complaint letter

Dear Ms Brennan,

I am writing this letter of complaint about a very serious matter and it is not only affecting me but my whole class. I wanted to discuss a matter that has troubled me and my classmates for around 2- 3 months now, as I have seen there has been no progress in the situation I thought it would be better if you could see it from a student’s point of view. I have learnt that many of my other classmates have also come to you with our situation. I also know that you may well know who and what I am talking about, I am writing to you about our maths teacher Mrs Sanderson and how she teaches us.

On many occasions Mrs Sanderson has showed us a video of someone drawing constructions etc and then very vaguely saying or pretty much repeating what the person has said and sat down and said “I will give you a worksheet about this and do it”. On another occasion she has asked a student to come up and practically teach a lesson for her and make the student explain everything. The student is Arin Tofi she is a very smart girl but I am also sure that she herself wants to sit down, learn and do her work too. Many students have suggested for you to come and supervise in our lessons but as you may know people’s personalities change when they are around other people, I am not suggesting that Mrs Sanderson is like this, but I am saying in general people change around their acquaintances, colleagues and bosses etc.

I have also realised that our school never really has stable teachers in maths as they are always employing new teachers all the time. I do know that Mrs Sanderson is either replacing Mrs Abrahams permanently or substituting for her I do not know.

At the beginning of this Mrs Sanderson said to us at the beginning of the lesson that for the rest of the week she would not teach us properly and all we would do is sit and do worksheets this did not affect as that is what she mostly gives us to do anyway. What she also said was that she would not teach us because of our behaviour although we are not quite disciplined in her classes that is not our fault it is most likely hers. I am not questioning any way of teaching or in any way telling you how she should teach but if she can’t control us then that is her lack of putting a certain amount of discipline on us.

We have had another teacher (which of whom I do not remember her name) for once a fortnight and if you ask her she will tell you that in her classes we don’t lose concentration and all our work is up to date and I remember what she teaches us more than I do in Mr Sanderson’s for the last few months. We have also had supply teachers were we concentrate more and do our work.

I also think that when she came to say this to us at the beginning of the week, she had brought it up because of my classmates also complaining but I think that this goes against the right of freedom of speech as we should have a right to complain, talk and say anything I like without an outcome of me losing my maths lessons for a whole week just because I wanted to speak my mind. As I know teachers have always encouraged us to speak up and say if anything is wrong and this is my way of doing it.

We are in year 9 now and should not have a teacher where we do not learn properly or do work. We are coming up to assessment week where we do mocks and our SAT’s we cannot carry on like this as it is an important year and is a very vital moment in our journeys to getting our GCSE’s and getting the grades we want and absolutely need. I am sorry if I may have come across rude or inconsiderate in this letter in any way but as I said before this is my way of expressing how I feel towards this situation.

Yours sincerely,
Sanjida Chowdhury
Yr 9 HAL Set 1