Teaching

[Sallydimebar]

Am I being unreasonable to think teaching is on its knees . It’s a job soon enough no-one will want .
Was having a conversation with SIl , her best friend has decided to quit this year she’s had enough . Teachers are leaving Ds secondary school in doves it seems .
There seems to be a endless stream of supply teachers and just heard his favourite English teacher is leaving a Easter .

Seen today some parents protesting outside a school as it was stopping pupils using toilets during lesson time , it’s a story I see time & time again esp about toilet use and i just have to ask do parents know that kids meet up in toilets to vape, Snapchat ect so unfortunately can’t have a endless pass on toilet use as classes would be half empty and seniors would just be going round all day getting them back to lessons .

The point I’m making is being a teacher in today’s society is a really tough job and parents just don’t give enough support in getting behind Childs school . I would love those 50 parents there today to maybe go and spend a day in the school and see why toilet passes are needed and how hard it is at best of times to engage a class of 30 12-14 yr olds or 15/16 yr olds .

Listening to Sil friend who’s a really good teacher feel so deflated and unhappy is sad .
Also the teacher who committed suicide this week the day before she was due in court for catching pupils hair while confiscating phone, leaving a husband and 2 daughters devastated as well as many colleges.

I teach in a secondary school.

I work 3 full days a week so get 60% pay. It is the ONLY way I can be a teacher and also be a mum to my 3 kids. I work around 38 to 40 hours a week which is the equivalent of a full time job in term time.

It is an exhausting job, particularly when parents do not support the school or expect the school to do the parenting for them.

The pay is "OK" but takes into no consideration for the sporadic hours of the job. Most people I know who work full time do not have kids or have a very supportive partner who does most the childcare/housework in term time.

It's really hard to be able to attend clubs in the evenings if you're a full time teacher as the work load during term is just crazy.

That's just the nature of the job.

And yes, it does come with 13 weeks of holiday, but given the amount leaving and the low numbers coming into the career, then it is quite clear that even 13 weeks of holiday does not make up for having no life during term time.

And with the 13 weeks holiday you also have the school holiday price penalty, so if you work part time, you then cannot afford these prices unfortunately.

I don't know what the solution is, but I agree that schools are really struggling.

Gosh this really resonates. I am an ‘returning’ qualified teacher. Foolishly decided to go back to teaching in 2020… this is my 3rd year in an inner city state primary in KS1 and I think I’m done.

I have a lovely SLT who try to protect us from most of the craziness (from Ofsted to parents), but it’s still falling apart. My head is a tough cookie, but he said the other day ‘I think the parents are a lot worse since lockdown’.

I have a tough class: 3 x national average SEN at least; have 10% EHCP, and national average is 3%. But I enjoy 9-3. It’s the ridiculous pressure to get little 6-7 year olds to a certain level. At least half the class is EAL… if they can’t say a sentence, how are they supposed to write it? But as a year group we are under scrutiny because we 60% for writing last year, and think national average was 68%. I have children with 58% attendance - how am supposed to make up the missing lesson time? Children turning up without school bags or coats, clothes smelling of weed, not having had breakfast.

<sighs>

I work 0.8 just so I can do planning/ report writing on my unpaid day off and see my own family, rather than at the weekend.

All for the princely sum of £25K.

Youngest child is starting secondary next year - I don’t need the holiday childcare anymore - I think I’m done. Another teacher leaving before 5 years…

I'm another very experienced teacher who is out. I now work at a before and after school club for just above minimum wage.

My 22 years primary teaching experience is pretty much being wasted.

I’ve done 26 years, I’m planning on 5 more then I’m gone.

I’m fully aware of that ….. you’ve missed my point as I was responding to the issues of banning childrens use of the toilet during lesson time. Toilets are now used as somewhere to go to bunk off since they stopped children leaving school grounds (completely agree that they should stay in school). Children are no different today than they were back normal my day they will push boundaries, bunk, smoke etc

I work in a school and bad behaviour is tolerated now as the norm rightly or wrongly so

It must be so isolating to think that schools are the only ones with these issues. There are other institutions other than schools or do you think people not wanting to be somewhere is unique to schools?

I wouldn’t worry about me being patronising with such an insular world view I’d probably focus on widening it.

Above In response

@Imnoonesfool I hadn’t missed your point I was correcting your statement that the schools wouldn’t be blamed. They were blamed. It wasn’t right or fair.

I've been teaching 26 years, 21 at the same school. I survive because I am part time. I will be devastated when I do leave my school, but I'm getting weary of it all now. The scrutiny, the indifference to learning from some pupils, the appalling behaviour of some pupils. I am thankful I am towards the end of my career, I would not want to be starting now. My child goes to the school I teach at. I am glad she only has to be in education for 5 more years. It's a sad state of affairs.

Ah yes, there are so many other places where over a thousand teens, not selected, merely taken from the local community, congregate and are expected to sit in a different room each hour and learn stuff from a single adult.

Do you think that schools can really learn from the toilet policies of universities, colleges, youth clubs or whatever?

It must be so isolating to think that schools are the only ones with these issues. There are other institutions other than schools or do you think people not wanting to be somewhere is unique to schools?

People who think a superior, patronising tone will make others believe they have a valid point or the faintest clue what they are talking about...

Agree with pp the kid that genuinely needs to go toilet , won’t vape , vandalise ect probably won’t ask . Sil friend main problem is the amount of time took up with unsupportive parents and now for her own sanity won’t deal with them

I don’t know what the answer is but when I was in high school the teachers i started with we’re still there when I left , we had the odd supply but sadly for my Ds the only constant one seems to be his pe teacher .

Any parent going in to pick up a confiscated vape tells me all I need to know ! Along with taking a teacher to court for removing a mobile phone . Just glad Ds only has 3yrs left in the system because it’s badly broken and standing out your school with a place card is not the answer.

@noblegiraffe wow just wow on your limited view of literally everything. There are other institutions other than the ones you listed. They don’t have to just be talking about toilet breaks and that is why a wider viewpoint may be helpful. Equally it may not be. But how can you know it’s an issue and not want to try? I just don’t get that kind of thinking.

But what about the other children that just get up and walk out 'because she did it and didn't get told off'. It should be possible to be flexible but toilets get vandalised during lesson time so then nobody can use them.

You’re absolutely right. You give what you are given.

They don’t have to just be talking about toilet breaks and that is why a wider viewpoint may be helpful

So now you’re acknowledging that your original point about liaising with parents about toilets was crap and are trying to rescue it by making it a ‘wider’ viewpoint about other stuff.

Faultymain5

Though in my day there were no TAs in classrooms and up to 34 children in classes. I’m sorry the job is more difficult now and losses of good teachers has become a termly occurrence. I have no thoughts on how to stop it.

How about we stop going back to the days when the teachers could hit you with a belt (or anything) , that SEND wasn't recognised, schools and teachers were not held accountable and stop pretending that it was so fantastic for everybody.

We could also recognise that schools and teachers have been used as a political football for years (by any government), that the profession has been systematically undermined by those governments, and media and then by parents.

We could also recognised that schools are no longer just places of learning and the amount of social care, bringing up the children and protecting them from bad parents and society has also increased.

And we could also stop trying to use business models to runs schools.

-I allowed pupils to go to the toilet during my lesson, pupil truanted and I got told off by SLT and a complaint from the parent because I allowed the situation to happen which led to a sanction.

-I didn’t allow pupil to go and got a complaint that I was breaching a pupils human rights

-I used my discretion and allowed a pupil to go to the toilet that flooded her pad, I didn’t allow another male pupil (who was laughing and joking) to go and got a complaint that I was playing favourites/discriminating/being unfair

Please tell me what to do. I genuinely want an easy life where I can teach and not have to argue/justify myself, it’s awful and stressful getting angry complaints. What should I have done differently to avoid continuous conflict?

This highlights how the job has become impossible.

@noblegiraffe no that’s not what I’m saying at all. Let me see if I can not be patronising but still explain how I think it could work.

You have a toilet break issue as a school. Someone from a completely different institution has had a similar break, people not wanting to be there (but have to) or whatever issue. It does not have to be the same issue, but the solution that they used may be able to be applied to the school’s issue. Do we know it will work? No do we know that it won’t? No. Is it worth a try or is the first thing we want to be saying is no it won’t work?

So no I wasn’t doing what you suggested I’m thinking locked toilets are wrong and I’d try any chance of a solution. I hope I’m clearer in my explanation.

Posted too soon...

The above highlights how he job has become impossible.

EVERYTHING is the fault of the teacher.
Nothing is ever the fault of the child, the parent, the policies etc.

I had a parent complaint that I didn’t set enough homework. I wasn’t challenging their child.

I had a parent complain that I set homework and I was pushing their child too hard and it’s my job to teach.

Joke of a job.

Can I also point out that teachers don't get to walk out to go to the toilet in the middle of a lesson either. They might get a chance to go at break but might not, maybe they'll get a chance at lunchtime. I know teachers who hang on all day because they literally don't get time for a wee. I'm retired now but certainly used to end up quite uncomfortable at the end of the day.

And you seem to think that you are the first person to have ever discussed this issue, like there aren’t thousands of schools with various policies, like no one has ever mentioned periods, or kids actually needing the loo or whatever.

And like the first thing this school decided to do was lock the toilets in lesson times without ever having tried out anything else or there being an actual serious problem.

I’m interested to hear about all these other institutions which are just like schools though. Y’know, with kids, not adults.

I've had this happen too.

Plus the parent who wrote a long letter to complain that her daughter's school report didn't mention all the wonderful out of school extra-curricular things she had done that year, and didn't really put across how truly special and unique her daughter is.

Give me strength.

Is it any wonder I've left the profession?!