To think that students shouldn't be making teachers cry FFS!.

[Theydontknowweknowtheyknow]

...and that the school system is essentially fucked because teachers have too many pressures and are treated like crap?

DS is not good at Maths. He's not badly behaved but is not good at Maths hence he is stuck in a set where the kids tend to be badly behaved.

The teacher is obviously not a native English speaker but DS says he is perfectly understandable. His classmates however are constantly teasing this poor man about his English. It became so bad today that the teacher actually cried and then lost it and yelled at the kids that he spoke 5 languages and they only spoke one.

I feel so sorry for this guy. He must be at the end of his tether but how can he possibly teach and be effective with 30 students, all the marking, planning and politics. I feel like it's an impossible task.

But what can the government/society do to make teachers' lives easier, especially when you consider the drop out rate or is it just inevitable that with so little money and so many children to educate that the school system is essentially fucked?

[Leslieknope45]

I hate that one of the first responses was 'he can't control the class'.
No. He can't control them. Because they don't behave properly.

[inarmsofanangel]

I also worked in Holloway prison teaching Illegal immigrants. TBH that was a breeze compared to this.

[CharlotteCollins]

I became a teacher because I enjoy explaining maths and seeing people "get it".

It feels like that is about 1% of my job at the moment.

If you want teachers to be thick-skinned as well as good at teaching, you're going to shrink your pool of available talent quite dramatically.

And that is (one reason) why we have a recruitment and retention crisis.

[MetalPetal86]

Yes, agreed. If we want to improve standards at secondary the dept for ed really have to address this. I am not thin skinned nor new to teaching but I admit to being refused to tears a number of times (although not visibly in the class). I have moved to sixth form now which, although not perfect, is less stressful.

[noblegiraffe]

This is reminding me of a thread I read on here the other day where the OP was moaning that his wife couldn't control their kids and they were laughing at her while she was telling them off.

A lot of posts quite rightly asked why the hell he wasn't backing his wife up and was allowing them to treat her like this. They said that clearly he didn't respect his wife because he was blaming her and that was encouraging them to treat her badly too.

[CharlotteCollins]

I think the senior management at my school genuinely think behaviour is good.

It usually is when they stand in the doorway...

[TrollTrekkingAcrossTheUniverse]

I'm not a teacher, but don't envy their job. However, there have always been teachers that struggle with class control. Certainly were a couple in my day, and my parents'. And such teachers feature quite heavily in some books about boarding schools.

I suspect it's more endemic these days, though. Whether that's because of more pressure from Government, some parents not supporting schools or simply more teachers entering into the profession who aren't really suited for the role I'm not sure. I think some university careers advisers have a lot to answer for, as that seemed to be the only job they could suggest for an Arts graduate. And of course it's harder to find alternative jobs so perhaps those not suited for teaching stay in the profession longer than they want or can mentally cope with.

The behaviour issues described by previous posters seem to have emerged over the last 20 years or so. And for that, I think the parents have to bear some responsibility. I can't think of any of my peers, whatever their academic ability, who would have thought throwing chairs to be acceptable. But that kind of behaviour needs to be addressed long before it comes out in the classroom; it doesn't just spring from nowhere.

[PovertyPain]

Ffs! What the hell is going on in schools? What kind of little shits set out to 'break' a teacher? This attitude of "the teacher needs to toughen up" is awful. What happens if they don't toughen up, but have a break down or get pushed so far that they commit suicide? Is that their fault? Isn't it funny how a parent gets pages and pages of support when their child us being bullied by ONE other child, but when there is mention of a teacher being bullied by a class of 25/30 nasty wee gits, then he/she needs to toughen up. Neither is right.

I worked in a unit, for over 20yrs, where many patients were unable to control their emotions. I ended up with a broken tooth, whiplash, busted ear drum, concussion and a damaged back, in an assault. no, I didn't sue I'd still rather have that one assault, mainstream the other less injurious ones, than teach. The difference is, they couldn't control themselves. In the situations where teachers are being driven to break downs, it sounds as if their parents can't control them. My hat's off to those off you that do it.

[Registeringisapain]

Charlotte has it bang on. Talent for teaching doesn't go automatically go hand in hand with the hide of a rhino and the patience of ten saints and the pope all put together. If you demand both as qualifying skills and deride teachers who don't have the magic ability to quell nasty behaviour from teenagers then your pool of teaching staff becomes vanishingly small.

No one in teaching should have to tolerate being bullied and tormented on a daily basis by a gang who massively outnumber you, and against whom you have severely limited resources. Honestly, if you've not been in the teacher-under-attack shoes you have no idea how appalling it is.

It only takes one class to drive a teacher out of the profession if they aren't supported well enough. Why would you choose to stay, knowing that it will be like this year in, year out with one class or another. It's 20 years since I quit, and I still remember the names and faces of those horribly behaved tormentors.

[CodyKing]

I think years ago a lot of these children would have gone to a special school which the government have all but closed - it's not fair on staff or pupils who understand the value if their education
Thankfully my children are in the higher groups - they wanted to put DS in a lower ability group away from his friends - but knowing the lower group has behaviour issues I said no!

For some reason the senior school had one class for pupils who need assistance either behaviour or medical (say epilepsy) or low ability. How they expect the lower ability to improve with behavior issues on class I don't know - same foe the bright kid whos diabetic - madness

[Theydontknowweknowtheyknow]

Exactly Noble. And I think that pupils sense that these days teachers do get blamed and that the rights are on the side of the pupil so know they can get away with more.

[Registeringisapain]

Yy to noble and poverty. It's fucked up.

[JerryFerry]

It sounds appalling and I would be wanting to get my child out of there pronto.

[echt]

Whatever this teacher's skills are, there's no reason on earth why he should have to toughen up about racist attacks, which is what is happening to him in the classroom.

I hope he 's gone to SLT, because in my experience, accusations of racism is one thing that makes them shit themselves. Hang on...that's when the teacher is accused of racism.

[PovertyPain]

They will NEVER accuse the children of being racist because then the school will fall down the ratings list or go into special measures. No doubt the poor teacher will be blamed for the wee shit's behaviour. It's already been suggested here.

[RiverTam]

The Economist article talks about how teaching doesn't have to be an innate skill but can be taught, but it has to be taught properly which isn't the case with most PGCE courses - they say that there's no accountability with the courses, ie that students entering the professions aren't followed up on so that a particular course can say how their graduates have done. Classroom management and sufficient practical experience are lacking.

Research shows that things that people think help in schools (small classes (vvvvv expensive), TAs (vvvv expensive), uniform, streaming etc) make very little difference. What makes the biggest difference is pupil feedback and basically teaching children to understand their own learning. One super-teacher from Singapore said that it wasn't his job to teach physics (for example), his job was to teach children to learn physics.

I haven't got the article to hand but I'd really like to know what teachers think of the article, it was very interesting.

[mishmash1979]

Sounds like a typical secondary school. So far since Xmas my daughter has had 2 teachers leave; one had breakdown in class (locked himself in cupvoard after screaming for them to stop ruining his life!) and the other went into the hallwY to cry after my sons friend pointed out that she had worked out a maths problem incorrectly and also that 6x3 wasn't 16!! She left too and was an NQT!

[Theydontknowweknowtheyknow]

"I think years ago a lot of these children would have gone to a special school"

Do you mean Special Needs? If so, I disagree. Special needs doesn't equal bad behaviour and in DS's school the kids with SN tend to be the better behaved ones, not having the guile to bully in this way.

[inarmsofanangel]

I'd like to know how classes would manage without the TA's though River. Frankly, they take on much of the abuse themselves when the teacher sends them out of the class and get paid pittance!

[noblegiraffe]

Research shows that things that people think help in schools (small classes (vvvvv expensive), TAs (vvvv expensive), uniform, streaming etc) make very little difference

Which is utter balls. Of course small class sizes make a difference. Hattie should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

[inarmsofanangel]

And Singapore is very different to the UK as you well know. I taught in SK for 3 years and there is no way in hell they tolerate this behaviour.

[minifingerz]

I managed two terms in secondary and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I knew that if I stuck it out for a couple of years I would develop a relationship with the kids and the behaviour, and my ability to cope with it, would improve, but honestly, life's too short. I left and went into FE instead.

The thing I found the most soul destroying was the utter waste of opportunity. Most children in state schools by and large could have a really good education if they would just SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DO SOME WORK and let teachers get on with teaching. It's a crying shame that every day in classrooms across the UK so little gets done. Waste, waste, waste. I'm not surprised that teachers are crushed by the futility of it and that some can't go on.

[inarmsofanangel]

Agree with Noble - It is balls!

[echt]

Something readable on class sizes:

www.aeuvic.asn.au/class_size_research_summary.pdf

That pokes holes in Mr Hattie, the tiresome sod.

[minifingerz]

RiverTam - I agree with much of what you say, but teachers have got to have a chance to TEACH rather than spending 80% of their energy on dealing with difficult behaviour. They need to be able to experiment, to take risks, but they can't do this if children are routinely uncooperative.

I've got a memory of teaching Julius Caesar to a group of middle set year 9 boys in a comprehensive which served a big and grim housing estate. The kids were being really unpleasant, fighting with each other, throwing things across the room, talking in loud voices about things unconnected to the lesson, and getting out of their seats.

About ten minutes into the lesson the door opened and the deputy head came in and just stood in the doorway. He'd stopped after looking through the window and seeing the chaos. The boys were all terrified of him (he was a big, very down to earth bloke in his 50's) and so went completely silent. I though 'bugger it, they're quiet for a moment, so let's go for it and try and teach them as much as possible while he's here. He stood there for 20 minutes while I asked them lots of open ended questions, elicited some great responses, got them acting the parts out in pairs, etc. And you know, you could see they were enjoying themselves.

But the minute he left the ring leader started being an arse again, and within a few minutes were were back at square one.

Later I got called to the head's office and offered a permanent job. For 20 minutes I'd shown that I could teach and that I could engage the kids. What I couldn't do - at that point - was manage behaviour, but that was because of inexperience and being new at the school. I didn't say 'I'd rather have my eyeballs skewered on a fork', but that's how I felt. And I left at the end of term, along with all 3 other English teachers who had no interest in extending their contracts. And once again the school was left short of staff.

It's sad it really is. My own children aren't well behaved at school all the time and it really upsets me. They're not horrible kids, but they've also got sucked into this prevailing culture of disruption and disrespect. Makes me feel so frustrated.