Rate my teachers …

www.ratemyteachers.co.uk should strike fear into the heart of any educational professional. I’m on there already from one of my PGCE placements (with a modest 3.8 out of 5 for your information). As the Telegraph has already noted, the concept of a website through which pupils and parents can anonymously critique teachers is problematic, to say the least. What worries me most is that kids are not educational professionals. That the site offers a no-holds-barred, brutal and honest means of school or teacher appraisal in contrast to Ofsted’s staid and linguistically torturous reports is certainly an appealing notion. But, sadly, it’s all wrong. Kids can’t accurately assess teachers any more than the average person could rate a barrister or doctor. And yes, of course a teacher would say that. Yes, of course ‘if anyone should know, it will be the kids’. Well, no, of course not. We all think back to our school days from an adult perspective, superimposing our contemporary acuity of insight onto our teenage selves. Alright, but this site isn’t governed by the opinions of retrospectively insightful former pupils. It quantifies the opinions of children, quite possibly egged on by peers, and wholly unaware of the potential consequences of their actions. Michael Hussey, the site’s young co-creator (and one time supply teacher), may have hit on a GoogleAds goldmine of a idea, but his claims that RMT represents a reflective aid for teachers’ professional development is bordering on the delusional.