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?

I work in a private school. Over a 25 year career in both state and private I have never once experienced what the OP has. Side-eye looks and flouncing off and wide eyed protests of unfairness yes but nothing worse. I am not saying for one second that everything described on here is untrue, but it's not universal.

I think what you describe is reflective of many sectors where they deal with large numbers of the general public unfortunately, one of the early posters mentioned retail, I've seen NHS workers and police treated this way, and I've seen firefighters have missiles thrown at them, sometimes called out deliberately so people can do this. Paramedics are attacked by the very people who call them out for help.

It's experienced by all in different ways. I think there is a general misunderstanding about many of the core services and it's just too easy to target them, take them for granted or be subject to unrealistic expectations and general ignorance about what they do.

I do work in one of these areas myself and get many of these stories first-hand from people I come across professionally, it's disgraceful but more common than the general public thinks.

Your name is a tad ironic.
Are you sure it shouldn't be falsch?

Work in a supermarket when we are struggling with staff shortages, been told to lose 150 hours every 4 weeks (yet short staffed!), get moaned at by the customers- many (mostly elderly) don’t understand that we are more multi skilled than 20 years ago that staff did till work all shift

Sick to death of the rudeness, impatience, abuse and bullying from customers. A few of my colleagues, myself and managers will refuse to serve rude customers.

There needs to be some awareness to show customers that they the ONES that make staff LEAVE retail due to their behaviour. I have said that to a few rude customers that people like you are making staff leave in the entire retail industry. Then for many shops, like mine staff are not being replaced as remember we have 150 hours to lose each 4 weeks.

Then don’t start me on elderly, retired customers who shop on Saturdays. I have seen working aged customers telling the old dears that they 45 hours a week “shop then!” or leave Saturdays to those who worked all week. Some elderly customers just come into our store to buy a lottery ticket. You visit the newsagents and mini supermarkets for that. Plus have pointed out to customers that you can buy your tickets up to 6 days in advance. Seen a few customers buying all their tickets at once

Then because of customers being rude, impatient etc. When shops actually recruit (what’s that word?) or a new supermarket opens, they struggle with getting staff. There’s a supermarket opening next week in a town 12 miles away from me in a former Wilko plus two other shops - one closed and the other relocated. Still struggling to fill the vacancies. Well who wants to work in retail dealing with horrible people?

There are some lovely customers but alas, they are becoming a dying breed- yes these customers have died. Noticed a house down my street is up for sale and thought I haven’t seen the lovely couple in there for ages. From speaking to their neighbour, the man died and his DW is now living with her daughter about 75 miles from here.

Most places are horrible to work at due to horrible people, horrible conditions, crap pay, targets which are difficult to achieve.

More needs to be done with rudeness from customers

Again, it's not that it's 'harder'.

You're right, there are awful days in all jobs; lots of people need to decompress but none of those examples you gave detailed anyone being abused for/whilst doing their job.

If you've never been in the position of being pinned up against a wall by a child who is taller than you with their arm pulled back to punch you in the face and stood there absolutely terrified, wondering if he's going to break your nose or your teeth and not having a clue whether there's anything you can legally do to protect yourself or prevent that from happening but, hey, at least he's not doing it to someone else's child, then you're not going to understand how horrific that is. It's the most scared I've ever been.

What's your point?

That's interesting and confirms my worries about the terms ADHD and autism being used to excuse poor behaviour, even in adults, when there's no diagnosis. It's detracting time, money and support away from those who really need it.
Same with lazy employees who say it's their mental health and get signed off for weeks while the mental health of their team actually suffers for covering their work.

My elder DD is a newly qualified English teacher in a secondary school in a nice part of the country. The entitlement of some of the parents and children is shocking. Children claiming she is negatively impacting their mental health by expecting them to do some work. Parents of the same children shouting at her on the phone then hanging up. How are these children going to cope in an adult world?

My younger DD is heading off to her state school shortly, she's in the middle of GCSE's and the staff are putting on a 7.30am revision session. The dedication is amazing.

That's appalling. I work in a college with teenagers (in the north) and we don't get spoken to like that, ever!

We also don't get the holidays off either but that's a different story 😂

😂
I actually love my teaching job and mostly it's fine, despite the fact in my tiny school (fewer than 100 pupils) in the past 2 years staff have been hit, kicked and sexually assaulted by primary school pupils. But I love that you think a 6 year old wouldn't call a member of staff a bitch. That's tame! Certainly a weekly occurrence in many schools. Not all schools no - my 6 year old doesn't even know what a swear word is - but the Reception children where I teach all know words and phrases like fuck and piss off because there are some children that come in using them as everyday language, not even realising they are swearing.

This is shocking and really disturbing

At age 5/6 this is not the kids fault- it’s what they’re being exposed to at home- either parents/ other relatives or older siblings.

There has been a breakdown in responsible parenting on a massive scale.

Our hands are largely tied though.

What can we do?

Remove privileges? What privileges? We can take away breaktime but the children don't really care. Some children are at risk of permanent exclusion for their behaviour but it rarely happens because those children have a right to an education and there's no where else for them to go. We can exclude for a couple of days after a physical assault but then the child is back, in the same class and with the same teacher/child they assaulted.

On the rare occasion that a parent removes their child from school believing that its the schools fault, the problem just transfers elsewhere.

My school has a early robust behaviour policy and a clear system of rewards and sanctions but the persistent offenders are immune to it. They just don't care.

Because parents are saying the four letter words to them regularly. The kids have no comprehension that some of these words are swear words.

Bad parenting at it’s bloody best.

The most pot kettle black statement I heard from parents’ mouths is “stop fucking swearing”

Maybe the erosion in public services that underpins our society is possibly being reflected in schools and children’s behaviour. School being a reflection of wider societal issues.

Would also look at changes in school systems over the past decade.

Academy systems.
Bullying out of older, experienced staff.
Curriculum.
Over testing - for management benefit not the children.
Undermining of teachers.
Underfunding.

OP is not being unreasonable.

If you move to work in a private school, it’s like going from night to day. The range of issues are also apparent but not significantly across the board. Most children will be pleasant.

It's not really a long term solution though. There aren't that many private schools for a start.

Someone has to teach in state schools...

People like to think state schools are ‘going down’ but I’ve been in them for over 30 years and had exactly the same issues with children throughout .

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?

I hate the woe is me with threads like these as if no other profession is subjected to abuse 🤯

There is literally hundreds of roles that are subjected to abuse on a daily basis and are much harder than what you’ve described (although abuse is not acceptable on any level)

My husband work for the local housing authority, in the last month he’s had a knife pulled out on him, he’s literally had to save himself and his colleague from being kidnapped and could only escape by getting into a physical altercation and pulling on his emergency alert, all of which left him and his colleague battered, bloody and bruised.

Been told at CORE meeting that he was going to have his head chopped off!

Was assaulted in the office after a tenant pushed the desk between them, trapping my husband against the wall bruising his ribs…. This was because the court granted an eviction due to non payment of rent for 17 months…. Evictions happen a few times a month….

He’s subjected to threats of violence and verbal abuse daily.

He has over 45 colleagues doing the same role…. One colleague had a bat took to her head and was hospitalised for over 8 weeks, another colleague has all her home windows put out twice with her children at home, colleague had to have home CCTV and street CCTV installed by the police due to being targeted by now ex tenants , who is now in prison due to assault and harassment.

So while I sympathise that it’s not an easy job, there is loads of jobs that are expected to put up with a multitude of shit! Irregardless of pay levels.

Of course, but it’s something an individual might consider if they’re at the end of their tether but enjoy teaching.

Many teachers strongly believe in supporting the state system because they think education should be accessible to all, not just the financially privileged (yes, scholarships exist but in reality private school is out of the reach of many).

That's really really awful. I think it's good to have threads where people talk about working conditions though or people outside the organisations have no idea. I had no idea about a role like your husband's but I'm glad I now know.

@HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend I don't think anyone is saying that only teaching staff have a difficult job, but they are allowed to speak about their lived experience and need to be listened to.

People in other challenging roles can start their own thread if they want to.

Persistent offenders need to be excluded (or at the very least excluded from class and teached separately).

The right to an education is all well and good but you still have to behave within reason to get it. Country has gone so soft.

In a civilised society rights come with responsibilities.

This is me 👌