a teacher to move a pupil into a set which is full? She would get less attention and maybe struggle. Would you expect someone else to be moved out to make room? There are so many factors.
Sometimes we had two parallel top sets, a 3 and a 4. One year we had 5 sets. One year we had two top and two lower sets. There are so many unknown factors. If she is in yr 8 or 9 there is time to assess and adjust.
You do not say when your daughter moved schools or which year she is in. I am guessing year 8 or 9?

Fireflyaway

I know it can be a shock when your kids seem to be struggling or something changes out of the blue. My son seemed to be doing fine in English according to his report but was then entered into a small group who had been identified as needing extra help. I was confused and worried. I waited until parents evening to talk it through with the teacher. That way she had all the info to hand and I could ask whatever questions I liked face to face. Try not to get hung up on what set your child is in. Not all schools operate equally and the general standard might be higher, or as she is new they may want to start her off easy with a view to moving her up rather than risk putting her in a group where she struggles. You could always support her at home. There are some great free resources online.
If you can't wait till parents evening then I think the note option is a good idea.

thorsoak

hello007007 wrote: »

She is my daughter english teacher.

My daughter moved schools and in December was moved down from set 2 to set 4 (she was in set 2 in her old school aswell). I was shocked and I want to work with the teacher and the school to get my daughter into set 3 by the end of the year (and set 2 by the end of next year etc...)

The teacher said they were doing assessments just before Xmas and I want to know the results and what my daughter needs the most help with etc...

If feel if I accept the teacher lack of comuncation, then this is what it will be like always? but I also fear complaining.

As different schools, they will have different views as to where ti set the delineation between sets. Your daughter would have been placed in Set two using the information from her previous school, but after her first term, the assessment of her new school is different. You have expressed your concern, and now you must allow her new english teacher time enough to assess her potential before she reports back to you.

As others have suggested - enrol her in the library, allow her access to ALL books - not just those set on the syllabus - and ask her opinion on them.

Pollycat

hello007007 wrote: »

Hello all,

There is a teacher at my girls new school who has been very helpful. However, she doesnt return my emails or calls. I have sent her 2 emails and left 3 odd message over 3 school weeks however it was only when reception pressed her, she returned my calls on Tuesday, she then promised to email me by the end of the week however I havent got anything. (I know she hasn't been off sick)

When I do get through to her, she is very nice and really helpful. I dont want to complain about her in case I ruin our relationship.

What should I do? Am I overracting? how long do your teachers take to get back to you?

You may have already ruined any 'relationship' by going to Reception about the fact that she hasn't returned your emails and calls.

From additional information you've posted, I think you are pushing too hard.

Dird

arbrighton wrote: »

NO! you won't just be allowed to wander in to the school

Then OP can ask her daughter to ask on her behalf at the end of class. Won't be wanting any long winded convo as she'll have classes/food to have herself unlike OP

arbrighton

Dird wrote: »

Then OP can ask her daughter to ask on her behalf at the end of class. Won't be wanting any long winded convo as she'll have classes/food to have herself unlike OP

This all seems to be about OPs opinion rather than daughter actually struggling and I very much doubt a daughter in secondary school would ask about setting to teacher directly.

Child has been in school a month at best, parent needs to let them settle in, follow standard procedure and wait til parents evening.

seven-day-weekend

As Polly penny says, she'll be in the classroom teaching, using her tea break to go to the loo, using her lunch break dealing with urgent matters or overseeing a detention (whilst also trying to have her lunch), after school preparing for the next day or overseeing after -school activities (like rehearsing a play)......then eventually she might go home.

There are hundreds of other students to educate as well.

Just give her some slack, make an appointment with the school.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

To give an idea of a teaching timetable, I'll give an example of the sort of day a colleague could have.

7.15am. In work. Start checking emails, cover rota, thank goodness it's not breaktime duty today. There's that parent's email again about the newish kid who, as far as can be remembered, isn't matching up to the assessment levels given to them from primary or the other secondary. Hard to tell in a short time whether they were marked 'up' at primary like many kids are, which is a problem, because their expected progress might be unrealistic, or whether they were at that level but are struggling due to other kids, due to being a bit lazy, because x kid in the class is encouraging them to be disruptive. Mind you, without a proper look, it might be that the parent hasn't realised that the size of the school means that the sets are 1 higher level, 1 needing a lot of specialist input and the others are all roughly the same ability but get moved about to even the numbers up. Can't deal with it right now because there's lots to do before lessons start. The Reprographics Assistant is sorely missed since retirement.

7.30am. Try to persuade various children hanging around that they shouldn't be in school yet and, more to the point, they shouldn't be kicking a football against a wall with a very large and very expensive window in the middle of it.

7.31am. First meeting of the day. Would normally be at the end of the day, but there are two compulsory training sessions this afternoon.

8.00am. Staff meeting.

8.20am. Try to find the IT guy to sort out the photocopier as it has just died. All other photocopiers are occupied by other staff, including the massive print run that the head has decided must be done right now so she can make five separate changes, each necessitating a repeat print run, during the day until it is actually needed for visitors to glance at before leaving them on their chairs in the evening.

8.35am. Hope that the technician is in early so they can be given the job of sorting out the copying.

8.45am. Standing in the playground for kids to line up.

8.50am. Taking register, giving out notices, dealing with late arrivals.

9.00am. Get to other side of site to first teaching room when the actual expectation is to be standing outside the door five minutes previously with an activity to start at 9.00am, despite formtime not finishing until 9.00am and it being forbidden to allow kids to leave form a second before the pips go.

9.05am. Find out that the classroom is not unlocked and year 8 are bouncing off the walls of the corridor. Regain order and try to find the least flaky of the kids to go and look for the caretaker who is the only person with a key to said room. Caretaker is on the sacrosanct litterpick, as decreed by the head. So child wanders the site for ten minutes before finding him halfway across the muddy field.

9.15am. Grumpy caretaker comes and unlocks classroom.

9.20am. The computer still isn't working properly, necessitating a paper register.

9.25am. Teaching commences. People claim to not have books, pencils, rulers and then have meltdowns at the prospect of receiving a detention for not having the equipment they know is required at every lesson.

10.00am. End of lesson. Vacate classroom to go to other end of site for next lesson. Again, the possibility of being there five minutes early is only possible with time travel. Break up scuffle on the way.

10.05am. Get to class, door is fortunately unlocked, but unfortunately, this means several year 9s are inside drawing rude pictures on the whiteboard. Thankfully, they've used dry wipe pen and not permanent marker. Detentions issued. Meltdowns occur.

11.00am. Break time. Kids given detentions feel it is the best time to complain profusely about receiving the detentions and, in any case, they don't want to go outside where it is cold and wet. But they have to be persuaded to leave so the room can be locked.

11.10am. Get to the staffroom, having been waylaid three times by kids complaining about somebody looking at them funny, kicking a foot ball at them or running round the corner and slamming straight into the elderly TA because they have zero common sense. But at least it's a PPA period next, so can get some emails, lesson prep and database updating done.

11.13am Coffee.

11.14am. The Boss spots them. 'You're on cover next period'. Try to find cover work. No sign of it. It's on a desk of a random person, apparently.

11.16am. Run to random person's office. It's locked because they're working in a different department the opposite side of the site today. Find out where they are and call them. Nope, they haven't received it. It's supposed to go to the person allocating cover duties anyway. But if they haven't got it, it's possible it's been left in the classroom. Random person would come and help, but they are currently supposed to be in the hall, in room 256, in room 134 and manning the doors to DT to ensure that nobody goes in unsupervised. And they're needed to lock the room they are currently in in 4 minutes and then go and unlock another room because they're the only person onsite with a key other than the caretaker who is currently fixing a door that has got the wrong key jammed and broken off in the lock.

11.20am Dash to cover classroom, to find the work has been left in there.

12.20pm. Formtime. Assembly. Assembly runs late, so now the kids have 30 mins to get food, eat, and do clubs, revision classes - oops, revision class will be waiting outside normal teaching room. If they're lucky, it's locked. If not, there are currently about 20 kids rampaging around the lovingly cared for displays.

1.10pm. Extras are evicted, the revision session is going OK. Scuffle breaks out outside room. All kids run to watch. Revision session given up upon, somebody else is shouting at the scufflers and their entourage, so a brief chance to scarf down a battered sandwich before next lesson.

1.20pm. Kids try to come in early because it's wet. Still trying to get a chance to check emails.

1.30pm Lesson starts.

3.30pm Lessons end. Finally check emails, some of which are saying staff shouldn't be checking email during lessons, some requiring instant replies during lessontime. Kids insisting on coming to question issuing of detentions, phone ringing because office are trying to transfer calls from parents, cleaner now vacuuming around staff and students who apparently don't want to be there but don't want to leave premises either.

3.45pm. First Twilight session.

4.45pm. Second Twilight session.

5.30pm. Leaving early today. Actually go to the loo for the first time all day. As leaving, the assistant head calls over for 'a quick chat'. They've decided that it's absolutely vital the data drop is only updateable until 8.30am the following morning, but that's OK, as it's accessible from home and there are only 4 grades to give to everyone of the students, oh, and as x is new and hasn't taught them before and the previous staff member that they replaced didn't do it because it wasn't allowed to do them early, it's not a problem to do their students' grades as well, is it?

5.50pm. Get to car park, to find that the deputy head of Something Very Important has blocked you in. Go back into building to try and find them, but they are in Important Meetings. Decide to try and reverse up pavement and almost into trees to get out this side of 11pm. Succeed just as deputy head of Something Very Important walks into car park and appears quite perturbed at the great splashes of mud you've left up their Mercedes whilst trying to get the Nissan out.

7.00pm. Home. Oh, yeah, there's that parent who has emailed three times and called twice. And the others, too. Will try and deal with it tomorrow instead. The mobile pings to announce that the Very Important People are still at the school having meetings about Very Important Things Like Data And Charts and Tables And Things and it won't be a problem to pop in for a quick word before school starts tomorrow, will it?

*****************************

Point is, it's really difficult to get teachers available to answer emails, never mind calls, because it's a very busy time of year with assessments, the final run up to GCSE exams, etc, plus it's one of the peak times for sickness and, due to their contracts, new staff having started/old staff having left.

She might be a bit rubbish at communication, but she could just simply be too busy to deal with you right now. Isn't parents' evening in a week or so?

patchwork_cat

You say 3 weeks, yet it is only 15 Jan, you have contacted her 5 times since say Jan 3 rd. You are nagging, however it is not good enough that the teacher has not got back to you. Personally I would have contacted my DD's tutor and asked them to look into it in the first instance. How old is your DD and what are the implications of being in fourth set?