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.

You see it on here too. Posters fuming over their precious snowflakes being told the word No, fuming at the teacher for stupid reasons, etc. how did it turn out that children have all the power these days. What broke? Maybe the older methods need to be brought back.

I used to have 2 computers. One for the lesson and one for on call.

Sometimes we had 15 minutes teaching in a lesson as all the time was spent doing on call on the time consuming system.

Too much time is spent trying to appease parents whose children misbehave. No-one in schools tells these parents like it is because they’re all scared of complaints to Ofsted. If only heads could just say from the start at open evening “if you’re not willing to support the school’s behaviour policies then please take your child elsewhere as while we are happy to work with you to help your child to behave, we will simply not tolerate abuse towards our staff from your children or from you. I will not hesitate to take your child off our roll if necessary. Our staff are my most important asset in an education climate such as this with a recruitment and retention crisis, and we want to keep our excellent teachers. We also want to keep our excellent pupils happy and thriving. Any bullying towards another child will be dealt with severely. I’m also not tolerant of vast amounts of staff time being wasted on parental complaints about the slightest non-issue. If there is anyone who is not happy with this strict approach, please leave now. I don’t care if anyone is not happy with my stance, I like to think I am firm but fair and if you don’t like that then feel free to complain to Ofsted.”

I would LOVE for this to happen. Could you imagine?!

And my observations are inspite of usual bad behaviour from pupils is the lack of reality form slt.

People / teachers can't be honest with them. If a teacher said " phones are getting out of hand" the slt says... " well phones aren't allowed in the classroom".

End of. Pushing it back onto the teacher and not helping at all with the reality of the subject.
What they should do is either listen to staff without stupid comments or come and teach foe a bit and see the reality.

@Testina teaching isn’t a registered profession.

My dad worked as a tutor in a college in Scotland, he came back into teaching after years away in oil and gas and was going to retire but the college reached out to him.
My dad is absolutely full to the brim of English knowledge and yet the people he taught he said shouted, swore, were on their phones, some just ignored him!
He couldn't do anything about any of it and after a few years he just thought "what's the point?" And left.

It's not sensational click bait and there doesn't have to be ins and Outs if everything. It just be relentless trying to teach and being met with kids with egos the size of the moon but nothing inside their head except stuff about tik tok and snap chat.
Welcome to the real world

@MichelleScarn

Oh yes! I'm not saying they turn into nuns and monks and skip happily to hand them in...

It takes a week or two of firm consistent... This is what we require, you need to speak to slt if you don't want too and leave the class.

But they all do it. That's when it's properly enforced.

I've seen half hearted and it doesn't work.

I'm reading all this and I'm actually jealous of those teachers saying they have left / are about to leave teaching, which says it all really. I'm very experienced and have been part time for quite a while now. I should go back full time but the thought is almost unbearable.

Nobody should go into teaching as it is now.

The problem with the anti phone policies is that many teachers find the phones quite useful when they want the kids to take a photo/ do some research etc. so they’re then asked to get them out and use them. Or the teacher sits scrolling social media on their own phone in lesson time. Or let’s them get the phones out for some peace and quiet.
I agree with poster above it’s consistency that works

I no longer teach (retrained in my 30s) and lasted 8 years. It's coasting on the goodwill and hard work of teachers. It coasted for years on the high recruitment of new teachers to cover the high turnover of staff. This now also dwindling as numbers of potential new teachers are listening and not applying. I've only taught during a Tory government and the severe underfunding in general and especially SEN is awful. 'Inclusion' is all well and good but it needs funding. I left last year and in my last few weeks narrowly missed being kicked in the head. Have also had chairs thrown at me and other physical assaults (primary). Teachers work overtime with no extra pay. The 'holidays' are not worth it due to the amount of work you have to do. I now work for the local council and have flexi time and accrue extra hours for time in lieu. I'm no longer exhausted and drag myself to the 'holidays'. Even with two young children and working full time (I worked part time as a teacher) I see them more and I'm not tired anymore

Teachers can’t be ‘struck off’ because they don’t currently require a professional registration.

They absolutely can be barred from teaching.

I know a deputy head who left the profession last year and a nqt who says that one year in a secondary school is enough and will leave in July.

Both because of terrible behaviour from pupils, parents who don't care, and slt who do nothing.

I would never suggest teaching to any young person. They might be fortunate at primary level but secondary is likely to be hell.

@Hungrycaterpillarsmummy.. The students I observe who are the worst behaved are those who have u diagnosed sen eg Cant read. They have sat In lessons for years being unengaged and are lost really.

It's torture for such students who have low self esteem, they don't know how to learn because no one has taught them, adhd they are written off as naughty when infact some small changes would have helped them.

Everything needs urgently throwing at primary schools. Teachers do not know sen or how to spot it. Often sneco don't know what to do either to help dc with asd, adhd, dyslexia. They have no knowledge or tips.

Of course a child being forced unhelped through this system will have behaviour issues and be bored out of their Brian's.

Then of course we have those with horrific home lives who need so much support that school can't give.

I wonder what impact the closure of Sure Start plays. When the government changed in 2010, they didn't protect Sure Start funding and cut LA budgets.
This generation in schools never received the benefits of the program.
Our current funding model does give free childcare places, but there is far less emphasis on the family support and access to services.
I remember 10 years ago my HV telling me about all the check-ins my DS (who was a few weeks old) would receive up until he started school. I pointed out to her that I knew none of these took place as I worked in Early Years in the borough.

Remember the GTC?! That we had to pay for?! That did nothing!

grumpybutfunny it may be generational? I'm in my 30s but maybe teachers in their 20s don't care so much about being filmed? To be honest, there isn't really any benefit to filming/taking photos/putting on social media anything it the classroom and it makes the teacher feel vulnerable and bullied knowing that there is likely something on social media of or about them. I work with local teens and ask them about their school's policy on mobile phones - most let them have them in lessons and emphasise the benefits eg of being able to research topics etc, but students admit they also use them to check social media at the same time. One local school makes them lock them in lockers for the whole day and this is the school with the best reputation and best results.

• brains!! Key board has gone mad.

Mint daisy most school have lap top.

Smart watches are just as bad - I have student reading their texts in lesson time.

Sadly there are suicides in many professions, nurses and doctors, finance and banking, care workers, construction workers, vets . It can be oftentimes caused by the unbearable toll and trauma of the job, the interactions and expectations but equally there are often other contributing factors such as existing mental health conditions, family and personal circumstances . It sounds as though this situation likely has further context as the threshold would be unlikely to be met for trial on the basis described

@Testina I always wore cycling shorts under my short skirt so I could basically wear it as a large belt, cheerleading Spanx'a were also good. Unwanted photos are still better than teachers losing jobs or in this case their life trying to confiscate phones when everyone has one.

DS would get a major telling off for using it in that way as it's a crime but if he wanted covert photos the go pro he has for the skate park would be more discreet than a phone it's tiny so banning phones doesn't even stop it. You can get button sized cameras now, DH has one that tiny he uses to film the drone being the drone!!

I'd also support full coverage CCTV country wide including toilets with only the actual cubical not covered.

Many have swallowed the Paul Dix "restorative" approach whole.

Paul Dix has an awful fucking lot to answer for.

My school decided to go the Paul Dix restorative route a few years back. It nearly ruined the school. I have never been as close to quitting teaching as when I had a really poorly behaved class and their behaviour was constantly being put back on me. No isolation room to send kids to. Calling for senior staff never worked because they were overrun. Expected to have endless restorative conversations with kids who were having restorative conversations every day and it made fuck all difference because they really didn't care.

Since then our behaviour policies have got progressively more strict and behaviour is improving. One of the biggest improvements is now that incidents of poor behaviour don't create more work for the teacher. The kid is out of your lesson being dealt with elsewhere, being given detentions elsewhere.

Just as an interesting anecdata. I've been teaching way too long a long time.

This is the first year where I've seen every single member of teaching staff who has resigned go to jobs outside education.

Not one of them. And there's been a fair few resignations. All are leaving teaching.

Decades of experience and all of them good teachers too. What a loss.

Sorry not one of them has moved to a new school.

I work in what used to be a nice school, the behaviour has changed dramatically in the short time I have been there. There is a mob mentality within the student body, resistance to any adult telling them what to do.

I still love my job, but I ended up in tears on Thursday due to the constant battle and stream of low level abuse I am getting. I don't get angry, in one class it takes every ounce of me not to blow my top due to the behaviour, I give clear instructions of what I expect - nothing outrageous - copy down the example from the board, get your book out etc. I get abuse back, luckily all low level resistance, comments, beligerance.

I had a long chat with my deputy head on Friday - as I hit a low point on Thursday and had enough. A point he made that did help understand is the teacher to child relationship has changed.

In life you have parent - child, adult - child, child - child relationships to help you form as a civilised human being. The parent - child one has broken/changed at home, for all sorts of reasons, parenting choices, absence of parents in children's lives, absence of a wider community, that the parenting relationship has moved to the teacher. So we are facing the boundary pushing that the teens would normally test with a parent, however alongside parenting the group (which is also a challenge as at home its normally a 1-1 relationship not 1-30) we are under pressure to teach them as well.