Is behaviour this bad in all schools now?!

[Growingmyhairout]

I am a supply teacher who's in a long term role but don't think I can deal with it.
I'm in a non core subject which doesn't help, one that pupils find difficult and don't have to do a GCSE in.
I was covering a 2 week sickness in one boys school, but couldn't have done anymore as behaviour was awful.
I'm now at what's been called a very challenging school. However I've walked past some other lessons and all kids are silent pretty much.
I've been here for a few weeks now so the kids know I'm not there just for a day or anything, yet no improvements.
I've been suggested to ring parents but if I did I'd be making 45 calls an evening which there is just not the time to do, especially for £110 a day gross.
I do give detentions, warnings etc. But it doesn't make much difference.
Some kids will just get up and walk out of your lesson when they feel like it. Or kids who aren't even in your lesson will turn up and sit in the room.
Coats on, phones out, earphones in, eating. When I tell them not to, some kids will listen but some will literally just ignore you. Swinging on chairs, shouting across the room, fighting, swearing.
Each lesson I send a few out to other classrooms which helps to an extent.
The worst are cover lessons though, as I'm used for cover as well as my own classes. Cover is an absolute nightmare.
I record everything but don't know what difference it makes.
Throwing things across the room, putting make up on. Answering me back very rudely.
Just all talking loudly and ignoring me. I refuse to shout over them as I've already got a hoarse voice from raising it.
I email heads of year, sometimes they will come in if they're not busy.
Some lessons are alright, but there's an insane level of disrespect.
As I said I've been here a few weeks now, how long is it going to take?
I've got a TA in all lessons which I'm really grateful about, but they don't seem to respect her much either.
We had an ok class this morning once the worst were removed, but had an absolutely horrendous year 7 group. She said she'd never seen a school like it.
I've been offered long-term, part time cover in another school. I'm tempted to go, but I'm thinking what's the point?
It's just going to be the same everywhere isn't it? I'm not expecting kids to sit in absolute silence for 5 hours a day but the behaviour is unacceptable. I'll be trying to speak and many students will just carry on having their own conversation.
I also feel like I'd be letting down the school who've even given me a TA when most other teachers don't get one.
I feel like a failure as a teacher. I think I've been firm but fair, but I don't think I can do this. Is behaviour really this bad in all schools?

Love it 😀

Straight down and to the point. Telling it like it is!

Off topic, but I'm fed up with reading these excuses such as My phone always corrects 'were' to 'we're' - it's enraging.

It isn't obligatory to use predictive text, is it? If you are enraged, switch it off.

It'd be a hell of a lot better than what we have now when schools and society in general pander to the lowest common denominator and put up with crime and bad behaviour in the name of "inclusion". It does nobody any good.

Never going to happen. Imagine the extra policing it would require, the levels of street crime, stabbings, thefts, AB, etc. Far cheaper to just keep them all in school.

Sympathise with you Growingmyhair out.
There's little to compare with teaching lessons like the ones you're described. I've had similar recent experiences as a supply. The feeling for me is a sad combination of futility, exasperation and numb resignation I find; and I've always thought my class control skills pretty good over my teaching career.
Try not to take it personally; I think it is often a virtually impossible situation in many classes I have seen, even if you do have some support. It all depends on how much you need the job really. You're certainly letting no-one down.
I do wonder if this sort of behaviour is becoming education's 'elephant in the room', or has it always been this bad? A really serious sanction for chronic poor behaviour is needed; one that put's teachers in control; not the pupils or the parents.
Currently nothing is taken seriously by many of the students I teach, and other teachers either have little time or inclination to give real support. Some kids have tough lives of course, but then so do many who don't behave like this, and I'm unsure if emphasis on this excuse is really helping anyone in the long term.
It's a mess.

Former teacher here - yes it’s this bad now. It is in every school I’ve taught in anyway - all very deprived areas. I have multiple friends who have been hospitalised after assaults from students. I personally had my hand broken by some Y8 boys.

There are a lot of factors (poverty, austerity, social media etc) but also terrible school management. SLTs constantly in denial about the extent of the problem, even when in the case of my school a young person ended her own life because of the relentless bullying (at least in part). I couldn’t do it anymore after the hand incident so I’m no longer working in schools.

Agree @Florenz - the wishy washy inclusion approach isn’t working, we tried it and it failed. It’s dangerous for the children who are attending the school and means no one can learn. It creates a postcode lottery that holds the well behaved students back.

Pretty sure I’ve taught at the school you are referring to lol. It was dreadful!! Now working with mental health and a student from That School has contacted me to say they are fearful for their life -they’re 12!!

Know it’s not pc but mid 80s the less academic lads were taken out by the very practical huge welsh male deputy head and taught bricklaying / tiling / they dug a swimming pool and built that. They enjoyed it got respect and learned useful skills and weren’t in lessons stopping everyone else learning French.

This probably won’t be popular but I think it is a British thing. DS is a student teacher of high school history in Aus, his placements so far have been two public (State) schools and one all boys’ Catholic school. He says the kids are great, the Y7 and 8s where it is a compulsory subject rather than an elective can be a bit “chatty” but in general the kids are respectful to the teachers and good natured. My experience of schools here with three kids is that bad behaviour is just not the norm or tolerated.

TheaBrandt · Today 10:25
Know it’s not pc but mid 80s the less academic lads were taken out by the very practical huge welsh male deputy head and taught bricklaying / tiling / they dug a swimming pool and built that. They enjoyed it got respect and learned useful skills and weren’t in lessons stopping everyone else learning French

What an interesting headmaster. He most likely wouldn’t be allowed to do that now because of Health and Safety. Some clever people think through their hands, but not through things on paper so much, unless they are drawing plans. Some academic people like to work with their hands too.

How much of our tax is going to these wastes of space - I think I'm referring to the parents here mainly - Billions of pounds which could be put to helping health or improving homes. Just ridiculous. Then there's the thousands paying twice so DCs go private.

At my school we had greenhouses and chicken coups etc and a lot of those lads would have been in there with the science teacher who managed them all. I think these sort of alternative provisions were fairly standard but tailing off by the time I was at secondary in the mid 80's to early 90's.

I watched "Walking on the Moon" the other day on Youtube, an ITV drama from the late 90s about typical school life. It's more from the side of the victim of bullying and the inability or unwillingness of adults to resolve it, but it's a good drama and I remember watching it when it was originally broadcast thinking how true to life it was.

The reasons for kids being left running riot, to the extent they nearly kill people, range from the usual lack of resources, through not wanting to damage the school's reputation, to not wanting to deal with parents' wrath after their darling has been excluded. Human reasons, but ones that fail everyone.

The point is, rude, disrespectful and downright violent pupils are nothing new, neither is authority turning a blind eye. What's changed since then is that society has become more tolerant yet more polarised. In the 90s children were seen as capable of being inherently bad (remember the lynch mob chasing the prison van with the Bulger killers) therefore teachers weren't automatically deemed at fault for intervening when there was bad behaviour.

Nowadays the presumption is that the child is innocent, and if they did something bad there are probably reasons to excuse their behaviour, such as a medical condition or poor home life. Teachers risk assault or public humiliation and criminal investigation if they directly intervene, and any punishment or intervention that is not physical simply doesn't work.

In summary, yes schools are bad, yes they're worse than they used to be (and they were bad enough in the 80s and 90s) but they are the product of the society we live in.