To think droves of teachers will make the decision by husband made today- to leave

I was accused of hitting a year 9 boy... he was twice the size of me. I never shout, never aggressive, and usually popular with the kids. He had just had enough of the school and took the opportunity when I tapped him on the should in a "come on Jack, let's get on" type way to make an accusation to the school. His parents got the police involved. I had this hanging over me for 6 months until the police finally dropped the case! Utterly bonkers!

I've decided today that I'm done. A popular teacher, a kind and considerate teacher that goes above and beyond always, and I've had enough.

I gave out three detentions for rudeness, the disgruntled recipients got together and complained to the head teacher. Told her I called them stupid idiots and was aggressive (outside of the classroom so no witnesses) and they were believed. I've got a misconduct mark on my file and the kids got away without doing the detention! What. A. Joke!

We had one HMI who declared he hadn't done his job properly if he hadn't made af least kne staff member cry. Needless to say he picked on a NQT and succeeded.

It's awful to think that this was known about for years yet nothing was done about it. He's probably retired now on a big fat pension

I was once told off by my Headteacher: "Curb your temper, Mrs Weary!"

I wasn't in a temper: I'd had the temerity to answer back to an EO. (Said EO went on to an ever higher post, but eventually left under a cloud.)

He picked out one name from an entire year group. "Pupil X has not moved up one level in 5-14 in his two years at secondary. He's still level A. [For those outside Scotland: A was the lowest level; F was the highest.] Would you care to explain why you've failed to ensure that this pupil achieves?"

Now, looking at the available info, he could see that X had achieved level A after SEVEN years at primary school. [While A was the lowest, it was possible to have no level at all.] Since it had taken him 7 yrs to get to A, it was highly unlikely that he was going to move up one more level in the space of 2 yrs.

However, there was more to this than an ability to learn, so I replied: "X is a traveller and is always on the road with his father. If you can get him into school, then we'll ensure that he achieves."

The EO had a face like thunder. (Turned out he was a member of an extreme Christian sect where women are meant to be seen and not heard.)

That was when my headie told me off.

Must have have been wearing what DH used to refer to as my Medusa face...

I suppose that the students were better at one subject than the other would not have satisfied the inquisitor? Some people are numpties, a pity they get to have roles in education where they harass teachers.

Thinking of winding down I thought I'd share this about the secondary school I taught at in Melbourne. The last week of the academic year was open to any student who wanted to come in and work would be provided. Parents were invited to make an appointment to discuss EOY reports if they wished. No lessons. The first day you'd get the odd student turn up but nothing after that. The whole week was given over to getting ready for the next year, meetings, etc. Last day was staff goodbyes, etc.

It was bloody marvellous and I don't know how they got away with it.

"non-professional"? Doh!

I meant "unprofessional", of course. Blame it on auld age. It's not perimenopause...I'm well over that!

When I started teaching in secondary in the '80s, we did have a winding down at the end of term with trips and so on.

Nowadays, we still have the trips and sports days with the concomitant planning and risk assessments, but we also have the change of timetable implemented before the summer holidays. (I'm not making this into a competition with primary: I'm aware that my primary colleagues have their own challenges.) The LAs seem to have a bee in their bonnet about "wasted time", with HTs being praised for changing the timetable as soon as possible. In my LA, I think they all moved in May this year.

The result is that we have a full S2-S6 timetable with the S1 gaps being taken up by primary/S1 transition plus cover for trips and sometimes sports day.

As is the case with our primary colleagues, we also find ourselves being expected to organise open days, concerts, etc.

So far as reports are concerned, we're normally required to have two sets of reports per year group (for parents) on top of tracking, but earlier in the year in order to inform course choices.

I recall nearly being in tears one time when I was a young PT. I'd been on minimum timetable nearly all year with none of the management time that I was supposed to have, because of longterm staff absence.

We finally reached change of timetable and - on paper - I had some of my time back. Then we got the sports day timetable. My non-contacts had been taken away from me, so that I could cover the lessons of a young maths teacher who was going to be umpiring some of the games at sports day. (No, maths wasn't my subject.)

I think it's the only time a member of the SLT heard me swearing... (Yes, exceptionally non-professional of me. I was lucky that he was understanding.) I believe I asked whether they wanted me to stick a broom up my fundament and do the jannie's job as well...

In my last permanent school, we did also have what started out as a "Rewards Day" but finished up being some kind of treats day for all...because we can't discriminate against kids for being badly behaved... We were asked to volunteer to supervise various activities in our non-contacts.

When I failed to volunteer - by then I was a PTC and organising and teaching cover lessons for more than one department (staff absences) in the faculty with the largest number of classes as well as getting my paperwork in order for possible appeals (lest I be struck down by lightning during the holidays) - a Guidance teacher appeared in my classroom to remonstrate with me because it was "unfair" that I hadn't volunteered. To my shame, I acquiesced.

I've been retired from that post for 6 years now. The last I heard, I've had 6 replacements.

I don't think I'd have the patience to deal with the challenges in modern-day primary. I've cleaned up vomit and dealt with injuries in my time, but at least I've never had to deal with children starting school who haven't been toilet trained and I'm aware that primary forward planning has become particularly onerous.

I know that primaries had to defend their 5-14 figures to their Education Officers years back; I think it's the same for CfE levels now? I recall an EO lecturing a hall full of primary and secondary teachers for being too strict in their 5-14 grading! We still get the powers that be trying to "persuade" us to be generous with CfE, but the emphasis is very much on exam results.

One of the reasons that all secondary teachers now spend so much time now on preparing their exam related paperwork at the end of term is that - once the results are in - we're forced to defend our results and to compare them with other departments in our school, other schools in our LA and against the results of imaginary "comparator schools" across Scotland.

One year, I taught the same pupils in two different (but related) subjects. I found myself in the bizarre position of being in a meeting with an EO who queried why my results for one subject were slightly lower than the results for my other subject. I imagine that primary colleagues may have to endure some similar nonsense.

Primary teachers don't stick pupils in front of screens while they write reports and set up classrooms for the new session. No time allocation in the working time agreement is ever enough for reporting.

Trips? Probably the most awful, stressful thing I've ever done. They certainly aren't a fun carefree day out - quite the opposite.

Absolutely the hardest and most tiring time of the year. Reports, trips, finishing the courses, tidying etc. I often say to people who don't teach who ask me if I'm winding down, that I'm winding up first!!

That would be fine. But you would have to pay teachers for the extra working time. They are not paid for holidays, but 1265 + directed time. The average working year is 2,000 hours (50x40hpw), and once you add in marking, tidying the cupboards, parents' evenings and preparation done in the 'holidays', then teachers work far more than 2000 hours a year. So who will pay for those extra hours?

You do realise those trips, sports days etc take longer to plan than lessons would? You also realise that primary classrooms don't magically set themselves up over the summer and that primary staff often move classes/classrooms at the end of the year. Displays in primarys are a much bigger thing than secondaries in my opinion. Most primary teachers I know are in for a least a week over the summer. I agree with you about spreading things out but please don't disparage primary colleagues about winding down. I used to find it the hardest time of year and it was always throwing up things that took hours e.g. ordering a years worth of books, stationery for my class, making peg labels, tray labels, re backing display boards etc etc

All of the above, plus - as a PTC - I had to use the last week of the hols to organise appeals.

It’s always been difficult to discuss. I feel primary school teachers can wind down to the end of term, with trips, sports days etc. and perhaps be in a position to enjoy the long Summer holidays. Shoot me down if I’m wrong! Upper school teachers have to keep at it to the bitter end. Then have to use holiday time to tidy cupboards, get rid of pupils’ work no longer needed. Then show up in school in July for exam appeals(I taught in Scotland). Then go into school a couple of days early, hoping that class lists had appeared, because the two ‘in-service days’ with no pupils at the start of term would see us stuck in the hall listening to educational theorists. If we didn’t go in early, we wouldn’t have the right number of text books, registers made up, and the first pupil day would be a shambles and very bad for future discipline in the classroom. I’d advocate a 4 term year, with a 4 day week for pupils. Teachers would have the whole fifth day free for preparation and marking. I know this would cut down the long Summer holiday, but holidays would me more enjoyable for teachers who weren’t utterly exhausted, as I was every July.

I have to agree here..
My son was youngest and smallest in his class...in retrospect I should have held him back a year so he would have been the oldest and tallest.

Anyway...he was bullied a bit in secondary - but hit back hard. Just once.

He was suspended for a day as was the bully he hit- but it never happened again.

No wants to do the job
The thing is, I do want to teach. I loved it so much. It’s absolutely my vocation. But even I can’t possibly do the job in its current format. They were taking the piss out of me, underpaying me, fiddling my contract to take away my entitlement to employment benefits, and I literally had no life because the workload was too heavy. So I left, and it still breaks my heart because I was absolutely born to teach. If even I can’t teach when it was truly the purpose of my existence, then nobody will.

Teachers (and potential teachers) - Life is too short to be working in a job where you are not appreciated, let alone physically and verbally abused. Find another career because this isn't going to improve.

Term has just ended in my part of Scotland. Yesterday, I got a text from a HoD wanting me to take a full timetable in their school for at least the first term of the new academic year. I'm astonished that they need to ask a crone like me.

I've declined. I'm not fit for a full timetable.

I don't know where Labour think all these people are coming from who are going to train. They've missed filling all the training places every year I can remember. No wants to do the job. Of those that do train very few make it past their late 40s before leaving to do something else - I left whilst still in my 20s. I have just one friend left in teaching.

Work load, behaviour, pay, behaviour of parents, lack of respect for the role ... why would anyone do it? And before anyone mentions the pension or holidays - they're obviously not enough to keep people in the job are they?

And now we have kids playing identity politics and late guidance for schools on issues like gender.

I do wonder if retention at schools with tough behaviour policies like Katherine Birbalsingh's Michaela is better than at standard schools?

Teaching how to plan a task is showing how to do something - it is knowledge that is being taught e.g. how to frame questions, how to open an essay etc, how to plan the cooking of a meal, or run an office. Much of what we think of as skills are innate in us e.g. the lean towards team-work, pattern-making, etc which are part of humanity's make-up. Yes, cake making is a skill - based on knowledge of how you make a cake and knowledge of the chemistry that makes it work e.g. that when you cream (mix to the consistency of think cream using a mixer or a spoon) fat and sugar you are adding a third ingredient to the mix: air.
The point of an educational curriculum is to pass on the knowledge that our society has accumulated over generations to the next generation, so that they to can use it and pass it on. The dead, the living and those who will be born are all part of our society, and we betray the dead if we do not pass on to our children what was given to us. And it is knowledge - of maths, history, physics, sewing, cooking, geography, chemistry, literature, how to paint and draw, how to dance - that we must teach, and teach it explicitly; our ability to make solutions using trial and error (an innate skill) will not help us learn a body of knowledge which we must know to automaticity so that we can draw on it at need.

We have to socialize children into the innate skills of our culture, for children are by nature selfish, and have to be in order to survive. But the skills we are teaching are innate in us: critical thinking, use of trial and error, taking turns, working in teams and collaborating - because without these traits which have evolved in us we would not survive. Indeed, those who would not apply these skills to a large extent did not survive.
But skills such as those above are different from the sort of knowledge that qualifies us to be an optician, a historian, a doctor etc. The ability to do those jobs is based on taught knowledge and one of the evolutionary advantages we have is that we can teach our young the things we have learned so that they do not have to discover them for themselves e.g. reading or maths. Neither has been around long enough for us to have evolved the ability to just do them, in the way that we can use trial and error,or take turns or pick up our mother tongue. They must be explicitly taught. The point of all this is that the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland does not do this explicit teaching and this is one of the reasons it has gone down the PISA rankings e.g. for reading (because reading is decoding + comprehension and comprehension requires knowledge in the long-term memory).

I agree that skills are more important than knowledge in today's world. We aren't short of people who (think they) know everything. We are short of people who can actually do stuff.

I disagree it's a taught skill which some will learn more easily than others.

Turn-taking, teaching children not to speak over others etc are innate skills which we bring out - our species would not survive had we not had these social skills and learned where to apply them (it's the application we are teaching, not the skill). Team work is an innate skill of many mammals e.g. no-one teaches a lion pride to hunt together, they practice a skill which is an innate survival tactic. Just so hunters used team work to kill a mammoth. The strategies they used, feint and constant attack, are built on knowledge of how to kill a mammoth, but that one works in a team is a skill we are born with - we wouldn't have survived as a species if that was not so.