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 have just resigned from my teaching job. It’s an awful job nowadays. I cannot wait until Easter when I get to kiss goodbye to my 20 year career!

I could fill pages and pages about the horrendous stuff teachers have to put up with, but would have to change my name first!

Unless you've been in the situation, you can't imagine how awful things can be.

I was almost unalived by thirteen years in the profession. Nuff said.

Exactly. I love my job but the question I'm continually asking myself is how would I act if the parents were watching? It's a useful rule of thumb but I also have times when I think I can't be that kind of teacher all the time and I need to be tougher. The other issue is not enough money for good support staff - TAs are right at the bottom of the pile in terms of respect and they're the ones who frequently run the gauntlet of having various items thrown at them. If the job of TA was better paid and support and better training offered, teachers would have a much easier job.

I would imagine being at or teaching at a small rural school in the 80s, was probably quite nice!

Now, the ones round here are nearly all part of massive MATs and have to follow some seriously bonkers academy guidance which is clearly written for the secondaries in the trust!

Some have classes of 30 year 3/4/5/6 and that poor teacher has to manage the planning alone. Even the bigger village schools that manage to have a year group per year, have nobody to share the planning with-it makes your workload huge.

A friend of mine teaches Y3 in a local rural school-she is also SENCo, deputy, in charge of phonics, history, geography and science, assessment and PP. She does assemblies twice a week, break duty most days, teaches virtually full time and has no TA! She is leaving teaching altogether at Easter…!

This, 100%, schools are now considered the first resort in sorting problems that are, in reality, usually caused by ineffectual parents and their deisre not to 'upset, ie say No, their sprogs.
I was once sitting with a group at a table and I slid an excercise book across to a girl who, because she was talking, missed it and it fell on her lap. The next day this had escalated by her parents into I threw a heavy text book at her, luckily their were too many witnesses to the truth but nowadays incidents like that can ruin a career or, as in this case, a life. I hope the brat with the phone is feeling proud of herself and it's known in the school and wider community who she is.

Schools and teachers that want too can easily take phones then return them.

I assure you that I've taught many students from whom it would be not be 'easy' to take a phone. Students whose parents would definitely not back the school in its right to remove their child's phone.

I remember we had a girl in year bloody 8 that many teachers were scared of. For whatever reason she was nice to me but she was atrocious in most other lessons. I just ignored her which wasn't the way to deal with it but I just couldn't put up with the hassle of her.
Once she brought a fake weapon of some sort into school. I remember the deputy head actually saying it's such a shame it wasn't a real one as they'd then have grounds to permanently exclude her.

@DisneyChops

Very hard. Especially when can't get rid of them.

There should be a default school to send them. Too. Or.a special unit.

Parents need to understand education is two way street and its a privalidge. One that can be removed and where they may then have to get their child to a school further away.

I saw a program which had an in house special support group for disruptive dc and they worked with the parenrs as well. It was amazing.

I honestly think, sad as it is, we are best going to some sort of oak academy style of learning for some lessons where children sit in booths and watch the lesson on screens and complete their work within in the booth. Security guards are employed with legal permissions to remove disruptive pupils who are sent to some sort of detention centre for repetitive disruption. Sounds awful, but perhaps then those who want to learn would be able to.

I think teachers need more support and backing to be able to come down harder on poor behaviour and remove phones. And if parents don't back it maybe they should remove their child from the school. Also consequences for threatening and aggressive behaviour from parents.

I don't think parents understand what is happening in classrooms now. I work in an outstanding primary in a leafy London suburb. Most days we have incidents where members of staff have to restrain a child, it's only a handful of children that are involved. 10 years ago this was unheard of, now staff and other children being hit, kicked, spat at and bit is a daily occurrence. Most of the time we are able to remove children before they are hurting other children, so it's mainly just the staff taking the brunt. I read lots of posts on Mumsnet saying my child's school would expel these pupils but the reality of that is very challenging. We have 2 children waiting for placements in special schools, but there are none - one was deemed too challenging by a special school - yet we are expected to manage in mainstream. We also have parents refusing to accept that specialist settings would be more appropriate and throwing all the behaviour challenges back at us - what did staff to to escalate the situation.
There is also an expectation that we can materialise staff to support all these children 1:1. Very few EHCPs have this level of funding attached and schools are on their knees financially- we don't have the funding to provide the level of support needed.
Add to this the wave of mental health problems we are facing (from parents and children) and the absolute lack of support these families are able to access so schools are left to manage these families.
It is grim now, I love my job, but in 30 years in the classroom things have never been so tough.

It all started going downhill rapidly when they got rid of corporal punishment. Kids nowadays know that there will be little or no consequences to their behaviour. If they are the sort to misbehave they will.

I really don't know what the answer is unless parents are forced to sign a 'contract' with the school with things like 'no phones' etc written in.

@Fairislefandango

I don't doubt that but I volunteer in places with very high needs students who have behaviour issues and I've seen simply firm instructions work.

The phone is removed at the start and end of the lessons.

They do it.

It's very much a case of pupils and parents focussing on rights, but not responsibilities. The problem being is that their children disrupt and destroy the education of those around them, as well as their own. It really isn't good enough.

One of the main reasons I didn't go into (secondary) teaching after I qualified was the behaviour management aspect. The training has come in useful in my current job though as it requires me to train adults, thankfully they want to be there and it's usually in small groups or one to ones, and often via Teams or Zoom.

I don't know why anyone would want to go into classroom teaching these days, even primary is mostly miserable and I hear from friends that lockdowns during COVID have often resulted in children who are dramatically developmentally delayed (and it was bad enough before 2020).

And sorry to double post, but really doesn't need to be more. I worked in a school and was off for a while medically. When I returned I found in my absence a staff member covering me had been suspended as a student had accused her of pinning her to the wall. Half a class backed her. It only came to light this girl was a known bully, serial liar and one of the worst behaved girl in an already tough school and had pressures others into being her witness. Through fear and not fully getting what the implications of this accusation would be the others had gone along with it. It only fell apart when two quiet girls felt guilty and admitted that they and the others had been lying and then the others had to own up. The girl got one day in isolation. Although as the cover teacher tried to send her to tell her to leave a lesson due to her behaviour. Luckily the cover teacher was thick skinned but this kind of thing plays on your health and wellbeing and makes you not want to be in the classroom....

Please, any teachers who are not in a union, join one. You never know when you may need that support and it's too late once the incident has happened.

Is this a generational issue I wonder? I was part of the first true social media generation and really wouldn't be bothered about someone filming me and uploading it to TikTok etc. I teach adults in a work based setting and let them record it.

I do find it hard to say to DS hey you can't take your watch, airpods, phone etc to school whilst I run round looking for my charger to take mine to work. Maybe it's time schools just didn't get involved in what happens on social media or phones, have a policy like you can't use them during the lesson but can openly use them at break time. Any consequences of such are on you.

We recorded our lecturers in the late 00's and they were cool with it, so phones could also be used a revision aid. We also made notes on laptops which I'm genuinely surprised hasn't become the norm at secondary schools especially in affluent areas.

@Shinyandnew1 “I would genuinely be interested to compare the retention and recruitment rates of teaching with a cross section of other jobs. Are there countless other ‘Exit the X and leave’ type Facebook support groups, I wonder?”

I don’t think that tells you anything though. As it happens, I agree that teaching has a particular set of horrendous stresses and (without data) I’m sure that the retention rates are among the worst.

But they’re measurable in a way that most professions aren’t, because it’s a protected profession and ultimately a government as employer. How are you going to collect the data for Payroll Clerks?

Most other positions don’t need a Facebook group, because the role isn’t so discreet, and the people doing the role aren’t so surrounded by mostly the same role - so other opportunities are much more visible.

Take my Payroll Clerk. They don’t work in a building full of Payroll Clerks. If they hate the role, they move out to junior sales admin, procurement, AR Clerk… etc etc.

The other reason I think that teachers need extra moral support to jump ship, is because there are benefits. And the big one of those is the holidays. I know that teachers often work them. I don’t dispute that they’re needed to, from a job like that. I don’t have any time for, “but they’re not paid”, because effectively they are - no teacher ever annualises their equivalent 52 week salary when arguing they’re underpaid!

But going back to my Payroll Clerk - no Payroll Clerk who hates their job is thinking, “OK, this is awful - so I could take up that AR Clerk position instead - but then I’ll have 5 weeks holiday whenever I want vs 13 weeks fixed. That’s a big thing to lose.”

The profession is in a mess, but I don’t think that Facebook group is the thing that proves it.

That sounds like a a very unusual place and pupils. I would have thought this would get the following responses from what I've generally read on here/other placed.
'Get fucked'
'Fuck off you paedo you want to go through my photos'
'My dad/mum will kick your head in'
'You can't touch my property'
'I'm reporting you'

Teachers can’t be ‘struck off’ because they don’t currently require a professional registration. It probably would be better if they did.
there’s no place for losing your temper whilst working in a professional capacity. It’s totally inappropriate. I don’t believe someone is being taken to court for ‘catching someone’s hair’, what is the charge? Presumably something like actual bodily harm? It’s pretty difficult to get someone in court these days.

I think teachers need to wear body cams. They also need backing when they think pupils need to be disciplined or they're too unruly to teach and need to be removed.

@Grumpybutfunny “Maybe it's time schools just didn't get involved in what happens on social media or phones, have a policy like you can't use them during the lesson but can openly use them at break time. Any consequences of such are on you.”

Except the consequences are on my daughter.
Who wears a skort to school because of attempted upskirting.

Me too. Managed out for getting sepsis and unfortunately (as far as the head was concerned) surviving.