To wonder how much longer it will be before all teachers quit?

[FunionsRFun]

Been called a bitch and screamed at today. Kids are making no progress because 90% of the leason is dedicated to bad behaviour.
My detentions have been taken off the system to make behaviour look better.
Why would anyone do this job?

Honestly, behaviour on trips is good (as a whole!) and the risk assessment is fine too. I get why we can’t do trips, but it also frustrates me.

A lot of experienced, knowledgeable, excellent teachers have been bullied out of the profession by senior management. Once you’re on the upper pay scale, you’re too expensive, so they want newly qualified, cheaper teachers. Rather than having the guts to say it’s budgetary constraints (because that would be discrimination leading to a potential tribunal) they destroy the teacher’s mental health by putting them on ‘capability support plans’ which are a lot of extra work and a huge amount of pressure on an already insane workload. So teachers leave in their thousands and there’s a huge shortage/retention crisis.

I left at the start of the year and became a dog walker. The relief the day I handed in my resignation was insane.

I hope to never spend another day in front of a class unless it is for career day 😂

I'll probably get slayed for this...

When is the education system going to train teachers sufficiently to handle the classrooms they're in? If you talk to experts in child psychology, trauma, and behaviour - they're shocked at how schools treat children.

For example: Detention? Old school. Doesn't work. Makes things worse. You've got children who're coming to school hungry, getting picked on online, at school, at HOME, etc etc....they act up in school which is supposed to be a safe place and they get DETENTION?? When they keep getting singled out and and don't have a sense of safety - they're behaviour gets worse.

It is really appalling how teachers are not given sufficient training in psychological and behavioural issues in order to manage the children in their care. It's not their fault. I'm not blaming the teachers.

The reality is that schools are creating pressure cookers when they have kids with problems outside of school, are SEN, and school is not a safe place where they are treated in a way that enables them to learn appropriate behaviours.

Detention is what we've got.

Do you want us to have no sanctions available at all?

There used to be. It was the best job in the world. That was eroded by paperwork and stupid expectations, and since covid behaviour has gone through the floor. Most teachers find the classroom the best bit - I doubt they are birding negative in the bit they actually like. People aren’t ’being negative’ - the job is becoming utterly undoable. I am now semi retired, thank fuck.

My son has incredibly high needs SEN and is violent and soils himself. The LA are fighting me in tribunal saying he needs to go mainstream school. I pulled him out as he was being restrained and getting traumatised by it then the school kicked him out anyway. I'm friends with a TA at the school and she said I did the right thing his 1:1 was crying in the staff room over getting hurt by him. But say he wasn't violent- his EHCP requires a fully difrinciated curriculum tailored to his interests, monitoring for his sensory needs, sensory breaks regularly and also as needed. A considerable amount of additional training required of his teachers and 1:1. How can a teacher possibly do all this and still do all they do for the other children in the class?? How many other children have high support needs for their SEN?

I then have a nice well behaved SEN girl who gets no help or support because the teacher is dealing with the terrible behaviour of the boys. One who I obviously don't know the facts on but to me he is clearly autistic like my son a very disruptive challenging child who is struggling because of unmet needs that just cannot be met in mainstream so the behaviour will not improve. Dd scared to ask for help or say she's confused because the teacher is irritable and snappy. Having seen the behaviour in the playground of the kids in the class she's having to manage I'm not surprised.

I care for my son because I love him and he's my responsibility. No mainstream teacher is paid enough to take that abuse. I always think better Sen support earlier would help these kids behaviour before it gets this bad and more Sen schools for those who need it would make a massive difference. I work in early years and started when labour was pouring money into every child matters and really working on early interventions but over the years I've watched everything get cut- to the point early years setting are trying to avoid Sen kids as it's too much work not enough money so these kids are hitting school having had minimum in early help and some can't even get a nursery/childminder place. With the state of early years I can see this is only going to get worse.

But I do think some parents expect school to do everything that should be parents responsibly. If I get a call saying my child was messing about in the toilets I would punish my child not do nothing then kick off at school when the toilets get locked. The bitching on class WhatsApp over teacher telling their kid off has me biting my lip as I want to say "well fucking parent him then I can't believe you are not embarrassed he did that and insisted are ranting on here?!"

I am somewhat intrigued that, rather than providing support and making parents accountable, you believe that it is up to teachers to fix these failings. To somehow manage the manifestations of individual trauma/experiences so that all children can have an education.

I absolutely do not disagree that the system doesn't work but that, in most part, is not due to the teachers.

How exactly do you provide this magic training for teachers?

@Noonelikesasloppytrifle Detentions often work as a deterrent for low-level issues with the many students who aren't living the kind of home life you describe. I'm intrigued to know what you think does work for the studentswho are in crisis. They are often working a lot with the pastoral team, sometimes also with outside agencies, and teachers are often told not to issue detentions to these students.

You can train teachers (if you have the funding), but at the end of the day, subject teachers' job is to deliver the curriculum to the whole class. There is a limit to what we can do in terms of managing traumatised children within the classroom, especially when we often have multiple students with varied and potentially conflicting needs in every class.

In Scotland they are paid a lot more and their work life balance is better. Maybe that’s the answer…

AllProperTeaIsTheft In think you must have meant a different poster - I'm in agreement with you.

When I left I vowed that I would never set foot in a classroom again unless it was to collect my grandchildren. I thought I might miss it when we got to the first Christmas after leaving. It was the first Christmas for years that I wasn't ill. My late teens children said that that was the first time for years that we had had a proper Christmas. I have never regretted getting out. I have 10 friends from teacher training that I am still in touch with 40 years later. We are all 57/8. Not one of us is still teaching. Not one of us regrets getting out.

Oops sorry @Noonelikesasloppytrifle ! I meant @cremebrulait . In my defence, you both have dessert-related names

This. I’ve seen this happen too many times.

Some schools are toxic.

When is the education system going to train teachers sufficiently to handle the classrooms they're in?

Second-most absurd thing i've seen on Mumsnet. I mean really, what?! Obviously written by someone who either has no idea how children currently behave in UK classrooms, and/or someone who has no idea how to deal with current classrooms

I did not write the teachers were responsible. I wrote when is the education system…above them.

😨OMG. Not like that in my kids first year at uni but she did say a lot of students talk through lectures and have little respect. In her state school they’d have been lynched for such behaviour which maybe why she noticed - her feeling is the more privileged the student, the worse the behaviour. Drugs are everywhere though that part isn’t a surprise.

So what you're saying, is that the concept of classroom teaching just doesn't work.

Of course it would be better if we had the staffing to teach in groups of 4-5. That way we would have 15 mins with each child every lesson, we'd build fantastic relationships, learning could be tailored around each child's needs and interests.

But when we have 30(+) in the room, we need to spend at least 20-30 mins of any hour addressing the whole class, 5 mins waiting for everyone to sit down and write the title, 5 mins at the end supervising putting all the books away properly etc, which leaves approx 40 seconds per student. (And they only get their 40 seconds if the other kids don't take up more than their 40 seconds!)

I had a year 2 class in an infants school. Once they'd finished year 2 they went across the field to the junior school. Different head, different governing body, completely separate school with little contact between the 2. I was required to write reports for teacher to teacher information and to do assessments to inform the junior school as to where children were in key subjects. Along with end of year parental reports it was hours and hours of work ( done in the evening at home). I took my class up to visit their new junior teacher. I mentioned to her that the reports were nearly done. "Oh we don't know why you do those" she said " they just go in a cupboard in the office and we do our own assessments when they come back after the summer. No one looks at them". I said this to my head teacher. She insisted that I did them anyway because OFSTED liked it. Hours of utterly pointless work that took time away from my young children. I was a single parent. It was pointless, stupid and soul destroying. I would love to have told her where to shove them but I needed the money .

When is the education system going to train teachers sufficiently to handle the classrooms they're in?

When class sizes return to the size they were and funding increases like it was under the Labour government. And it could go further than that. It’s NOT the teachers. It’s the underfunding that causes the problems.

rather than providing support and making parents accountable, you believe that it is up to teachers to fix these failings

How do you propose to make parents accountable? Detention? Fines?

I think to some extent, a teacher is accountable for what is happening in their classroom. You are dealing with minors, you are the adult in the room.

Don't skip my point which is that teacher's need more training. The world has changed and the system is not preparing teachers for a lot of the issues that exist. Detention is all you have? When I hear about kids in Y3 being put in detention I shake my head because for many kids it will make matters worse. And that's all teachers have. And it seems a lot of teachers are saying the behaviour is unmanageable. It's becoming unmanageable. So my POV is the only way to fix problems is to go to the source.

For starters: are teachers taught ABC Behaviour Model: Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence?

I think to some extent, a teacher is accountable for what is happening in their classroom. You are dealing with minors, you are the adult in the room.

Teachers know full well they are accountable for what's happening in their classroom. They are held accountable. That does not mean that what happens in classrooms is always manageable. If a teenager decides to kick off, it is not necessarily possible to prevent them from doing so. How would you do it? Many parents don't seem very able to control their own one or two children’s behaviour. Try controlling the behaviour of multiple different groups of 30 other people's children all day. We are trained. We aren't magic.

I work as a private tutor now and love it. My pupils are motivated and no one physically threatens me.

You wouldn't get me back into a classroom at the point of a gun.

Have you tried giving them a sticker, a hug and a bars bar when they misbehave?