I know it's been done to death but I don't think people realise how hard it is to work in a school!

@rwalker ^"Because there hand are tied they have very little in the way of punishment they can implement
the kids just don’t care and the school gave lack of parental support "^

This is what gets me. They could do something if they wanted. I spent all of my son's last year at his old school waiting for them to get their act together and enforce the rules they already had. As had been happening at my school. But they didn't.

Parents complain about both schools in equal measure. They complain that the local school is too weak, too much disruption, too much bullying (and outright violence). But the school we both now attend the same types of parents complain about the strict rules and that their children are expected to not disrupt and take responsibility for their behaviour.

My point is: parents will always complain, (people will always complain) so do what we know works for children and staff.

I find threads like this a real misrepresentation. Sure some schools are really bad and I don’t doubt a lot of teachers have to put up with complete shit but there are still lots of good schools in the uk with excellent teaching staff and supportive SLT.

I’ve worked in schools for over 25 years, lots of schools as I’m peripatetic. I know it’s different for me as I’m only working with small groups of children rather than managing a whole class but I of course see and experience a lot of what goes on.
I work mainly in primary. I feel very lucky to work with children and have had a mainly very positive experience.

I work in some very deprived areas and the children are no better or worse behaved than some more affluent areas I work in.
In my experience, overall the ‘problem parents’ are from the more affluent areas - demanding, entitled and a real pain in the arse, these parents are given a wide birth from me. They message me at 2am demanding updates and progress reports - I’m of course professional and polite but my communication with them will be minimal and I won’t go the ‘extra mile’ as I do with many others. Their number will be muted on my phone and they are swiftly reminded to re-read my terms & conditions which also has a zero tolerance of aggression or abuse (from both children and adults).

I am lucky to work in some Roman Catholic primary schools where the behaviour is second to none, pupils open doors, are extremely polite, diligent and discerning- it’s the culture of the school.

I previously worked in a private ‘sought after’ school in my area, some of the pupils were so arrogant it was unbelievable, some were at breaking point from stress and pressure to achieve- they were only 7! I eventually left as the teaching staff and head of music were so incredibly snobby I just couldn’t be arsed with it anymore. Give me an average school or school in a deprived area any day!

I work independently so am not employed by schools, I am very lucky to not be drawn in to all the bullshit meetings, red tape and extra crap classroom teachers have to deal with. I count my blessings that I can work in schools, teaching my subject that I love and go home at 3 and focus on my family.

If you are a teacher and you’re unhappy, please leave to work in a better school or teach your subject independently, or get a completely different job, life’s too short.

Thanks @Iscreamtea and @Philandbill I had wondered if it was Ofsted. It’s shocking teachers are so badly hamstrung, in an ideal world you’d be marked down for not being tough on disruption rather than the reverse. I don’t know how you’re expected to be healthy yourself and provide a healthy environment to the children who aren’t violent if you’re supposed to put up with it. Just dreadful.

Because there hand are tied they have very little in the way of punishment they can implement
the kids just don’t care and the school gave lack of parental support

the lack of standards just filters down from parents
if you rung many of these kids parents saying the kid told a teacher to fuck off they wouldn’t bat an eyelid

my friends school has a number of parents barred from the school premises swearing aggression fighting and arguing
the kids are carbon copies of them

Can I ask why they get away with this? When I was at school such language and behaviour towards staff would have got you taken straight to the head teacher with a possible suspension. At secondary school the headmaster would cane pupils who were rude to teachers ( the only thing he would cane for and obviously not an option now).
How are these children still allowed at the school?

Schools are judged, negatively, for excluding students.

Ofsted do not like schools where children are permanently excluded.

I work in a very challenging secondary school but tbh I don’t get called names very often (or ever as far as I can recall) so this primary school sounds horrific. It is exhausting though.

I’m always having to bite my tongue though. i think I may also have muttered f**k off under my breath but don’t think anyone heard me fortunately 😵‍💫

(if anyone had heard me I’d never hear the end of it 😱)

I will admit to the cardinal sin of only having read all of OP’s posts and the first few pages so perhaps this has been answered but… why do head teachers allow this behaviour? What is it that disincentivises them from backing teachers up and being loose-handed with exclusions? Is it enrolment targets or the local authority or what?

I was a dinner lady for about a year. It was awful, particularly during post covid when we had the bubbles. I had 28 kids on my own, several with Sen, a couple servere. they ate dinner in the classroom then played on a cordoned off piece of playground. I was hit, swore at, kids fighting each other. if I was having an issue everyone ignored the walker talkie or couldn't come because they were on their own. I once had to ask two children to find an adult as I was getting punched by two boys who were trying to hit each other, they were also throwing things which were hitting the other kids.
My line manager would put measures in place such as Sen kids could have play equipment or iPads. Then teacher would over rule her.

And that was only 1hr a day. They were surprised when I handed my notice in.

Interesting, live in a city where the local secondary is also regularly slated for its ‘ridiculous rules’, hundreds of comments, trust clearly holding its nerve.

Happily sending my child there as I’m watching the exodus from families who can’t cope with a few rules. Just suck it up is what we should be saying!

Personally loving it as I know it’s making my child’s education far better!

This.

This sounds like a great place to be and similar to my own school except it is in a city.

People who think "strict schools" are a bad thing have no idea about the toxic and corrosive influence that even so called "low level disruption" can have on students and on staff.

I agree.

I have a significant minority of parents who come in expecting me to sanction the child for things they have done at home.

No.

I'm their teacher. I act in loco parentis while your child is with me but I'm NOT their third parent!

Stuff that happens at home? That's for you to deal with.

I'm not punishing your child because they swore at you. Stop swearing at them and see if that makes a difference first!

That sounds good. Just being supported would be great!

Typical post just sprung up on our local parents group (Facebook)

’School accusing son of bullying and fighting and want to suspend him, found weed in his room, trying to get him counselling and an ADHD diagnosis but why aren’t the school trying to understand him rather than picking on him’

No mention of discipline or proper parenting at all - just piling on already creaking services for yet another diagnosis, counselling that isn’t needed, and criticising the school for not being all things to all people

I have to say that it is brilliant. I don't think I could go to any other type of school now.

Of course, nothing is ever perfect. I could complain about a range of other things but student behaviour is not one of them any more.

They are given a reminder about expectations, which isn't recorded in any way. And at this point the vast majority of children take the reminder as intended and get back on track.

Sometimes if they're particularly dysregulated they'll be unable to settle and so will be sent to student support and the lesson will continue as before.

At student support the disrupting child will be assessed and provided with any support they might need (accounting for any SEND, social or family issues etc). They'll be coached through the incident and helped to see how they could have responded better.

They're then given two lessons to calm and complete work silently in a supervised room, allowing the rest of their class to continue undisrupted. And then they go back to lessons.

The vast majority of students find this a deterrent enough to improve the way they participate in lessons, but it is also supportive enough that when a child is truly struggling they get the support a class teacher is unable to give whilst teaching.

The 'frequent flyers' get a whole lot more coaching and mentoring and we've seen huge improvements in those children over time.

I know several that under the previous system would have been largely suspended before being moved out of mainstream lessons. But instead they are now in mainstream lessons, not disrupting, for the majority of the week. I am super proud that they are learning self control and are able to benefit from undisrupted lessons themselves too.

My son hasn't been "sent" yet, but he's testing the boundaries and I expect it to happen before the summer! And it'll work for him; he's got nothing complex going on, he's just a teenager who is looking to see if they really mean what they say! (And they do!)

I worked in a school in an area of high poverty and in one of the roughest areas, where the social and community issues were off the scale. I also taught Year 1 and I was never once sworn at or spat at by a 6 year old. Don't get me wrong they swore sometimes but it was just part of their vocabulary, as in it would come out in general conversation.

I don't think your experience is the norm at all. High workload and working every evening and weekend is why I left, I wanted a life after 15 years of doing it.

I miss the children a lot but the prescriptive way I was being told to teach without deviation, the lack of fun for 6 year olds, not having any time to follow their interests, sing songs, read stories, have a bit of fun for once was what did it for me as well. The job I left was unrecognisable from the one I started 15 year before. I still feel sad about it sometimes.

DD went to one of those primaries where they pander constantly to the badly behaved kids, they don’t deal with the behaviour and it then continues into secondary. Badly behaved children being picked for special events and the getting sent home. Well behaved children ignored etc.

I have worked in schools. In the back office but I would help out. A lot of the disruptive children were just starved of attention, but there isn’t staff time to deal with it. One on one time and a good relationship with an adult would make the world of difference.
We had a boy who was constantly excluded/disruptive all day every day and was heading to permanent exclusion, mum used to shrug. Apparently when he was PE’d she asked the school what she was meant do now with him and the Deputy Head just said ‘not our problem’ and she started screaming at him, she had ignore the issue for years and hoped it went away.

Lots of the staff were done not because of the children but because of the parents. I dealt with a few and my general opinion of people really dropped, I’m still shocked as some of their behaviour, kids don’t have a chance.

What happens to the disrupters @OctogenarianDecathlete?

I can hardly imagine teaching without disruption!

Nobody is forcing you to write comments like this.
Scroll on if you don't have anything constructive to say.

@user4692821knows that nobody is forcing her to do her job, but that is missing the whole point.

I suppose as a continuation of my post: if you work in an unbearable school, try one like ours before you leave the field completely.

It'll be trashed online as being "too strict", but visit and you'll likely find the children thriving, and the staff coping much better (or at least with different things to complain about!)

I haven't RTFT, but to give a slightly different perspective:

I work in a large, rural, truly comprehensive secondary. We have all types of children, all different backgrounds, more diversity than you'd imagine for the location.

We're part of what is described on Twitter as a "Borg MAT".

But it's brilliant. The expectation is that all children are allowed to learn without disruption. So there is a strong and reasonable system to minimise disruption. We teach the children how to take personal responsibility.

And parents hate it. Parents want their children to be able to swear and be violent and disrupt lessons. The social media in the area is always outraged.

Working in the school is the best I've ever experienced. I moved my child there and he loves it, loves that there is very little disruption, no bullying.

So yes, we need to teach manners and responsibility but that will mean that children, who are learning, will have consequences to help them learn. And parents don't want that either.

So far the school/MAT leaders are holding their nerve. Long may it continue, I want my children to come out of this as robust, self-disciplined humans.

Where I live there are hardly any supply TAs. I've been on supply (I'm a supply teacher) for two months in a school nursery where they can't recruit a teacher.

There was a TA but she is off with stress now and I have to say I can't blame her as she's been doing everything. All the first aid, all the safeguarding all the liaising with parents.

So for the last three weeks I've had a stream of supply TAs. Some better than others but mostly absolutely dreadful at their job. Over half can't speak any English at all so,it's very difficult to communicate with them.

Of the 26 children, 8-10 are in nappies so that's one of us changing nappies pretty much all of the time. So it's either me or the TA with 25 three and four year olds.