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?

What happens to the disrupters @OctogenarianDecathlete?

I can hardly imagine teaching without disruption!

DD went to one of those primaries where they pander constantly to the badly behaved kids, they don’t deal with the behaviour and it then continues into secondary. Badly behaved children being picked for special events and the getting sent home. Well behaved children ignored etc.

I have worked in schools. In the back office but I would help out. A lot of the disruptive children were just starved of attention, but there isn’t staff time to deal with it. One on one time and a good relationship with an adult would make the world of difference.
We had a boy who was constantly excluded/disruptive all day every day and was heading to permanent exclusion, mum used to shrug. Apparently when he was PE’d she asked the school what she was meant do now with him and the Deputy Head just said ‘not our problem’ and she started screaming at him, she had ignore the issue for years and hoped it went away.

Lots of the staff were done not because of the children but because of the parents. I dealt with a few and my general opinion of people really dropped, I’m still shocked as some of their behaviour, kids don’t have a chance.

I worked in a school in an area of high poverty and in one of the roughest areas, where the social and community issues were off the scale. I also taught Year 1 and I was never once sworn at or spat at by a 6 year old. Don't get me wrong they swore sometimes but it was just part of their vocabulary, as in it would come out in general conversation.

I don't think your experience is the norm at all. High workload and working every evening and weekend is why I left, I wanted a life after 15 years of doing it.

I miss the children a lot but the prescriptive way I was being told to teach without deviation, the lack of fun for 6 year olds, not having any time to follow their interests, sing songs, read stories, have a bit of fun for once was what did it for me as well. The job I left was unrecognisable from the one I started 15 year before. I still feel sad about it sometimes.

They are given a reminder about expectations, which isn't recorded in any way. And at this point the vast majority of children take the reminder as intended and get back on track.

Sometimes if they're particularly dysregulated they'll be unable to settle and so will be sent to student support and the lesson will continue as before.

At student support the disrupting child will be assessed and provided with any support they might need (accounting for any SEND, social or family issues etc). They'll be coached through the incident and helped to see how they could have responded better.

They're then given two lessons to calm and complete work silently in a supervised room, allowing the rest of their class to continue undisrupted. And then they go back to lessons.

The vast majority of students find this a deterrent enough to improve the way they participate in lessons, but it is also supportive enough that when a child is truly struggling they get the support a class teacher is unable to give whilst teaching.

The 'frequent flyers' get a whole lot more coaching and mentoring and we've seen huge improvements in those children over time.

I know several that under the previous system would have been largely suspended before being moved out of mainstream lessons. But instead they are now in mainstream lessons, not disrupting, for the majority of the week. I am super proud that they are learning self control and are able to benefit from undisrupted lessons themselves too.

My son hasn't been "sent" yet, but he's testing the boundaries and I expect it to happen before the summer! And it'll work for him; he's got nothing complex going on, he's just a teenager who is looking to see if they really mean what they say! (And they do!)

I have to say that it is brilliant. I don't think I could go to any other type of school now.

Of course, nothing is ever perfect. I could complain about a range of other things but student behaviour is not one of them any more.

Typical post just sprung up on our local parents group (Facebook)

’School accusing son of bullying and fighting and want to suspend him, found weed in his room, trying to get him counselling and an ADHD diagnosis but why aren’t the school trying to understand him rather than picking on him’

No mention of discipline or proper parenting at all - just piling on already creaking services for yet another diagnosis, counselling that isn’t needed, and criticising the school for not being all things to all people

That sounds good. Just being supported would be great!

I agree.

I have a significant minority of parents who come in expecting me to sanction the child for things they have done at home.

No.

I'm their teacher. I act in loco parentis while your child is with me but I'm NOT their third parent!

Stuff that happens at home? That's for you to deal with.

I'm not punishing your child because they swore at you. Stop swearing at them and see if that makes a difference first!

This sounds like a great place to be and similar to my own school except it is in a city.

People who think "strict schools" are a bad thing have no idea about the toxic and corrosive influence that even so called "low level disruption" can have on students and on staff.

This.

Interesting, live in a city where the local secondary is also regularly slated for its ‘ridiculous rules’, hundreds of comments, trust clearly holding its nerve.

Happily sending my child there as I’m watching the exodus from families who can’t cope with a few rules. Just suck it up is what we should be saying!

Personally loving it as I know it’s making my child’s education far better!

I was a dinner lady for about a year. It was awful, particularly during post covid when we had the bubbles. I had 28 kids on my own, several with Sen, a couple servere. they ate dinner in the classroom then played on a cordoned off piece of playground. I was hit, swore at, kids fighting each other. if I was having an issue everyone ignored the walker talkie or couldn't come because they were on their own. I once had to ask two children to find an adult as I was getting punched by two boys who were trying to hit each other, they were also throwing things which were hitting the other kids.
My line manager would put measures in place such as Sen kids could have play equipment or iPads. Then teacher would over rule her.

And that was only 1hr a day. They were surprised when I handed my notice in.

I will admit to the cardinal sin of only having read all of OP’s posts and the first few pages so perhaps this has been answered but… why do head teachers allow this behaviour? What is it that disincentivises them from backing teachers up and being loose-handed with exclusions? Is it enrolment targets or the local authority or what?

I work in a very challenging secondary school but tbh I don’t get called names very often (or ever as far as I can recall) so this primary school sounds horrific. It is exhausting though.

I’m always having to bite my tongue though. i think I may also have muttered f**k off under my breath but don’t think anyone heard me fortunately 😵‍💫

(if anyone had heard me I’d never hear the end of it 😱)

Ofsted do not like schools where children are permanently excluded.

Schools are judged, negatively, for excluding students.

Can I ask why they get away with this? When I was at school such language and behaviour towards staff would have got you taken straight to the head teacher with a possible suspension. At secondary school the headmaster would cane pupils who were rude to teachers ( the only thing he would cane for and obviously not an option now).
How are these children still allowed at the school?

Because there hand are tied they have very little in the way of punishment they can implement
the kids just don’t care and the school gave lack of parental support

the lack of standards just filters down from parents
if you rung many of these kids parents saying the kid told a teacher to fuck off they wouldn’t bat an eyelid

my friends school has a number of parents barred from the school premises swearing aggression fighting and arguing
the kids are carbon copies of them

Thanks @Iscreamtea and @Philandbill I had wondered if it was Ofsted. It’s shocking teachers are so badly hamstrung, in an ideal world you’d be marked down for not being tough on disruption rather than the reverse. I don’t know how you’re expected to be healthy yourself and provide a healthy environment to the children who aren’t violent if you’re supposed to put up with it. Just dreadful.

I find threads like this a real misrepresentation. Sure some schools are really bad and I don’t doubt a lot of teachers have to put up with complete shit but there are still lots of good schools in the uk with excellent teaching staff and supportive SLT.

I’ve worked in schools for over 25 years, lots of schools as I’m peripatetic. I know it’s different for me as I’m only working with small groups of children rather than managing a whole class but I of course see and experience a lot of what goes on.
I work mainly in primary. I feel very lucky to work with children and have had a mainly very positive experience.

I work in some very deprived areas and the children are no better or worse behaved than some more affluent areas I work in.
In my experience, overall the ‘problem parents’ are from the more affluent areas - demanding, entitled and a real pain in the arse, these parents are given a wide birth from me. They message me at 2am demanding updates and progress reports - I’m of course professional and polite but my communication with them will be minimal and I won’t go the ‘extra mile’ as I do with many others. Their number will be muted on my phone and they are swiftly reminded to re-read my terms & conditions which also has a zero tolerance of aggression or abuse (from both children and adults).

I am lucky to work in some Roman Catholic primary schools where the behaviour is second to none, pupils open doors, are extremely polite, diligent and discerning- it’s the culture of the school.

I previously worked in a private ‘sought after’ school in my area, some of the pupils were so arrogant it was unbelievable, some were at breaking point from stress and pressure to achieve- they were only 7! I eventually left as the teaching staff and head of music were so incredibly snobby I just couldn’t be arsed with it anymore. Give me an average school or school in a deprived area any day!

I work independently so am not employed by schools, I am very lucky to not be drawn in to all the bullshit meetings, red tape and extra crap classroom teachers have to deal with. I count my blessings that I can work in schools, teaching my subject that I love and go home at 3 and focus on my family.

If you are a teacher and you’re unhappy, please leave to work in a better school or teach your subject independently, or get a completely different job, life’s too short.

@rwalker ^"Because there hand are tied they have very little in the way of punishment they can implement
the kids just don’t care and the school gave lack of parental support "^

This is what gets me. They could do something if they wanted. I spent all of my son's last year at his old school waiting for them to get their act together and enforce the rules they already had. As had been happening at my school. But they didn't.

Parents complain about both schools in equal measure. They complain that the local school is too weak, too much disruption, too much bullying (and outright violence). But the school we both now attend the same types of parents complain about the strict rules and that their children are expected to not disrupt and take responsibility for their behaviour.

My point is: parents will always complain, (people will always complain) so do what we know works for children and staff.

I have worked in primary and secondary as a TA. IME there was more extreme behaviour in primary. Those children were removed from mainstream before they got to secondary.

In primary I dealt with furniture being thrown, physical violence directed at staff andnother children, children climbing over bookcases and coat racks refusing to come down, broken windows, broken radiators etc. There were a small handful of children like that in pretty much every year group. Memorably, on one occasion parents were called to collect children that had been rampaging around school shouting obscenities at staff. The parents arrived with a group of friends all clutching cans of beer. It wasnt even lunchtime yet. I haven't had to deal with anything like that in secondary.

In secondary there are some physical fights between children but it's more constant disruptive behaviour. Children think teachers are being unreasonable asking them to stop talking while the teacher is talking to the class, they will argue back when asked to do/not do something, they will swear and walk out of the classroom, they will hide in the toilets and not go to class, they turn up late, they want to go to the toilet when they've just come in from break and argue with the teacher when they are told no. When they are allowed to go they disappear for 30 minutes. If there is a supply teacher they all do whatever they like and don't do any work. If they get a supply teacher who tries to teach them rather than just put a slide of instructions up all hell breaks loose. Then, when they are issued with consequences they will argue very convincingly that they didn't do it even when caught red handed. Sometimes adults in the school who weren't involved will believe them and remove the consequences. Parents inevitably do believe them and come into school raging that their little angel is being picked on by the teachers.

I watched a very good teacher break in front of me this week. Just ground down by the constant poor behaviour and every lesson being a battle. We had a particularly bad lesson and the teacher just broke. They will be leaving the profession at the end of term if they come back at all.

Sadly, with recruitment and retention being what it is, schools and teacher training can't be so choosy. I've seen some really terrible student teachers this year (one very good one too) and vacancies have been filled with not so great teachers. Lots of supply being used too. None of this helps the overall behaviour management in the school. The good teachers still do a good job managing behaviour in their classroom but it's a constant battle and really does wear them down.

I know that parents of children at the school have no idea how bad it really is because I know some of the parents. If you think your child's school is not like this, you may be wrong. I had no idea, as a parent, how bad the behaviour was in the primary school until I started working there.

Apparently, schools all across our city are really struggling with behaviour at the moment. IME it comes down to parents (across different backgrounds), outside influences (eg social media and a society that seems to be getting more entitled and selfish) and a curriculum that isn't appropriate for children that are struggling to learn so they become disengaged. There are other factors too, there's not one thing that we can fix and then it will all be OK. I do think there needs to be less pandering and more meaningful consequences though. I don't think we are doing children any favours thinking they can grow up behaving like that with no consequences.

We do do this. Take them to the HT, at least, but we don't suspend for it.

The bottom line is that (some of) the children don't care about being taken to the HT. Some don't care about suspensions. They come back and do it all over again.

There's nothing the HT can say or do that will change the behaviour.

Some of the children experience such shit homelives and are the products of such poor parenting that There's nothing we can do or say that will even touch them.

Not only that but we are seeing many children come through primary with trauma behaviours (from parenting) from parents who are, themselves, exhibiting trauma behaviours - especially poor emotional regulation. It's the whole 'children learn what they live' thing.

On the lower end of the social spectrum, there are a lot of families who see schools as the enemy; part of the establishment. And they will fight us every step of the way on everything.

At the other end, we are only teachers. People who weren't good enough at our chosen subjects to make it as a professional in that field. The those who can, do; those who can't, teach mentality. They seek to micromanage us.

Those attitudes are reflected in their children.

Then there are people who have made a lot of money in trades. People who outearn teachers by miles in skilled work they entered because they left school without meaningful qualifications. I have friends in this group so no issue with that. But, for some the attitude is that school is a waste of time. They did better than the teachers in life and the level of disrespect in some is off the scale. They literally talk to you like you're shit. In front of the children. And brag about it. I know that because sometimes the children will repeat what they say.

Of course, there are very many incredibly supportive parents across all groups but there are those who take pride in their children 'taking no shit' from their teachers.

And you see all of this reflected in MN threads.

Some of the children will come in and tell us they're going to get us sacked. That their parents are going to complain to ofsted and we'll get sacked. Not for serious transgressions but because things like keeping them in at break as a sanction or removing them from a classroom for persistent disruptive behaviour contravenes their rights according to the UN Rights of the Child (the right to have friends/get exercise and the right to an education respectively) And they can quote the relevant article numbers at you.

A lot of church schools effectively select the nicest dc by insisting on church attendance. This means other schools get a bigger share of disruptive dc.

The culture of a school matters. Parents don't prepare dc well for school and expect the schools to do too much. A HT on Radio 4 suggested too many DC were getting EHC plans. The ones with pushy parents. Other dc don't get what they need so their needs are unmet and often they are in deprived areas so the schools struggle. Many need school adjustments but don't get them.

I do think most schools are good but the teaching profession in primary is largely female and they are working part time when they can. I do wonder if more men in a primary school would help.

That is so sad to read. So different from the UK I grew up in. It wasn't perfect by any means, but at least children respected their elders, especially teachers, and policemen!