Aibu to think most people have no idea what it's like being a secondary teacher.

[Tiredteacherlass]

I believe that most people have no idea how bad behaviour is and how most schools have feral children and no real means of control.

I'm fed up. the shouting, the filthy language, the name calling, the drugs, the absolute lack of slt support.

MartaHallard agreed. I marked some homework last week that reliably informed me that Leonardo Da Vinci drew inspiration from Leonardo DiCaprio. Thanks Internet.

I don’t think the worlds too soft at all. The reverse in fact. Kids feel hopeless and just can’t be arsed, they can’t see the future.

"Linking performance to pay and trying to make everyone into an identi-kit perfect teacher that does not exist."

This is a bigger problem than most people realise IMO. Creativity, personal style and relationships between teachers and students have suffered hugely from the mechanisation of planning/testing/endless data generation and government interference in teaching, which I believe is a factor in both pupil behaviour and teacher morale. Even in KS1 teachers are feeling increasingly deprofessionalised and less in control of their own classrooms.

LJ Dorothy
I am one of the posters that said that the current school system doesn't work.

I also handed my notice in last week after 16 years. Two years ago I won an award voted on by the staff for my work, a glowing ofsted report and a five star rating on 'rate my teacher'. That I am leaving is really sad.

No way should anyone be subjected to verbal or physical abuse in school. It is completely unacceptable.

I do believe that a focus on foundational proactive steps by staff, clear boundaries that are consistently enforced and a behaviour system that spends time on reflection and restoration is the best way of managing large social groups and maintaining social order.

However you would be surprised at how few schools follow that recipe which is completely underpinned by research. Usually time is the cited reason.

I’ve been teaching for 20 years in a leafy suburb Ofstef outstanding school. I spent 8 years in industry prior to that, and teaching us much much harder work than that, and it was a stressful industry.

Over those 20 years Behaviour has declined dramatically. When l first started most classes were silent and focused. Now it’s nothing like that. Every class will have several difficult or awkward students that hinder the progress of the others. The entire class becomes about them and their issues and the rest of the kids who want to learn don’t get a look in.

Reasons: inclusion is a great idea if each student is supported. But even those with the most complex and challenging needs have no support, so the rest of the class take the hit. And there may be 5 or 6 in a class. So the lesson is a disaster before it starts.

Phones are an endless battle, it’s just another thing we have to deflect and get on top of.

Lack of provision for students who don’t want to engage in school from age 14 up. They don’t want to be there so they make it difficult for those that do.

Increased class sizes and drastically decreased support staff.

It seems to me that teaching in a secondary these days is about a few kids in a class who perceive themselves as more important than the rest. The ones who want to learn fall by the wayside.

So many other things like the rise of group work, which whilst l support this and think it is important, using differentiated groups often means putting able students with disruptive ones as the idea is, that they learn from them. But they don’t, they just don’t engage, and it means that the able ones are overlooked or ignored.

I don’t have an answer, teaching with a great class is just fantastic. But it seems something has slipped. Instead of the hardworking students being the focus of a school, it’s the difficult ones that get all the attention and rewards. And it’s wrong.

About 10 years ago all our difficult ones were sent to a fun workshop meaning a day out of school. The hardworking ones didn’t go, and they weren’t impressed.

My son is a secondary maths teacher. The first school he taught in was a tough, urban comp just out of special measures but he loved it as his colleagues were so supportive even when the kids were challenging.

He's now teaching in a large more rural high school in a much more middle-class area, the school prides itself on high standards of behaviour and he hasn't come across anything too terrible.

He seems to be thriving now but he is young, idealistic (teaching is his passion and he is fantastic at it) and he doesn't have a family. I hope it continues to be a good experience and he stays in teaching.

Cover supervisor here. Today for the first time in ages I was struggling not to cry in front of a year 11 class. It wasn't them as such, they were arsing about, but nothing awful, but the cumulative effect of 5 lessons everyday, covering student support at lunch, trying to implement the new behaviour policy and making the kids realise that I'm not kidding, getting told "if I have you tomorrow I'm not fucking coming in" and doing 100 other jobs. But you know, those big loud boys came to find me at the end of the day to see if I was ok, said, "it's not right miss if people make you feel like that". I did cry then.

Friends who transferred from other professions into teaching seem to cope better than the ones who have done nothing else.
At our local comp a banker who had gone through a govt scheme started after his pgce year. He lasted 2 years and had to get out because he couldn’t hack it.
His words were “ I’m going back to the cutthroat world of banking for a rest”.

I’m a primary teacher and it’s awful down at this end as well. I’m in a great school, great area and with great results. A few very ‘challenging’ pupils ruin learning for the others. There is no support, no funding, and NO WAY can we exclude. No matter what the child does, it seems. Kicked, punched and bitten? That’s just part of the job in Early Years and KS1.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow - we have all been there....its crap.

@MartaHallard I agree 100%. But schools are not teaching these skills though. Only how to pass exams as that is how they are judged (and by ‘they’, I mean the schools, the kids and the teachers).

And the parents have no idea how bad it is.

And the parents have no idea how bad it is.

I agree with wishiwasanastronaut too - I remember even when I was at school people saying, for example, when will we ever use geometry/pythagoras etc., and, to be fair, probably 99% of us never did/will. It must be even worse now when information is so easily available - what's the point of learning dates and quotations (and I loved history and english) or french verbs, or long division when you can find out faster and with more accuracy by looking at your phone? Schools need a revamp - crack down on the absolute basics (reading, writing and basic numeracy) then focus more on critical thinking (i.e "fake news," social engagement, and practical skills (budgeting, credit ratings) in order to be relevant citizens of tomorrow.

To all the people that point out the '13 weeks holiday a year' - there are lots of other jobs that also get a lot of leave. I work in the civil service and we get up to 32.5 days annual leave, plus 8/9 bank holidays, plus up to 24 days 'flexi' (i.e the unpaid extra hours teachers and private workers do for free every day) plus we can buy more if needed = easily can add up to 13 weeks, with the major benefit they can be taken whenever, not just in the prescribed holidays. Not trying to be a gf - there are obviously also downsides (sometimes distressing work, no pay rise at all in 8 years) but teaching isn't the only job where you get a lot of holiday - I also know, for example, a few friends who have their own (different types) of businesses who work like crazy for 4 months of the year, keep things ticking over for another five and then take three months off.

Saying all that there is absolutely no excuse for ever being sworn/shouted at or physically abused in work. I know the police have had huge success with introducing bodyworn cameras - apparently complaints have reduced hugely in a very short space of time. I did hear it mooted about being introduced in classrooms - it's an interesting idea.

I think a lot of people do understand what being a teacher of any 'ilk' can involve and wisely choose to avoid it if they don't want to do what that job involves.

The bad behaviour has been around for a very long time the only difference is that,currently, there are very few other places where the badly behaved can go - for secondary students who would just be better doing something else other than going to school there's no jobs - there's hardly enough for the 'adults' - there was a time where CVs and HR Depts were unnecessary and you could get a job by turning up or word of mouth.

Maybe the Army Teacher Recruitment scheme could 'police' the badly-behaved students, leaving the Qualified Teachers to teach the more academically-inclined?

My only suggestion.

This is why I support grammar schools. Poor, smart kids can't achieve in these environments. They haven't got a chance in hell.

I found out this morning that my ds has learnt the word 'cunt' from a lad in his year. Ds is in year 3. I'm horrified.
I can't imagine what that boy will be like at 11 and I wouldn't want to be teaching him.

*Ds fortunately told me in a roundabout way that didn't involve saying it and it's the same boy that was using 'fuck' in the infants.

I'm a teacher. I'm absolutely on my knees right now but I still love my job. There are some crap elements but I love my subject, I work in a great team, I'm never bored and I laugh a lot. It's also much more family friendly than most other jobs I could be doing (albeit lower paid).

When people make comments about how easy my job is or about me only working 'half the year' I always tell them that if they think their life would be better as a teacher, they should go ahead and do it. They never do!

The “you can’t make me” “you can’t touch me” attitudes were about in 1991 when I left secondary.

Fuckery... and that sort of thing when the come and apologise or sympathise is fantastiic and what keeps me in my job.

I love my job when students show that side of themselves😭and to be fair a lot of them do.

I am with you. So unhappy today. So tired of shouting to make myself heard and being spoken to like absolute rubbish. Completely drained and worn down with it all, but feeling trapped by the need for the salary and holidays to fit around my children.

Even early years and KS1 teaching is tough in some schools. I'm not teaching at the moment but I have been kicked, punched, spat at, called a c**t (by 4/5/6/7 year olds), threatened by parents, you name it. The early interventions, multi-agency working, SALT support, inclusion etc that was available a few years ago has been largely sucked out and the current government's expectations for 4 and 5 year olds are preposterous.

thetwinkletoescollective and middlingmum
I taught in tough secondary schools for 20 years and agree with every word of your posts.

I would add that the following measures would at least alleviate some of the worst problems :

• one Union, which could be trusted, as opposed to the toothless current ones
• one exam board which issues its own KS4 and 5 schemes of work
• removal of AHTs on low teaching timetables, with the saved money funding more teachers and TAs, thus smaller classes
• Schools’ ability to exclude without financial penalty allowed for agreed breaches of disciplinary code
• Ofsted reporting staff turnover statistics, and listening to teachers’ exit surveys

Many years ago I worked as an LSA at an inner city hell hole primary school.

Violence, abuse, racist abuse.. those kids were utterly horrid. My respect for teachers has been very high since then. My own school was all girls private and we were a dream by comparison.

My husband is a secondary school teacher. He once gave a lad a detention slip for misbehaving and the lad ripped it up into pieces, threw it in my husband’s face and shouted, “I ain’t fucking going!” before laughing and running off.

My husband then rang the boy’s mother who told him she didn’t give a fuck and to stop bothering her. She then slammed the phone down.

The kids don’t care and the parents don’t care and the teachers are powerless.

I have no idea why anyone would want to teach in a Secondary school.