Been told to toughen up. How to?

[flowerfairy]

Any advice from you lovely teachers out there, please. Have been told to do this and am not generally that way inclined. Any pearls of wisdom please. TIA

[bastedyoungturkey]

Regarding what exactly? Lesson feedback? Parents? Children? Other staff?

[PurpleDaisies]

In what context? Classroom discipline or are you taking things personally outside the classroom?

Are you still training? It gets easier with experience.

[SlinkyVagabond]

Kids? Don't take things personally. Stick to the rules. You are not their friends.

[flowerfairy]

No teaching a number of years but to get onto the next payscale and meet the standards.

[cheapandcheerful]

I'm a little unsure as to how 'toughening up' will achieve this

[bastedyoungturkey]

So is it a workload thing then? I'm still not clear what exactly it is you need to toughen up with? Are your slt not being clear with you?

[PurpleDaisies]

I think you're going to need to be a bit more explicit with what your issues are.

[Heirhelp]

What standards are you not meeting?

[rollonthesummer]

What do you mean? I don't understand how 'toughening up' will get you through threshold?!

[ChampagneTastes]

Do they mean in response to feedback or in the classroom? Can you explain what the conversation was?

[MrsGuyOfGisbo]

Get the person who told you to do this to explain further - otherwise hard to advise you

[Yoyoyopo]

Tell em to shove their toughening up and just put you through the f'ing threshold

[hollieberrie]

I'm a shy and sensitive person by nature and teaching has toughened me up no end! I'm good in the classroom but still find things a real challenge - like dealing with difficult parents and standing up to SLT. Tell us a bit more OP and we can try to advise.

[flowerfairy]

Holllieberrie That is me to a tee, but I find it really hard to speak to people who come into school to judge you ie inspectors. Just got slated by some who have been in school and not sure I'm cut out for this job anymore. Now been given some targets to complete over the next term. Don't want to give up but kind of feel I'm being pushed out now.

[purpleapple1234]

When I first started teaching, I felt that I needed to toughen up and I tried the shouty method, being mean, giving sanctions. None worked as the kids figured me out as a complete softy at heart who can be easily talked around.

Now I am regarded as a fairly strict teacher and it took me a while to figure out why. I have my own boundaries and my own way of enforcing them.

• I am very polite, but deliver it with a clear message of what I want done (respect for them, but a clear intention of what I expect).
  
• Firm, quiet tone of voice (works much better than shouting and appearing to lose control).
  
• Saying less and using body language (they tune out instructions that are unclear or boring).
  
• Clear mental boundaries of what I will and won't accept (only built up by experience unfortunately).
  
• Knowledge of what the sods can get up to and ways to deal with it (experience again).
  
• I relate all my expectations back to their learning (makes them realise that you care about them and their learning rather than just spoiling for a fight).
  
• I try to be as organised as possible (kids really disrespect poor organisation for some reason and I believe teaching is 90% organisation), so extra worksheets, everything in the lesson running like clockwork, recording of bad behaviour, missing homework, incomplete classwork, lateness, etc.
  
• Varied lessons (lest they get bored)
  
• Praising loudly and telling off quietly (or whatever the expression is - class-wide attention should only be given for good behaviour as much as reasonably possible).
  
• Try to build relationship with even the most pain in the arse kids, who you think hate/disrespect you. I believe that you get more bees with honey with vinegar and then when you need to rocket them, they suffer from the "disappointment"
  

I remember learning to teach being like learning to drive in that I once wondered how the hell one person could be expect to do these different things at the same time. Was this the sort of thing that you were looking for?

[rollonthesummer]

Was nodding at lots of purpleapple's points-I do most of those but have never really thought about it. Classroom management was the thing most people on my PGCE worried about.


What were the targets given to you? Can we help implement them?

[purpleapple1234]

flowerfairy so sad to read that people have been unsupportive towards you and you feel pushed out. Some teachers can be perfectly great at managing kids, but lose those skills when dealing with fellow members of staff. I am sure that you are/can do a great job. Teaching is such a personal profession (if you see what I mean), that it takes different people different lengths of time to get their stroke. And even then that stroke may not fit with another's way of doing things. Or even in that school.

If it is any consolation, I was considered to be crap in first couple of years of teaching (which I am sure that you are not - but I was). It took me a couple of years and a lot of hard work, but now I truly believe that I am a good teacher and my kids enjoy my subject and learn well. Sadly, I was left to figure out my own ways of doing things, because of unhelpful attitudes (like it sounds that you have come across). It can be very hard to believe in yourself in teaching if the kids are acting up and management is being unsupportive. But if you become as stubborn as a mule, you'll be fine and love your job one day. Have you thought of changing schools, even at the end of the school year?

[flowerfairy]

Thanks for your responses they were most helpful. have been teaching many years but worked part-time for most of this because I chose to after having children. Now working full-time, offer I couldn't refuse as financially we were starting to struggle and finding the work-life balance difficult sometimes. I feel like an NQT again basically as feel quite deskilled. Need to regain my confidence so that I can teach good lessons and hold my head high again.

[Flutterworc]

I was pretty un-tough in early years, but a couple of rounds in the school equivalent of Basra, followed by a couple of rounds in a high performing school, I've 'toughened up', I think. I take a lot less shit from kids (sympathy is earned, not deserved) and have much higher expectations of them. Could that be what they mean? Alternatively my HoD, who is the most inspirational attack dog you ever met, trained me to 'put on a rhino suit' whenever I have to have a tricky conversation with parent/colleague etc. It's the 'rip the plaster' theory - temporary agony, but over quickly and feels better after. Good luck!