Well who hasn’t heard of the latest big hitting website Ratemyteacher.com – if you haven’t it is a basically a website which lists pretty much every school in the USA, UK and Ireland and the teachers that teach there. The premise of the site is to rate teachers based on their clarity helpfulness easiness and of course the most relevant of all their coolness.


Supporters of the site say who better to rate teachers then their own students and that lazy non interested teachers can be pointed put for what they are.

Critics of site say that the site only causes undeserved abuse and teachers fear it may encourage unfair criticism and victimisation.

I for one I am absolutely appauled by this site. WTF gives smart ass students the right to access and criticize teachers in an unfair and one sided manner in a pubic forum where they remain annonomyous!!! Students can write whatever they want, even it’s a pack of lies and basically tear the teachers credibility to shreads (and believe me I have read some awful things), it is a total disgrace.

It is claimed the site is monitored - One comment I saw about a teacher in a school where I live was “rumour has mr x caught gonerrea from a whore”

A friend of mine in their first year of teaching received great comments all round except for one saying "she shouldn’t be a teacher, she cant communicate, I don’t like the cow" this seems not like much but she is in bits over it and even though there was only one negative comment it has totally shaken her confidence.

This is the Internet at it’s absolute lowest – if someone was to publish in a newspaper what is said on this site you could sue them for liable…it is a horrible site which I am sure has so many teachers out doing their best, absolutely distraught, because of vindictive students.

Some teachers get great reviews and of course its great to see their hard work acknowledged but in the words of my uncle who has a teacher and received over 20 positive reviews “doesn’t the site take everything that is good out of teaching” He has seen fellow staff members who have worked hard for years receive cruel nasty comments which really affect them.

This is going to really encourage people to join the teaching workforce…

As you can see I am so angry but what do you guys think??

Freedom of Speech?? Or a Free for all lambasting of innocent hard working people??

I'm with you Crystal.


It sounds like a dreadful idea! We probably all had at least one teacher we couldn't stand and what a "great" way this would be to get back at them, to print some completely untrue story about them and watch it grow from rumour to "fact".

Deadful idea!

Absolutely stupid idea, what student is going to seriously rate their teacher on their abilities of teaching. This can only be used to damage teachers. And the pupils should sit down, shut up and be thankful they're getting an education at all.

This is absolutely terrible.... teachers are our future!

I know (as in everything) there are good and bad teachers but no one deserves to be slagged off on a website....

I know (as in everything) there are good and bad teachers but no one deserves to be slagged off on a website....


:bag: indeed not!

I've had a look at it and it does seem generally good comments (in fact not seen a bad one) and it says any nasty comments will be deleted...

But still... if a pupil wants to thank a teacher or tell them they're doing well surely they don't need a website!

Absolutely stupid idea, what student is going to seriously rate their teacher on their abilities of teaching. This can only be used to damage teachers. And the pupils should sit down, shut up and be thankful they're getting an education at all.

I agree I had good and bad teachers and probably when I was younger I would have posted on a site like this but with the hindsight of age would have realised how difficult their job is. They don't need added problems when they are having such a hard time in the classroom with unruly kids and parents who don't seem to care whether their kids even attend school. It was not so long ago that to get an education was a privalige.

...and because of the problems highlighted in this thread, do you think anyone is going to take it seriously?

...and because of the problems highlighted in this thread, do you think anyone is going to take it seriously?


If you mean that students, other techers, parents will believe a word of most of the crap written up there of course you're correct but if you mean the teachers themselves wont take it seriously ....i think in with all respect that is a bit easy to say....as much as their heads would tell them to ignore it i think if they received a dismissive comment like - "Not a great teacher", "boring in class", "makes no effort", "not a patch on any other of the teachers in the school" as much as you would try to ignore it - it would definitely affect you and undoutbtedly knock your confidence as it has done for many of my Uncles colleagues...they're only human after all...

You have a point. But what can we say to these teachers other than "Don't take it seriously?" There are so many reasons why a pupil would deem a teacher "bad", other than those based on the teacher's aptitude.

As a side note, if a teacher is not very good, is it better that he/she knows?

One of the most-rated schools is called Haydon School. ?! I've always said I could teach certain people a thing a two.

I can't see this site lasting. It's very well designed, but the lawyers bills are going to cripple it. Hopefully it will get closed down.

I don't see the point of this site. If I were a parent looking to send my child to a new school I wouldn't be using this site.
Thing is that every school has unpopular teachers, but it doesn't make them bad teachers. I loathed my maths teacher with a passion, but she was a fantastic teacher!
The site even has a page shaming the schools that are blocking the children accessing it from school and encouraging them to get around the block.

I haven't looked at the site - but the idea in principle seems a good one. In the same way that the best way to rate anyone who provides a service is to ask their customers, perhaps the best way to rate a teacher is to ask the students. Why do you assume that students are not capable of giving a fair assessment?

My very best teacher was a Geography teacher!

At the time of her teaching me, I couldn't stand her, she was mean, she required work on time, she was a stickler - she pronouced 'margerine' wrongly, everythign I couldn't stnad abotu a teeacher she personifeied. ooops excuse typo's - I thank you! - Anyway I still comment regularly on Ox-bow lakes, I adore geographicl feaatures within the landscape. I bore my children about how rivers start, progress and grow. I irritate my mates on the glacial movements - -----

---- and I love Mrs Porter. If you ever read this Mrs Porter I love you!!

Why do you assume that students are not capable of giving a fair assessment?1. Experience. (Theirs is limited.) 2. Peer pressure. (Students will often follow a peer viewpoint, even though it is a view they don't genuinely hold.) Whilst you may well get some fair assessments, you will doubtless also get lots of unfair assessments. Is there anyone who will independantly monitor the quality or accuracy of the students' views? I think not.

Besides, we're talking about a website full of opinions, not well-considered facts. When those opinions come from children who are compelled by law to attend school (which, lets face it, creates resentment), you can hardly expect the opinions to be free of all umnerited prejudice.

Oh, and one more thing. The views are quite likely to be unrepresentative. Human nature (particularly in the West) dictates that we are far more likely to complain when we have received a bad service than to praise when we have received a good service.

Every student will have a different take on each individual teacher. If for instance you behave badly in class and are always being told off, then you are going to rate the teacher accordingly and if you work hard and feel the benefit from the teacher, then you are going to give her/him a good rate.

However if they had one for Ratemyboss.com.........there would be a few interesting remarks no doubt!!

I think it is a pants idea....anyone who puts them selves up to be a teacher these days has my utmost respect even if they are a little below par....to be honest unless you are prepared to stand in front of 30+ obnoxious kids who know all their rights and the fact that you have no real power to discipline them in a way they actually give a hoot about then you have no right to criticise teachers full stop....unless of course they are doing something illegal!

The big concern for me is that a good teacher may suffer as a result of a maliscious romour started by a pupil who has a crush on said teacher who has put them straight by rejecting them......basically false allegations of miss conduct!

I know that not all teachers are heros...indeed there are some who are just plain evil but this is a very small handful which would be best weeded out in otherways than through a web site!

Well, yes, it's naff. But it's also happening all over the Internet, in all sorts of situations, to all sorts of groups - not just teachers. Businesses are learning to cope (well, some are...) with the fact that consumers and competitors and other interested observers are now eager to comment about their products and services online, in blogs and forums and websites over which the businesses have no control whatsoever.

This is a natural extension of the free communication and transparency which was at the core of the initial Internet dream.

Now, okay, it can hurt innocent people as easily as it exposes guilty parties. But it's there. It's a global development that affects every sector of Internet-connected society.

Which brings me to my point: what is it that makes teachers such a special case that they should be excluded from this naffness?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not anti-teacher. I've been very involved in the education of my three daughters over the last 18 years, meeting and working with lots of teachers in the process... with varying degrees of success and pleasure. I also have two teachers in my family. Individually, most of them are okay and some of them are absolutely wonderful people.

But I do believe that, as a breed, the profession's woes are largely self-inflicted, and I think it's mostly to do with the staffroom whine culture.

The rot started, I believe, when children of the flower power generation found themselves at teacher training colleges, being taught by politely rebellious psuedo-hippies who believed fervently that discipline was a bad thing, a thing that restricted a child's natural growth, a thing that had no place in the classroom and definitely no place in a teacher's list of required skills. "Our job is to teach. We're not prison warders and we're not the police." Can't you just hear them saying it?

So we now have a whole generation of senior teachers who, having abdicated from the responsibility of keeping discipline in the classroom, now bemoan the near impossibility of maintaining authority there.

Neither are they willing to accept any sort of accountability.

Public test results?? Good grief, that's awful!

Pay according to achievements?? How neanderthal is that??

Work until normal retirement age?? Aaagh!! We can't cope. :cry:

For goodness sake. Get a grip, people. I know they work in a childlike environment, but they really should try to live in the grown up world. And that, I'm afraid, means accepting that while they do a worthwhile and rewarding job - they are not a special case or a protected species.

So, yes, that's a naff website. But lots of people have to put up with naff stuff, don't they?

At university we get a sheet of paper during each course and we have to comment on the lectures/lecturers and stuff and I slated one of mine because he'd sent one of my mates out of the lecture a few minutes previously for talking when he barely said anything and really shouldn't have been sent out. As it happens he's a good lecturer. Oops.

But other than that the system works well and you can say how you think the lessons could be improved anonymously.

Work until normal retirement age?? Aaagh!! We can't cope. :cry:



As a student teacher I have just done a placement with a reception class. I collapsed into a chair each night exhausted, my back hurt from bending over tiny desks each day. I loved it, but at 60 I know I am not going to have the energy to keep up with a 5 year old, not to mention my health.

Several Points

1. I think its important children do have an input, but in a constructive manner.
2. Schools are inspected and lessons observed, the inspectors talk to children and feed all of this back to the school.
3. If you are a teacher its better to keep away from this site, it may undermine your confidence. Many schools now have peer reviews as well as inspections which will give you the points to improve upon.
4. Hurrah for schools that do block this site- I don't see the educational benefit of them looking it up, therefore it is not for school time. Unless its a lesson on the dangers of information from anonymous you can get from the internet.
5. It could undermine a teacher. But hey we already have some parents (no insult to all you very good parents) and the media to do that so whats another site.

There are forms of ratings such as questionnaires that are a bit more useful. I think that this subject, even with this thread, has been provided with too much oxygen and should really be left to die down. Teachers need to be able to get on with the job at hand.

There are forms of ratings such as questionnaires that are a bit more useful. I think that this subject, even with this thread, has been provided with too much oxygen and should really be left to die down. Teachers need to be able to get on with the job at hand.

I disagree, Tonee. I didn't respond to Becks because I have no desire to demoralize any individual teacher, or anyone else for that matter, but your "hands off this profession" approach is exactly what I referred to in my last post. The quality of education our new generation receives is directly linked to the quality of their teachers. This is an important issue. Why on earth shouldn't we discuss it in reasonable and non-threatening threads such as this one?

It's my belief that the teaching profession will be better equipped to get on with the job in hand if they can find it within themselves to stop seeing themselves as besieged by barbarian hordes, lose their collective persecution complex, and just get on with it.

Well said Dab.

Being the daughter of a teacher and therefore knowing lots of teachers on a personal level from their era, it seems to me that there is an increasing number of teachers (and ultimately you have to blame the head for not dealing with it) who, unfortunately, IMO, are not teaching for the right reasons.

Teaching, to me, is one of those jobs that you live, not just do, like nurses/doctors, police, fire brigade, vet, etc. You have to like, respect and understand children (of any age) to be able to teach them. I have two boys of differing ability and personality. My youngest, whilst being a true delight, is a bit of a handful at school, not nasty or trouble making, but "easily distracted". His father and I are very aware of his shortcomings, but one teacher in particular made us feel like he was the worst child she had ever taught. We began questioning our parenting and even sought advice from a local child assessment centre. Needless to say, he is absolutely normal and she has now left the school. Meanwhile, we are left to pick up the pieces and feel that both his and our confidence has been set back.

Our eldest has always been a very quiet, sensible but well liked boy, who never really shone because of his quiet disposition. He always did very well, but didn't shout about it. This was recognised by his year 4 teacher who said he had been one of those boys and brought out so much in Jack that by the end of the year he was standing in front of the whole class and had a lead role in a school play. He has also left the school - to become deputy head of another school.

There are some fantastic teachers around. I know teachers have a difficult job to do. We all face challenges in our work. I don't hold with using that as an excuse ad infinitum.

I am sadly all to aware that there are like in any other profession some bad teachers. But they are the exception, not the rule.

Teaching is a profession not a job. There are many devoted teachers that give up so much time for the benefit of children and in the majority of schools its hard work teaching and managing your class.

I am not saying the teaching profession is above critism, but it is how we go about it. Sadly there is a number of parents who will come in and complain and shout at teachers while their child watches. I've seen a parent shout at the teacher for sending the child home with a reading book as its "your F ing Job to teach". When children hear adults critising they lose respect, not always just for the teacher but teachers in general.

Without respect for the adult, one child can see that a whole class will not learn.

I disagree, Tonee. I didn't respond to Becks because I have no desire to demoralize any individual teacher, or anyone else for that matter, but your "hands off this profession" approach is exactly what I referred to in my last post. The quality of education our new generation receives is directly linked to the quality of their teachers. This is an important issue. Why on earth shouldn't we discuss it in reasonable and non-threatening threads such as this one?

It's my belief that the teaching profession will be better equipped to get on with the job in hand if they can find it within themselves to stop seeing themselves as besieged by barbarian hordes, lose their collective persecution complex, and just get on with it.
Its not a hands off approach I am advocating. Not at all, I am all for people being fit and able to do their job. What I am saying is that there are more reliable and useful methods of evaluation. I suggested questionnaire as just one example. This website does nothing, in my opinion, to address the quality of teachers. That's why I would ignore it. But yes, invest in reliable assessment of teacher practice.

So we can slag off celebrities, football players and politicians, and anybody else we see fit, but leave the teachers alone!! :unsure:

Sorry -some teachers suck! If I was still at school you can bet I'd be on there.

I think the culture we have developed of slagging off everyone sucks.

We seem more than happy to tell people they are rubbish and blame someone, but we rarely praise someone or say I owe so much to this person.

For the record - Miss Mckay you were the best teacher, you made me feel part of a new school, got me the speech therapy i needed, had fantastic ideas to teach me with and dedicated your whole life to the teaching of the villages children.

Yes I'm in agreement with you becks. I don't enjoy slagging people off (though I'm only human and do sometimes). I don't like the way politicians, celebs etc are constantly criticized just for the sake of it.

I do however thing that there are some terrible teachers! They exploit young vulnerable impressionable minds and get some kind of sick power trip from their disgusting behaviour.

Obviously there are good ones too.

For the record - Miss Mckay you were the best teacher, you made me feel part of a new school, got me the speech therapy i needed, had fantastic ideas to teach me with and dedicated your whole life to the teaching of the villages children.

Bless Miss McKay!

I had some wonderful teachers too. Mrs Wood was my warm, firm, and beloved reception teacher, who looked after me carefully and wisely for the whole year when my dad had just died. Then there was Mrs Williams, who encouraged me to join the school choir and opened up a new world of choral music for me. And right at the top of my list is Mr Watson, my English teacher at Mosslands Comprehensive in Wallasey. It's not hyperbole to say that he set me on course for my life. Here's the testimony about him that I've published in several places:


I was thirteen.

Winker Watson strolled up and down the aisles between our desks, announcing marks and handing back homework essays.

It was a bright blustery autumn morning and I gazed out over the chopping sea to a sharp horizon. I'd scribbled my essay in record time earlier that week, rushing to get out on the water one last time before the season ended. The weekend was booked for hauling my boat out and...

...and suddenly I was back in the classroom and Winker was standing at the front, holding our attention, holding the one remaining essay, holding my gaze.

Uh oh.

He read it out loud.

Boys winked and nudged and grinned. Bridger's in the ****, hee hee.

Yeah. Thanks, mates.

And then he started picking it to pieces and explaining how I'd achieved this effect, that emotion, and I realised he liked the thing. It was good. The class was quiet.

He handed my essay back and gave a name to the light that was dawning on my mental horizon.

"You are a writer."

Thanks, Winker.

I'd quite like to rate some of my old teqachers because they were really good and it'd be nice if they knew that. In all honesty they probably wouldn't even remember me because I used to get really bored and wander off, but that was nothing to do with them, just my terrible attention span :D

Anyway, none of them are listed yet, but if they ever are...

Strangely I don't remember having any really awful teachers, but maybe that's because of the wanderings :D