To ask teachers what your pet peeves are?

[Collettegirl]

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

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.^

I too taught in a secondary school in East London, where all female teachers are called ‘Ma’am.

I teach two American children who call me Ma'am

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.

It's an hour at most. You can't just abandon 29 kids unsupervised while you see to one. It means you miss your break. But while staffing is being cut what do you expect to happen?

Yes that is the issue. I have heard some teachers saying they have 3 or 4 kids in nappies or pull ups. I don't see how you can teach and have time to change them all.

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

I thought ed psych assessments were like gold dust? How are they getting continuous ones?

Getting ed psych in school in an impossibility for most parents, continuously is unlikely. Cost me £500 to see one privately and finally find out my daughter was severely dyslexic, had severe working memory issues and very slow processing, plus lots more. Teachers even wanted ed psych to see her. Head noed every time. Can’t inagine a single state school letting a child see ed psych on the day so of a parent.

I think I'm going to buy a set of pink Disney pens with furry toppers to give out to all the 15yr old boys who don't have one with them!

I have done that.

I now have bright sparkly ones with 'stolen from Ms sashh' on them, they tend to come back at the end of the lesson.

I also have a special set of frozen felt tips (had no idea I just bought felt tips and they were the cheapest) certain groups are allowed to use them.

I'm supply but mostly in FE.

Kids that run in corridors. Even when you tell them to stop, they then go on a fast walk which then becomes a jog as they reach their destination. They won't be happy until they run into someone and knock themselves silly....

Kids that hoard stuff in their trays/desks and they can't shut their tray/desk due to the stuff they have accumulated.

Kids that continue to talk after you have said they need to stop and concentrate on their work as they've written one sentence in 10mins. They look at you as if you're talking mandarin and just ignore you - so rude!

Parents who swear at their kids at pick up time in front of other kids and parents. Just not on.

The Conservative government.

I love my job. But my stress is caused by the rate of change and a data driven environment. The children (secondary) are wonderful and generally poor behaviour is always a consequence of something greater.

@ourkudmolly

Ma'am was used to address female teachers in my school too. In the U.K., normal not private school. It wasn't that uncommon a few years ago.

anxious2017 If a child has no water bottle, I tell them to take a drink from the tap in cupped hands. We have a sink in the classroom but even if I didn't, I wouldn't buy water bottles for the children. They would have to share from a communal cup.

Maybe the parent doesn't think kids need constant access to water bottles?

Lack of basic problem solving. Grinds my fecking gears. Basic classroom issues which are the students problem but something which they have decided is my problem. I have started with KS4 a policy of only letting them explain a problem if they have given a reasonable amount of thought to a possible solution. I see this as a valuable life skill. (Disclaimer - I'm not referring to teaching content just general admin).

Also lies / excuses. I have the shortest attention span when a student starts a long winded and frankly dubious explanation of something (usually to avoid getting into trouble). The smart ones have worked out they get a hugely better response from me if they turn up early, explain quickly, take responsibility, apologise and don't do it again or go and sort it out. To steal a phrase from the forces "Excuses are like bumholes, everyone's got one and they all stink!

I put the kids' water bottles in my cupboard during lesson time and only get them out before break and lunch. I haven't got a water bottle and I manage to get through the day. I also refuse to buy resources. Last year I asked for some money to buy ingredients for our cookery lessons and was told there was nothing in the coffers. So we didn't do any cookery.

cloudy I had a parent complain that I wasn't ensuring her son was drinking enough and he didn't want to drink from the communal cups and why were they not washed more often. (Because when I put them in the staff room dishwasher, some other fucker scraped off my labels and stole them 😡😡😡)
I told her he should be bringing in his own water bottle, like most others. Still haven't seen one appear.

@anxious2017
Point is, it smells like bullshit. What's the school?

That’s really out of order-so because you have never come across it in the few schools you have had experience with, it can’t possibly be true!? Rubbish.

This will probably out me but the school I know who uses ‘Ma’am’ is Sarah Bonnell School in East London - a state secondary school (a really lovely school)

I can't imagine training to be a teacher and ending up changing sodding nappies! That's dreadful.

Conversations that start
' I know he's no Angel but.......'

Bottle flipping
Rolling eyes

Ninja How about getting kicked in the face and accused of biting a child?
(Same parent accused us of teaching them swear words).

Rubbings out left in books when they hand them in (one of the reasons why I insist on pen in maths books unless for diagrams so they can’t use a rubber!)

Staff inability to tidy up after themselves in the staffroom!

Games department leaving balls and other random sports stuff in the staffroom, when they countless storage facilities around School!

Parents not reading information sent out to them.

Children distorting the truth when they get home and disclose some minor incident and then a humdinger of an email gets sent which blows it all out of proportion!

Clothes and equipment not named so it can’t be returned when it is misplaced and then found!

I once taught a Y5 class where a patent insisted that I encourage her daughter to drink as she would come home with a full water bottle. I didn't have time for that so just used to tip half her water away at lunch time. Job done.

Oh coffee. We buy our own, so my addition to my list of peeves is the teachers who help themselves to mine (in my locker) because you always have nice coffee. I'm cover manager and on considerably less than them.

Hola primary sisters! Secondary teachers have some gripes but I'm really feeling sorry for you guys right now. Nappy changes being totally unacceptable unless in extreme circumstances. How can parents let their kids go to school and be so embarrassed and uncomfortable! Such a shame and totally unheard of ten years ago.