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

Unfortunately, this is commonplace, and it seems to be a widespread issue with SLT.

Our trust is in financial difficulties. Instead of hiring new teachers, existing ones are teaching outside their specialism area, up to GCSE. SLT are known to be bullies. At least 2 HODs are leaving in summer, with another leaving at October.

Teaching is a mess right now.

I see poor parenting as a reflection of society too though. The CoL issues, lack of secure employment, limited social housing, poverty, proliferation of crime, illicit drug use, delays for an NHS diagnosis and treatment etc; these have all got worse under the government.

People’s lives are worse and they are worried and angry. So some people turn against others, whether that’s immigrants, teachers or NHS staff. And this poor behaviour is also reflected in worse parenting and a tendency to blame schools. I think it’s all inter-related.

And that’s in addition to the specific ways that the government has under funded its public services, including hospitals and schools and social care.

So who will teach 🤔

Because the alternative is - well, what is being discussed on here!

Is it though? I am not in the UK but have a lot of family there and I do not believe it is private or the level of disruption being discussed here there is surelt something in between. I doubt all state schools are like this? every country has schools in deprived areas that are more difficult to teach in and for students to progress in for a whole plethora of social economic issues but the majority of state schools function just fine and achieve good results for their students. Is the UK really that different?

For what it’s worth teaching was once a noble profession but has since been populated by the woke and sorry but honestly if they heave their sorry arses and their woeful influence away from the next generation there are many, myself included who will rejoice

what does that even mean?

Assuming you mean all current teaching staff should stop doing what they're doing. where do you think you're going to find 400K teachers at short notice? or even long notice?

is this for real? seriously?
If my child swears at teacher it's government's fault?? not my??

I think this attitude says it all. And until it's changed there is no hope

Agree. In fact ‘blaming the Tories’ has become the default excuse for shit behaviour in general. What will their excuse be when labour get it?

Because private schools are allowed to be selective and they’re allowed to expel. State schools aren’t, because the state is legally bound to provide every child with an education.

This is largely what private school parents pay for. Not sports fields or music lessons. The main advantage is the ability to expel trouble makers - in fact (if we consider that trouble making is strongly associated with low socio economic status) the majority of the trouble makers don’t even apply.

The tories are clearly to blame and the people who continued to vote for them despite all the evidence that they couldn't have cared less about education.

You appear not to care either if you've missed the huge improvement in literacy that's happened since the introduction of phonics in primary schools.

I spent two months in the democratic Republic of Congo (as well as plenty of time in other 'interesting' central and west African countries) where I witnessed incredible levels of poverty and deprivation. Yet for the most part, old and young, they somehow managed to treat each other with a modicum of respect and placed a huge premium on education as they knew just how precious a comodity it was.

It takes a village to raise a child as the well known saying goes.

And if that village is full of poverty, deprivation, anger and divisiveness, presided over by a government who has starved public services while stirring up hatred against the ‘other’ who they conveniently blame for all your problems while they themselves continue to profit, then what do people expect when it turns out the kids aren’t ok?

So how is it that when my parents were young and in school, in the 1930s and children went to school wearing NO SHOES (yes my parents knew those children) that behaviour in schools was better?

The reasons you give existed years ago and far worse.
My father's family had NOTHING. His mother was widowed in her 30s, had 3 jobs in order to bring up 3 kids, and they were bombed out of two houses in WW2 and lost everything. As did thousands of others. There was no welfare state. Or NHS as we know it. You paid to see a GP if you could afford to.

BUT they respected education.

It's not about money.

Agree. Was going to comment to the effect that there has been poverty in the UK since the Victorian era, yet not the widespread level of classroom violence and aggression towards teachers from either parents or children.

It’s very easy to blame poor behaviour and criminality on ‘the government’ rather than addressing the fact that as a society our attitudes and values seem to have completely changed. Much easier to scapecoat law abiding hardworking parents who want their children to have access to fee paying schools, because that will fix everything, won’t it? 🤦🏽‍♀️

Don't be so ridiculous. I was clearly talking about the cost of living crisis and lack of SEN provision in the post quoted that you replied to.

But then it wasnt me who asked such a naive question about who is to blame for those things when everyone is painfully aware it's years of an inept and self serving government.

The faux outrage is tiresome.

So how is it that when my parents were young and in school, in the 1930s and children went to school wearing NO SHOES (yes my parents knew those children) that behaviour in schools was better?

But there were loads of kids who didn’t go to school in the 1930s. Non-attendance was an option.

Yes. Nothing to do with quality of teaching. I’ve done both.
You’re paying for selective club membership basically, and the more you pay, the nicer the surroundings and smaller the classes.

When it comes to low income areas it can depend on the demographic parental attitude towards education, behaviour etc. White working class boys routinely have the lowest outcomes. Other cultures have much higher aspiration when it comes to education

Disadvantaged pupils in the South West perform worse than many of their peer group in deprived areas in London.

Many of them have indeed quit and gone to Wetherspoons, or Aldi, etc. These jobs are easy to get at short notice and require no qualifications, and they pay more than teaching. I’ve known a number of teachers who’ve done this as a short term solution to escape, whilst retraining and looking for a better job.

Honestly the knowledge and expertise of British teachers is just being wasted on a massive scale. Years of training and experience, and good teachers are leaving to become personal trainers, dog walkers, nail technicians, painters and decorators, setting up Etsy shops, etc. Nothing against those jobs but they’re low skilled in comparison, it’s just a huge waste.

Education is not valued and respected by a significant number of people in our society. It is one of the reasons why there is more inequality but you can’t force people to value education.

It is obvious from their manifestos that neither of the main political parties care about education. Presumably that is because they have polled it and realise voters don’t care either.

Remember that they opened pubs before schools after covid. The lack of outrage about that says it all.

It was Shirley Williams who introduced comprehensive education (Labour) and the demise of the grammar schools which had enabled poor , but bright, children to have better opportunities and social mobility.

You are also conveniently ignoring the rise in literacy since this current government made phonics teaching mandatory. That in itself has helped a lot of children who have SEN or not.

It'll still be the Tories fault because they were in power for 14 years. Endless whining about the system being 'broken'.

I can't afford private, but education is clearly a major priority to parents in private schools so they will be engaged and wanting the best possible educational outcome. That's not a certainty in state. Lots of kids don't want to be there and some parents who don't belive in education.

The schools within 20 mile radius of me could be ranked by the area they sit in. Large deprived estates are inadequate. Schools that do well aren't. There's lots of issues at play but how to fix them I have no idea

The phonics movement was introduced in 2007 under labour following research into reading.

The new curriculum was introduced in 2014- with SPaG and new SATs etc by Gove following many consultations about how children learn which he chose to ignore.

No one should put up with these conditions in the workplace. The lack of parental responsibility in the UK is disgusting.

It's all too easy to trot out the usual mantra of 14 years of Tory rule. It's taken a lot longer than 14 years to get to this.
Family values and discipline have been declining for decades. Slowly it became about people's "rights " to do as they please without responsibility. No culpability for bad behaviour.
Parents wanting to be their kids mates.
The compensation culture. Little Jonny punched someone's window in .Little Jonny slashed his hand and needs stitches. Little Jonnys parent demands compo. Little Jonnys mother buys him a boom box to soothe him. Little jonny plays music loudly outside at all hours so none of the neighbours can sleep. It's Little Jonnys rights innit. And so it goes on and now the current generation of Little Jonnys are carrying machetes, slashing their way through life without a care in the world
PS apologies to all the Jonnys who are hard working respectful members of the community,including a close family member of mine, who is lovely 😍