Anyone else in education feel burnt out already?

[Ridiculousradish]

SEN TA in a Secondary School. First week back has been utterly horrendous. I know the start of term is always hectic, but the past week has been unmanageable. Anyone else struggling?

Schools are going to lose a lot of wonderful staff at this rate. I'm dreading tomorrow already. Thank fuck the women I work with are wonderful, just not nearly enough of them.

Do the 3 with autism not have echps? I would be encouraging their parents to apply this week. Its sad so many are starting in nappies, if no sen needs the school needs to start looking at what's going on at home but again thats not your job.

EHCPs often make it harder- things it states that HAVE to be done - but no money or extra staff to do them.

Getting EHCPs is rarer than hens’ teeth for the children in our school, unfortunately. The SENDCO is useless too, which doesn’t help. It’s just so disruptive and impossible to teach when one is headbutting other children and the wall, one is running around tipping every basket onto the floor, and one keeps running away. I have one TA, and she’s nearly always changing someone in the toilets! The dread has set in already for tomorrow.

@Teaandtoastfortwo bloody hell. Our SENDCO pushes for every child with additional needs to have an EHCP. This means she spends a lot of time filling in the huge amount of paperwork. She wanted me to get one for my neurodivergent ds but I refused as I didn't think it was necessary (it really wasn't). On the flip side, we have students that come up from primary and we're amazed they don't have an EHCP as they so clearly need one.

This intake of Y7s has the highest need we've ever seen. I don't know how we will cope. Our SENDCO promises the world to the parents and then we can't deliver. It's gutting and exhausting. Often the parents who shout the loudest get the most help for their child. It's the ones who don't have anyone to advocate for them that worry me. We push for what we can but it often falls on deaf ears.

Absolutely dreading tomorrow...

Absolutely this. Here’s another piece of paper with a million things to add to your already long list of things you can’t manage.

Hope everyone has a good day. We can do this x

They can come once you've been open for 5 days. So because day 5 was a Tuesday, I put it out of my mind because they only ring on a Monday, don't they? Ha!

Anyway, overall it went really well.

It's interesting that initial research show that schools with higher levels of SEND and disadvantage are scoring lower for inclusion under the new framework.

Wow didn't know that.

Hope everyone is doing ok.

Exhausted and searching indeed for alternatives every night.

how is everyone?

SENDCo here... and I too am exhausted, overwhelmed and tearful and have only been back at school for 3 weeks. The pressure from all angles is relentless.

@Teaandtoastfortwo I hope you find something.

I'm not at work right now, have had to take some time off. I just couldn't cope. Bit embarrassed to admit that as I hate letting the team down.

@Thinkpink21 I'm sorry to hear you're so stressed too. I can only imagine the pressure you are under.

I love our SENDCo, she is a lovely person but she does not listen to us. The pressure put on her from above and parents is immense.

This has got to stop.

@Teaandtoastfortwo They can be excluded. Schools do this to get breathing space. Lots of the issues here are poor management and use of resources. The Sen dc do get extra funding with a ECHP. Remember when LAs held Sen budgets? That’s all with the schools now.

Yes the poor management is totally to blame. We don’t know what else to do.

I hope you’re feeling better soon. We really must put our own health first.

@Teaandtoastfortwo thank you. Just reached breaking point. Another member of the team has been off too.

I’m sorry to hear everyone is struggling. I am too. I’m middle management which seems to be that I have the worst of both worlds. Class responsibility, a massive subject to coordinate and part of SLT. I keep waking at 3am with my heart racing about the amount I have to fit into my day.

It's good having them in early, near the start. We had Ofsted just before Christmas once, which was awful.

Yet during inspection, when asked about workload, who actually dares put their head above the parapet and say: "Yes, we're all struggling -I fall asleep at my laptop most nights," in front of colleagues, some of whom might give a helpful debrief to SLT?

I'm exhausted already. Expectations are high, as they should be, but entirely mismatched with the resources available. I look around at capable, creative colleagues who are on their knees and just see a waste of a wonderful life, lost to anxiety and self-doubt.

I am looking at exiting the profession for a job which will allow me my evenings and weekends back. Never mind the holidays -they're just crash-mats. I can't even imagine what it must be like to properly 'clock out' when I leave work, and not have to spend my evening or weekend getting ready for work again. To see my own children.

@Teaandtoastfortwo Move to a better managed school? They obviously do exist. Most people in any given area know what the best schools and the crap schools are. So take control of your life and get another job. Any decent science teacher or maths teacher won’t have much difficulty.

I’m a Reception teacher. After being hit, bitten and spat at this week by a child, the head’s reaction was to say that our exclusion record is too high, so nothing was done about it.
It happens so frequently that we have become desensitised to it. The other children are being subjected to this on a daily basis too. If it were happening in the home, it would be classed as abuse, but schools are expected to deal with it.

I know longer want to work in education and I look for other jobs every day.

Totally hear you all ❤️
I left primary teaching after 22 years in and now EOTAS tutor.
The pay is term-time only, there is little job security and only a basic pension.
But would I ever return to the classroom?
Absolutely not.

@Teaandtoastfortwo Heads need to understand that at times they must take action. They must call in parents and negotiate part time school and advise parents on strategies to improve school readiness. I don’t hear of this behaviour much where I am but we have issues with parents seeking leafy lane schools because they think their dc’s behaviour will improve becayse they are mixing with “nicer” dc. Doesn’t work of course and schools can become overwhelmed with similar dc. As the schools need all gbd pupils they can get, there’s always spaces. It does mean heads have to understand how to support staff. Hardly anyone excludes EY children though. Especially in the first few weeks.