I know it's been done to death but I don't think people realise how hard it is to work in a school!

[user4692821]

I work in a small village primary school in the north. I'm so used to hearing people saying "oh I'd love to work in a school so I could have the holidays off" or something along the lines of "well you can't complain as you get so much holidays with the kids" etc.

My week normally consists of:

Being called a bch 3/4 times a day
Told to shut the fk up at least once a day
Being punched
Spat at

And that's just some of the 'bad' incidents. It's not mentioning the other more 'minor' incidents that happen constantly through the day.

I work with 6/7 year olds. In a mainstream school. It's not uncommon, most TA's have similar in their classes. When we meet people from other schools they say the same.

Yet we are constantly told to be grateful we have a job that gives us time off for our kids. I 100% get that it's lucky we can have the holidays off so we don't have to pay for childcare. However what I ask myself everyday is: is this worth my mental health? Because honestly (apart from NHS jobs or similar) where would you go in to work and expected to be treated like this and paid minimum wage?

Well, what can they do?

At DD’s school if a kid punches someone they get 10 minutes on a sofa with a fidget toy.

It’s fucking ridiculous

Agreed, my parents worked 6 days a week, long hours, we were latch key kids. I still knew not to take the piss at school. No-one had to tell me I just knew that there was acceptable behaviour and not acceptable behaviour.

Your school does sound particularly unpleasant and having had two kids in school I can tell you that swearing and abusive behaviour absolutely isn’t the norm, particularly amongst children of that young age. I’d try and find a role in a different school unless you fancy a complete career change.

Having the holidays off is a great perk as a working parent so I can see why people fixate on that but given your circumstances you’re well within your rights to tell them that it doesn’t make up for the potty-mouthed, violent kids you’re forced to deal with.

1. anyone who uses the term old school parenting- presumably you don’t mean hitting your children with belt or suchlike.
2. I am a teacher and have never been hit on purpose or spat at. Being called a bitch plenty though. The school needs some serious behaviour management if this is on a regular basis. And those students should be permanently excluded.
3. totally agree about parents not taking any responsibility. A parent I know was told that their primary child had sworn and was bullying another. They were in the pub questioning why the school were contacting them.
4. ADHD is not a justification for being a little arsehole. Schools are happy to support students with techniques to focus. There is no excuse for throwing things across the classroom or not even attempting your homework. Parents use this as an excuse for their children having no boundaries.
5. finally there are also some kids whose parents are in and out of jail and have no stability in their lives except school but this is why it is important to keep enforcing the social standards of our society. The parents in these situations have failed - possibly as they are in a generational cycle of poverty or crime. Schools have to help get these kids out of that cycle.

I'm the same. The disrespect and rudeness I get on a daily basis from 8 year olds (and their parents) is at a level I've never seen before. We're overworked, underpaid and under-appreciated. The job has changed so much over the last few years - the expectations and responsibilities placed upon us now are unbelievable. I am expected to provide physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, counselling, significant medical support for 2 children and EAL support to 2 children who don't speak English. I have no qualifications in any of these areas. Any training or research I do has to be done on my own time which I often don't get paid for. This is on top of my normal duties of general classroom support, clerical support and regularly teaching classes by myself to cover for absent teachers. Not to mention helping out at lunchtimes and the Before/After school club when we're short staffed.
I'm not allowed to claim overtime as we have no school budget so have to try and take TOIL and I get paid the same rate as a bin man. I'm so close to leaving.

Yep I work with 4 and 5 year old, I've been spat at, kicked, punched, bitten.

Had chairs thrown at me, scissors, heavy wooden blocks. Been sworn at. It annoys me that people think it's a job or singing songs and doing arts and crafts. When it's so far from it. And when parent's use the lines of oh children will be children, or they just have a big personality.

They take no responsibility for their child's behaviour despite the fact they act like it outside of school also. I love my job but at the same time I can't wait for my kid's to be older so I can look for something else.

It does get fed back. Except most parents these days refuse to believe that their perfect child could have done such a thing and we're wrong. Or they defend it by saying that it's not the child's fault - someone must have done /said something to them first and they were just standing up for themselves. There are very rarely any consequences at home for these children so they learn that they can just say and do whatever they want. In my experience any way.

When other people’s children act like this it’s unacceptable and should be punished, when it’s their child it’s ’mental health’ and ‘unmet needs’

Many school staff are fantastic. Many are not. Just like children and parents, I suppose. Many school staff behave appallingly to children, especially SEN children: refusing to meet their needs (even when very basic and easy to implement adjustments) and therefore denying them their right to education. Then trying to blame the child/ parent for the situation they have created that was completely avoidable.

I don't think that working in a school is any harder than many other demanding professional roles. There seems to be a particular mentality from certain school staff that it's so hard when they've never actually done much else so have nothing to compare it to. And it's always those types that parents who have done other things can see wouldn't last a week in many other professional environments where they actually had to behave like professionals.

I've worked in education and family support since 1981, now semi retired and doing TA supply. I have never experienced the level of challenging behaviour that is common in schools now. COVID has made things worse. So many children with additional needs and no budget to meet their needs. And the pay! Support staff are essential for a schools to function, often treated as second class by kids and management, and deserve more respect!

No one is forcing you to be a teacher. Change careers if you don’t like it.

In my view it’s because we allow very unintelligent, antisocial people to pop out endless kids and financially support them to do so. You reap what you sow.

In fact we have a massive underclass here which simply doesn’t exist in other countries. I realise that term is really unflattering but I don’t know how else to describe it. Generations of families who barely work, commit petty crime, take drugs, smoke and drink all day, live off the welfare state and their kids run feral doing as they please without any stability or guidance whatsoever.

These types of parents used to smack and shout at their children, and while that’s NOT good, meant there was some form of discipline going on even if very suboptimal. However now the tables have turned and they ‘back their kids 100%’ and have swallowed a load of anti establishment, conspiracy theory shit off the Internet which means along with chaos at home, these kids are completely enabled and supported to be off the rails.

Add in screens (which I believe have seriously malign effects on kids brains) which they use as babysitters, and you’ve got a recipe for the usual difficult kids but on steroids.

The only thing we can do to improve the situation is intervene to stop such people having children but obviously we ‘can’t’ do that 🤷🏼‍♀️ so we have to watch the country decline instead.

Speaking as someone with ADHD undiagnosed until my 40s, I think the “Oh they’re ND” has gone too far. it’s great it’s more widely recognised but it’s an individual thing, you need to work at learning how to adapt to fit in. Once you’re in the workplace you’re still expected to behave like everyone else. It’s lazy parenting tbh which doesn’t people with ADHD no favours.

Teachers need to be given greater powers of discipline. All these “children’s rights charters” “respect the child” mantras are a load of bollocks. The school system would be a lot better if kids were petrified of at least 25% of their teachers.

There should be greater sanctions against parents of anti social kids. Of kids aren’t behaving in school parents should have to home school. It’s not fair on the well behaved kids. It should be a lot easier to remove the disruptive ones.

I have been a secondary science teacher for 24 years and still love it! Yes I have been sworn at, hit and separated many a fight between teenage boys much bigger than my 5ft 1 height! The best abuse I have had was being called a f*King ginger lesbian C*t! The best bit I was pregnant at the time and happily married. I congratulated said child on their clearly improving literacy skills and reminded then that they would still be getting a school approved exclusion!! Also when I was at my first school I experienced 18months of intimidation from 2 students and their family. The students were eventually excluded due to it no longer being safe for me to move around the school but I didn't give up!
I get paid well, I manage my time so I can enjoy my weekends and school holidays - you need to be a little bit selfish with your work life balance! I had 2 children under 5 when I decided to be a teacher. I now have 4 children and still love my job!
Behaviour in schools is bad but as a teacher i remind myself that when a kid abuses me it is because they are not coping in that moment. It isn't a personal attack on me it's them not coping. It may be then not coping with the learning or it could be due to something that happened earlier in the day or even outside of school/ at home.
The moment you take the abuse personally is the moment you will crack!!
I have worked in mainstream comps, grammar and the private sector and have been leadership! I left the private sector ( a top girls independent school) as i didnt fit - i was a bit too council estate and i was bit too honest when things were simply wrong with their systems.
I am currently in a comp with excellent leadership who really treat staff like family - everyone matters and everyone is supported!!
I will be teaching science for at least another 15 years and love my job!!

That's pretty much what has already happened. Hence the absolutely catastrophic teacher shortage.

I hear you OP.

Former Primary LSA here. Although I haven't been sworn at by littlies I have been physically threatened by a child and heard truly horrendous language generally in the playground.

What really wore me down, however, was the constant need. SO many children with anxiety and trauma. I spent my days trying to help children to cope, just cope with existing. Genuinely heartbreaking, exhausting, never-ending and all for next to no pay. It was extremely rewarding at times, but no where near enough to balance out all the above and counteract the stress - not even with the holidays!

I also absolutely agree that it looks. ikely an enormous wave of social problems is about to crash on society. Very scary.

I worked in a very successful secondary school. When filling in a census form, I realised I worked, on average, 65 hours a week and in all the holidays except late May half term and , maybe, three weeks in the summer. That, and breaking my arm, resulting in my being off school for 4 weeks, made me realise how stressed I was and that, at 58, after more than thirty years as a successful teacher, Ofsted ‘excellent’, I was being weighed down by the demands of a job I had loved. I quit. It’s been heaven.

I really feel for you.

I used to be a full time time Primary school teacher. I got really tired of being told how lucky I was to work part time and have long holidays.
I worked well over 80 hours a week. Many days in the 'holidays' I'd work for hours and also go into school several times. This isn't unusual, many staff do similar hours.
I asked these people if they thought working in a school was do easy, why didn't they do it?

I work in a SEND school for mental and behavioural issues. Sworn at, doors kicked in your face, food thrown at you, you name it and I’m office based. This is the worst time of year for us especially as we are on with GCSEs so it creates even more drama and the workload is excessive. Parents are absolutely useless and it’s always someone else’s fault and actual teachers think everything is an admin job. I get it completely but I do love my job and the time off is the best.

It’s already apparent in my workplace with the younger generation not doing the job they are asked, and acting incredibly entitled. At our intern recruitment day, half looked like they were dressed for a nightclub, most had phones in their hands and there was zero collaboration.

Please don’t stop shouting about it. Nobody should be expected to work in such stressful conditions, and your pay is absolutely not a reflection of the work you do. Plus I don’t want my child in a classroom watching that behaviour and missing out on learning :-(

I think the swearing thing is tolerated at home much more than it ever used to be. I still daren’t curse in front of my mother and I’m the wrong side of 40! I never tolerated my kids swearing in front of anyone when they were growing up, and neither of them swear in front of me now as young adults. But I remember when mine were in secondary school, and I became friends with a parent of someone my child hung around with. When I visited, her teen would swear in just normal conversation and when I asked why she let them, she said she didn’t see it as a big deal, and there were worse things they could do, and that she picked her battles. I just see it as a huge mark of a lack of respect. It must be an absolute nightmare to teach at a secondary school. At least at primary you still have some chance of guiding their behaviour. Secondary school you've no chance.

As a mother who is already concerned about their child reaching school age because of all the issues dicussed in this thread, and as someone who has zero experience or knowledge of the realities working in schools, my first thought is that there surely needs to be a changing of rules that correlate with the overall changes in society that are leading to these consistent issues? For example, the increasing amount of parents that seem to either not care about parenting properly or seem to think their angels arent capable of doing any wrong, should be made to understand that schools simply will not tolerate abuse in such that if their children act abusively then teachers have the right to refuse to be put through the abuse by not teaching these children until the matter is dealt with on a deeper level. The trick is knowing how to go about the changes so that it is not necesarily the children who are being punished but the parents. Although I think that maybe we need to accept that children need to understand boundaries in school if its not happening in their own homes while they are still young enough for it to really stick! I appreciate its a very complicated situation and not an easy fix but things need to get tougher in order for them to ger better.

I work in pastoral in a large secondary school. Behaviour is massively problematic. We have a real shortage of (good) teachers and a lot of cover which makes things so much harder.

The need from students is so high. I have a huge group of disillusioned kids who have zero purpose in life (phones and social media have robbed them of hobbies and interests) and who don't have the emotional maturity to navigate their exposure to the crap they see on a daily basis. Their language is horrendous, they have little capacity to reflect on their behaviour and their parents want to exonerate themselves from their shit parenting so blame everything on the school:

"so and so can't come to school and can't be expected to behave when they do because they're being bullied and the school are doing nothing to sort it out".

Except that their child physically assaulted 2 other students, sends abusive messages over social media and has never once mentioned that they're being bullied or presented as such.

On a daily basis I deal with physical fights, inappropriate behaviour, self-harm etc etc. The need is so great that we simply don't have the resource to deal with it effectively.

There should be greater sanctions against parents of anti social kids. Of kids aren’t behaving in school parents should have to home school. It’s not fair on the well behaved kids. It should be a lot easier to remove the disruptive one

But where do they go? We have teachers who say "well we should just exclude them" but then what? There is minimal specialist provision. They just get passed around schools as each school in the local area has to take their fair share of kids who have been excluded.