To be sick of having my stuff trashed

[flobird]

Stupid rant and I just want sympathy but I am so fucking sick of giving pens and rulers out only for them to be smashed and thrown across the room or crushed/wrecked.

I feel like I'm constantly replacing stuff

A maximum of half a term is advised by one of the main unions

www.atl.org.uk/help-and-advice/school-and-college/student-property.asp

You are amazing for sticking with it flobird. As a teacher you can follow all of the procedures, be consistent, firm but fair and still get nowhere because of a weak SMT. What you are describing sounds just like the inner city school I taught in. I ended up leaving. The sad thing was I really liked those pupils for all of their little quirks, but I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. I had a yr 10 girl pass her cigarette to me under the toilet door at break, thinking that I was her mate. I caught her red handed, and followed the school's procedures. I was told by her head of year that it wasn't worse the hassle of following it up. I had a yr 11 boy feeling my bra straps through the back of my top, another on a different occasion repeatedly banging a door against a door I was stood in front of to protect a child in my class he was trying to attack. Both boys, to my horror, were in the next day because 'they come from troubled families' could you even imagine if I had done that to a child?
So I left, and I was a good teacher. I had the ofsted inspector in tears because I reminded her of herself (at least I hope they were good tears ). I so admire those of you who teach in schools like this and stay, so many of us have already decided enough is enough. Something needs to change or I really do fear for the children, not just in what they will miss out on from all of these teachers who have decided it isn't worth the stress, but also from what they are learning they can do to another human being, and get away with without any repercussions.

so vital for some students it is much harder to police

Surely more incentive to keep them in their bags at the threat of confiscation if they are so vital then they'll make sure they dont lose them. If the threat existed.

guidance seems to be a reasonable time

seems to be or is?

Half a term would be good. Thats what 6 weeks?

Im guessing that it is in fact legal if they are advising on it.

Playing music at break as long as it's outside, taking selfies with your mates and snapchats are I daresay just part of being a teenager in the twenty tens. That's all fine :)

Just don't play angry birds or trash my pens and I'm happy

Yeah i think thats fair enough flo i dont disagree with that but in class is different. Phones away, listen to teacher, dont throw pens.

This does seem to be a culture in some schools - and one that can't be predicted by looking at league tables or the ratio of crumbling concrete to greenery in the surrounding area. I would have thought that the quite draconian policies of many academies might have stamped it out but I suspect the truth is that teachers end up spending more out of heir own pay packets to make up for it.

Inconvenience the parents enough times, they'll crack down on their kids.

most of the time but you will still get some parents who just do not give a damn at all.

Its a shame OP you are confined to a classroom and such shitty conditions. I feel for you and the kids you teach and whatever has got them to that state of not giving a fuck.

This is probably a daft suggestion - have you tried doing the odd class where you don't use pens at all? My DC has days like this but it is primary not secondary. Is it feasible? It helps my DC because writing is a big big issue with them.

I do wonder if some of them forget pens in the hope they wont have to write but I have a feeling its more ingrained than that. Lack of encouragement, boundaries, disinterested and maybe even issues about ability and self esteem. But you can't fix this is no one else is willing to work on it.

anyway, I know you want to rant. Rant away. My DC is destructive too and its frustrating, anger inducing, total act of mindless destruction that just isn't necessary and sometimes I feel like yelling at DC for doing it but I cant because anxiety

I said seems to be as the guidance is at best vague about it on items listed by schools as banned. The guidance is more about illegal items being confiscated.

Unbelievable the biggest reason students get their phones out in lessons is to check the time, they don't wear watches as they have a phone with it on, and very sadly can't tell the time on an analogue clock of which I have two in my classroom.

most of the time but you will still get some parents who just do not give a damn at all.

doesnt mean the rules shouldnt exist or be enforced because some will kick off or not care. some will always kick off/not care.

Why on earth do they need to know the time?

I would use my own money to bulk buy pens if school wouldn't cough up. You've got to weigh up cost benefit. I so know this type of school, you do what you have to do to get by or you leave.

Read my DDs' school has the same "no mobiles in school" rule. Like yours, if one is seen/heard it is confiscated. If you do need a phone for an exceptional reason, it has to be handed into the office in the morning.

I don't understand why all schools don't have this rule.

Teacher here... We don't confiscate phones. Not after our SLT told us that they are potentially worth hundreds of pounds and any allegation of said phone being damaged or stolen whilst in teacher possession would leave teachers open to financial claims etc
Ridiculous but there you are.

I'm a secondary teacher and this thread has made me .
I work in what I thought was a pretty ordinary school (it's a girls Catholic school but has been undersubscribed for a while and our intake is mostly from deprived inner-city areas). I just don't recognise the behaviour talked about here at all. I must be luckier than I thought but I just cannot imagine working in that environment. It must be exhausting to just have to put up with such horrendous behaviour day-in day-out. The thing that jumps out from your posts is that you just aren't able to do anything about this in your current environment. There's no way I could stay in a school like that though... Such ridiculously low expectations are ridiculous and must make it difficult for you to do your job... I hope your HT gets their arse handed to them when Ofsted come.

When I was a school librarian, I worked in a school very like the OP's. we ran a stationery shop from the library and kids who forgot pens etc were sent down to us to buy their own. We only charged pennies and they could buy a full pencil case for about a £1.00.

This worked very well and was popular with the staff as it saved them spending their own money. We had queues at break times and occasionally it lead to students who we didnt usually see choosing to borrow books!

Win win all round.

I hate the attitude you see among some senior management that "kids like these" (ones from low-income, low-education backgrounds) are incapable of behaving properly, and that the only way to deal with them is to entertain them through lessons to stop them from kicking off.

I thought schools like Mossbourne (and similar academies) were supposed to have settled this particular argument by now? They take kids from very deprived backgrounds and get good results out of them by having a take-no-prisoners approach to discipline, with every teacher fully backed up by a centralized discipline system. IT WORKS.

OP, I'm so sorry you are having a shit time. Situations like yours make me sad when I read about them. I wish I had more concrete advice, but if a teacher is not getting support from management then it's hard to know what to do about classes like these.

Fuzzy, how can you describe a school as ordinary when it won't let 50% of the intake through the door on the grounds of its sex and the ones who are left are selected on the basis of their religion?

This drove me mad during my time in teaching. Eyebrow pencil? Check. iPhone? Check. iPhone charger to plug in in the classroom? Check. Enormous bag to cart around make up bag, spare top and red bull ? Check. Bus pass provided free by the college enabling you to run around town with your mates all day? Check. Canteen card loaded by the college to enable you to eat for free? Check.
Pen and folder? .................
Awwww Miss you are mad. I can't remember everything....

Flobird- religious selection only kicks in if you're oversubscribed. Undersubscribed Catholic schools like mine take whoever applies. We now have very good results and this year were fully subscribed for a change so our intake will likely become more Catholic. As it stands though our older students were not religiously selected.

By ordinary I suppose what I meant is not leafy or particularly advantaged. There are lots of faith secondaries and a lot of them are pretty run-of-the-mill, ordinary schools facing their own sets of challenges.

I used to be in your position. I used to then buy them and charge kids 10p for a pen. They could then trash their own pen if they felt so inclined. This kind of worked but was still hassle. I had to have change ready etc. It needed to be locked away. They would complain about the quality of the pens on offer. Suddenly I was customer services as well. Then a new (utterly utterly shit) head came and the one good thing he did do was insist that they were equipped. Equipment check every morning. Reception sold equipment and was open before school so they could sort it then. If they didn't and arrived at period 1 with something missing they were sent down to buy it and got a lunchtime detention as well. It made a massive difference. It was no longer cool to arrive just with a Capri sun and a smirk.

I think what I would do in your position is to tell them in the lesson today that from now on you will be warmly welcoming in only those students with a pen. That you have nothing to lend or give. Ask them to make a note in their planners. All of them. "remember pen". That will cut a few down for next time. Then next lesson, cheerfully line them up outside the door and ask them to get out their pen, and those with them say "great organisation, come on in and have a go at the starter!" Those who don't, don't look cross, just tell them you really sympathise but you have no equipment to give or lend, you've run out. Ask them to come back when they're equipped and ready to learn. Close the door with a sad smile. Make it their problem. If they ask where to go, look confused and say "wherever you left your pen, I know you remembered it because you wrote a note. Be really quick please". Close the door. It infuriates them initially, because they want you to dance the No Pen waltz and you aren't co-operating. You're not being mean, you're just not allowing it to be your problem.

Launch into your lesson with excitement. Lavish attention on those equipped. Perhaps even dish out a jelly baby for all those there equipped and on time. If they ask about the others, shrug and say you're sure they'll be back any minute, they left their pen in another lesson. "Forget them" say breezily "who managed number 2?" They have enough crap to deal with all day long with the arses prepared to break equipment and destroy their lessons.

The reason they are coming ill-equipped is because the school has unwittingly made it the staff's problem and not the students'. It is now cool to arrive with nothing, and then the expectation that "miss will sort it". They love the attention and disruption of being able to shrug and say "well I can't do the work then". Don't let that problem into your lesson.

If anyone asks you why kids from your lesson were wandering around, tell them they went to get their pen, you assumed they must have left it in another room.

This will not solve the problem in one lesson, but I guarantee a massive massive improvement.

Teacher here... We don't confiscate phones. Not after our SLT told us that they are potentially worth hundreds of pounds and any allegation of said phone being damaged or stolen whilst in teacher possession would leave teachers open to financial claims etc
Ridiculous but there you are.

You are telling me you cannot confiscate phones when they are disturbing lessons?

You have got to be kidding.

First world education. It find it really appalling that this sort of thing happens in an apparently developed country and I think it just demonstrates how bad things are getting at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.

Some things are just better in the third world. If they can do it with much fewer resources then the problems are not difficult to solve, if there is the will to solve them. Labour just seemed to throw money at people who often didn't seem to know how to use it to make their lives better long-term, rather than trying to change problematic cultures. The conservatives seem to be trying to starve them out of existence.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but discipline in schools is not a difficult problem to solve in itself. Most of the world manages it!

And when the penless arrive back brandishing a pen, just casually say "there we go. Don't worry about the work you missed, we will schedule some catch up time at the end of the lesson". Make sure the others know that missing part of the lesson on a Pen Hunt isn't just tolerated. That's important. Get them to make up that 5 minutes. It's not petty, it means they think twice next time. Collect them from form if necessary. Tell them you don't want them to worry about what they missed.

It's psychological warfare sometimes.

I've been out of the UK for some time, but when asked for a pen, I always offered a very chewed pencil from my supply of mankoid pencils and said they could write with that.

And go home and write it in ink for the next lesson.

Amazingly, a pen was always found.

I did not and still do not permit borrowing of pens in the lesson, as this can become a form of bullying by the borrowers.

I think what I would do in your position is to tell them in the lesson today that from now on you will be warmly welcoming in only those students with a pen. That you have nothing to lend or give. Ask them to make a note in their planners. All of them. "remember pen". That will cut a few down for next time. Then next lesson, cheerfully line them up outside the door and ask them to get out their pen, and those with them say "great organisation, come on in and have a go at the starter!" Those who don't, don't look cross, just tell them you really sympathise but you have no equipment to give or lend, you've run out. Ask them to come back when they're equipped and ready to learn. Close the door with a sad smile. Make it their problem. If they ask where to go, look confused and say "wherever you left your pen, I know you remembered it because you wrote a note. Be really quick please". Close the door. It infuriates them initially, because they want you to dance the No Pen waltz and you aren't co-operating. You're not being mean, you're just not allowing it to be your problem.

That has hands down got to be the funniest thing I ever read on Mumsnet.

Firstly, this is not an issue of organisation. They are not forgetful. They don't forget their phones, do they?

These kids don't WANT to be in the lesson. They don't WANT to work. That's why they don't bring a pen. So they can say "I can't work Miss, I ain't got no pen!" And that's why they break the pen - so they can say "I can't work Miss, that pen you gave me is broken." They don't think - well I am going to have to do the work one way or another so I might as well bring a pen, and after all I do want a good job one day! All they think of is: I don't want to do this work, what's the easiest way of not being able to do it. That's as far ahead as they think - to the end of this unwelcome lesson.

So if you say "No pen, don't come in to the lesson," they will be overjoyed. They will wander round the school and not come back. They may leave the school entirely. They may run around the building pulling faces at their friends through the doors. They will eventually come to the attention of SMT, which you'd think would be a good thing, but they will claim the teacher would not let them in the lesson so what can they do? "She wouldn't let us come in!" or "I'm looking for my pen!" Not THEIR fault. Yours.

A teacher who let 10 students out of their class to wander round the school looking for a pen would be under disciplinary/competency measures by the end of that school day.

If you're really lucky, some will have gone home and told their parents "Miss X said I'm not allowed to come back to school until I've got all new equipment" and you will have the parents either ranting and raving up the school or keeping their kids at home because "he had his stuff stolen and I can't afford to buy new, the school should be looking for it, and now you're saying he can't some to school . . ."

Honestly, seriously, that's how it would play out.

The idea might just work with nervous year 7s though, so it could be a way to go with the new ones. Although then they would wander round the school crying and you'd have Welfare on your back too.