To think many parents don't know what schools are like these days?

[AyeAyeShipAhoy]

It's something I've noticed quite a bit on many threads about teachers and schools. Some parents refer back to their own school days and use that to inform them as to what happens, but things have very much changed since I was at school.

As a teacher (primary) it's one of the hardest jobs I've done (this is my 2nd career, I was in management before so used to hard work and pressure). For one, the workload is huge and regularly spills into my evenings and weekends, affecting my own family time. Then there's the behaviour. But it's also one of the most rewarding jobs too and why I enjoy it.

The positives - a child that has struggled with a concept, getting it right and feeling proud of themselves, and knowing you made a difference. Supporting those kids who can struggle with their learning.

The negatives - being verbally abused - called a f*ing a*hole, cnt and a paedophile. Told to fuck off and been slapped and kicked and dodged flying objects thrown over the years.

I'll be honest, in my first career I never considered this was what was happening in schools. I remember being at school and kids doing low level stuff (humming, whole toilet rolls down the loo - this at secondary though - primary was fine!). It's been a real eye opener seeing what behaviour is like now.

So, teachers, what's your best and worst experiences.

And parents, how aware are you of what actually happens in schools and the workload? Are you aware? Or is this an eye-opener for you too?

PS I feel teaching is a hard job, but not THE hardest job, so this thread is not meant as a competition.

Frank chalk's books give a very scary insight into some secondary schools these days. Although even these are getting on a bit now.

The best part - every day is different and there’s never a dull moment.

The worst part - parents interfering, paperwork, class sizes. There truly is only so much you can do with 30 kids with 5 ability levels.

I am a parent.
I have never heard of the swearing, name calling, and throwing things in the primary at all! Neither ours or anyone I know.
In secondary, I do hear about some older children smoking, and a sharp object smuggled in. Which must have been quite an awful thing for the teachers to deal with.
On the workload, I am at a loss of why is it so much? The curriculum does not change that much from year to year. So you should have most of it ready. The work that they give to mine is not that much. And on the later years it is on-line, so you do not need to even print it. When I was a child though, the teacher did not print anything for us. We had to copy it from the board or our book ourselves.
On the reading of work/ exams, I can see it spilling over your own time once they are on the later years.
Can you elaborate a bit why it takes you the extra time?

HRM, I guess it depends on your point of reference. I went to a rough school in a rough area where the following were fairly regular: big violent fights with kids throwing tables around, breaking windows, doing proper punching; classmates getting picked up by the police at registration for what they'd done the night before (they would have gone AWOL after register which is why the police used to come then); gas, glue, smack etc in the toilets, you never went there to pee that wasn't what they were for; sexual assaults a part of life although they did pay attention when there was an actual rape; paedo head teacher (ended up in prison which I understand was rare but he was fucking blatant); parents fighting and gobbing off about kid fights, couple of incidents where one pulled a knife on the other; parents marching into school and swearing at senior staff about I don't even know what fucking imagined slight which we as kids thought was funny but must have been rough on teachers. I now live in a different town and my own kids' schools have their issues but don't seem as bad.

I realised that what people thought school was like was out of step through lock down.
I think that a lot of people thought think that we stand in front of rows of kids and talk at them.

@MushMonster

The curriculum changes often. I have been teaching 16 years and have just spent all summer planning this term's new Key Stage 3 curriculum.

It takes us the extra time because we teach from 8.30-3.15 and run extra-curricular after that. All admin takes place outside of these hours, and the admin hours match the teaching hours.

The work load question from my perspective - preparing resources daily from scratch, whiteboard screens and worksheets/partner tasks etc for several ability groups. No two year groups are the same. Marking at least 60 books per day. Formative assessments. Contacting parents. Documenting causes for concern. Planning for other adults.

Agree that the admin jobs plus planning and marking are equal to the teaching hours.
(Not the 10% PPA allocated!)

I'm a parent of a child with SEND who desperately needs a specialist school as she can't cope with the environment but there is no suitable specialist provision available for her and I genuinely wouldn't cope with her at home for EOTAS. She's only in year 1 and really struggles.

Fortuantly her insults are very typical 5 year old "butthead", "poo poo head" and occasionally "idiot". However she is a runner and I'm fairly sure her 1-1 spends the majority of 9-3 trying to keep DD where she is meant to be. She has on occasion been incredibly violent in school but her mainstream are actually very good for SEN. The violence has been awful, she has hit, kicked, thrown things at staff. She also badly bit a teacher last year. HOWEVER, the school and I have put everything into identifying triggers and putting together a 14 page document on exactly how to manage her, to de-escalate before it gets to that point. I think her 1-1 Has been slapped twice this year and a child has been hurt once since she started reception. The school working so closely with me has meant she isn't getting to that point as easily anymore. Her 1-1 is incredible, she knows DD and her cues as well as I do.

I know my DD can be disruptive but her 1-1 can take her out of the classroom as soon as she starts getting silly. She gets sensory breaks all the time. She gets OT input. She has Elsa and literacy and all sorts of provisions. Im 90% sure her entire day at school is spent not losing her and managing her emotions and the other 10% is some sort of learning.

The first time she kicked off in school I went home and cried, the idea of her hurting anyone makes me want to throw up but we all know she shouldn't be there.

I think the real crime is how kids who need specialist schools can't access them because there just isn't the provision available. Mainstreams are told they have to take them and given whatever funds they need but they can't get rid of most the kids or make the routine rigid etc.

Kids are being failed and it's them and teachers and other kids who have to pay the price :(

Oh, I forgot staff meeting and after school clubs.

I also think that schools are just too big now too.
It's quite overwhelming for some kids.

Also my DD is reasonably lucky as she goes to a "naice" school in a priveledged area so the school are only dealing with her being so challenging in her year. I know many schools have several DDs in each class.

I'm not a teacher but it does always annoy me when people say teachers have it easy on 9-3:20🙄all the people i know who are teachers work way harder and longer than I do. Teaching is not an easy job by any means.

Mush

the workload, I am at a loss of why is it so much? The curriculum does not change that much from year to year. So you should have most of it ready

Eh, really?, shows how much you know.
The children change from year to year ( no sh*t Sherlock)...assessment, planning cycle, meeting individual needs of 30 different children every year ...

Teachers also have to differentiate, so they don't just teach the same thing to all the pupils in the class.

The primary schools I deal with were rewriting their curriculum plans during lockdown

To the pp who thinks that we churn out the same old stuff year after year, no, he curriculum changes ALL the time. In its great wisdom the exam board brought in brand new A level specs followed a year later with brand new GCSE specs in my subject. No text books and very little teaching material support because it is a subject that not all schools teach and therefore they would not make money on them I assume. It took me three years working most weekends and holidays to produce classroom materials. The exam board in its great wisdom totally changed the content from the old spec without bothering to check if information on the new topics was available (it was not). The recommended texts they gave included many no longer in publication, or were ridiculously expensive - one cost over £100 and had ONE page of relevant information.

It is also an ongoing piece of work. I have to keep up to date with the news as many of the topics deal with ongoing and changing situations.

@MushMonster I have 30 pupils, and English and Maths work is differentiated according to ability. In English I have two different levels - those who are working at expected level and those who are not. In Maths in can be as many as 4 different levels - I have some pupils who are 2 years behind and others who are working above the level expected, so they need to be stretched. I have to provide this differentiated learning for each Maths and English lesson, each day. Then I have to mark it - that's 60 books - each day.
Then there is RE, Topic, ICT, Science, PSHE, MFL. I have to read the schemes of learning and find/create resources for these. Then mark them - 6x30=180 books to mark each week.
Then on top of that I have to assess progress and attainment, talk to any parents, deal with behaviour and log any concerns I have, do break/lunch duty, attend staff meetings after school.

We also have had a slight change to curriculum due to covid, so we are doing things differently to catch up those months lost learning.

@Mumofsend

That's so hard for her and for you, and of course the staff and other children. The lack of funding for places like your DD is a disgrace, but I'm glad to hear she has a 1:1 to help support her.

Yanbu. I used to be an early years teacher and that was an eye opener for me op! Many assume it's 'just playing in the sand' but my word the early learning goals set by the government are bloody ambitious! The pressure to make sure the children achieve so highly is huge and of course everything has to be documented for evidence of you doing this which is both time-wasting and stressful! Definitely not for me but I really do admire teachers.

Oh, not to mention the marking - Ilst year I taught 8 non exam classes (30 students in each on average) plus three GCSE classes - two of them very large top sets, and three A level classes. This with a managment team that insist on triple marking - ie we mark, the kids respond, we respond to the kids response (utterly bonkers). All of this has to be written feedback with different coloured pens - it takes hours.

Add to that writing a report for each child, an assessment test to be written, marked and recorded six times a year. Meetings twice a week after work and twice a week before work, parents evenings, open house for new students in key stage 3 and 5, awards ceremonies in the evening, preparing for data meetings once every half term for key stage 4 and key stage 5, writing reports for NQTS and trainees, writing up lesson observations and performance management which is constantly being reviewed.

It's exhausting! So, yeah that is what teachers do. Oh and we also teach - well I used to - I have now left teaching.

I do have to say though the holidays are great and I think the pay is good.

@PurpleFlower1983 what do you mean by parents interfering? Have had 2 conversations this weekend about A level teachers 20 years ago openly saying they were only offering additional lessons to the higher grade students. I can’t imagine that happening now, could it?

I do have to say though the holidays are great and I think the pay is good

The holidays are great. But I’m an NQT and my wages are shit. When you get on UPS it looks ok, but I consider myself to be badly paid right now.

The parents are what will drive me out of education without a shadow of a doubt. Their ludicrous expectations and constant carping criticism are exhausting and demoralising. It’s a minority I agree but a loud and relentless minority all the same

I am a parent.
I am a parent too. And a teacher (Secondary)
I have never heard of the swearing, name calling, and throwing things in the primary at all! Neither ours or anyone I know.
The schools don’t exactly shout it from the rooftops. Even in my DD’s primary I only heard that one of her classmates regular hit other children but because my DD wasn’t involved, I didn’t hear about it.

In secondary, I do hear about some older children smoking, and a sharp object smuggled in. Which must have been quite an awful thing for the teachers to deal with.
Try having a dislocated shoulder after being attacked by a pupil who was aiming for another pupil and having to walk to the local A and E yourself and back in work the next day with the perpetrators merely getting 5 days at home as a consequence. You write as if the OP’s experience is either played down, exaggerated or not true. Being so dismissive is contributing to the problem.

On the workload, I am at a loss of why is it so much? The curriculum does not change that much from year to year. So you should have most of it ready.
I am on my third consecutive year of a GCSE syllabus exam change (Computer Science) alone. Please acknowledge your ignorance in this area before making negative assumptions. In addition, if a teacher merely taught the exact same lesson year on year, ignoring the different children in from of them, they wouldn’t be good teachers (children are not a one size fits all.)

The work that they give to mine is not that much. And on the later years it is on-line, so you do not need to even print it.
I have since lockdown, had to move all my homework tasks that were written in paper based booklets, to Teams due to quarantine guidelines and I am spending far more time outside of the school day on it than I did before when I marked the booklets. Some reasons include:

1. I now get many emails from different pupils daily complaining they are having tech issues and asking for help-you don’t get that with paper and pen.
2. It takes me about and hour and a half to even just create just a 10 question quiz, including typing up the questions, assigning marks, thinking of all the different ways pupils can write the answers and including them, copying and uploading to each class.
3. Takes me longer to mark them and write feedback as Teams gets the ‘circle of doom’ at every click, I also have to the post scores individually and then return back to each student individually. To mark in an exercise book is much faster as I am not relying on an internet connection.

I spent about 3 hours just this afternoon marking only 4 of my classes of 33 to 34 pupils alone.

When I was a child though, the teacher did not print anything for us. We had to copy it from the board or our book ourselves.
Thank you for at least this brief acknowledgment that the OP might well be right with things being different than when we were at school. That was really just the point of the opening post.

On the reading of work/ exams, I can see it spilling over your own time once they are on the later years.
Why not Primary? Both classwork and homework have to be marked daily.
Can you elaborate a bit why it takes you the extra time?
Hope the above elaboration has helped you and that you will try to refrain from such dismissive opinions on a job that you know little about. I know I never claim to assume I know what other people do in their jobs.

You have, however, proven that there are some parents who do only refer back to their own childhood and make incorrect assumptions, so that has been useful.