It will be behaviour that makes me quit.

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

I can't stand it. There's a particular year group which is really hard going in my current school. I've only been there since Sept, but I have fifteen years' experience and consider myself pretty assertive, confident and to have high expectations in the classroom.

Today I've been told to fuck off. I've been called irritating. I've had two boys deliberately trying to get a rise out of me (they didn't) so they could be sent out. The verbal abuse was simply for repeatedly trying to refocus them on their work - topical and differentiated to the Nth degree.

Previously I have been sworn at and later found a note plastered in really disgusting obscenities about me. I don't actually care about that or the language - it's the arrogance of the perpetrators and the constant disruption that means the majority of hardworking, pleasant kids don't get the support and working atmosphere they need.

This is a 'good' school, by the way. The one I taught in last year, recently downgraded, was worse.

Anyone else just feel ground down by behaviour?

[TheSpectreOfMorningtonCrescent]

Yep, times 100. So many things that demoralise me. One arrogant, rude boy today told me that one day he might see me smile. I thought, you know I used to smile all the time before I worked here.

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

It makes me sad that the nice kids have to put up with this all day long. I dread my DCs going to secondary.

[EarlyNewDawn]

Problem is, it's our fault, isn't it? The behaviour.

I'm fed up as well. From the outside, my class looks perfect, but it takes SO MUCH EFFORT to keep them that way. I was told that my classroom management wasn't up to scratch, because those who are good at it don't need to work at it

I really need to get out. Can't afford to, though

[ArmchairTraveller]

Low level disruption, combined with arrogance and a behaviour policy that really means nothing to a number of children. It's very wearing, even in primary where the obscenity level is usually lower.

[EarlyNewDawn]

If you use the policy, you are obviously having problems. If you don't use it, well then, you should be!!

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

And if you don't stick to the letter of the policy, and - God forbid - you use your professional discretion immediately to escalate incidents like the 'fuck off' above, you can expect confrontation from the kids and criticism from their head of year. Oh no. Got to keep them in their. Until they've stepped out of line X times, NO MATTER WHAT!

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

There

[miaowroar]

Well evidently if my lessons were interesting, differentiated and pacy enough then pupils wouldn't see the need to misbehave, swear, throw things, break things, walk out, get their phones out, tell me the lesson is shit, tell my I am a cow etc.

Obviously this is all my fault because I am such a poor practitioner and nothing to do with their parents or the lack of meaningful sanctions or proper support from management.#

I know, I know - teacher, slug of the universe!

[knitknack]

A day's internal exclusion for swearing even in a teacher's hearing at my school - it's blissful!!

[Meow75]

I got out partly for reasons like this, but having to deal with that stuff had a knock on effect with my ability to then keep up with all the bureaucratic shit. After 16 years, I resigned December 2013 after having a MH crisis 9 days earlier. I definitely miss the money - I was UPS2, but I also found out in December 2013 that I was incapable of taking my life. I'm now doing a NMW job at a contact centre for a mobile phone company (but not sales or cold calling - existing customers only!) but at least I have the time and energy for stuff like hobbies. I've made 3 Christmas cakes for friends since mid October and I'm in the middle of making a birthday cake for a work colleague. Couldn't even consider that when I was teaching.

[PrincessHairyMclary]

I started as a TA at a secondary school in Sept I have 15 years experience with working with the full age range of children /young people in different settings.

I hadn't entirely clocked on when I started that every lesson I would have would be the lesson from hell because I'm working with children with additional needs and behavioural problems. It's so exhausting. I have two lessons with top set as I'm supporting some EAL students and being in those lessons is like going on holiday! I'm not sworn at, or having things thrown at me, kids aren't walking out the lessons or back chatting constantly or accusing me of being racist or favoritism or stepping in to stop fights breaking out. The schools good the poor kids just have so many problems and complex needs and a lot of them are in the same classes setting each other off.

[GinandJag]

I've just started a 7-week contract in an outstanding school. On my first day, I wondered what I had let myself in for. Fortunately the classes got better and there is just the one that I think I will dread.

In this school, the first sanction is a detention. There is no way I want to spend even more time with these people, so I won't do anything about it. I also don't want to come across as weak. The main problem is calling out and answering back, so nothing physical or obscene. I've decided to "not see" the gum-chewing (even bubble-blowing) as that would take the whole lesson to handle.

The good classes are demoralising in their own way, eg students chatting thoughout the lesson (and my having to pause to glare at them), then saying with five minutes to go that they don't "get" anything about the topic. Grrr!

[exLtEveDallas]

Our lovely little school has had one NQT quit after her first year, one TA & one teacher go on lts, one 1st year teacher tell her class they are making her want to leave and one NQT break down in tears in front of her class. That's in the last 6 months.

It's ALL behaviour related.

I wouldn't be a teacher for 100k a year (and I've been to two wars!) Hats off to any of you sticking it out.

[GinandJag]

The reason I am finding so much block work at this time of year is that NQTs and other teachers new to schools have not been able to hack it. That is so sad when they have invested so much in their careers and achieved the required standards for QTS.

[Nonono]

Apologies but as a parent I really sympathise with you. My poor DC have gone through bad year groups year on year but at secondary it got so much worse for the oldest and made DC confidence and education suffer so much. I wish I could have done home ed. the schools have excellent results but I really don't know how. I really wish the parents where made to view the evidence of their darlings behaviour and that heads and teachers had the power to deal effectively with such kids.

[DoreenLethal]

I run an alternatie provision company. I was ready to jack the contract in - in the second week of Sept. And we get the kids who have been permanently excluded. Only 31 weeks to go.

[MurlockedInTheCellarHelpUs]

I'm an NQT.

Recently, after asking a child to please stop talking and listen to the other children's contribution to the discussion, I was told to turn up my fucking hearing aid if I couldn't hear.

She's in Year 4.

It's so tough. I'm also 26 weeks pregnant, which doesn't help!

[PurpleAlerts]

MurlockedInTheCellarHelpUs

I am a teacher (specialist SEN primary age) but have been lucky enough to have worked in schools where the pupils are really well behaved.

I really don't know how teachers stick in schools where the behaviour is so awful.

Oh never mind- I am sure Nicky Morgan's band of elite teachers will sort it all out...

[momtothree]

I really think video evidence is the way forward. Seriously confront the parents with it. Even kids watching themselves would be interesting.

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

I tried to put one on report to sort out his rudeness. He told me I'd have to prove he was being rude first. I agree - I was thinking of video evidence just yesterday.

Thanks for the comment from a parent'so perspective, Nonono. I do wish I could tell parents what their kids are really up against. Such a waste of their time.

I sort of think the problem is that SLT are worried about their own authority failing them. I mean, kids know who's in some sort of leadership role and are more respectful when those staff intervene. But I think that if those staff had to teach them on a day to day basis, that would soon change.

That, and internal inclusion, exclusion or whatever you want to call it is a jolly, lazy day playing computer games and abusing an unqualified member of staff who's out of their depth.

[Phineyj]

I work in a selective school with (mostly) highly motivated kids and even I have days like this. There is little deference (or good manners) these days! The difference is the parents will back me up, but I always feel like I've failed if it gets to that stage.

[echt]

As shit as things were when I left for Au in the mid-2000s, telling a teacher to fuck off meant an immediate, if temporary, exclusion.

In the 80s, it meant expulsion.

The OP's last post nails it. If the SLT don't have your back, you're fucked.

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

I don't think it's necessarily intentional by SLT. It's just that they don't have the answers any more than we do. IMO, behaviour has deteriorated a lot in ten years, and in my current school, most SLT haven't been teaching much in that time, and have the clout of seniority where they have been.

Just got to find a way out.