To think that students have more rights than teachers ( and that this is not good.)

[malificent7]

If i treated my students the way they treated me id be sacked.

They swear, answer back, are extremely rude and patronising . One even tried to stroke my arm today.....ugggrrr!

I took some students on a trip the other day. One boy took my phone from my open bag and quickly took loads if selfies of himself.

It really is more entitled than I have ever seen it since I qualified.

coldstreams
Maybe i misunderstood but it sounded like you were placing the responsibility for a child's actions on the teacher.
The child is responsible for their actions just like i am responsible for mine.

I do think they are all poor behaviour. It's a sliding scale. So i will speak to a student if they aren't working or are coasting becaue I'm not letting it slide or negotiating with them over whether they'll work.

I can plan good lessons, dish out praise, show them I care and still have firm lines on behaviour and expectations. Too often there is an assumption that strict means loving sanctions and not caring. It's about having clear boundaries and being consistent.

I am not responsible for their behaviour though. If they choose to work/not work, be polite/not be polite, swear/be respectful etc. then that's their choice. Equally, it is thr choice of home whether they support the school or not, whether they instill responsibility in their child or blame staff etx.

I’ve only ever known chairs flung across the room in times of extreme emotional stress, usually from a student with autism who finds it all too much. It certainly has never been part of my daily life as a teacher.

And sometimes people can be unhelpful. That’s not quite the same thing as provoking.

But if (say) you have a child who comes storming in, glaring at everybody with flashing eyes and completely ignores you when you ask him to remove his coat, then there are ways of managing that situation.

I say, ‘Have you had a bad day, James?’ in a kind tone of voice. Honestly, it works. They listen to you because they feel you are ‘listening’ to them. Even if they just shrug, they mellow.

Then I might say something like ‘listen, I don’t want to give you a hard time, but it looks bad on me if someone comes in and you’re wearing your coat. Could you take it off for me, please?’

It’s so much better than the ‘old’ way which is ‘take your coat off james’ constantly which gets James steadily more and more agitated and could, depending on who James is and what happened before, lead to chair throwing. That’s not saying that it’s the fault of individual teachers if James does throw a chair. Just that there are ways of managing and diffusing and responding to situations that don’t lead to confrontation and hostility.

You’re not responsible for their behaviour per se Maisy but how you manage it (that’s a general ‘you’, not a specific one.)

The TA I alluded to earlier got right in the personal space of the girl with autism, raised her voice to her, took her drawing from her and then got very disproving when the girl burst into angry tears, slammed her books on the desk and stormed out, screaming.

The girls behaviour was her own but I’m sorry - the TA caused it. The girl wouldn’t have done that with me, not because I’m super human but because if you don’t respect a student, don’t be surprised if they don’t respect you.

Lol....everyone hates me in one class as i have punished the ring leader and all her maties are defending her!

In my other two classes i get on great with the students. Im pretty sure my current collegues like me!

Also the ring leader is the same for all staff..

I am retraining soon anyway...phew!

coldstreams earlier in the thread you said I never have behaviour issues now.
Yet you have just described a student becoming hostile and rude in the face of your irritation at him pissing around.
You then won him over by cancelling the sanction for being rude and hostile.
I dunno, that sounds like what other teachers are describing as behaviour issues. You’re just blaming yourself for them now.

It wasn’t really a behaviour issue as it happened after class giraffe and was very mild.

Children going out at the end of the week, boy being a bit daft and twirling around, I tell him to stop it as a chair will get knocked over. Of course a chair is knocked over, makes a horrible noise, I raise my voice over crashing chair, boy is sullen and ‘yeah well I was only turning round’.

It wasn’t worthy of a sanction. I gave the original sanction because I was irritated, and to alleviate my irritation. That’s wrong. And I will say so. Here and to him.

Turning around when leaving a lesson isn’t bad behaviour. It’s silly - but silliness is best dealt with by a simple and clear instruction to stop.

november

I coped perfectly fine at college and in my job just like the PRU. It was mainstream school and its lack of work that was actually challenging me and being a more hands on learner when school just wanted you to be read too or read everything rather than experinceing things and being creative with the learning.

At work I’m out and about engaging with individuals and getting my hands dirty. At college I could make my work as hard or as easy as I wanted because we learnt then would write about what we learnt plus research given we where treated as individuals who all work differently.

@coldstreams I was taking a girl to detention duty once and said to her, why did she not try to avoid getting detentions, as they were so utterly boring? (We had to do them to, to supervise.)

Her reply: it's better than being at home

That’s really sad

Now that I have said all that, you all know my classes are going to be awful today don’t you?

I will have indicted the wrath of the spirit of the teaching gods.

But seriously, all I’m saying is it’s about respect. Some teachers say ‘well, they don’t treat me with any respect ’ and it is so very hard to be calm in the face of anger or disruption, to be quiet and still amongst chaos and movement, to be polite in the face of rudeness, to be understanding and reasonable when you’re not getting any in return. But then it’s not easy.

wasn’t really a behaviour issue as it happened after class giraffe and was very mild.

Pissing around, being rude and hostile to teachers are behaviour issues whenever they happen.
It’s like saying low level disruption isn’t a behaviour issue when it wastes so much time and takes so much energy.

He turned around giraffe

This insistence that a bit of daftness is appalling and awful and must be dealt with seriously is part of the problem.

Have a good day, fellow chalkfacers.

Not a teacher but from what I've seen from my kids school the parents are as much a problem as the teachers. My kids don't get into trouble and know that DH and I are behind school 100%. We don't undermine school's authority and the kids have been brought up to value education and respect teachers.

Bumped into a mum I vaguely know who has a son in the same year as one of my kids and she was asking about how the merit/demerit thing works so we chatted about that a bit and she said her son had 30 demerits for poor behaviour, being disrputive, not doing homework etc. My child of the same age has none, and tells me teachers always give warnings before demerits. I must have looked shocked because she laughed and said "Oh he's such a nightmare!" with the classic tinkly laugh. She thinks her son being a little fucker in class is a source of amusement.

Numerous other examples - parents buying black jeans for school even though it's against the dress code and kicking off because their child gets into trouble, parents telling childrne not to do homewoek because they think it's pointless, parents dropping off their children consistently late, parents telling children to ignore the nasty teacher when she says no mobiles in class...

coldstreams in terms of workload that incident generated two phone calls home, a chat with the student to cancel his sanction and he had been rude to you.
Teachers shouldn’t be walking on eggshells around students lest they betray the slightest irritation that invites rudeness.

It’s leadership and culture at the school.

It's leadership & culture in the Home that has the greatest influence.

Weak parents are bad enough, but the entitled ones create monsters!

I don't teach, I volunteers with youths which brings me into contact with a lot of teachers and I couldn't/wouldn't do their job after hearing their stories.

I'm lucky, the kids want to be with us so a threat of exclusion has some weight. Also, my leader would rather lose 10 snotty kids than 1 (hard to come by) volunteer so backs us up if required (as long as we're in the right).

Support from higher up goes a long way & I don't get the impression that Teachers get that....

A starter task! Never thought of that before.
Why not just accept CS that the actions of one individual teacher are sometimes just not enough to change a culture of disrespect and disruptive behaviour. I have yet to give up but if there was an easy fix I’d have applied it by now.

I'm not a teacher but I was the disruptive child.
Worse I ever did was swear at a teacher I cringe now but at the time I was being severely bullied. Most of the time right in front of the teachers.

One incident springs to mind when in drama no-one in the class wanted me in their group and every single person told the teacher I had fleas and they didn't want to catch them. I was sent out to another class so they could teach coz that was easier.

The behaviour some of you teachers describe now is what was happening to me every time the teachers back was turned.

Ide react and because it was the whole class against my word I was made out to be the trouble maker and punished.
Nobody believed me so I played up more.
Better to be alone coz the teachers have put me in isolation rather than being isolated by your peers.

I have two in high school and have had a couple phone calls home about dd attitude.
I hope that I have supported the school but in the back of my mind I'm always conscious of what happened to me at high school so probably do not take some things as the school would like.

The answer? Honestly I don't know. I do agree with a pp that more should be excluded and forced into some kind of home education. Yes it would disrupt the parents but then maybe they would take their dc behaviour seriously if they were trying to teach them.

Teachers I salute you. I couldn't do it. Thank you for providing valuable education.

I'm sorry your school let you down like that Bluelonerose

Plus, edited lowlights could be played back on parents' evenings... a few parents might be shocked at how their children actually behave!
I wonder how behaviour management systems will develop over the years. At the moment i can log in and see when dc have got merits/behaviour points and also their punctuality and attendance. Also on another system what they bought for dinner. I suppose the next step in future might be viewing a recording of poor behaviour. It could get a bit Big Brother! Although I suppose it would stop people being able to say "my child wouldn't do that/it was the teacher's fault."

I imagine such footage would also be used to monitor teacher performance. And considering the hoo har about lesson observations already being excessive I can't imagine every one being recorded would be popular with a lot of teachers.
All pupils aren't able to meet the expected behaviour standards at all times for a variety of reasons - upbringing, undiagnosed neurological differences etc. This is obviously going to be frustrating for teachers who are under a lot of pressure to deliver results. Smaller classes, better pastoral care, more specialist provision/specialist staff would all help but they are pie in the sky in the current climate. Either kids, who often can't help it, will be blamed. Or teachers are blamed for being ineffective at managing behaviour. Ime of working in a lot of schools frequently neither of those are true. Both the staff and pupils are in an environment where it isn't possible for some pupils behaviour to be managed or for rhem to manage it themselves.
And anyone who has worked in schools will be aware that there are SOME staff who speak to the pupils like dirt but expect respect in return. That doesn't help.

I think you are missing the wider point of the post. Of course teachers want to help their students to get good results but more than that they want to go to work and not be abused. Just from this thread there is a hideous catalogue of abuse from rudeness at the low end to threats and actual bodily harm at the other. If you replaced the word teacher with any other profession it would not be tolerated and it shouldn't be.

coldstreams

This insistence that a bit of daftness is appalling and awful and must be dealt with seriously is part of the problem.

Daftness or low level disruption?
Where do you draw the line?

Oh god I teach some really poorly behaved pupils. I've had a pupil threaten to slit my throats because I made her wipe a massive cock off my desk she'd just drawn (badly as well) There are pupils in my form who, every day, attempt to bring in a massive bottle of lucazade, and then try to argue 'im infringing on their human rights'

A starter task! Never thought of that before.
Why not just accept CS that the actions of one individual teacher are sometimes just not enough to change a culture of disrespect and disruptive behaviour. I have yet to give up but if there was an easy fix I’d have applied it by now.
Agreed
One of the most important lessons I had as a newish teacher was realising that it's not about me as a teacher.
My routine and ways might work for me and i have strong classroon management but by doing my own thing 'because it works for me' was actually causing issues for other staff with a weakness in that area. It's awful to think back on it now because I had in my head that behaviour management was what i did in my classroom with my students.
But even though what worked for me was good, i was probably that weak link causing issues for other staff. I just didn't see it because as far i as i was concerned the classes were brilliant with me (abd yes i was strict).

I also used to end up believing it was on me to engage, took hook with football, that i had ti earn basic respect etc. It was therefore personal if i had a lesson trashed by low level disruptuon because i must have planned a terrible lesson. I hadn't. I didn't need to earn basic respect.

A spot of reflection did wonders. It doesn't matter if i like the school entry routine or would rather do it differently, i hold thr line. It doesn't matter who the child is, if they are late then they are late. It doesn't matter if I think a uniform element is silly, it has to be upheld. Not because my lessons would be ruined, but because it undermines colleagues who are doing it and also makes life difficult for those who need whole school consistency to develop that area. And that ultimately impacts on student learning.

Performance related pay has a lot to answer for. I care more than certain students do about their gcse grades.