to think some parents are totally unrealistic about how schools work?

[CailinDana]

I'm a former primary teacher (now SAHM) and I loved my job but the attitude some parents had towards me and my colleagues was one of the worst aspects of being a teacher. Despite having never taught, and being a maximum age of eleven when they were last in a primary school, some parents seem to think that they know far better than teachers how to run a school.

Some threads on MN give me flashbacks to those parents. It just makes my blood boil when parents seem to be putting everything teachers do under a microscope as though they're bound to be doing something wrong. Some parents seem to be under the impression that teachers are minor dictators, completely controlling everything in the classroom with no professional standards or supervision. Other parents believe that a teacher, one solitary adult, should be au fait with every little aspect of every child's progress and ability (eg reading books) at all times despite having at least 25 children to teach. Who do they think teachers are? Where do they get these ideas from?

I do definitely think that parents should be involved in their child's education but I have seen good, hardworking teachers ground down by overbearing parents who question their every move. Teaching is a difficult enough job without feeling like people who have no real understanding of the job are constantly monitoring you. AIBU to think that to a large extent parents should trust teachers to have their children's best interests at heart and that they should try to have realistic expectations of what teachers can actually do?

If you "tapped" my child I'd call the police. Poor excuse to say you had no other option. If I "tapped" a child to get their attention I'd expect to be prosecuted tbh.

On the whole, I think YANBU.

BUT ime very little is done to help parents understand how schools work. If schools could explain to parents the role of the teacher, teaching assistants, head, admin staff etc, and explain who to go to in different circumstances, it would make life much easier.

Also, as the end customer of the school, I do think I have a right (and responsibility to my child) to make sure the service I am contracting is delivered fully, so no, I won't ever just 'trust' teachers to do it all right.

I do sympathise, though. Parents like the father of the Y5 boy must be SO annoying!

Oh and to answer your question if the boy had been trying to stop another boy from hurting himself and had tapped me with his foot because he couldn't move then I would understand that, despite the fact that it was an unusual thing to do.

Wow K999 really? I pity your children's teachers! What if a teacher tapped your child on the arm with their hand?

Starlight, the boy had serious behavioural problems and someone had been called to take him out of the class. This was a supply class I was teaching, but I knew from the regular class teacher that he often needed to be taken out. IMO he should have been in a special school, but that wasn't my call to make, I just had to deal with the situation that was given to me, which is the most frustrating thing about doing supply teaching.

Come on, surely tapping a child isn't so bad?! As in, a very slight gentle touch?

Being tapped on the arm is different to being tapped by someone's foot, whilst sitting on the floor. Tapping an arm happens quite a lot to get someone's attention. I can't ever remember someone tapping me with their foot though.....

Just so there's no misunderstanding, the boy was sitting on the carpet directly in front of me. I called his name four or five times and he didn't hear me so I moved my foot so it touched his shin, literally so lightly he just about felt it. He turned, and smiled because he realised I'd been calling him, then answered the question. He wasn't in any way upset or surprised.

so why did he remember it and tell his dad?

That's the bit that confuses me.

So you called his name 4/5 times. Did you never think to bend down and tap his arm? Or touch his shin gently with your arm? Using a foot IMO is degrading treatment.

Actually, OP, I am not surprised that you feel the way you do. This level of scrutiny over tiny things would have driven me nuts.

God knows, Starlight. When the headteacher showed me the file there was literally over a hundred letters in it from over the years the boy had been in the school. Some were about nothing at all but for example on of them was a complaint that another teacher had "slammed" a book on the boy's desk. Aftert the headteacher talked to others in the class it turned out that the teacher had been carrying a few books and had dropped one on his desk, which obviously made a noise. Maybe the boy was hypersensitive or something, but the file was filled with ramblings about inconsequential things that had happened, usually blown up to imply the boy was being seriously abused. It was very odd.

I already explained that K999.

Tapping with your foot is not the same as kicking, any more than tapping with your hand is the same as hitting.

K999, zzz and Starlight you are clearly illustrating why teachers feel like giving up. There was no problem at all with what happened, it was a very unusual situation, and the headteacher didn't even comment on what I did as she understood what had happened, yet you who were not even there are grilling me on it, telling me I should have been prosecuted, that I "degraded" the boy. Perfect example of what I'm talking about, and the exact reason why so many teacher feel like tearing their hair out every day.

-In Ireland, primary teaching is a sought-after profession. Teacher training degrees are very difficult to get into and only if you get very high results in school can you be accepted into a BEd (the main way teachers train in Ireland, PGCEs are less common). Thus, the quality of teachers is higher.

Bollocks.

-Teaching salaries are much much higher in Ireland than in Britain. That has changed since the recession but for example when I qualified, I would have earned about £19000 in Britain but I would have earned 41,000 euros in Ireland. That is a huge difference and changes the calibre of people attracted to the profession.

Strong unions and a culture of self-serving greed underlie this, it is not a reflection on the "calibre" of staff employed.

-Teachers in Ireland are not tied to league tables and have about one tenth of the paperwork to do than UK teachers. This leaves teachers free to actually teach rather than to be constantly producing results for parents to pick at.

And no quality assurance, and a proportion of teachers who really DO skip off at 2.30 like the man in my local school who goes to work his other job on the farm .

-Teachers in Ireland have much more freedom than teachers in the UK. They are considered professionals, like doctors, and are allowed to shape their own practice You mean make it up as they go along.

Cailindana, the reasons for past higher educational attainment in Ireland are largely cultural, though this is changing as the demographic does. We had a very homogenous culture in which education was traditionally prized as a means of self-actualisation. This led to greater home support for literacy etc.

However, the Irish status is falling [http://www.educationmatters.ie/2010/12/14/pisa-study-results-an-urgent-call-to-action/ as outlined here]. Our Education system is far from prized... there is a LOT of rote learning. Creativity my arse. The knowledge of special needs is, in some schools, absolutely WOEFUL (I have done work in this area in both Ireland and England and believe me, England is miles ahead... which will sadden some of the posters on this board whose experience with the English SN system has been very poor indeed).

Thanks for your help Mos but IME once some people have something in their heads they just won't let it go. I don't know why I'm even arguing, to me it was just a random example but anyway it served as useful reminder of why I find being a SAHM so much less stressful than teaching!

(Which may clarify why you think that kicking a child because they haven't reponded to you tapping a child to gain their attention using their foot doesn't seem wrong to you).

I don't really understand your post working, sorry.

See, this is what I don't understand at all.

Teachers haven't been treated well by consecutive governments and subsequently the media. They are blamed for everything. If there is a 'problem' in society, teachers are blamed and a new untested whimsical initiative becomes compulsory with enforced additional hours to learn it and then 'inspectors' who are selected for their inability to challenge or think outside of the box, or new initiative, traipsing through to heap on yet more criticism, with the follow up of the media nags and blames.

So I understand why teachers would want to hide away in a little box undisturbed by anyone else, buffering away parents or anyone they can get away with. Partly because they just can't take any more 'initiatives' or criticism or even perceived criticism, and partly because the only way they can cope is to believe in themselves in professionals who know 'best' when it comes to parents.

Okay, generalisation but I've been studying this phenomenon my whole life.

Anyway, what I don't understand is that actually, the parent-teacher diad is potentially a very powerful one for standing up to these initiatives and criticisms and raising the profile and professionalism of the teacher, not to mention compete in the increasingly diverse 'market' of education.

Why doesn't it happen?

Which part of my post do you not understand, Cailín?

If i hadn't been 'pushy' or 'overbearing', my ds would be unable to read and write. I can understand why a teacher may take umbrage with a rude parent. However, i have found that some teachers get extremely defensive when you simply inquire about your child's progress. If a teacher is good, they have nothing to worry about .

zzzzzz

I'm an ex-teacher.

I think teachers often are the best people to know if a child can cope in a mainstream environment, given that they spend 30 or so hours a week with them. They see how well they cope, what support they can offer, and the impact on peers.

The people who decide that a child will go to special school are frequently a panel of not-necessarily relevant professionals with no experience of the mainstream classroom e.g. paediatricians, speech therapists, SEN admin types, EPs etc. The decision to keep a child in mainstream is frequently costs-led. Far cheaper to keep them struggling on in mainstream.

I also did my teacher training in Ireland, and agree with a lot of CailínDana says. It is harder to win a place at teacher training college, and the academic results of entrants is probably higher, although I appreciate this is changing in the UK.

I'm interested in working9while5's reaction though - should teachers be paid pittance? should there be a race to the bottom in terms of salary? is that teacher not allowed to tend his farm? Can he not do both?

From direct experience, I would say SEN provision for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties is woeful in Ireland. However, there is a much more established system of support for children working at the lower end of the class in mainstream schools. Access to resource hours/ learning support teachers is a strength of the system. From what I saw, there is an emphasis on delivering structured and targeted interventions in small groups, led by a qualified teacher, which is definitely not the case in the UK.