To ask teachers what your pet peeves are?

[Collettegirl]

Personally mine are wet playtimes, and children who don't have a pen/pencil.

My pet peeve is how some parents manage to get their kids pupil premium when they are fiddling their finances. We have a girl whose parents are separated but have enough for multiple exotic holidays and huge amounts of designer gear, flash new expensive cars and clothes etc, all really shown off. And somehow she is pupil premium. While there are others who are barely coping who fall under the threshold.

How is this the parents fault. Government offers pp to schools for dc who meet the criteria, even if only briefly, and they keep it for 6 years regardless of family finances. Single Mum on minimum wage marries millionaire a week after being pp - the dc remains. It's called pupil premium ever 6. It goes to school to benefit the dc not the pupil's family.

Christmas.
The whole thing - starting to learn songs for Nativity just after Oct half term followed by hours and hours and days and days wasted on rehearsals (even though 'this year, we'll spend less time on it'). At the same time, everyone gets bored and tetchy, and tempers often fray.
Then there's the party, organisation of food, the discos, the decorations, the 'special' Christmas display boards, the Christmas concert, music events outside school...
On top of all that, there are increasingly excited, unfocussed children, (particularly after the first advent calendar window has been opened).
Cue 6 weeks of sporadic teaching and sleepless nights.

And then we have to deal with Christmas at home...
Ugh.

DD's former gymnastics coach also claims that children are less capable than when she first started coaching, and that the number of reception-aged kids who are not potty-trained is greater.
The gym club is very inclusive of children with SN, but it's not them she is talking about.

Thinking about trolls has reminded me of another FE-specific problem: students finding out where you live, and situations where you have to interact with the awful ones socially.

Being contacted for university references by awful students who rarely showed up, sometimes didn't even pass the course, and once called you a cunt in an email.

Fluffy defo agreee they should be in easier clothes.

I do try and make sure my kids are a bit more independent getting dressed. My 3 year old has just started to put his pants on by himself. He can put his own shoes and coat on.

This thread is going to piss people off. My DD couldn't do up her shoes or zip when she began reception.

So don't send her in lace up shoes and a zip up coat.

Mine is, "but I was just..."

My favorite was, "I'm just telling X what to do"

"Well as I have not told the class what to how do you know?'

"What do I do next?"
You do what I told you at the start of the lesson, it's also written on the board and the girl next to you has already started doing it. It's basically kids who don't bother to think, they want spoon feeding everything. I'm not talking about the kids who lack confidence, just the ones too lazy to engage their brain.

Turning up without a pen!

I agree that parents who are late picking up their kids are very annoying (especially when there's no apology) but in our school our Y1 teacher is continually late at bringing the children out at home time. i have usually dispactched all but 3 of mine by the time she comes out and the parents waiting are , quite rightyl, a bit pissed off!

I k is a lot of children call the teacher 'Miss' but I was referring to the 2-3 second elongated 'Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssss' that I regularly had children call me. I was a Miss at the time and didn't mind that as a title. It's just how long it used to take them to say it that grated on me.

I know a lot of*

Pet peeves:

When the date and title is on the board (where it has been ever lesson for months!) and some students still say 'what's the date?'

The need for some students to fill every silence by calling out regardless of how relevant their point is. Other students find it hugely irritating too.

The tiny minority of parents who refuse to accept that their child's version of events may be incomplete so insist on kicking off at us which creates a much bigger situation. Seriously, if you have a question or a query then I'll happily talk to you but please calm the fuck down and stop threatening to get me sacked with your half facts.

That member of staff who asks questions at the end of a meeting/CPD session whivh has already ran over

People who leave printers or photocopiers jammed/out of paper

Reception and ks1 children who lord it over their peers because mummy is a dinnerlady/ta/school admin.
And the glares from said mummy when you have to tell their child not to do something.
Obviously this is just a minority of staff who do this.
Ks2 children are suitably mortified by their parents in school so generally no bother there

"Difficult with no spare teachers or TAs. The children have to wear pull ups and sort themselves out as best they can in some schools."

A child cannot be left in a wet or soiled nappy for hours. Any school that allows that to happen is going to get into a lot of trouble.

At my school if there's no ta in class to help a child change then the school secretary had to help them

I love the run up to Christmas 🎄 but agree school performances are a massive ball ache. From not enough rehearsals to too much rehearsals, no hall time, the bloody songs (Jason and his technicolour fucking raincoat still gives me the rage a decade on ), parents complaining that their child didn't get a part, or did get a part or not the part they wanted, costumes, props, parents swearing blind that their dc can make the evening performance so they can have a main part and then just not showing up. Meaning some poor child has to have lines taped to the back of props or other children with no practise, which puts the others off and isn't as good for the parents who could only make the evening one.

Thank you @LostMyBaubles! That means a lot .

@LostMyBaubles
Thank you so much for saying that. We get told so often by so many that we're not doing a good enough job, that it means so much when someone recognises how hard we work for the children in our classes. No one (I assume) does this job for money or status. It's for passion and love.

The Department for Education.

No idea of what happens in schools, no idea of children and how they learn. No understanding ( or total disregard) for the state of the education system and the difficulties schools are facing.

Parents who try and hold you to ransom - 'Ginny can't come on any school trips unless I accompany her'. Trust me, Ginny won't be going on many then.

Rubbish coffee in staff rooms.

Schools who expect teachers to fund the gaps in their budget. Oh, it's January and you've got no glue sticks? Best get yourself down to Smiths then Mrs L. On my wage? Methinks not. Flour and water paste it is then (true story).

Parents who aggressively push for continuous reassessments of their lovely, but not especially able NT children. It takes up precious hours with our ed psych and the list of needs is ever growing. If they've been assessed several times and no diagnosis given other than low cognitive ability, please just take it. We will support and nurture your child, I promise.

I could go on. I love teaching and I love the children. They are singularly the most delightful part of my day. They are never my pet hates.

nina they will always be the Department of comedy and science fiction to me.

We have just one TA who is willing to change nappies, but she was (deliberately) kicked in the face by a child mid-change last week and told her dad that the TA had bitten her. So now we have to find a second adult to witness all nappy changes. This is not easy.

We actually had both parents insisting on coming on a school trip once. One was allowed (reluctantly, by staff) but then the other said it wasn't fair if one parent and child were having a day out leaving the other parent out so they would both come or none of them. I think it ended up as none of them.

As a TA, mine are children who tell tales (about trivial things) and children who constantly fiddle with the bottoms of their shoes. Now that we don't have indoor shoes (which bugged the hell out of me when I was a kid myself, but I get the need for them now!), they have no idea what they've trodden on in those shoes!

fit
I've seen some schools specifically advertising personal care assistant posts because of that.

@ourkidmolly

You called your teachers Ma'am? How peculiar, was your teacher the Queen?
Unheard of convention in any UK school I know of, private or state

No, none of our teacherS were the Queen.
What's your point? Just because you haven't heard of it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It was and still is a UK public school.

Parents who don't label uniform, make excuses for not doing it (Sharpie? Couple of seconds to write a name.) then moan when jumpers get lost and blame us.

Parents who are well off, who don't realise that most of the resources in my classroom were bought by me, not the school and then are prepared to let their child go without a drink because they won't provide a water bottle (£1!) so I also have to buy those out of my own pocket as I can't see a child go thirsty.