To want to walk out of this school today

[Coronationstreet]

I'm only covering a couple of weeks' leave as a supply teacher so my last day is a week on Friday, but even that seems impossible.
The year 7 and 8 classes are good. Not perfect,but manageable.
9 are ok. Year 10, it depends.
Year 11 however are absolutely despicable.
It's a massive top set, 34 of them. Didn't even have enough desks yesterday

Take in a whistle or a foghorn and every time the noise levels get unacceptable, blow it till they do stop talking.

I had a language teacher in 90s who slammed books down on class to get attention and if that didn't work blew a whistle. But I don't think behavior in my school was that bad and they were supported by management. and that's weak in DS school.

Tell them you will not be teaching that class. Let them swap a scary permanent teacher into their timetable and you take a more manageable class.

I have friends and family - teachers and ex teachers - and I think a lot of people are genuinely clueless how bad some schools can be. One is a thousand times happier now she's an ex teacher. It really isn't worth it.

That’s awful.
At our Primary school, the “ Naughty” boy asked a supply teacher if she “ Wanted a shag”.
Most of us didn’t know what it was ( I thought it was a sea bird), but “Miss” burst into tears, ran out, and the Deputy Head came in and pulled Thomas out.

One does despair for Soci

To all the people banging on about how much better behaviour is in a private school, not in my experience. I did 2 terms of private work alongside my usual P/T job in a wonderful state school. A sizeable number of the kids in the private school were rude, disrespectful and arrogant little shits. In my normal school, the odd kid tries it on periodically. I deal with it firmly and that's it.

I also did supply in a different state school. The year 11s were so desperate to have someone who knew the subject and were delightful, as were the year 10s. The year 7 and 8s were dreadful. The SLT gave zero fucks - no surprise as when I took on a year's work there, they condoned bullying of staff by other staff. A terrible school.

OP, I would go for playing something really loud and annoying until they shut up. Hopefully if you disturb enough other staff, you might get SLT in. Sadly, as has been said previously, behaviour is down to the ethos of the SLT. I personally loathe the way kids are treated at Michaela and think that the Head is a disgrace to the profession. There is another less draconian way that does yield equally good results.

@Coronationstreet This could have been me writing this. Unfortunately I was not supply but permanent and a HOD to boot. I had over 30yrs experience, a reputation for good discipline and class control and the school I moved from had a good support system for dealing with in class incidents but the school I moved to had no such thing. I was expected to teach a group of feral children in a ground floor 'annex' with four doors out of the room. Trying to keep the students in the room was like trying to keep water in a colander. The subject was HE but the students had been told by a previous teacher that they probably wouldn't be able to sit the GCSE so they thought 'what was the point'. They spent their time devising ways of annoying me. Once when I was demonstrating choux pastry, I had a dirty old shoe thrown at me. Two of the students had parents who were governors (no pressure then) The upshot of all this was that 75% of the class did the exam, several got the higher grades and I left in the August! Worst job of my life!

Could you speak to the HOD? If a supply teacher said these things to me about a class, I would take that group and have the supply take the class I should be teaching

Chances are the other class would do the same.

My god. Who would be a teacher? What the fuck are parents teaching their kids that they are so disrespectful? Horrible little shits.

Edit: One does despair for society as a whole ,with this type of bad behaviour. ( Threatening a teacher with scissors)
OP is really just being a childminder here for louts.

I'd have been out the minute scissors were pointed at me.

Tell them you’ll stay to teach the other classes, but not Year 11. SLT can take it turns to have them.

I just Googled “Michaela” school-
It definitely seems to get good results in a “ Deprived”
(Head teacher’s term) area.
It looks a little draconian in parts ( The chanting) but the students in the video seem to be disciplined and happy.
The “ Silent corridors” mean there is no “
Running, fights and shrieking “
It is way better than allowing kids to run riot in my opinion.

I’d walk too. And I’m a cover manager. Totally unrealistic to be expected to teach a language you don’t speak. And they know behaviour is crap in that lesson.
(in fact go and see the poor cover manager and give the heads up you’re going, otherwise they will be tearing their hair out trying to get a replacement.)

Definitely leave. SLT sound dreadful. You don’t have to put up with this.

Sadly a shocking proportion of Yr 11 boys don’t think they have to listen to female teachers.

As a supply teacher, you’re not paid much, can’t pay into the Teacher Pension scheme and have little job security. What you do have is freedom of labour.
I’m a supply teacher, after decades in the classroom. If a school or a class is not a good match for me, after giving it my best shot, I walk.
Politely and calmly, I explain my reasons and I go. There are always others to fill your place, maybe not as good, but that’s not your problem. You have the right to enjoy your job, to feel you’ve accomplished something at the end of the day.
It’s not you, the responsibility is with the school, the teenagers and the parents.
You’re an educator, not a MMA referee or a member of the UN Peacekeeping force. You are not a verbal punchbag for the frustrations of youngsters who see a target.
If that specific job is making you stressed, feel a failure and afraid for your safely. If your stomach clenches and your body tenses as you step on school grounds, if you can’t sleep adequately the night before and you feel defensive and miserable…just stop.
Thee are other places who need supply that have got their acts together and will support staff.

I couldn't agree more.

Does the school have permissions for in-class recording?

If so, it might be worth requesting a lesson observation via video and taking footage to a meeting with their head of year.

The HOY will absolutely be able to speak to the class and threaten/implement harsher punishments - eg bans from end of year balls/outings, which the kids do usually give a shit about.

Make sure you use all of the school behavioural systems first, though. Dish out full hour after school detentions every lesson for every child who's involved so you can show the HOY that you have utilised all other behavioural sanctions.

It's so hard when you get a class like this, OP.

They're just kids though! Kids who hate the subject and have no respect for supply. It's not about YOU! Don't take it personally and don't let it make you feel bad.

Leave. Its not worth it.
I remember supply teachers in our school had a hard time. Nobody respected them. Except one woman who was a hoot...until she started a water fight in the classroom, and pulled out a massive super soaker water gun (!). It was great fun for a few minutes until the head walked in and we never saw her after that!!

The few that want to learn and are well behaved can you ask them to all sit together near you and you just teach them - give them work to do and just ignore the rest and explain to the Head why you have taken this approach. It seems it may be easier to teach the few who are willing to learn than to try and control the rest sadly

Perhaps select 2 or 3 of the worst and phone parents after lesson.
Otherwise if you decide to stay I suggest giving them basic worksheet type tasks to do if they won't listen at all eg wordsearches; list of words in English for them to write the MFL version (or VV); sentences/paragraphs to translate; piece of writing in the MFL for them to highlight or underline verbs/adjectives/ nouns etc in different colours.
So basically aiming to keep them occupied with a relevant task in the hope of reducing their unacceptable behaviour. Other than that just be as assertive as you can, going round while they are 'working' addressing individuals (Your behaviour is unacceptable, get on with the task I have given you).
But no-one would blame you if you decided not to stay.

Thanks so much for all these suggestions, sorry not had time till now to read them.
I've got them in 30 mins and dreading it but I'm going to give it one last try.
Another issue is that the interactive whiteboard is constantly breaking down so PowerPoints keep going off, sound not working etc. And then kids use this as a chance to also mess about. I always get IT in but it's just recurring problems.
Just been told to shut up by a year 7. Imagine being in the school for less than a week, being 11 and telling your teacher to shut up!

I also give them activities that they can get on with, many do it but just talk loudly at the same time. Some just sleep on the desk. Feel so bad for the well behaved ones, why should they have their gcse year affected?

Feel so bad for the well behaved ones, why should they have their gcse year affected?

It is very shit for those students - but even as a parent of such a student I can see you need to put yourself first.

I this afternoon is bad I would put in complaints about poor IT and class behavior and either get agency to move you to another school/placement or try refusing this one class.

This is what I don't understand about some schools - there's a teacher shortage, loads leaving the profession even year, it's getting harder and harder to find well-qualified staff, harder to find good supply staff, especially so in shortage subjects. So every school would surely realise it's in their own interests to be doing everything they can to support the supply staff, whether it be helping to address problems with poor behaviour or otherwise, so they keep hold of them, and benefiting the school both in the continuity in education for their students but also because it will be less likely they'll be left in a situation of literally not having anyone to teach the classes (and be left with a new problem to deal with). You'd think this would be obvious to all school management but unfortunately not.

Oh and on the issue of private schools.. at a highly regarded independent school I once taught at I knew of at least two supply teachers who decided to leave suddenly due to poor behaviour, or more accurately I should say lack of support from senior management when trying to deal with poor behaviour. It's not exclusively a state school problem.

How did it go OP?

That would require school management to admit that they had allowed behaviour in their school to disintegrate. They will always blame individual teachers (for having poor behaviour management, for not planning interesting enough lessons, for not doing enough to build relationships with the kids) rather than do this.