TEACHERS have hit out at a website that allows pupils to grade THEM.

Students in their hundreds from schools across the district have joined the website rate myteachers.com, marking their teachers in categories including helpfulness and popularity.

With a top score of five, the marks are collated to provide an overall ‘quality’ total, and comments can be added to ratings.

One child wrote of a teacher at Davenant Foundation School in Loughton: “Pathetic teacher. Less shouting more teaching please. Or leave.”

Another wrote about a teacher at Debden Park High School in Loughton: “Every time I do something wrong [a teacher] says, ‘I should take you off of this GCSE’ because I forgot my book or pen. She needs to get a life.”

Another from King Harold’s in Waltham Abbey wrote simply: “She hates me.”

Roding Valley School’s headteacher Geoff Mangan said naming teachers on the site put them in a vulnerable position.

He added: “It’s a major worry and I do monitor it. Anything can be posted by anyone. The comments can’t be given any value.

“My fear is of the vulnerability we have, but thankfully nothing defamatory has been said on there about our teachers.”

Debden Park headteacher Christian Cavanagh said: “I think it’s one of those things, it’s part of new technology. People have a right to express their views but I don’t think teachers take it very seriously.

“But if a member of staff said they were unhappy about a comment we would look at how to take it down.

“We have more important things to do than search the internet looking for these things.”

St John’s School in Epping proved the most unpopular for teachers with a rating of just 2.5. One pupil wrote about a teacher: “Ignores bullying, utterly useless at dealing with students, terrible at teaching, treats teenagers like brainless little children, careless.”

But not all comments are negative. One pupil at Debden Park wrote: “He is great and really funny – he’s one of the best teachers in the whole school.”

Another added: “She’s like the mum of the school. She may be strict but we love her.”