Who would want to be a teacher now?

[Painauchocolats]

I've just read an article (found on the DM) that a 53 year old teacher has taken her own life before she was due to appear in court for accidentally catching a pupil's hair. This was whilst she tried to confiscate the girl's mobile phone.

A male teacher (also in the DM) faces being struck off for shouting 'Who the hell do you think you are?" At some pupils who filmed tik toks during his lesson, and slammed his hand on the desk.

Sometimes teachers lose their temper, especially if this behaviour is incessant. Who can blame them? This is why pupils' behaviour is so poor these days, because there are no consequences, and because of things like this.

I left teaching a good few years ago but in my last school we had some pupils and parents like this. They were designated "signposted parents / pupils" by management and staff were all instructed to give them preferential treatment to avoid parental complaints or potentially negative talk in the local community. They knew who they were and what they could get away with and so did the other pupils. Any staff deemed inappropriate in their treatment of these pupils were reprimanded by management.

Unsupportive management can break teachers and I have no doubt that things are even worse now.

You left teaching a good while ago, IIRC, @ilovesooty .

Some individual schools have always been awful to work at, and some are now.

If things have got worse in the last couple of years it suggests lock down and online school have likely expedited this

No fault of teachers. Government suspended the curriculum.

(that’s from a teacher who did teach live lessons from lockdown 1 day 1)

“Every boy quotes his rights and shoots off home for his father as soon as I look at him … No guts … No backbone …”

That’s from Kes, published in 1968.

There were assaults a-plenty on both teachers and students throughout my education (1985-1999.)

Then the 2000s came and they were the years of inclusion, VAK and so on.

Then Gove, and super strict academies had a push back from Ban the Booths and Paul Dix. Supported by the main teaching union - thanks for that.

What are these kids going to be like when they enter the world of work ? Behave like this at work and they will go through the door sharpish

Like the police, teachers need to wear cameras to protect themselves.

I would question where the child heard that as primary. But if it was said in secondary it's really not the end of the world for their generation which we need to remember, sex jokes/insults are thrown around as much as calling someone spotty was 20 years ago. Middle class parents are more likely to be working, so the child getting YouTube time so I would guess they have more challenging range of insults used out of context. I do find it strange that teachers are expected to get involved in what happens outside of lessons once they are out of primary.

unfortunately, this is what I fear for society in the future. This behaviour is common place in schools - it will seep into the workplace and be common place in future.

We once had a y10 sent back from work experience before 11am on day one. He'd rocked up late (standard) without a by your leave, took objection to be asked to wear some safety gear (standard) and used foul language to the boss (standard).
It was an employer he had chosen. His parents suggested that didn't see what the problem was.

I moved from teaching to working with prolific offenders and substance misusers. I could count on one hand the times I was subjected to aggressive behaviour or abuse in 15 years, and on the rare occasions it happened I was always fully supported by management.

Absolutely.

I think the schools that are dreadful to work in are undoubtedly more common than when I was teaching - I have a lot of friends still in teaching.

My DS said the same . Became disheartened. He thought he could make a difference. He felt so sorry for the minority who wanted to learn but couldn't. He had a class discussion about learning and a lot of the boys said they didn't care because they were getting a job plastering / bricklaying etc with their dads or uncles uncles when they left school .

It’s not real. Giady, new account, won’t accept they’re unreasonable, all the hallmarks.

Goady, not giady.

Make things free and people stop valuing them.

I'm not suggesting an end to free education, but maybe if pupils consistently disrupt learning their parents should have to pay for the cost of the disruption? I know, it's not practical.

My BIL came over from Oz to teach. Taught for a year in London. It was enough to put him off teaching for life - literally. This was in the 1990's. In his words, the kids were feral. The parents were worse.

SLT need to do a lot of things, but they don't ...

Problem is that the age, quality and experience of SLT has been decreasing.

As a PP said, teaching isn't bad when you're in your 20s. It's decent money at that point and it didn't seem so big an ask to spend all my time working. I could stay up till 2am marking/planning after a day of teaching plus parents evening, and still do a days work the next day. But when my children were young, and me in my 30s, I found it absolutely impossible to get any balance. I eventually left teaching.

But that's just one of the reasons that retention in teaching is terrible. More experienced teachers are leaving, or not being appointed because school budgets are so tight that they can't afford an experienced teacher on the upper pay spine. You find whole schools these days where the teachers are all younger than the parents and SLT is made up of people who would never have been considered to have enough management experience 20 years ago. There's less and less staff who would actually have a clue or the clout to sort out behaviour in a school.

And this is not a dig at younger/less experienced teachers. A school needs to have both. These days, we're lucky if our kids school has enough actual teachers, let alone worry about how much experience they have. Our new teachers haven't got anyone to learn from - if I was doing ITT now, I don't think I'd have ever taken up my first position.

I feel bad for kids and young peopel these days as the world isn't as fun or as easy as it used to be but the problem with the worst kids who sit there ignoring the teacher then telling mummy and daddy that the teacher lost their temper is they're going to be the ones who really struggle when they grow up and enter the real world. It won't even be their fault as it's their parents who have assured them their needs come before any else's and they don't have to show respect to those who provide them a service eg education.

Worrying that 6% voted you're being unreasonable, OP, though no prizes for guessing what sort of parents this represents ...

I voted that the OP was being unreasonable. I think there is a lot of hyperbole about behaviour generally: it’s always been bad in some areas, schools, classes.

I actually had this post in mind when reading the OP. I commented on it I think.. something like imagine this parent times 100 times over. Its relentless. I won't even begin listing everything that happened to me and my colleagues in schools over the years, it would go on forever. It's just not worth it. Thank god I left when I did.

It has always been bad in some schools, but when you talk to those in other schools you start to realise that a lot of schools who have not previously had problems are starting to struggle now.
There is a common theme, more high needs children in mainstream, less TA support and long waiting lists for specialist support.

But equally, some schools plagued with problems once don’t have those problems now.

It is mostly about really good leadership who aren’t afraid to make tough decisions when needed. I know the super strict Michaela type schools are controversial and I don’t agree with all the methods used, but a lot of them are a reaction against the blame the teacher, too much teacher talk, engaging lessons will mean no behaviour problems attitudes that surfaced towards the end of the 90s and stayed until the 2010s. Then we had a push against that - including by the NEU.