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?

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

It's amazing how often people seem to think that an acronym is the answer to everything. Let me guess... antecedent = what triggered the behaviour, behaviour = the behaviour that was triggered, consequence = what happened as a result of the behaviour? And you tackle future behaviour incidents by trying to avoid or preempt the antecedent? Or is there more to it than that? Because that just sounds like common-or-garden common sense to me.

No I'm saying that system doesn't prepare teachers enough to understand and manage behaviours. I'm not blaming the teachers. People get their credentials to teach and the system hasn't equipped them enough to deal with what they've go to face.

It's not the teacher's fault. But as long as they are not getting sufficient training the will keep having more and more issues because they can't control the children or situations. It spirals.

And people immediately get upset with the suggestion they need to learn more. Well in most vocations we do...the world changes. Right now and post-pandemic we have more children with more challenges and teacher's have not been taught effective strategies. They're left to use tactics which don't work and can make things worse. If they got updated skills in managing these issues they'd have better environments for everyone.

Yeah, it was all Goodbye, Mr Chips under Labour.

🙄

So you want teachers to not only have a degree in the subject that they teach but a psychology degree as well.

Then to teach the curriculum and also be able to put right the issues that children have all on 25hrs p/w and topping out at £43K per year whilst still doing all the other stuff that the job now entails?

Maybe you would like the moon on a stick as well.

I think if you trained teachers to be all those things it would end up like training to be a doctor!

Well teaching was much better.

Smaller class sizes
Loads of money
Functioning IT instead of 20 year old computers with no keys
Equipment refreshes in practical subjects
Beaviuor, learning and mental health support
Enough materials for every child
The introduction of ‘Every Child Matters’ and SureStart centres which fed through to schools.
Beacon schools

Tories
Massive classes
No money anywhere
Crap IT
Practical equipment so crap it’s affecting grades
No support at all
Materials bought by teacher
Closed all majority of Sure Start

Go and work in a private school. It’s so much better and you have the parents total backing.

And people immediately get upset with the suggestion they need to learn more.

No. That's not it. Most teachers like learning. We have regular training about all kinds of aspects of our job. We want to do our job as well as we can. We want kids to learn. We want behaviour to be easier to manage.

But... we've heard it all before, especially those of us who have been in the profession a really long time. Too many initiatives we don't have time to think about and which sound great in theory in the training session, but turn out not to work very well in practice. Or work well with some students but not others. Or, more often, things that are presented as new ideas with shiny new names, but are actually things we've all been doing for donkeys' years.

@cremebrulait

Teachers shouldn't have to learn these things that you want them to, there should be systems in place that support the children and the teachers.

The answer isn't to load more work on overworked people.

So why don’t you? Nobody is making you teach so unless the good aspects (satisfaction from the impact you have, autonomy in delivery and yes the holidays!) outweigh the negatives (agree there can be many) leave and retrain for something else. Teachers have moaned about teaching for my entire lifetime and yet most do precisely nothing about it. If you think the grass is greener why don’t you leave?

Is this sarcasm?
My kids go to private school and the parents WhatsApp is a never ending stream of moaning.
I think it’s better in many ways but it’s very high pressure with very high parental expectations and a similar issue with lack of personal responsibility and entitlement.
The teachers seem to be available 24 hours a day almost. I emailed one the other evening and got a reply at 11pm!

40,000 teachers last year took your advice.

There is a major recruitment and retention crisis in teaching.

Fewer and fewer children have qualified teachers in front of their classes.

Are you happy about that?

Your school should set communication boundaries for contacting teachers. DDs private school says teachers will only reply between the hours of 8am-7pm (boarding school so open for longer hours).
Our Yr WhatsApp only tends to be used for lost items of uniform and very infrequently low level grumbles about food, never about teachers. There are generally excellent relations between staff/parents/pupils and is the main reason why we chose the school. Obviously not everything is perfect but then life isn't either!

Yes, ABC is commonly used for the especially disruptive kids. But you need staff to be able to observe closely the A...which often isn't even rooted in anything school related. We also need time to do that effectively and to properly analyse for every significant event. How does one teacher in a class of 44 (KS2 class...true story!) even begin to do that when three or four incidents happen most lessons? Perhaps the answer is linked to the recently published report showing primary teachers regularly work on average 15 hours per week overtime / unpaid.

We also do restorative conversations, where we reflect with the child on what happened; what triggered it; their feelings at the time; impact of their behaviour on others including how they felt; what they could have done differently and alternative strategies to use in a similar situation; how to put things right and restore positive relationships. Again, time and adult intensive. Often pointless as the behaviour and subsequent conversations are repeated over and over. Those conversations can be really valuable for the children who engage with them, but sadly there are a few who just don't give a damn - say all the right things, then do exactly the same again.

This is incredibly depressing and frustrating. I started my career in the state sector 30 years ago and it was nothing like this. I’m now in an independent school and loving it still but suspect I might well not have survived as long if I’d stayed in state schools.

(I am not that teacher in a class of 44 btw, but know a local school where that really is the case.)

I've just attended parents evening online for my year 8. One teacher didn't bother attending our booked appointment, one refused to put her camera on, one was trying to give me feedback for 3 subjects (2 of which she had no clue about) and one didn't let me speak at all, she just droned on about how she tries to challenge the students. I get that it's a hard job but I was left feeling that my daughter is being "taught" by a group of people who really would rather have been anywhere else.

DS13 attends a local secondary- far from the best in the borough but not the worst either. At a recent parent evening- without fail- every teacher (8 of them) commented on what a well behaved, polite, hardworking, helpful, gentlemanly son I had and how they wished the class was full of kids like him. I was even told well done for doing such a good job bringing him up! I do think there is a huge parental responsibility to raise kids to be decent human beings. Teachers could actually teach if they didn’t have to spend all lesson controlling the behaviour of the class. Who knows it might even help ease the teacher recruitment /retention crisis.

I don’t know how you do it. It’s infuriating for parents as well. I have two DC (one primary, one secondary - both ‘good’ schools ie. OFSTED outstanding, affluent area etc), and the behaviour I hear of daily is terrible, with seemingly no (or certainly not obvious) repressions for said bad behaviour. Zero discipline, awful behaviour continues and so the other children aren’t being taught to the standard they should be, they’re starting to think this bad behaviour is typical/acceptable, and sorry to say that kids are starting to lose respect for teachers who they are seeing as permitting these behaviours. I get that teachers hands are tied. It’s just shit all round.

A huge problem with pupil behaviour isn't that teachers don't use ABC but that pupils use CBA.

The suggestion that kids are pissing around because they're traumatised or triggered or whatever is laughable when some of them clearly just find pissing around more fun than tackling solving quadratic equations.

They probably would.

Look at it from another angle.

One was ill/ absent and you weren’t informed
One wanted to protect herself so don’t put the camera on
The feedback on 3 lessons would have been to cover absent colleagues or reduce pressure on colleagues with too many parents to see
The droner had 4 minutes to say her stuff. What more do you want?

Yes I’m happy that ex teachers actually took action to improve their situations. I hope they are much happier.

Like every other shortage, pay and or conditions will then need to improve to attract new teachers in and parents/voters will need to champion this and vote accordingly.

individuals need to make the right decisions for themselves. They aren’t martyrs nobody is forcing you to be a teacher.

A huge problem with pupil behaviour isn't that teachers don't use ABC but that pupils use CBA.

So true.

The suggestion that kids are pissing around because they're traumatised or triggered or whatever is laughable when some of them clearly just find pissing around more fun than tackling solving quadratic equations.

I know. Unfortunately, nobody wants to admit that poor behaviour is ever actually a choice, or is ever the child's fault. But of course it is sometimes. The students themselves know exactly who the non-traumatised trouble-makers are. Most adults will have gone to school with plenty of them, but it's amazing how they forget that, and allow themselves to be convinced ththatll bad behaviour is a result of trauma.

Don't blame them. I love teaching - currently covering for an out of class colleague which means my class needs cover. Can't get a long term supply to stay because they don't want the responsibility (fair enough) but guess whose fault it is? Mine apparently - both that we can't get supply and my colleague is off. Tired of the Facebook rants about how crap we all are and how far the school has fallen - we are all trying our best in difficult circumstances.

Yes I’m happy that ex teachers actually took action to improve their situations. I hope they are much happier.

Like every other shortage, pay and or conditions will then need to improve to attract new teachers in and parents/voters will need to champion this and vote accordingly.

Pay and or conditions will need to improve? Hahahahaha. They won't though. Recruitment and retention have been a problem for years. They have been missing their targets for trainee applications for years. The profession is haemhorraging teachers. Vote for whom? What is any party going to do about it? Parents don't champion schools, they complain about them.