To ask teachers what your pet peeves are?

[Collettegirl]

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

Glassofredandapackofcrisps

In some schools, not in others. Some are strictly grouped by ability, others roughly by ability but 'mixed', e.g. deliberately placing some very bright students in each group, some middle ability. Others are completely randomly distributed. Others set the top and/or the bottom only. Others look at the distribution of pupils by SEND, pupil premium etc.

Reading these posts (especially the ones about nappies) makes me so glad that I am training to be a secondary school teacher and not a primary school teacher,

I am sorry but unless a child has special needs, I don't understand why any four year old is going to school in nappies.

I know people say that summer born kids struggle but I still don't understand.

Way back in September 2003, my DS started school, aged 4 years and 4 days and he was fully toilet trained and despite being the youngest I the school, he coped pretty well.

This year he has been the youngest student in his university (they don't take under 18s) and again he has coped fine.

* JUST TO REITERATE EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID APPLIES TO NT CHILDREN. I DO UNDERSTAND THAT SOME CHILDREN WILL HAVE SPECIAL NEEDS WHICH MEAN THAT THEY HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO START SCHOOL IN NAPPIES *

Sorry my previous post had paragraphs in it when I typed it.

Hi I'm not a teacher but when I was at high school mid 90s we were grouped according to ability in maths English etc is this still the case?

We were only put in sets for Maths. English was mixed ability all the way through GCSEs. Super shitty for the teacher and super shitty for the pupils.

My friend's Nan always says that if women had to wash nappies (like she used to) then there is more of an incentive to toilet train.

* NOT INCLUDING CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS *

PersianCatLady

Parents and carers, not women?

Shiningsta
I genuinely want to know this so please humour me, why don't you want the kids doing their homework in gel pen?

Pengwnn
I would say parents and carers but Nannie H (aged 91) always says women and believes that men should not change nappies as it is "unnatural".

Funny thing is, even in this day and age, I suspect that if nappies had to be washed there would be far more of them washed by women than by men.

Going back to the nappies, although to make it clear it is not on my pet peeves list.
When I started teaching in 1978 there was provision at special school for children with special needs so throughout 70’s and 80’s teachers in main stream saw no child in nappies. However, young children often wet themselves at school and it wasn’t a problem at all. Teachers ( no TA in those days)sent them to the office where the kind “welfare assistant” in the office changed them. That kind of assistance has now gone.
With the closing of special schools, an increase in nappies is obvious.

It can not be denied though, with the advent of comfortable nappies and pull ups, infant teachers have seen a rise in the number of children entering school not toilet trained. We know they may have as yet undiagnosed special needs. In my experience the majority of those with no special needs were out of nappies by Christmas.
I also think that some parents are anxious that their child might wet themselves at school so put a pull up on just in case. Understandable, but infant teachers are used to puddles!

Any time I read a thread like this on MN I'm reminded of how generally irritating teachers are. It really attracts a certain sort .

No idea why teachers are held up on here as being some sort of untouchable saint we're not allowed to criticise.

Whatever your job, you're going to have aspects that annoy you. If you work with (other people's) kids, I imagine those annoyances are tenfold. But ffs have this discussion elsewhere. Not in a public forum read by predominantly parents.

It's not 'professionally offended' to not want to hear something your child struggles with described as a pet peeve. Or have your parenting deemed lazy.

Imagine a thread for doctors and nurses 'worst kind of patients'.

I taught FE for 2 years with no training (this was before you needed to be at least working towards a qualification). The number of times a student would answer their phone right in front of me and if I challenged them they'd say 'But miss, it's my agent!' because it was a performing arts course.

The total lack of communication between management and new staff was also a peeve - I'd be told on a Monday that everything I'd planned was being replaced by a completely unexpected performance on the Friday where my entire class had to all perform the same song one after the other (for hours - it was horrendous for the ones who weren't singers too).

When I taught in universities there'd be students who submitted written work on the back of a napkin and then complained when my feedback was that they needed to buck up otherwise I'd fail them. You'd have thought they hadn't paid to study

@PersianCatlady.

All about standards. Work doesn't look good when done in gel pens, and then they start writing in them during class if you don't pick them up on it.

To teachers complaining about reception age children in lace up shoes: I can't afford Clarks shoes, the only shoes I could find in Sainsbury's in DS2's size were lace ups. Beggars can't be choosers.

It doesn’t matter how much you bold your text, the fact is, many children with special needs start school at four without a diagnosis or without a parent realising there’s an issue with their child. This thread has been brilliant. Apart from the obvious toilet trolls, it vindicates many of the parents who have so many problems with undiagnosed children in school. The ones with an attention deficient who struggle to concentrate. The ones who rock on chairs because they genuinely can’t keep still. The ones with the masked anxiety who need confirmation that they are doing the right thing before continuing. The ones with continence issues. The ones who are dyslexic as fuck but parents can’t afford a private diagnosis.

I’ve worked with some brilliant teachers. I’ve also worked with some who shouldn’t be anywhere near children and yes yes to the Senco about adjustments put in for a child then spitefully take them out because they think they know best.

It can take years to get a diagnosis and some councils appear to routinely turn down every EHCP application.

It’s fine for teachers to let off steam. Children can drive you bonkers at times. But every time these threads come up it’s always a disclaimer that they’re not talking about children with disabilities. But actually, from many of the posts I’ve read on here, they are.

MelonKim no we didn't know the uniform rules that our newly academised school decided to introduce when DD was in yr3. All old logoed polo shirts, sweatshirts and PE polo shirts just had to be thrown out, new logoed jumpers, PE technical t-shirts and ties had to be bought.

Parents who carry all of their children's things and even take them into school and put them on their pegsd for them; bags, lunchboxes, etc and then complain that their child has lost them - they lost them because you haven't given them the responsibility of carrying them themselves. Generally, children who carry their own stuff have a much better idea of what they need to remember!

So many reception (and older) children are not yet diagnosed despite having difficulties. How exactly do teachers know which ones will be diagnosed next month/next year/in 5 years time to know who to be genuinely peeved at or who is exempt from your peeves "because I don't mean those with SN" ?

I quit teaching because of the adults and not the children, so teaching was never for me for that reason... but I hated teaching because of the other teachers!
I hated how they were always putting a label on children, when in reality some just don’t learn as fast as others, and some learn way faster. I hated the cliques teachers create and bitch about children, I hated that teachers ALL had children they preferred and ones they just weren’t arsed about... it was always the easy ones.
It’s also absolute bull shit when somebody says a teacher will always be supportive and understanding of SN children.

On the other side I really didn’t like that some parents thought that raising their kids was upto me... I had to teach exactly what I was told to teach and my freedom ended in the way I taught it... still, I had parents who thought it was my job to teach their kids things they should be doing at home.

Oh fuck Dawn, that's depressing. It was a good thread too. 😭

Parents whose kids speak to them on the playground like they're a piece of shit, and don't say anything back to the child.

Slang words like "my bad" and having to tell kids to tuck in their shirts.

when teaching on temporary contracts finding the classroom equipped with four trays of plane shapes and four trays of logiblocks and sod all else as everything else has been purloined by the permanent staff.

changes to the curriculum every soddingyear. (though I missed the bit when everything was so prescribed it gave you a length of time for each part of the lesson)

other bloody staff that do not tell you the school policy on xy or z, nor have it printed anywhere accessible then wonder why you balls it up in the first couple of days... (how the hell am I meant to know all the words to learn are to go out in the first week if it is not written down anywhere nor does anyone tell me)

there are always one or two parents with unrealistic expectations, and also one or two teachers withunrealistic expectations of parents and childen too.

@george49. Then they are shocked when we don't accept the same backchat.

Imagine a thread for doctors and nurses 'worst kind of patients'. hmm

Oh that's easy, doctors and nurses are the worst kind of patients!

@ george49 as long as you realise that some autistic children are so in sensory overload after school due to being in school. (noise, bells, smells, other children, etc etc) that their behaviour is less than desirable at the end of the school day and that pulling them up on it at that point could cause them to meltdown completely and put themselves or other children at risk.

Oh and positive behaviour technique works out of school as well as in school.