To think droves of teachers will make the decision by husband made today- to leave

[Peakyshelby]

Well after 6 years of teaching my husband has broken down, gone to the doctors, been signed off and says he is done.

he has done 3 years in 2 schools and then done supply for 3 years. There is too much to list but the highlights have been

been told to go and fuck himself and other insults thrown at him by kids with hardly any consequences from parents and schools

having stuff chucked at him

having to appear as a witness in court when a parent beat up his own child at home time in the playground

having parents create a smear group on WhatsApp against him and 2 other newly qualified teachers because the parents said there little darlings behaviour must be down to inexperienced teachers not being able to handle them.

having parents laugh and him and tell him he is picking on their little darlings by trying to sanction them.

have children laughing at him and saying my mum and dad don’t care what I do

hardly any support from above.

There is too much more to write but today he had a 10 year old child walk up to him and pour a water bottle over his head.

he is done. He qualified with a group of 10 others and 8 of them have since quit. 2 did not get through there NQT year.

He says the system is broken

This is exactly the kind of attitude that is contributing towards teachers leaving in droves.

Yes, and add on to the the hundreds of hours of pointless work created by HTs or MATs to "prepare for OFSTED" every term, rather than time being given to actual teaching.

Yes! A whole massive industry of education advisors has emerged from the chaos-preying on heads and MATs who are terrified of failing Ofsted and losing their jobs. They pay thousands of pounds for these twats in suits and clipboards who haven’t taught in years to come in and terrify their staff into working harder and harder and doing more and more, because Ofsted ‘might’ ask to see x, y or z.

Schools also have to pay thousands of pounds for schemes of work, new reading schemes, new phonics schemes, subscriptions for things that used to be free (under the previous government). School budgets are now being paid directly into the bank balances of publishers and advisors purely out of fear of Ofsted failure!

There is definitely an element of poor parenting and parents not supporting and respecting teachers. My parents would have been appalled if I had spoken to a teacher the way some pupils do. I would have been punished at home- I don’t mean physically, but no going out with friends etc. my own children were fully aware that such behaviour would not be tolerated.

This thread really worries me. I have a newborn and a toddler so we’ll be entering the education system in a few years. I want experienced teachers who are happy in their jobs and well supported! Can’t afford private, don’t want to/can’t afford to home school.

No idea how anyone manages to teach these days, at secondary level. There's always been bad lads but the pressure to be rock hard these days with SM and TV shows the way they are, creating these roadmen, it's violence and abuse for teachers. Blame the decisions made in the 80s to remove any sort of punishment for bad behaviour and the namby pamby state. Its been downhill ever since.

bingo! Wondered how long it would be before the holidays comment appeared.

Sounds like the system isn’t broken but the kids are.

This is what happens when kids aren’t a little bit afraid of their parents, and everything can be blamed on ‘mental health’ or other diagnoses.

Their brains are totally fucked and addled by screen use, junk food, weed and vaping.

All this rubbish about ‘regulating’ themselves with harmful crap needs to stop.

Our country is being drained by people who are frankly black holes of ‘need’ and holding us back

Sympathy to your DH

Yeah usually made by guilty parents

My wife quit teaching about 12 years ago. Thankfully she had other career options she could fall back on. Usual reasons already listed here. Lack of management support, crap parents, crap kids, crap pay, long hours, working weekends lesson planning and marking. Final straw was having her phone nicked, the thief being caught on cctv red handed, no police involvement, no return of her phone, no apology from the pupil and a few days detention as punishment before the smirking fool was back in her class.

I was delighted when she quit.

My nephew is a science and maths teacher and loves it, 3yrs in (did PGCE in first lockdown, was working in the city in a corporate financial role previously) he has just been been promoted to head of year 7 plus runs the environmental/sustainability initiative. He does work in a super selective all girls grammar in a very nice area so I guess that makes a huge difference. He only ever speaks positively about the students' behaviour and attitude to learning, and that if the parents. He also has a very supportive and equally committed SLT and other colleagues.

Move to as affluent an area as you can afford.

I’m sure you would say that the job ‘wasn’t right’ for the other 40,000 teachers that left the profession last year (before retirement age) as well.

Or maybe, just maybe, there is an issue with the job itself…

That’s because it’s a selective girls grammar.

Three weeks ago I drove my brand new 30 minute old car to the supermarket where a child promptly scraped her umbrella down the entire passenger side while I was getting out of the car.

When I pointed this out to the mother I was told to shut up Karen. The kids then proceeded to chant Karen while the parent laughed.

The problem is this generation of parents not the little darlings they are raising.

Thankfully there was no damage but that’s not really the point. I wouldn’t have dreamt of scraping someone’s car and neither do my kids who are well rounded, polite individuals. There were always consequences for anything they did wrong and they have grown up with this in mind.

I feel for your husband. Driven out of the profession he loves because the soft approach to parenting has just gone too far

I didn't even last half a term as a TA in a special school. I just didn't feel like it was safe with the level of staffing we had and when the teacher had her break I was in charge of the class with an agency TA (some had no TA experience at all and many had no experience of SEN work) for support. It was just impossible.

So recruitment doesn’t seem to be the issue, but retention is; what would help with retention?

Answer: smart phones.

Parents with heads in devices either not interacting or over parenting from constant exposure to SM parenting influences. Hysterical parenting trying to remove risk but not seeing the greater risk of poor development and MH. Kids in buggy holding a phone instead of looking around them, older kids who have never felt boredom therefore never had to become creative. Shorter attention span caused by apps like Tik tok.

I can well imagine. It's sad what the world has become, brash people breeding brash children with no care for anyone and a need to be better than everyone else. I remarked on the very same recently, watching TV gameshows of the past versus nowadays. People used to be humble, almost embarrased to speak about themselves, nowadays its all look at me, how loud and bolshy can I be. And on social media, youve got grown adults acting like spoiled brats for views, and this is beamed minute by minute into the pockets of children.

You could rant on for hours, but it's the society that adults have created for children. It's not their fault, it's how they've been raised. Any secondary school teacher in anything but the most selective of schools deserves probably at least double what theyre earning for having to tolerate it.

He does work in a super selective all girls grammar in a very nice area so I guess that makes a huge difference

Well yes, I guess it does!

I think your husband’s experiences are on the extreme end. I’ve been teaching in secondary for 13 years and have been sworn at a few times but nothing like what you’ve described.

So teachers are right to leave in their droves due to the woeful conditions routinely found in state schools (and I don’t disagree - I was one of them!)…..

But parents are demonised for choosing a private alternative that means their kids don’t have to experience these woeful conditions?

If grown arsed adults can’t cope with it, why on earth should our DC have to if another alternative is available to them?

Because apparently if those children attended schools with those woeful conditions, it would sort them out.

This - so many absolute arseholes having children. No one is able to take criticism, and take comments about their children as a personal slight.

nasty, violent people etc having children. It’s really shocking.

It's awful but what is the answer.

Kids have nothing to fear from society or family.

And just as importantly they have little to dream about.

When we were kids it was work hard and keep your head down and you'll make it out of here.

Now?

We live in a depressed time.

(My answer would be zero tolerance, young adult detention centres, keep the troublemakers out of mainstream... But it wouldn't be supported and I can understand why - it's brutal and unfair, it's just a pragmatic option)

Supply is tough, but it’s also flexible. It’s not a good idea for newly qualified or inexperienced teachers though - you need a range of strategies and a lot of confidence. Even so, I’m cutting back. No more supply contracts, just individual days, and as few as possible. I have 35 years of full time experience and am semi retired.