To think schools are toxic to work in

[Anon331]

Overreaction or accurate description?

I’m a teacher btw. Senior managers are bullies. Talk to you like you’re beneath them. Belittle you infront of kids and other staff. But if you dare raise this then you’re being unreasonable and causing problems!

Never worked anywhere that wasn’t in education. Been in schools for more years than I care to mention.

The reason you get two polar opposite responses on threads like this is because you’re either ‘in with the crowd’ or your face doesn’t fit and you get bullied. Teaching is toxic.

@malificent7

Well workplaces are toxic to work in full stop!

Ridiculous sweeping generalisation. I've worked in plenty that aren't, both in and out of education.

Unfortunately I have worked in one absolutely toxic school, led by a toxic headteacher.

I think you do have to be wary of gossip about SLT. I once had a partner teacher who was a very nice person but genuinely should not have ever been allowed to become a teacher. She wasn’t clever enough. We were teaching Year 4 and she had no grasp of the basics of grammar to the extent that I could sometimes not comprehend her emails at all. She asked me what a rainforest was a week into a rainforest unit and when we did a year group assembly she struggled to read a book aloud competently.

She was eventually placed on informal capability and chose to leave. She told everyone (including me) that it was because of SLT picking on her and this was believed by all as she was a lovely colleague and no one else had actually experienced how bad she was in class / to work alongside. I kept out of it but I believe SLT had no choice - they could have worked with her and supported her (which they did initially) but I don’t think she could ever have been a good teacher sadly. The children deserved better.

I will never go back into education. Thankfully I got out a few years ago.
Some staff members should not be working in schools.
Last place I ever worked in, bad enough listening to the toxic bitching in the staffroom, but some, including SLT would do this in front of students.
Such a shame, used to be a school that warranted it's outstanding status. All pupils treated differently in relation to their sn, closely worked with home etc. It all went to shit when slt became a click

Absolutely the majority of schools are like this. I work in my first wonderful school after 2 toxic ones. I am terrified of our head leaving. I also can't believe how poor my previous 2 heads were. It wasn't that they were bad teachers, it's that they had really poor people management skills. They would humiliate staff publically and be very snappy and unapproachable, and then wonder why staff would give very negative feedback in end of year questionnaires. Instead of taking the criticism on board, they would scold staff for being ungrateful, and remain us how lucky we were to work there compared to other schools... Such terrible management!

It totally depends on the school. I’ve worked in toxic environments before but my school is great.

All those saying it’s rare - I think you are the lucky ones. I’ve taught for 32 years in 9 different schools in 6 authorities (one independent schools) and only once in that time have I had a head I would consider working for again. There have been bullies, incompetents and outright narcissists. Middle managers are usually, but not always, better. Many of them are bullies looking to their own climb up the greasy pole too.
It’s widespread. I doubt I’ve been ‘unlucky’ so many times.

Try being an SMSA in primary, we are the absolute boys of shit. I joined an union myself, I argue back as well, I’m not very popular. In my school unless your face fits you may as well not be there. I have worked in a few places before this, was never treated like this

@Useruseruserusee

I think you do have to be wary of gossip about SLT. I once had a partner teacher who was a very nice person but genuinely should not have ever been allowed to become a teacher. She wasn’t clever enough. We were teaching Year 4 and she had no grasp of the basics of grammar to the extent that I could sometimes not comprehend her emails at all. She asked me what a rainforest was a week into a rainforest unit and when we did a year group assembly she struggled to read a book aloud competently.

She was eventually placed on informal capability and chose to leave. She told everyone (including me) that it was because of SLT picking on her and this was believed by all as she was a lovely colleague and no one else had actually experienced how bad she was in class / to work alongside. I kept out of it but I believe SLT had no choice - they could have worked with her and supported her (which they did initially) but I don’t think she could ever have been a good teacher sadly. The children deserved better.

Since she would have to have ad egret and a postgraduate qualification I find this very hard to believe to be honest.

Sorry had to have had a degree that should say.

I went to my MP about this in January and said that I was concerned about the toxic nature of leadership in the area as a result of Ofsted. This is many schools in my area including one who rang the pubs at Christmas asking them not to serve staff out drinking as she had not allowed them to go out. However I identified one other school in particular and a person high at risk of suicide because of the impact of SLT based on pressure coming from ofsted. I warned him this person would die as a result of ofsted putting pressure on the school. This person did end up committing suicide as a result. I am disgusted how we can preach so much about ensuring children's health and wellbeing but we don't model it ourselves.

@LyndaSnellsSniff must be at my school we don’t even get invited to the Xmas do, we get the kids Xmas dinner left overs. No one has spoken to us since the school shut in March, not contact, no meetings, nothing, not offer of PPE when we return nothing. Couldn’t give a shiny shit.

I think a lot of schools are as you describe. I've worked in seven or eight now, and only two have been supportive places to work, the current one included. I'd rather do my 30 mile commute and work there than travel 10 minutes to a typical school.

@NailsNeedDoing why aren’t your midday supervisors invited to staff events? They’re staff too and have built relationships with the children in their care. Very possibly they have a different dynamic with the children than the class teacher/TA-child dynamic and could be very valuable. Why shouldn’t they be included as part of the wider team. I found that unless I asserted myself and spoke to the class teacher/TA as an equal, I would be overlooked and belittled.

The school has a very active What’s App group which was constantly pinging with supportive “we are family” type memes and in-jokes but if one of the support staff asked a question, it was often met with tumble weed filled silence.

@pasteldechocolateconchispa ha! Yes, could be! Although, apparently we were invited to the Xmas do as the invitation was extended to the whole “X School Family” but it wouldn’t have been a particularly comfortable evening!

You know the children spend the equivlent of a year of lesson time during the eyfs and ks1 stage combined. Lunch time supervisors are very important.

I think schools are like lots of workplaces, some better than others but some structural aspects make it different resulting in a particular expression of bullying behaviour:

1. In secondary a lot SLT don't teach, they no longer do the job of those they manage, yet behave as if they know how to, clueless as to the daily life of the classroom.
2. SLT are under tremendous pressure from government and some send this downwards.
3. The ridiculous levels of accountability expected of teachers by successive governments result in the default position that teachers are not to be trusted.
4. Because schools are so rule-bound and instructional, the imperative mode spills over into SLT/staff relationships.

I've taught in eight different schools and been bullied in four of them. I left one with no job to go to it was so bad. In my last school in the UK the head and her "new" SLT were for the most part horrible and not up to their jobs. The HT turned a school that was challenging but do-able into a zoo within three years. So glad I got the chance to emigrate.

Having been bullied and seen it happen to others I can say it has nothing to do withe competence or otherwise of the victim, they just seem to pick a person. In one school I was told by another teacher that as the newest woman, I would be the DHT's target, and I was. She never picked on men.

On the other hand I've worked in lovely schools, though I think it's down to the quality of the SLT group.

One thing though, with one exception I can't think of a single HT who has been what I'd consider normal as a person, not cripplingly weird, but not quite right. Does the job do it to them, or is it a certain type who is drawn to the job?

@LyndaSnellsSniff, like I said, I’d never really thought about it before, but even if I had I’m only a TA so obviously don’t make the decisions about who’s invited. I’d guess ours wouldn’t be invited though because we wouldn’t want parents there, and the others we don’t really know.

@NailsNeedDoing that’s interesting because in our school most of the TAs were or are current parents as are most of the lunchtime staff. And yet...

I think you only have to look at the numbers who leave the teaching profession to see how difficult a job it is, and in some cases this will be a direct reflection of their working environment. I also do not think toxic school work environments are 'rare'! In fact, I think anyone who thinks it is must be quite naive (maybe they haven't taught in many schools?)

It's all very well the government trying to offer more and more financial incentives to recruit more trainees - it means nothing if people don't stay in the job for long. Last year new figures showed that new teachers leaving the profession after their first year were at their highest rate since records began in 1997 (source: DfE). Whilst there are different reasons for this, I've no doubt the pressure, workload and stress caused by senior management will have played a large part for many.

I used to be a lowly midday assistant and most of my old supervisors ended up leaving or getting another job in the school. Your looked down on from a great height and the supervisor is seen as a general 'dogs body '. The middays are barely registered.
I agree that many Heads are a certain type: the women are mostly bossy and the men let their other staff run the show. That's been my experience anyway ( my children moved around a lot with us and dh's job so I've had experience of many different schools as parent and employee)
I've no doubt that it's tough and horrible being a teacher ( especially these days) but Heads and management are a breed apart ! Or Maybe it's just the job that does it too them. It can't be easy to be fair.
It's sad so many places are toxic though.

@MillieEpple

You know the children spend the equivlent of a year of lesson time during the eyfs and ks1 stage combined. Lunch time supervisors are very important.

At lunch. I forgot the importany at lunch bit.

Echo..an uncanny amount of psychotic weirdos survive and thrive their way to the top....I spat my tea over the telly laughing at one of the heads on a BBC news item trying to look warm and effusive and saying how delighted he and his team were to have the kids back in at the start of term. The camera panned over his team and to a man they all grimaced sorry smiled....not quite reaching the eyes if you know what I mean.

I had a 2 year journey into teaching in FE after years in business.
I have never worked anywhere with such low morale or managed so badly by a man who literally thought he was God's representative on earth. He had layers beneath him. One woman manager shouted at me in a meeting. I told her I was leaving the meeting as she seemed to have lost control of herself. She could come find me when she got a grip. I found out that everyone else just sat and cowered.
Far easier ways to earn a very modest salary was my conclusion.

Many years, ago I did my work experience at a local primary school, so at 15 I found myself in a school staff room for the first time. I was shocked at the behavior I saw - it was just like school on the other side of that door. A particular teacher was blatantly bullying another, constantly took the piss out of her behind her back and thought it was hilarious to hide her lunch one day. The other teachers laughed along, just like kids do when they're too scared to stand up to a bulky and risk becoming the next object of their ridicule. I felt really uncomfortable being there and seeing it happen. Obviously that's just one expeirence, many moons ago.