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?

The difficulty with raising issues of attitude and conduct of pupils on MN is that crowds of posters will descend to justify the behaviour of children without knowing anything of the circumstances.

I strongly believe that the widespread malaise in the English school system is a function of discipline and behavioural expectation - and the absence of effective sanction - rather than money.

I’m convinced we’d have hundreds of thousands of good, committed teachers and aspiring teachers in all subjects if they weren’t subject to the routine abuse and aggression that’s prevalent in schools.

Myself and 4 of my colleagues left 2 years ago - a child spat in my face for the fourth time in a week and I had enough. Others left due to being kicked, spat at, sworn at, having chairs thrown around etc. It was awful trying to manage behaviour in the classroom and when we were told by the Acting Head to hold a yellow card up (which meant the rest of the class left the room to enable us to manage the behaviour of 3 or 4 children) I knew I had to get out. I’d taught for 25 years and have no regrets over leaving.

In this job market, it'll be quite hard to find another job that pays 40K a year with 13 weeks holiday and a brilliant pension.

(not in anyway slagging off teachers, I know it's an incredibly hard job, just pointing out that there's no that many easy options for people to leave and go to)

I couldn’t be a teacher - a lot of children nowadays are so entitled and full of their own self importance - and parents do little to discourage this attitude. It sounds like a thankless job.

They are leaving hence the massive teacher recruitment crisis.
That's why GCSE classes are being taught by a stream of supply teachers, why PE teachers are teaching physics, why schools are reducing the choice of subjects they can offer etc etc.

Teaching is another profession that has become chaotic, with constant change to the curriculum, the expectation from senior leaders because of Ofsted, parents, pupil behaviour, workload, mental ill health, SEND etc.

It needs a thorough overhaul and a return to a time when there was a stable structure, reasonable expectation, respect for experience and a sense of purpose and a feeling that the job was worthwhile and making a difference.

Yes, I'm not sure how sk8erboi thinks suggesting teachers leave is going to help the teacher shortages. 🤔

Maybe re-read my comment, I didn't suggest anyone left.

From the outside this is my impression too.
Teaching should be a lovely job but it looks utterly destructive to mental health now. New initiatives are introduced with no respect for workloads, teachers who work their socks off are constantly told they need to do better, and there seems to be very little consistency in how far teachers who experience trouble from students are backed up by management.
I have enormous respect for the people who teach my kids, I couldn’t survive that environment.

40,000 Teachers left last year.
So on the brightside (as per the OP) many are taking your advice.

Hopefully the sooner the better.
Then at least finally we can wave goodbye to the archaic and totally inept educational system we have in place today. It's not fit for purpose, for students or teachers.

Instead of blaming the teachers, you could look into why the system is currently so bad.

But apart from having no teachers the system will still be run by the same bunch of incompetent fuckwits that it is now.

So what will change?

So sorry to hear that. None of that is ok but if you had a decent work load and breaks and support from kind managers that you can debrief with then teachers/public facing workers be more able to cope with that without it leading to burnout and quitting ... schools need to be funded more so that more staff can be available and more ppa time is given

I’m sorry you’re having a hard time, OP. I also don’t know how you all manage to carry on sometimes, but thank you for persevering for the families that make it worthwhile.

I'm picturing Waterloo road when I read your post!

They won’t make it better. They will just make the kids do online learning, either from home so you have to supervise them or in a big room with unqualified people for crowd control.

Ps op just saw you're crying in front of your own children - so sorry. Remember you can leave this profession whenever you like or go to a private school - you have to put yourself and your family first

What age/year do you teach @FunionsRFun ?

Well you said it yourself, people don't post about the good things, as forums like these spark conversation around advice and support.

I also can't think of any scenario that warrants a student calling a teacher a bitch, when I went to school that would be a scandal, the child would be sent out of the room and they'd have a heavy consequence. It rarely happened.

Pretty easy actually if you count per hour rate!

On the leave teaching and thrive group, most ex teachers seem to be starting on ~ £35k but only working half the hours during term time! OK, less holidays but more flexibility with holidays. And that's just a start. Progression follows (unlike in teaching)

I loved teaching, had a great rapport with 99% of the students. However even though I was a well liked 'Miss Honey' type teacher I was also sexually harassed, sworn at, threatened, even punched whilst breaking up fights and the straw that broke the camels back was when I had a student threaten to rape me and then his dad refused to have him apologise to me. I went home that night and applied for a new job in a different sector which I have been doing for just over a year. I miss some things about teaching, the energy of the school environment, the lovely children, seeing the cogs turn as they understood new concepts. But I work for an employer now that truly values wellbeing, where you get 'told off' for doing more than your contracted 37 hours, where respect at work is the expected norm. My stress levels are non existent, I'm never ill now either which is a bonus.

Yes, THATwill really help with teacher shortages! Doh!

OP we just recruited a teacher to an NHS role. She just had enough of all of the above and said the feeling of the stress leaving her body was immense. Yes she is now on a lower salary but she has her life (and health) back.

My DH also left teaching a few years ago. Again due to the complete lack of work life balance. It's such a shame but I just don't think it's going to get any better. I would support my DC to pursue almost any profession other than teaching!

We are headed back towards a much bigger rich, poor divide in this country where the well off will privately educate (and I predict a huge increase in private schools of varying price points over the next few decades) or homeschool. The low income families of the future will have to rely on a very poor state education system. The higher paid professional roles will once again become almost exclusively held by people with private education background.

When I first started teaching, it was definitely a respected profession to join. There were stresses, inspections and expectations, obviously, there were challenging pupils too, but they were in the minority and inspections were on the whole, supportive.

So many things have changed and so many for the worse. Before I left I too, have been screamed at and shouted at by parents and pupils, kicked, strangled, pushed, attempted wrestle to the ground, had books thrown at me, sworn at and ignored.

I also had some wonderful experiences with some wonderful young people, some things that will forever stay with me and fond memories to recall.

Unfortunately, now, the difficult stuff is outweighing the good stuff and there is nothing to mitigate it. Theres a sense that schools are simply businesses, with staff and pupils as commodities and the edifice is crumbling.

Most people go into teaching to make whatever positive difference they can. The actual contact with the pupils is a much smaller part of it these days though and the relentlessness of the rubbish that surrounds it and the increasingly high and unreasonable expectation and poor behaviour have made it untenable for many.

We did our best.