To wonder how anyone can be a teacher?

[Howdaretheydisciplinerudekids]

I think I am quite an understanding parent when it comes to my kids schools. However, I do contact the schools whenever I have a concern. I am always polite and understanding of school issues but flag things up when necessary.

However, I hear how some parents speak to and about their children’s teachers and I am pretty disgusted and wonder how anyone remains in teaching. I have so many stories from friends about the crap they put up with from headteachers, parents and children. Who else has similar stories?

1. A friend of mine was told on more than one occasion by a child that he wanted her dead and was going to shoot her. Her headteacher didn’t even ask if she was ok.
2. The same child regularly used to throw things in the classroom and trash the classroom. The headteacher refused to get involved and instead blamed the teacher for their being equipment on the floor (that the child had thrown) and asked why she hadn’t picked it up. The child was still throwing things (this time aimed at the class teacher) at the time.
3. I have heard many occasions of friends who have been out on capability plans for the most minor things. It would seem that bullying of staff from leadership is absolutely rife. For example, one teacher friend told me about the staff having a staff training day about a certain way of delivering maths. Part of the day was spent then planning maths in the said way. The headteacher went into maths lessons and then called all of the staff together because she didn’t like how they were teaching maths and told them all off. She said they should have ignored all training. Several friends have given me the same sort of stories.
4. My teacher friends are always making excuses why they can’t go out. They have too much work to do. They are too stressed. They are off sick. They have marking to do, leSsons to plan, forms to fill in, statements to write, parents to contact, documents to complete, emails to send etc etc. Then when they have done all that, they have to actually teach a class for 7 hours. They get no let up in that time. They have to be physically and mentally involved and face verbal and sometimes physical abuse, with no chance to recover.
5. Then they have parents to deal with. Parents who complain constantly because their child has been told off. Parents who constantly criticise teachers because their child, who has done something wrong, is then worrying about it. Or they have 2 sets of parents both claiming that their child is being bullied by the other. Or parents who have fallen out, expecting the schools to separate the children because their grown ups can’t resolve their own arguments.
6. One relative of mine, was put under disciplinary procedures because they dared to speak sternly to a child who had been stealing from them. They did not even raise their voice. However, they now have a safeguarding concern about them because a member of staff heard them telling the child how upset they were to have had their personal items stolen by them, and the member of staff didn’t like their tone of voice. My poor relative was in bits over this accusation because they had taught for nearly 30 years and now felt like they had been blamed for being a victim of crime. My relative had to take early retirement.
7. Another relative was teaching In A primary school and was filmed by a child on their phone, and it was shared around social media. My relative then told the child how upset they had been about this. However, instead of the child receiving any sort of consequence, instead my friend had to apologise to the child, for telling the child how upset they were. Sadly, another friend tried to commit suicide after all of the constant monitoring and accountability became too much for her. My friends and relatives who work in schools tell me about the lack of funding in their schools.

I quit a PGCE because I never "taught" a thing. There wasn't enough staff so I was actually given almost a full timetable to teach straight away. I spent hours planning lessons with zero guidance.

But I never taught any of it. What I did do was repeatedly ask children to put their phones away, stop playing games, stop throwing things, sit down. It took them ten minutes to come into the room and sit down and stop being silly. I then taught a sentence, and had to explain it differently and repeatedly to all the SEN children, then again to the children who couldn't be arsed the first/second/third time. Then someone would set the fire alarms off. Then someone would need the loo, so seven people would need the loo. And you've got an hour to teach them how to answer an exam question - because you don't teach knowledge, you teach them how to parrot out an answer to get the points.

And this wasn't because I was inexperienced, this was standard across the school. Oh and I'm talking about GCSE and A Level ages.

Then after school you have to provide a club to meet a certain target, then there would be a department meeting. Once a week there was an evening meeting. Plus parents evenings and open nights. Then home to plan for more lessons that you know you'll never teach.

We have just introduced body cams, sad times that it's come to this to protect teaching staff. It's a daily occurrence for me to be sworn at, something thrown at me, chanted at. On occasion spat at, chairs thrown. Had stuff stolen from me too. I worry for our future workforce and those students who are being denied an education due to the behaviour of their peers. God help me if I seek support from my leaders. I can't see how this is sustainable, out of a team of 6 we are down to 2 covering the same workload. No one is applying to teach anymore. My colleague and I are teaching three classes infilled with one another, today I have a class of 42 in a room that seats 28. I hope I can get to the Christmas break that's all that's keeping me going currently.

I left the UK after 3 years of teaching in state schools and have been abroad for the last 15. I love my job, am extremely passionate about teaching and this was the only way I could see that I could keep doing it and make a decent living.

It’s an incredibly difficult job and it’s got worse and worse over the last 20 years.

I left mainstream in 2016, but my DP works at a state secondary still. There isn’t a day goes by that he isn’t verbally abused by a student. Last week he had a textbook thrown at him. And he is considered well liked! Lots of his colleagues face even worse.

There is zero support from SLT and zero money to do anything constructive to support the students who need it.

You've summed it up pretty well OP. Sounds like my typical week!

I’ve been teaching for 27 years. However, I work in an independent school with, generally, supportive parents. The kids are mostly great and I have a fantastic department and the freedom to teach the texts I choose and to plan my own lessons. Because I’ve been there a long time 8 have built up a good reputation and that helps with relationships and discipline. I also get 17/week’s holiday. It’s no picnic- I worked a 14 hour day yesterday and have a lot of marking but I find it stimulating and satisfying. I couldn’t work in the state sector now.

It really is the most difficult job. I left I honestly couldn't cope with it mentally and remain a decent teacher

I decided to quit teaching the day a 4-year-old spat in my face and nothing was done about it.
I was lucky that I had a family business to step into; others unfortunately feel trapped.

I did this the other way around; teaching abroad and then back to the UK. I loved teaching overseas (in state schools). I lasted a year and a half in England, I didn't enjoy viewing children as data and wanted to be able to spend some time with my family and so left.

It was so frustrating because I knew it doesn't have to be this way.

Look at the YouGov poll as to what people think are the biggest issues facing the country and you will understand why teaching is hard and underfunded
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/the-most-important-issues-facing-the-country

Interestingly, people cannot seem to understand that if you sort out educating your population nearly all their other concerns will be at least somewhat alleviated.

Isn't it also partly because private schools can, and will, expel pupils who are consistently disruptive or badly behaved?

I left teaching 3 years ago. The crunch for me was the following:

My school had a visually impaired unit. I taught a subject that used sharp constantly moving equipment. I had kids that were blind with no support. So l had to sit with them all lesson.

This meant that the ones with anger issues got up to all sorts, the emotional ones needed mothering, the ASD ones needed extra support, the naughty ones disrupted the lesson. So do l leave the VI kid as his H and S was my responsibility?

Same in upper school. Except on top of all of that 3 were absconders. Sometimes l spent the entire lesson on calling and no one did any learning.

l’d had enough.

It's not like that in all schools ( mine's not), but parents can be very wearing in even the best run schools. There's also lots of very toxic schools, and I really don't understand how they have any teachers. In the current climate teachers always have the option to leave and teach somewhere else. Many decide that even teaching in well run schools isn't worth it, and we have the resulting recruitment and retention crisis. In the really toxic workplaces I dread to think how they're staffed, but I have heard of some local schools doing online learning for part of the week.

This keeps coming up, that teachers have the hardest job in the world, nothing else compares to it etc

Reality is, all / most of us, in loads of roles, are struggling to do the best we can with limited resources. There just isn't the same money around as in the past, so employers are increasingly trying to get more output from fewer staff

Definetly varies from school to school. To be honest it’s all about the leadership. Leadership that cares about you and supports you makes the world of difference. You can actually deal with fairly unpleasant parents if you feel you have support.
I find my main frustration with teaching is not the parents or pupils who for the most part are very nice but the lack of funding and resources. Also the huge timetable pressures meaning we have to cram so much in our days leaving me always feeling like I’m not teaching things or supporting to the best of my ability because it’s all such a big rush and tick box exercise.
I feel sorry for my little boy going to school soon and knowing that staff will just not have time to give him much attention with his work and all the rushed work he’ll have to do. I will be trying to find a school with a more chilled out timetable and plenty of time for art - if such a thing exists!!

Have you been threatened as part of your job?
Been held responsible for 30 kids H and S when there’s no support and they are clearly in danger.
Has one of your clients/ customer parents smacked you round the head?
Habe you been spat on and abused as part of your job?
Do you get up at 4.00 am to do the bits of your job that don’t fit in during a normal working day? Then stood up for 8 hours, gone home and done more work?
Are you unable to access a toilet at any time?
Are your customers/clients fighting when you give a presentation and you are told it’s your fault as your presentation is boring?

Thought not

It’s a question I ask often, because I wouldn’t teach some of the children I’ve encountered in schools for anything.

They lack resources, strong and supportive leadership and support staff is ever dwindling. As for the parents and children they have to put up with - no thanks 😔.

Some of those parents post on MN and I just think- you and your precious just need to be put in a barrel and rolled down a hill that has no bottom.

I have enormous respect for teachers, if not for their teaching, at least for the amount of behaviour management they are expected to do. Often with little support as SLT are such wet lettuces too.

Hats off to them 👏🏾

I'm a long-time retired teacher. Long ago, I left UK, mainly because there existed no real career progression for classroom teachers: to progress past Head of Department status (and get a proper salary increase), you had to move out of the classroom and become a Deputy Head or something similar. I wanted to be a teacher, not an administrator; so I moved my family abroad. (Children were still (just) pre-school.)

I always worked in state-funded schools, essentially I suppose for ideological reasons, but also having seen the damage done to British society by its own brand of private-school organisation (albeit that other countries haven't suffered quite so badly in such regard).

So, anyway, I'm posting here now just to suggest how things could be different for teachers and schools.

An anecdote. Not long after I started in my first job abroad, I was walking along a busy school corridor chatting to a colleague, on the way to the staffroom for coffee-break. Two teenagers started fighting nearby; of course I moved to intervene. My new colleague pulled me away. "What on earth are you doing?" she asked. "You're a teacher, not a police officer!"

Teachers were not required to engage with pupil behaviour; the school employed people (so-called 'educational consultants') specifically to deal with children's behaviour, to supervise (perhaps somewhat harshly to my eyes at the time, at least initially) children who could not, or would not, behave themselves, also during breaks and when a teacher was absent.

Result? Teachers could teach. Any real misbehaviour and a child was removed from class, to spend time being supervised/assisted by the educational consultants. Of course minor matters - inattention in class and so on - could be dealt with by the class teacher; but no classroom teacher had to deal with any severely disruptive pupils, so the majority of children who wanted simply to learn got full-time teaching.

Teachers were better paid by seniority, and for fewer contracted hours, so there was no need to move on to administration to make a career. Also, extra-curricular activities - sport, social, cultural, whatever - were separately staffed; no teacher involvement there either. Class teachers - experts in their subjects - exclusively taught those subjects. (Although this did not preclude getting to know pupils well as children; it was possible to maintain a child-centred teaching manner even given this explicit overall apparent subject-centredness.)

I recommend this system. Of course it costs money. It needs proper recruitment and career-structure for non-teaching staff as well as for teachers.

Any chance of such a system in Britain? Not, at any rate, so long as the country's rulers are so badly - and systematically - miseducated by those expensive private schools. But, well, you have each a vote.

There was a thread yesterday, about unpleasant and bullying teachers. I had some wonderful teachers, some average and some boring, but no one bullied me or harmed me.

In many years of teaching I had some wonderful experiences, some colleagues who were supportive and true friends, some appreciative parents, some students who were delightful and who I won’t forget, some wonderful lessons and great experiences.

I also experienced as many do, being sworn at, spat at, ignored, barged, kicked, wrestled to the ground, books thrown at me, accusations that were unfounded and untrue.

I also experienced a public castigation from an Ofsted inspector, lies about me and to me from a head teacher, ignoring behaviour from a head teacher and regular criticism. I was also on SLT, so it happens to that group of teachers too.

The negatives were much more prevalent in the years before I gave up teaching and I’m sure it’s even more so now. The tipping point has been reached and it’s sad that it’s come to this.

Most people have no idea @ArseInTheCoOpWindow

This. I have a few teacher friends, mostly primary. They get hit in the face on a weekly basis. SLT either ignores it or finds a way to blame them (because the parents won't tolerate any criticism of said children). They're all now in the process of leaving as it's simply not worth it.

I have been a teacher abroad (where education was valued and so teachers were teaching respectful and enthusiastic kids) but would never teach here. Those values simply don't exist in any meaningful way anymore.

Yes quite! According to those posters state schools are the ideal.

I retired after 38 years teaching in inner city Secondary schools, some in London and Birmingham. As things got worse, I got older and promoted to Assistant Principal with responsibilities for Inclusion. I have seen many of the situations in the OP.
In my case it helped that I went grey early and have a resting stern face! Not only were the students wary, but often the parents. The lack of very experienced (long in the tooth) staff on SLTs can result in the poor support for struggling classroom teachers.
Nevertheless, it’s a tough job, Education isn’t valued as it was in the past when parents and grandparents remembered the pre 1945 Education Act, giving free education to all, the abolishment of the 11 plus, giving equal opportunity and the raising of the school leaving age, allowing continued access to education.
In the past many school leavers still valued education and attended night schools to gain qualifications, after a days work.
Would I teach in todays climate, I doubt it.

I sympathise. I have been a p/t teacher ever since my DDs were born and they are in their 20s. I am in my 29th year of teaching and my 21st in my current school. I have worked in comprehensives in areas of severe deprivation, mixed comps and now work in a lovely state grammar school.

In my opinion, things have got worse but there are layers to this. Firstly, education and the surrounding support services need to be resourced properly. We have relatively few issues, but in many schools there are kids in them who should be in alternative provision, but either there are no places, or no schools. There is certainly no money for this. These youngsters are left in mainstream education to cope. Schools cannot get assessments because the assessments either cost too much or there are not enough Ed Psychs. TAs are leaving to work in supermarkets because the pay is better and in exchange for dealing with difficult kids, they get awkward adults but cheaper groceries. I don't blame them in the slightest. Buildings are falling down or as in my school, parts are shut down due to RAAC but thanks to our "fucking awesome" Secretary of State, nothing has been done about it, so we are hemmed in to every available space. Kids who struggle with noise suffer.

We have a curriculum designed by a megalomaniac, yes looking you odious Gove, which forces all kids through a narrow doorway based on his education from the 1950s. Schools are judged by crap metrics, like how many kids go onto Russell Group universities. It's utter bollocks - our local RG uni shut its Chemistry department in 2003 and doesn't even teach my subject. DH used to work there and does some guest lecturing there - most of the staff can barely speak English - students are paying £9250 pa for this - but they get a big thumbs up for being in the RG club.

My current Head is not liked by everyone, but he has a clear vision and he cares about people. He has been great with my DDs (often asks after them) and he has been very supportive of me with particular issues. My first Head was an arse who promoted people who sucked up to him, regardless of their ability. Another Head in my current school was a covert bully. It has taken years for me to get over it - when my current Head came into my lesson last term "for a quick word", I nearly had a heart attack because it was so triggering. Rather than berating me for some (made up) misdemeanour, he actually wanted to inform me in person that one of his predecessors had sadly died, someone I had done lots of events with although not worked for. I thought that was lovely of him. However, I know how lucky I am because there are so many tools around.

Academisation is not the answer. To me, we need to fund schools properly: buildings, support staff, support services as well as teachers. The curriculum needs to be completely overhauled. Who gives a shiny shit what a fronted adverbial is? However, primary school children have this crap drilled into them. Why? We should be teaching kids to be creative, to learn languages, to play sport, to paint and draw, to sing and play instruments as well as reading and Maths. Parents should actually parent their children instead of expecting schools to do it. There should be an expectation made very clear to parents that if they complain about trivial matters, their kid's place will be taken away and they can educate them themselves.

Sorry, this is so long. More to say but I need to go and teach!

I thought about going back to re-train as a teacher. Several of my friends are teachers and between them have differing issues with their jobs. However what it mostly boils down to is the lack of appreciation for the education system. I think people forget that state education is a luxury, in comparison to poor countries where children would love to learn & do not have the means to do so. Parents who refuse to reprimand their kids, who can't believe they would misbehave and a lack of respect for other people in general. I know children don't always have good impulse control, or understand the effects of their actions but the threat of your parents finding out you had misbehaved or been rude was off-putting enough in itself. I don't believe we should bring back corporal punishment in schools but relying on children to motivate themselves when their parents can't do it, is a big ask. Further to this the nonsense on my child's group whatsapp class makes me feel sorry for all teachers. Some people really will complain about anything. We have had mostly excellent teachers in primary & feel very lucky but I can see why the passion would go out of it for most.