Teachers : what's the worst thing about the job now?

I starting teaching in a Cat B prison and have never received nasty behaviour from a soul. It's the most positive environment in which I've ever worked. Very refreshing after school,pay not comparable though.

If you go by some of the stories on here/tiktok/reddit.

He will be a high flying CEO of his own company with staff that love him and the only reason why he acted up was because he had unmet needs and those nasty teachers kept picking on him.
Or he is a major internet influencer.
Or a surgeon.
But he will make it the world because he is no longer under the thumb of a system that never understood him.

The truth is that if he is lucky at some point there will be an epiphany he will turn it around and be a useful member of society.
But its more likely that he will continue to be influenced by not so nice people that will not care at all about him and use him and dispose of him once he gets into trouble.

Yes, we have to fuck over everyone else's needs in favour of Bob's need to be a dick

Hell if I know. But that's his target so...

I could put the answers in front of him and he'd turn them into a paper aeroplane rather than write them down

We have a little Johnny in my child’s class. Hits the children and adults, swears and trashes everything in sight all day, every day. But it’s ok, there is no bad behaviour, only unmet needs! Now they are wondering why most of the class are on track not to pass their SATS. 6 1/2 years of their needs being ignored in favour of poor little Johnny.

🙄 How on earth are you supposed to get a 6 out of a kid who's hardly ever in lessons, and when they are, they do nothing but cause disruption? I don't have to put up with this bullshit any more, thank goodness (girls' grammar school).

I currently have students on my registers in y11 and y10 who I rarely if ever see. They bounce in and out, screwing up lessons, upsetting people left right and centre, acting like entitled little brats, doing fuck all work.

Why, MrsHamlet, are you predicting Bob a grade 1? His target is a 6.

Well, oh great and powerful leader, I actually predicted him a U but I was told that was not acceptable.

Well, not all the time. In the average secondary school, many lessons are probably pretty much constantly disrupted by poor behaviour though.

I guess at least in this scenario they are not ruining school for everyone else.

@Foostit this is just depressing. And what becomes of grown up little Johnny when he is out in the real world? Presumably he is nicking people’s phones, terrorising the neighbourhood and - even if he is caught - getting a light sentence because of his “issues”. Meanwhile, as you say, the well behaved kids who happen to have their shirt accidentally untucked get draconian punishments and end up hating school. I don’t blame you for leaving.

Eventually, he'll go for the wrong person (probably a male SLT) and they'll try (and fail) to PEX him. But he'll have fucked over many students and staff on his journey. And eaten a lot of snacks.

@metellaestinatrio
In secondary not so little Johnny is still being mollycoddled. He’s much bigger now so he’s physically assaulting teachers and other students. It’s fine though because he’s got a time out card now and he can go to a designated room where he can have staff listen to his stories about the nasty teachers picking on him, be allowed to stay there all day and be given snacks manage his anger. He won’t have any consequences to his actions because he has ‘issues’ you know. In the last school I worked in (the one that made me quit teaching) there were 4-6 little Johnnies in EVERY class I taught.

Exactly the same. And interestingly (although only one case not really evidence of anything) the grammar school I attended’s performance has gone done since they became stricter on uniform (and a few other things) and more girls leave for sixth form elsewhere.

I'd ditch uniform entirely

Me too. We have so many pupils with ASD in primary now requesting reasonable adjustments for clothing for sensory needs, that I think it would be easier to just wear jeans/jogging bottoms/leggings, trainers and a jumper-especially for EYFS/KS1.

When I was at school (very high achieving grammar), uniform was much more relaxed-there was a clear uniform but we didn't have to wear a blazer and there was no uniform in the sixth form. That same school now has very strict uniform rules and the kids wearing uniform right up to 18.

No one is given a detention for not having their uniform. They get detentions for not sorting it when asked politely and for being rude and unpleasant when asked to.

Very true. The otherwise good kids who do all their work and behave well in class but get pulled up on minor uniform infringements understandably get pretty hacked off when they see that, at secondary school, the real troublemakers are still treated with kid gloves and showered with merit points for doing the tiniest thing right. I mean... I get why, and I know lots of those children have real problems. I'm a teacher. But I hate the pettiness of the uniform rules (I'd ditch uniform entirely).

At secondary: Johnny! Your tie isn’t done up properly! Have a detention! How do the little Johnnies who have been cosseted through primary school cope with the regime at secondary?

The kids at secondary who were smashing up classrooms in primary are generally not the ones being shouted at for their tie not being done up. They are often spending most of their time in some sort of SEND room, in EOTAS or school refusers.

Little Johnny is still smashing up classrooms, hitting teachers and biting classmates, and is still being coddled by the pastoral team and probably defended by the SEND and inclusion team as well for not having his tie done up or they do it up for him in the morning as he is allowed straight in to school 10 - 15 minutes before the other pupils are allowed in.

Yes it is totally ridiculous! I also find the discrepancy between primary and secondary in this respect jarring. At primary: smashed up the classroom; hit a teacher; bitten a classmate? Oh dear poor little Johnny, all behaviour is communication, go and have hot chocolate with the head and talk about your feelings. At secondary: Johnny! Your tie isn’t done up properly! Have a detention! How do the little Johnnies who have been cosseted through primary school cope with the regime at secondary?

You can get bad private schools, too.

Truth always comes out in these threads. If a poster made a thread about deciding between state and private, Mn would be trampling over each other with how much better state is over private, how kids get an 'all round' experience, how they never would choose private even if they could afford it.

Just leaving this here: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-teacher-ilford-sacked-whacking-joke-b1213051.html

Key points: teacher was sacked after 35 years' service (4 in that school) after making a joke about whacking a Y6 student - which almost all kids understood to be a joke. Apparently the student felt threatened (but still attended her after-school club that day).

And THIS is why teachers have to watch their mouths at all times.

@vipersnest1
100%!
I’ve seen this so many times! I was also accused of picking on little Johnny. (Bless him, all these evil teachers picking on him!) 😂 Little Johnny was a little shit, he was in year 8 so SLT were well aware of him, he was always in the top 5 in terms of behaviour points. I was pulled out of a lesson and asked why I was picking on lovely sweet little Johnny by a vile AHT. He was such a quiet lovely boy and now was apparently too upset to come to my lessons etc. I let her finish before informing her that I wasn’t currently teaching little Johnny because his class was being taught solely by our lovely PGCE student who was certainly not picking on little Johnny and I was a witness to this because I was observing every lesson! Her face was a picture. She hadn’t even bothered to check who was teaching the class in her desperation to have yet another go at me.😂 My crime was having a different opinion to her in a meeting once a few years before! This is how petty some schools are!

It's not just parents who make unfounded complaints - I was told by a senior colleague that little Johnny felt I was picking on him.....
When I had a parents' evening recently and spoke to his parents, they went completely blank when I said that little Johnny and I had turned a corner after I had spoken to him and said all that I wanted was for him to come in and get on and that I wouldn't be able to moan at him because there would be nothing for me to moan at him for (read just wear your uniform properly and stop answering me back).
It turns out they had no idea what I was talking about.
I had been 'called out' for want of a better expression on the student's say so only - no asking other students, no approaching me with a 'what's going on?'.
Little Johnny was never spoken to about the possibility that his complaint resulted in me having my professionality questioned.