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

My three siblings and myself all qualified as teachers. I was last to cave at around 7 years in. I had spent a few months off with stress before I realised life is short and I shouldn’t be putting myself under such huge levels of stress just to put food on the table. I was up to my eyes on beta blockers and when they didn’t take the edge off and I still felt like I was going to have a heart attack at any given second, I also took the herbal anti anxiety tablets (that it clearly says don’t take alongside medication) but I was that desperate! I got married while teaching and I can remember even getting into the rant about how much I hated it (alongside the heart palpitations) on my wedding day, when it should have been the happiest day of my life. Looking back at my wedding photos I just look a shell of myself. I have loads of really angry spots from the stress too, haven’t had a single spot since!

Things that happened to me during my career:

• spat at
• kicked (probably hundreds of times)
• had pins thrown at me
• had a chair thrown in my direction
• had to break up fights within my classroom
• had a child smash a school window in anger
• had children that weren’t even supposed to be in my class, come running in and start attacking children
• had to evacuate the class due to how dangerous situations got
• had infant children repeatedly leaving via the fire exit and setting off the alarm, hundreds of times per day, as I shout over the top of the alarm to try and actually teach the rest of the class
• had a child go round while kids were working stabbing them with a pencil (like full force STABBING them in the back)
• the head teacher walked about with a black eye from being punched
• the depute had a broken bottle put to her throat
• staff threatened with knives
• parents phoning in to dictate where in my class their child will be sitting
• children then swaggering into my class the next day saying I better listen (about who they’ll sit with) or they’ll just get their mum to phone in again 😳
• parents phoning in to demand extra packs of work to be made up and sent home like I’m a paid tutor
• kid’s who’d been raised well and never heard a swear word in their life being subjected to every swear word under the sun roared across the classroom day in day out
• when I went to very nicely chat to a 5 year old’s mum after school to say that he’d spent the full afternoon carrying on in the toilets, climbing doors, soaking people etc and was repeatedly asking out, she answered back in the most horrible way, that her precious angel should be going to the toilet as often as he likes
• head teacher’s lying about anything and everything to cover their own back. Denying all knowledge of any violence or behaviour issues in the school (while sat there black and blue) 🙃
• colleagues crying in the staff room. There wasn’t a day went by when I didn’t see someone cry. I’d then get in my car and cry all the way home that night

You literally can’t put into words the level of disrespect you experience as a teacher. On top of it all you seem to be expected to act like none of that is happening, everything is going great and everyone in the class is doing so well. If you write anything other than that on a report it will be sent straight back to you. Parents (of the kids who are genuine angels) have absolutely no concept of what is actually going on day to day. If they did there is no way any sane person would allow their child to be in that environment.

good for him on escaping!

This.

Oh my this.

Yep. Agreed! It's worth paying to avoid the horrendous behaviour seen in state schools up and down the country.

All parents want a decent education for their children. Most families do not have the option of private as they simply cannot afford it. It is not a possibility for most families, especially in the "levelling up" areas.

If a student over the age of 12 hits a pregnant woman, he should be arrested on the spot, marched through the halls to a squad car, and left in jail for a week to contemplate if that is where he wants to spend the majority of his life from that day onward.

And I say that as someone who doesn’t view jail as an appropriate response to most disciplinary issues. People need to learn that there are some lines you simply cannot cross without severe punishment.

At the moment, these kids and their parents rule by fear

Turn that on its head and let the school rule by fear. Do you not think decent kids watching all this chaos are afeared? Do you not think teachers are afeared?

Turn it around, and let the rule of fear be applied to these Calibans.

I too thought ''That poster sounds like a parent of a poorly behaved , undisciplined child''...

If you wish to be so pedantic about grammar, might I suggest the use of the Oxford comma?

@anotherside I'm inclined to agree with you. I don't believe for one minute this is all down to feckless parents. Look at the state of every other public sector provision under Tory rule.

I do see that teachers have so much to deal with from parents these days which im sure wasn't ever such an issue before. That absolutely plays into it.

@BadLad let's not forget some teachers could and would get away with some appalling behaviour in 1969. There were some horrific abuses of power and abuse of kids. Ruling by fear is not the answer either.

Bring back corporal punishment.: boot applied to arse.

It can't make matters any worse and may make them better.

Ban all mention of "suspected" ADHD and PDA as an excuse for violent or aggressive behaviour unless there is proper certification from an actual psychiatrist-not a GP. If one is produced, the question still remains: are they a physical danger? If so, then school is not the place for them..maybe a unit staffed by people who will not be frightened of them. If not, then they can stay.

This will not affect children who have special EDUCATIONAL needs. They will continue to be given special educational help and , in any case, will thrive better when they and their teachers are not in physical fear of life and limb.

Teachers' Unions should encourage members to go to the police and demand prosecution. If this doesn't work, the union should take up cudgels on their behalf..

Expel all kids who are violent or threatening and make the parents pay back the money that has so fare been wasted on trying to educate them. In some cases, it is just trying to polish a turd.

Where they go after they have been expelled is up to them but if they break the law, lock them and one of their parents up.

Extreme measures? Maybe but perhaps these extreme behaviours call for them. Nonetheless, I imagine none of this will happen. We are on a slide down and in 20 years or so, these thugs will be the parents of tomorrow and no-one but a lunatic will teach.

No, your DH has made a sensible decision.

My DM was a high school teacher. She left the profession in 2009 to look after my DSs (now grown up) when I had to deploy to Afghanistan. It was intended to be temporary but on my return she asked if we could carry on as she couldn't bear the thought of returning to work. So she became my full time nanny, kind of.

She'd been spat at, had to put herself in the way of strapping lads trying to attack girls, been threatened by parents, been mistreated and lied about to her face by line management... All in the few years preceding. She was in her late 40s and early 50s for all of this. She just didn't need it.

It broke her heart to leave the kids, most of whom were lovely, and the other teachers that were friends but the few kids that were unmanageable and the school management made it insufferable.

What a mean, unkind, miserable post.

Sorry to hear this, I hope he manages to find a new industry.
Shame, it's really down to poor parenting. No amount of money funneled into the state education system can salvage poor parenting.

It's not that bad where I work but behaviour has got a lot worse of late.
I've been in that exact position and came out the other side but only just and by changing from secondary to primary, but I totally totally get it. It's beyond miserable. Sorry no time to read all posts, but has anyone suggested working as a TA in another school? I know teachers who have done this, and it has restored some sanity. All the very best of luck to him. I'd prolong the sick leave for as long as possible. He's earned it.

This picture explains much of the problem.

I have been a children’s social worker for ten years and I wouldn’t be a teacher for any money.

I work visiting schools day in and day out in a large city in the North of the UK. I visit primary schools, secondary schools, sixth form colleges. I am not an inspector and schools don't "prepare" for my visits.

The majority of lessons I observe are reasonable. I don't see high level disruption in every lesson. Kids performing being disengaged by doodling, whispering, swinging on chairs, yes. The odd bit of backchat. Behaviour has probably marginally improved recently after a rocky patch post COVID. Secondary obv worse than primary or sixth form.

I don't recognise these feral children being described, not in my area.

I have seen children beating up parents.
Girl of nine snarling sulkily at her parents- the dad picked her up and she was boxing his ears....the parents looked afraid!

Parents are too soft with children- and the kids don't respect the parents.
Imagine being in fear of a sullen nine year old.. That beat her own dad while the mother wept.

Parents have unwittingly created monstrous behaviour by 'gentle' parenting.

No, it's really not.

He says the system is broken

It’s not the school system, it’s society.

Is this for real??? over 300 posts saying how awful it is and it's all coming from poor parenting, Labour's only truly confirmed policy is to destroy the part of educational sector which is working, and solution is to vote Labour? who will magic up 6500 teachers to replace all those on this thread who exit?

Poor parenting doesn’t haopen in a bubble anymore than poor schools do. Crime has risen under the last 14 years of Tory government. Inequality and child poverty have risen under the Tories - as they always do. The Tories simply couldn’t give a shit about vast areas of the country. So yes, the solution is to vote Labour for a few decades to invest in those areas of the country which are on their knees and to bring about a change in those areas which eventually filter down to the young people.

Petty theft is one thing, but when it comes to violence, such as flipping tables, attacking teachers, and generally behaving like a monkey, that's mostly boys.

I had a comment removed a few years ago saying parents wanted private schools as they were filters - to keep out the troublemakers and the chair hurlers- but it's true! My nephews go to a private school in London and they love it.

They can't control their kids. How many posts on here about children assaulting there parents? Quite a few I have read.. back in the days when kids could look forward a thick ear, standards of behaviour were far better.
The softly softly approach to parenting hasn't worked so wherr do we go from here? Things will only get worse. We already have young kids carrying knives and their have been several murders perpetrated by teenagers over the last couple of years.
Suggestions on a postcard please

and how exactly Labour will fix this parental gap? and make teaching safe and enjoyable profession?