To not like a teacher at DS's school?

[mumpoints]

Do you all like the teachers at your children's schools? There is this one women (not DS's teacher but involved with his class occasionally) whom I really dislike. She's harsh with the children, has completely different views to myself re speaking to little ones (Year 2 and under) and asks personal questions as if she has a right to know (she asked my age once!)

If it wasn't for the fact she is leaving (hurrah!) I would be very worried as DS would have been going up to her class this year.

Does this happen a lot or is this unusual? I normally get on with most people. I wonder whether I'm being a little overprotective because young children, especially DS, are involved.

Clandestino
I agree nobody has to like everyone. I don't buy it when people claim to love everyone. It's what you do with a dislike that matters.

It's fine not to like a teacher (many people on this thread have very real reasons for not liking a member of staff).
Whether disliking someone so much from differences of approach & hearsau you start a thread about them when they don't teach your children is perhaps a bit of a strong reacton, but fair enough. Each to their own.

Going a step further and saying i dislike someone I have had limited involvement with and i bet they are only leaving their job because they were going to be pushed is the bit that is totally unreasonable in my opinion.

I'm a Head of Year. Parents both love and hate me depending on the involvement I have with their kids at any given time. I'm ok with it.

Hi 5 loki.
I have nothing but admiration for heads of year. My friend wants to go that route. I don't know how you do it.

Has the teacher on question taught your child op? As from the op it reads to me that they have on more than one occasion but they aren't their regular teacher.
Which would be exactly the same situation as with my ds. Luckily his regular (lovely) teacher was fantastic and reassured ds that he had done the right thing speaking up for the other pupils and she was very proud of him.
There are obviously going to be good and bad teachers as there are good and vas people in all professions. As parents you don't tend to get to know teachers well at all but of course you're going to make snap judgements. So long as you don't pass your thoughts on to your kids. There have been teachers who my dc have liked who In sure are great teachers that I have just really disliked the manner of. I'm sure there are teachers who don't like the look of me for whatever reason without knowing me. So long as they don't tell my kids they think I'm a sour faced old bag I could t care less tbh. People make snap judgements - sometimes justified and sometimes not.

Teachers have to advocate and do what is best for the whole class, parents have to advocate and do what is best for one member of that class. If you are both doing your job right there are sometimes going to be clashes. That's good as long as things remain civil and each person is respectful of the others role.

I think you hit a nerve with a poster or two on this thread OP!

There are great teachers, good teachers and sadly also bad teachers. I've come across one bad teacher who really shouldn't have been teaching. He eventually got fired, not before time and not before potentially messing up many a child's education.

frasier
Yeah. Because that sort of attitude is part of why I see great teachers leaving schools and leaving the profession.

Don't like someone? Fine. That's life. (I think having a different view and one question is a bit much ti cause a dislike but hey, we all have different thresholds)

Decide because you don't like someone and they might do things differently to you that it's great they are leaving their job and are probably only leaving before they are pushed? Downrighy nasty, bitchy speculation.

One of my former colleagues was hounded and hounded by parents. She resigned, leaving the class with an unqualified non specialist for the rest of the year (nice one cliquey parents!). The class were given to me the following year because I'm good with picking up after that type of situation. First half term was hard work because obviously the year before was inconsistent. Lots of the students started the year behind, which students and parents blamed on the last teacher rather than the fact that 50% of the class and their parenta were downright nasty. Some kids and parents were saying that the former teacher had been sacked and had loads of fabricated reasons - all based on people without a clue speculating because they obviously were experts.

Another colleague, signed off for months long term sick following a personal situation. Parents started telling students that the teacher had been sacked for various reasons. Teacher came back. Class were awful. I picked the GCSE class up (and had my original KS3 classes disrupted to give y11 some consistency) because the situation for that teacher meant it was sending them back on a downward spiral.

A friend of mine - parent decided to complain that they'd been absent (being covered by the HOD) and that when the teacher 'finally turned up to work' she was abrupt. The teacher had just lost their last surviving parent. No issues with my friend's teaching ability, just some busy body who felt it was worth sticking yhe knife in.

So yes, it has hit a nerve.
If there are genuine professional concerns, they need raising in an appropriate manner to the correct people.
If it is mindless nasty gossip and you've nothing nice to say then don't say it.

Just to clarify (that was a bit blaaahhhh )

I just think professional issues should be handled professionally. Teachers are human, we can (and do) screw up at times. (Many of the examples on this thread are linked to this)

If it's personal 'i don't like them... so and so says... i wouldn't do it that way... apparently they're strict' then fine, have those views but don't use that as some judgement on professional competency.

E.g. 1 I can't stand a couple of people i have worked with over the years. I really don't like them. But they are decent teachers so I would never transfer my dislike of them as people over to a professional competency judgement.

E.g.2 I have absolutely loved working with some gems of people, but they weren't the strongest teachers and sometimes that has meant having to have tough conversations like 'i think you dealt with that parent badly / actually you aren't on top f ypur marking so the parent was right to complain. We need to get this sorted'.

Ime it's rare that the parents of kids in secondary school know each other let alone gossip about teachers or have cliques
Good that you're always there though to step in to save these youngsters from having their education sabotaged by their parents....

The issue is that there is no such thing as a professional parent. We are rank amateurs one and all, and therefore, unprofessional opinions and behaviour has to be allowed for.

This is not true of teachers, who are rightfully held to a higher standard of behaviour

CorbynsBumFlannel
That situation with the colleague who was hounded was one of the nastiest things i've seen in this respect. It was awful. One parent tried it on me the first half term of the new year. I told SLT. We invited them in for a meeting to discuss the issues and they didn't actually have any other than 'but last year mrs so and so... Following that those parents were really really supportive.

It's not about me saving education from their parents. I don't get a say in timetabling or staffing (just generally when there has been situations like that schools tend to choose the next teacher carefully.

Those situations are rare, but horrible to watch and it ruins careers and disrupts. children's education. It seems awful for all that impact to step from hearsay and gossiping rather than any professional issue.

Why are you like this maisypops?!

You mean why do I care so much that people making up stuff about staff is an issue?
Because I care. And making shit up about someone's career is downright nasty and unpleasant.

Do you not see the disruption caused to pupils' education from those situations? Do you not see GCSE classes having less stability at a crucial time? Do you not see a class of students have 2 terms with an unqualified, non-subject specialist before their GCSEs because a good specialist left?
Do you not think that an extended time without a qualifird specialist meant the class I picked up the following year was spectacularly underachieving? I don't think that's good for those kids.

So yes, i dig my heels in and yes I'm well aware that some people on here don't like to hear the potential effects of their actions but I point it out because I care and it would do people aome good to consider the impact of silly gossip.

Because most parents are the most amazing and supportive people could could hope to work with. Because most parents if they have an issue, most parents contact the school and we discuss it sensibly like adults. Most parents are reasonable people who know you don't get on with everyone because that's life, but you don't go stirring it up. Because most parents and staff know that us working together brings about the best outcomes for the kids.

And yet there is a minority who think it is appropriate to undermine staff, create cliquey bitch clubs, hound staff etc.

In the case of the OP, they are speculating that someone was about to be fired so they probably jumped before being pushed!

I've given you example situations inflamed by parents stirring it up commining on absence, speculating about someone being sacked etc. They were good teachers. They didn't deserve to have people making ilinformed and nasty comments like that. Ultimately, the pupils ended up paying for it with disrupted education. So yes, it makes me irritated. It makes me irritated that there is enough rubbish in schools to contend with and pupils' education gets wasted because silly people want to gossip.

I can't actually see how anyone would consider it reasonable to speculate on someones employment record and speculate about why someone is leaving in a way that is quite clearly nasty (be it a teacher or anyone else).

Qvar

We are rank amateurs one and all, and therefore, unprofessional opinions and behaviour has to be allowed for.

This doesn't include malicious and abusive behaviour that could and can be detrimental to someone's career and health.

That's my point boney.
It wouldn't matter if it was a teacher, TA, doctor, nurse, social worker, hairdresser, shop worker, builder, lawyer, estate agent or whatever job.
People can't go around saying 'i don't like someone so I'll go around speculating abiut their career and suggest they were about to be sacked'.
It's just malicious, nasty gossip with potentially serious implications.

It worries me that some people can't/won't see that.

I teach Reception and have been lucky that the majority of parents have been lovely since I started. DS1 is 12 and in Y5 the teacher he had was hounded out of her job by over-zealous parents taking a dislike to her. I witnessed them openly ridiculing and mimicking her during assemblies, I overheard them laughing at her subsequent breakdown on the playground as though it was hilarious that a - to my mind - very good teacher had walked away from the job she loved because those parents had decided she was a shit for shouting at their darling child. The boy in question has been to our house often and if I taught him I'd have probably shouted regularly, too, because he can be an utter bellend at times.

Parents aren't always terrible. More often than not they're supportive and wonderful. But those difficult ones seem more willing to push genuinely good teachers out of positions and ultimately it ends up damaging their child's class when they're given 6 different cover teachers in one term. Of course there rare people you won't like or get along with; personality clashes are normal. Parents should try and respect their children's teachers regardless of their like or dislike of them, though, just as staff should always try and respect their students parents. It simply makes life easier if everyone treats everyone well.

Whooo - Whilst that is awful and says a great deal about the parents involved, you have to remember that whilst you say a staff member was hounded out of their job, the teaching staff always hold the balance of power. After all, you have to send your child to school everyday, no choice there, and if the teacher involved is unprofessional, not very good at their job and has taken a dislike to your child, well you are pretty much stuck with it.

I moved my gs from a primary school full of the most horrible cliques and that was the teaching staff. I recall one parent going into the school one lunchtime. There was no-one on reception and the staff room door was open. She overheard a full character assassination of herself and a blow by blow account of her partner's looks, body etc and them laughing about it all. She was so stunned she could not even speak. She said you should have seen the face of one of the teachers who walked out and saw her. She handled it with dignity, turned on her heel and left.

She made no fuss, just contacted the Head. She received a full apology in writing.

The teacher involved was so brutal that attending one assembly brought tears to my eyes. If you hate children, why be a teacher? I later found out that another parent had kept her child off school for a full week after a verbal beating up by the staff member. And that was a year 6 boy.

The end came for me when she pushed my gs into joining a sports group. She even told me to cancel a much looked forward to (and paid for )school trip so he could practice. I refused. I was then told there were too many children for the team and two had to go. I just knew it would be my gs. Fair enough if he was the poorest, but unfortunately I overheard the way she went about it. In front of the other children, she pointed at my gs and another child and shouted "You and You. You're out". End of.

I couldn't believe the difference in staff when we moved schools. My gs moved into a difficult year and I could only commend his male teacher. We didn't get off to a great start because he did not always handle things very well but I grew to respect him. He was funny, got it wrong, was a good teacher and was human. That's all you can ask.

ElsieMc
But thr example you give IS unprofessional and so should be dealt with as such.

That's what me and a number of posters are saying. We are not saying all teachers are saints. We are not saying all teachers are perfect. We aren't denying that some teachers are total pains in the backside and some are miserable sods who don't seem to like kids.

However, we are saying that professional issues should be followed up professionally and if situations raise concern they should be dealt with appropriately.
Anything else (e.g. we have different views on how to do x/ i would do it differently/i just don't like them / i heard... and so and so heard... / i bet they are only leaving because they were about to be sacked) is just spiteful nasty gossip and there are consequences to nasty spiteful gossip.
whooo and I have outlined those consequences.

Professional issues - raise them appropriately
Spiteful speculation and gossip - keep quiet and maybe stop being so nasty

the teaching staff always hold the balance of power.

I had written a long post for this but the truth is that teachers hold very little power.

And it only takes one (type of) complaint or a persistent parent with a perceived issue to destroy someone.

the teaching staff always hold the balance of power

I don't agree at all. Prior to watching DS1's Y5 teacher get ripped apart, I'd have probably agreed because I lived in a little bubble where parents and teachers treated one another with respect and dignity regardless of personal opinions.

Now I don't believe that's true at all; the situation with those parents was allowed to snowball with whispers, lies and accusations all happening on the playground that nobody really was able to control. It didn't matter that the worst thing the teacher had done was to shout at a rowdy student; once those whispers began there was nothing that teacher could do but to ride it our to leave. The control was in the hands of those parents who chose to behave so revoltingly. It's more common than you'd think and it was awful to watch.

whooo
That sounds dangerously similar to my colleague who was hounded and hounded and left.
Her crime? Expecting students to be polite and work hard.

The thing I never understood is that I'm a significantly stricter teacher than that colleague and absolutely adored that group (after the first difficult half term of proving i wouldn't take shit). The kids loved my lessons too and I got loads of thank yous from some of the parents who were hellish to my colleague.
There's no doubt the attacks towards my colleague were personal, nasty and bitchy.

Ok so the op speculating anonymously on a forum that a teacher might be shit not ok but calling a 9-10 yr old pupil at your school a 'bellend' is absolutely fine. Just so we're all clear

It's probably a bully thing. Bullies can't be horrible to everyone, it wouldn't work. So they pick on one person and are all sweetness to everyone else. I've seen it done by children and also by parents on the playground. (Often the parents were parents of the bully kids.)