To privately not have much respect for a lot of teachers

[parsnipandmushroom]

Obviously I would never communicate this to a child, but when the "teacher knows best" lines emerge on here I often think 'no, they don't.'

I've known so many teachers make numerous basic errors with resources, and give children the wrong information. This wouldn't actually bother me much but coupled with the complaints about pay, working hours and stress, I do often think 'stop whining.'

So I am not accused of being a troll - I only mean some teachers, and so I'm not accused of drip feeding information, I am a teacher.

AIBU?

And redcardigan, thank you for your honest post.

I think teachers need to stop mentioning how hard it is and how many hours they work etc as most people don't believe it and are also working long hours themselves without the 13 weeks holiday so don't really care

See, teachers don't ever talk about this ime except in response to people commenting on how great it must be to be out the door at 3.30 every day and have half the year off

Nobody is saying that children only learn in school are they? Some children will do well anywhere, I agree, I really don't think that's the case for the vast majority of children. Certainly not for lots of the children in my Dd's high school who have had a difficult start in life and don't have parents who can support them at home.

I have huge respect for many of the teachers our DC have had over the years and try to be supportive of them and respectful of their different approaches.

A minority of teachers have been awful.

unless you know every teacher in the land Brandy and the conversations they have then you can't say they don't talk about this - in my experience they do often, from the ones I know and from the ones on here, often unprompted.

That's basically my experience too Bonsoir.

That's exactly why I said my post was in my experience

Though you could just as well direct your comment at the OP, who seems to feel she can pass judgement on many teachers she has never met.
Awful goady thread to start.

Odbonkins was playing the defensive teacher role and saying that her 20 years in education have been wasted.

They have definitely been wasted on teaching the children with a profile like my ds, and though not strictly wasted on those with my daughter's profile they aren't crucial. IF you are talking about education.

The rest that people seem to be talking about is social engineering, - well children from difficult backgrounds (exempting SEN 'even' if they have difficult backgrounds) may well do better with some nurturing and support etc. that a school might provide but most of that isn't teaching, and it can also be and arguably 'should' be provided elsewhere.

The teacher my dd has right now is fantastic btw. The one scenario I have seen in quite considerable experience of where the children with SEN are better off IN her classroom with minimal support. Course, the focus on those with needs benefits dd's education in acceptance and diversity (though she's pretty hot on that with a brother with SEN), but not so much with numeracy. Lucky for her she doesn't need the numeracy input.

OK - have totted up - my DD has 14 teachers over the course of a 2 week timetable...

2 of them are truly awful
3 are ok, nowt special

the other 9 are bloody fantastic

2 of those are the most inspiring teachers I have ever encountered and have made a huge influence on my DD's future path...

I agree with him/her Starlight. I think I'd be defensive if someone basically told me myself and my colleagues were useless and only did well with the bright children. The thing is that nurturing isn't provided elsewhere is it so why knock teachers who are trying to do that and teach? I take my hat off to dd's teachers at high school, the challenges they face are massive and it upsets me to see people here tarring everyone with the same brush.

Glad your Dd has a great teacher now. It's stressful when they don't I know.

You didn't say that was in your experience in your post Brandy

Too many teachers abuse their "power" to put the fear of god in children. Some do not even do that but have no regards to how much the kids revere them and take them seriously. Mum is in charge at home and the teacher is in charge at school.
For example "Mummy miss says SPAG doesn't matter because teachers only want to skim" - "No darling we must always spell properly..." -" (DD in tears) But miss SAID....." So now I have a DD who doesn't want to spell because her teacher is lazy and has made up this ridiculous "rule" that my child thinks is universal to life. Hmph.

That's true kandid. There is a teacher at dd's school who is plain and simple a bully. Dd is a well behaved girl and she is terrified of him. I really dislike teachers like that and remember them from my school days.

'It was the EP who suggested that the hours awarded to this child should be shared between him and the other two children who were on SA+ but had no 1 to 1 as no statement. Apparently, this was to encourage sociability.'

In this kind of situation, does the teacher let the parents of the child with the statemented provision know this? If not overtly, does the teacher explain to the parents that the 1:1 wasn't with the child when a particular incident happened that the parents are asking about that could have been avoided if the 1:1 had been with the child?

Or do they just mumble something vague and hope the parents continue to think their child is getting the provision they are legally entitled to receive.

If a child needs less 1:1 for 'sociability' then that needs to be discussed at the annual review (trigger an emergency one if it is urgent), agreed, and that support then withdrawn in line with the evidence that supports this move, with the parents right of appeal if they feel the evidence is not adequate.

Further, the teacher should be applying for a statement or ehcp for the 2 children that require the 1:1 support that is being stolen from the statemented child, in order to make sure that their needs are appropriately identified and the resources made available to support them. Otherwise the information going forward to their next class or school implies they can get by without support, when in reality they have been having it, just unofficial and undeclared. Not fair on them either and setting the next teacher up for lots of problems.

Same with assembling wall displays. Time consuming but hardly life and death. And being paid a professional hourly rate for faffing around with a stapler and art card shapes? Not too shabby really is it

We get paid on a weekend then, do we?

turquoise Re. Admin. Let's put it this way. If I didn't do the admin/photocopying/displays etc it wouldn't get done. Full stop. I would literally be teaching from an empty classroom and my files would be empty.

The bit that pisses me off the most with people from outside education commenting...you really don't have a clue. Think about it next time you whack your expenses in for something. No one bats an eyelid and you get paid. I need a specific book for a literacy module? No budget. If you want it, you buy it. No expenses. Same for when the class ran out of pencils/rubbers/rulers and whiteboards half way through the year.

Of course, yes, I could have just taught without those resources, and just dealt with the whinging of them all having to share 1 between 6. But I didn't. I put my hand in my pocket and paid up.

All off the princely salary of c £25k. I think I once worked out my actual hourly rate. It was in the £3 mark.

I think that the reason that so many parents feel the need to comment on teachers , is that parents feel that their child's future could be hindered by an incompetent teacher.
Children attend school five days a week and thus spend a substantial amount of time with teachers.
I am concerned about the quality of primary school teachers tbh.
In all the years that my dc have attended school I have encountered only one teacher who I thought was any good. This concerns me , because as far as I am concerned if the children are not taught the basics at primary school, they will find it difficult to cope at secondary.
However, I do have sympathy for teachers, because I believe that their job is demanding .

Blazing, that's what I was trying to say to the OP too following her post about how I shouldn't be doing displays and photocopying as it wasn't my job! I mean really? Who should be doing it then? Who is there to actually do such things in an average primary school if not the class teacher? And of course if I was on here complaining about the time it takes to do such things, I'd be told to suck it up as part if my job. Yet when I list it as part of my job I'm told it isn't.

And don't get my started about the amount I've spent over the years in resources. Not just nice posters etc but necessary books and things like pritt sticks and pencils. I once bought 8 atlases. (Pre wide internet use) to enable me to teach some Y6 map work. The only ones we had were from before the fall of the Eastern block communism so a very different Europe. We had literally no budget and a broken photocopier at the time so what was I to do? DH goes nuts at what I spend for class.

I have a 'no books' policy in my house. Years growing up tripping over books covered in dust and fag ash, not to mention every conceivable colour and size of paper and card. And a big bass drum, a papier-mâché horses head, a mountain of plastersine and rolls and rolls of sticky-back plastic........

Such is the lot of growing up with teaching parents. All paid for by them whilst us 4 kids of theirs ate pea and ham soup for dinner, with the bone from last week, again.

My family has quite a few teachers in it. My sister who is quite a lot older than me , my uncle, a close family friend who spent a lot of time with us as a child. Growing up I knew for certain that whatever I did with my life, I did not want to be a teacher. This came from listening to these family members and friends talk about their jobs.

Weirdly my sister and uncle who moaned the most were very good teachers for a long time. They generally liked the children they taught. their complaints were never really about the children, (though occasionally they were,) they were mostly more about the system of teaching and other staff This was in the 80's and early 90;s. The family friend din't really moan much about his job but it was obvious he was much less passionate (either positively or negatively) about his job. I always felt he was a worse teacher really than my sister and uncle who you could never accuse of being "lukewarm" about their jobs.

My sister eventually stopped teaching directly after about 20 years and went into teaching support and language and communication services. She is now limping towards retirement in a job that has become almost impossible to do. She has now reached the "passionless" stage of her job, beaten down by the years of working in a profession that has gradually become more bureaucratic, less well funded and thankless over the years. She barely complains any more, mostly because she finds it hard to care much and has all but given up believing she can make much of a difference. This is after nearly 40 years in education.

I think she was a better teacher when she was complaining actually as I think that meant she had not given up and she still cared.

O visit a lot of schools and so meet a lot of teachers.

I respect their profession and feel for them trying to do a difficult job. But some of 'em are really out of touch!

Teachers can get engulfed in the world of school and be ill-informed about the changing realities of the world beyond.

Soo love the way teachers inhabit this funny world that's not real. This statement, irrational and replete with slack thinking is trotted out so often, with the élan of a newly-hatched insight.

I've never seen it said about any other line of work

Schools are full of real people. I know this because I see and talk to them every working day.

Seriously, when you deal with bereaved, the ill, the unenthusiastic, the abused, the one with a headache, the one who's on fire with inspiration, the one who's dog ate their homework, phoning parents. What's not real about it.

Whose dog.