Are you are you about to decide on which school you are going to send your child to in September? Are you unhappy with the standard of education and teaching your child is currently receiving? Do you feel that one or two of the teachers at your child's current school are not up to the job? In this article, I write about a teacher who taught me when I was at senior school, a teacher who cost me a couple of grades in maths in my opinion.

The senior school I went to was an all boys school. A number of the boys in my year were out of control, quite wayward and disruptive. What they required was a strong and firm teacher who was not afraid to kick them into line.

In a class of thirty boys it only needs a couple of bad apples to turn the teachers life into a bit of a nightmare. I have to say that at times I felt sorry for a number of these teachers who it has to be said looked like they were struggling to cope. In these classes where the teacher struggles to keep control, the whole class are affected and the standard of education for the people who are their to learn will drop. The teacher is having to spend so much time in trying to calm down and control the disruptive pupils that they have little other time to spend on teaching the other children.

I saw this happen time and time again to such a point it became very boring. What these annoying and disruptive kids needed in my opinion was one hard slap and another one if the first did not work.

In the first three years of senior school in Maths, we had a teacher who was so good it was untrue. She was called Mrs Washbourne and was as hard as nails. Not one boy dared to mess about in her class and they all had respect for her as a teacher. I really enjoyed going to her lessons and at the end of the third year I managed to finish second out of one hundred and eight boys in the final exam. I was very proud of this performance and Mrs Washbourne stated that I was heading for an A grade at GCSE level.

The problem was that Mrs Washbourne was only qualified to teach up to the end of this third year. I now had a maths teacher who even though on paper was more qualified than Mrs Washbourne was in truth so far off her standard it was unbelievable. He had no control over his class at all and was not even able to look at your eyes when he was speaking to you. The naughty boys of the class were in heaven once more and yet again I was unable to concentrate and receive the standard of teaching I desired.

In the final examination I only managed to obtain a grade C, no doubt this was partly my fault, however I also blame a poor teacher and the overall standard of education at my school.

Steve Hill

Stephen Hill runs The How To Stop Stammering Centre In England. He offers stuttering therapy courses to help people who stutter to achieve fluency. Stuttering is also known in some countries as stammering.