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

I read your title @Floursacktabletop and without even reading your post, I said to myself behaviour and parents! Oh and shit SLT.
I wasn't a teacher but an additional needs TA and after nearly 15 years, I walked away. Honestly, when I tell people about some of the behaviour that we're all expected to tolerate, they think I'm joking. I'm not. It's appalling and this was an infant school.

And some of the parents 🙄😩

'Little Jonny is being bullied by Adam'. No he isn't. It's little Jonny being a little shit and antagonising Adam until he lashes out.

'My little Ruby hasn't got any friends at playtime and nobody will let her play with them. Can you watch her every playtime?' We'd reply that she always seems happy at playtime but yes sure, one member of staff will watch her solely and ignore the 150+ kids all charging around like loons. Lo and behold, little Ruby is as happy as Larry and having fun. Will the parent listen to us? No. They believe their little Ruby who is spinning them a complete yarn. And on and on and on it goes.

Together with shite SLT who couldn't give a shit about your wellbeing and that's why school staff are leaving in droves.

I meet up with several ex colleagues and not one of us misses it one iota, which is a shame because at times, I absolutely loved my job.

I hear what you're saying and there should be CCTV in school, but if my child told me they were getting screamed at, I would want the school to give me a response and investigate.

Slightly different scenario but a tutor actually harmed my minimally verbal child and it happened over a long period of time because the provision happened in a place that was not a registered school and had no CCTV. I only found out because I had lots of suspicions and actually eventually burst in on them to catch them in the act.

So, what I'm saying is that parents do have to be able to ask about their 'allegations'. However, I completely understand you, as an ex teacher I heard some right corkers!

The problem with SEND and keeping all of them in mainstream at all costs is you're forcing square pegs into round holes. Not fair on teachers, not fair on students.
I'm an EOTAS Tutor now (previously a primary teacher) so I'm hopefully doing my little bit to help ❤️

But it does matter.

Individual body cams capture far more sound & visual detail than CCTV. All transactions can be recorded throughout the parental engagement processes. There will always be those pupils & parents (not always in the same set) who will kick off or disrupt however reasonable or firm the approach taken. But the majority of people will adapt to a more straight forward robust approach as their concerns are addressed promptly - just not by teachers & TAs - & outcomes/resolution is case managed. Improvement is possible.

Because we let them do it day after day. Smashed up your classmates clay pots? No problem, you can miss English and play basketball with the pastoral team instead. Trashed half the ipads and told the TA to fuck off? That's not ok. Help clean up the mess and you can have a sticker on your chart.

It's totally ridiculous but SLT's are totally indoctrinated. The otherwise good kids see this crap so a little bit of low-level disruption or rudeness doesn't seem like a big deal to them. Everything gets progressively worse.

Won't matter.
We had cctv.
Parents still refused to blame their child even when serious assaults were captured on clear footage.
Police not interested. (I live somewhere with an accepted very poor police force)
Same with myconcern/cpoms or similar. Parents just deny meetings or phone calls/emails took place 🤷‍♀️

Absolutely! I really disagree with my current school which actively tells students not to sort out disputes themselves or to approach someone they've had a falling out with, and that they need to use an adult (usually in the pastoral team) to mediate. They're usually separated into different classes as a result as well.

Plus students have been allowed to walk out of class to go write a statement about teachers - it's happened to me with students announcing to the class what they were going to go and do, because I was following the behaviour system with them. My issue is the fact it's entertained by the staff taking the statement down plus that students aren't sanctioned for walking out of class to do it.

Yes! I was criticised after my first observation at a new school because a child at the back didn't underline their title with a ruler, and some children weren't using a ruler to strike through their work and were scribbling out a mistake instead. Never mind the quality of my teaching!

Computer games, the Internet, mobile phones, social media, parents with piss poor morals having too many children etc, older siblings not getting jobs and therefore being bad role models, it's a knock on effect. So many reasons.

But why are these children so aggressive and out of control? There were definitely children with SEN at my primary school in the 90s (probably undiagnosed) but they didn’t go around thumping teachers, trashing the classroom and attacking classmates at the age of four and five. Why is there such an epidemic of appallingly violent small children now?

School staff wear body cams?

Bring it on. For protection of teachers, staff & pupils. Zero tolerance of poor behaviours & attitudes in class & on school premises. Misuse would be pulling on minor issues that can be dealt with in the moment.

My mother was medically retired from teaching profession after an assault. by 15yo in class. He was an amateur boxer. Too much poor behaviour is tolerated & excused.

The teaching profession, school staff & pupils should be safe & secure during the school day. This is a duty of care we all share.

Misguided parents less likely to misjudge the behaviour of their children if video evidence made available & with robust engagement at the outset.

I suggest that any behaviour matters & stated preferences are fed through to a single non-teaching person dotted line reporting to Head's office so that any matters are dealt with promptly to diffuse parental steam. Everything logged & dealt with as case management leaving teachers free with the time & space to teach, & ringfence this vigorously.

As a union rep, I check the DT calendar before it comes out. That's part of my role.

if your rep doesn't, it's a rep issue not a union one.

They shouldn't, but they do, and I have yet to work in a school that does not request this.

They should also not direct us beyond the 1265 and yet we're well over 1300 directed hours in my current one by now. That schools take the piss is the point of many of these posts.

Unions are toothless.

Oh my goodness. That sounds utterly horrific. Kudos and thanks to you for caring for our children on a daily basis 🩷

Totally agree with you but unfortunately they do ask and most people comply out of fear or being made to feel guilty 😢

@ThrallsWife The school cannot request for you to plan your lessons if you are off ill.

Shocking. Because they are to cheap to pay for agency cover.

There needs to be more LOADS MORE provision for SEN children, our generation has created these kids but schools aren't responding. Just piling it on to classroom teachers it's not fair on anyone.

Yes, I've had a few employers do this (or, even worse, request that you ring by 2pm to let them know how you're going to feel the next day).

The way sickness absence is dealth with in teaching is definitely up there in the top 5 of reasons teaching has become an awful job.

Ring in by 7.30am, within a 15min window, no matter what. You MUST ring and can't email or text, even when you have no voice or when you're throwing up/ on the loo with constant diarrhoea. And when you have something else (like a migraine or broken leg) always worrying whether you sound sick enough.

Full lesson plans/ slides required by 8am, which you duly provide even when everything in your head is spinning, and which you know won't be followed anyway. I think I have had fewer lesson plans followed than I can count on both hands in the last 20 years.

Having to ring in daily, at least once, to confirm ongoing sickness.

Return to work forms which dive into details of your absence, even when it's no one's business but HR's (I once was put on the cancer pathway for suspected cervical cancer and was forced to detail this to my male manager).

The sodding Bradford score, which penalises coming in for a day thinking you can do it, only to be sent home, and under which 4 instances of 2-day absences is more than enough to put you on an absence management plan, despite you working in unclean environments with children who don't wash their hands after the toilet, let alone after sneezing all over them.

The lack of time to catch classes up after supply has, inevitably, ignored all instructions left (and even if they hadn't, kids would have ignored them), and then being hauled into the office to explain why Johnny got a U on his last test when he's capable of a 4, like you chose to be off sick.

Parents sendings kids in sick, dosed up on Calpol, then complaining when teachers are off with the same illness.

And, not sickness related (but I experienced this within the last year), parents refusing to treat their children for head lice and you having to be in the vicinity of the child whose head lice you see crawling all over the table you lean over to check their work. Not exaggerating.

If you ring in sick (and this normally needs to be done by around 7ish on the day), the school will call you in the afternoon and ask you if you're coming in the next day. They call it a Welfare Check.

That's always been the case in my last two schools (20+ years)!

I experienced this throughout my 30 years at the chalk face. As an ex-head I can see both sides. It is much easier to arrange cover the day before than in the morning but from the employee's perspective, obviously not as nice.

The latest thing now I've heard that quite a number of schools are doing...
If you ring in sick (and this normally needs to be done by around 7ish on the day), the school will call you in the afternoon and ask you if you're coming in the next day.
They call it a Welfare Check.
I call it disgusting.

Not a teacher. This is appalling. No-one should have to face situations like this in the workplace, especially not for the pay teachers get. And the impact on the rest of the tiny children in the class who will be shit scared of coming to school in case they are attacked by their classmates - and this is their formative experience of school, colouring their views for the next 13 years.

Why are these violent, out of control children allowed in school to wreak havoc and attack others? I bet if they were removed, many of the other problems described here would miraculously reduce too - teachers would have more time to spend with the vast majority of the class who just want to learn without being interrupted by constant violent behaviour. And how do these four and five year olds get so violent in the first place?

You should have sued them over that.

I’ve been teaching for 27 years. I’d say behaviour issues have been a thing for a long time. I was threatened with being stabbed, told I would beaten up and called various things in my first school. I had a parent say to the janitor that he was going to ‘see me after school!’ in a threatening manner whilst I hid under the reception desk. All because his son had not gone straight home after a detention. The head was a nasty bully who as it turns out was ultimately convicted of sexually assaulting teenage girls a few years down the line.
I was a HOY in my next school and was often asked by parents if I could punish children in school for not behaving at home!
There were many behaviour issues there too, but the staff were amazingly supportive and the head was proactive and backed us up. After 11 years and having my dc, I moved to the independent sector. Less pay, no TPS and parents threatening action against school if their dc don’t do well in exams. It’s not a selective school apart from ability to pay. The morale is rock bottom and well-being is not a priority. The staff are superb but were grossly understaffed and the VAT/NI threat means things can only get worse. DH and I have been looking at early retirement but we just wouldn’t have accrued enough to be able to live on the pension. The only thing that keeps me there are lovely dc, many of whom have ND and other SEND. I wish we had more staff to give them what they need.