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

With conditions as appalling as they are, where do Labour think they're going to find 6000 people willing to train as teachers. They might offer enticements but 80% of them will probably quit within a few years.

Well quite. It’s a bit like sending men to the Western Front. Without changing the conditions or the tactics, what makes them think the next 6000 teachers will fare any differently from the previous ones?

Perhaps with a change of structure and recruitment focus 🧐

Even at A level, if you have a degree you're equipped.

That's not my experience. I'm retired now, but the young teachers in my department had degrees but did not have the subject knowledge to teach at senior level. Neither did they show interest in enhancing or even maintaining the subject knowledge they had. Their spoken and written English was in some cases appalling.

Of course you also need other skills too, but subject knowledge should be a basic requirement and it isn't.

This is only my experience, not a generalisation.

My son had no great interest in English in any form until he got a teacher who had trained later in life from being a BT engineer.

Yes it can be a good career change for some people but I'm sure there are just as many who didn't realise the full horror of modern day teaching until they started it.

Why on earth should anybody put up with the continual abuse from pupils and parents - both verbal and physical? Why are some places allowed to put up signs saying that they have a zero tolerance policy to abuse of their staff, yet schools can't?

Personally I feel that there needs to be a complete overhaul of the system and people start addressing the reasons why teachers are leaving in droves.

Would replacing Ofsted with a system of peer review be a start?

Unfortunately, I've seen how dire the secondaries around here have become. They treat the DC like shit and then wonder why the DC behave in the way that has been modelled to them. DC with additional needs are not given reasonable adjustments and hugely struggle. This isn't individual teachers fault - it's SLT. My only advice is for him to get a job in a decent school but there aren't that many around unfortunately.

Can you give examples of them being ‘treated like shit’? And no adjustments? For what?

My dd is getting verbally bullied at school but won't tell me who is doing it as she said she has seen them get told off for their behaviour to others and they just get worse. I spoke with her teacher and said while I can't tell you names by what my dd says I'm sure you know who's doing this. Teacher was very nice but essentially told me she can't do anything about it, they can't supervise the cloakrooms and playgrounds enough to stop it and if the consequences they give don't change the behaviour they can only continue to give those same consequences. She said she would speak to the whole class again about being kind.

My dd is new to this school but classmates tell her they have had the teacher leave mid year every single year so far. Half the time they have substitute teachers or the pe teacher or TA teaching them. I've had to get a tutor as my dd learns nothing at school. She comes home in tears and is constantly either suffering physical symptoms of anxiety or trying to fake to get out of going. She's constantly sat next to disruptive kids as she's so quiet and meek.

I hate what the government has done to our education system. It's hell in those schools for children and staff. I work in early years. Over 20 years I've worked and known we lay the foundations for children's future outcomes. There was so much support and targeted interventions available when I started but I've watched it all get cut and ratios increase. Early help is hard to get and these children could have been helped but now are entering school with significant delays or undiagnosed send or unsupported troubled home life. No one has any time or funding to help so the services are fighting fires and only helping the kids about to be removed or who's parents complain the most or the ones attempting suicide etc etc.

Of course a lot of it is shitty parents that can't be denied but I won't accept it's all on the parents. But of course when the shitty parents wont accept the little darling did actually do as they are being told and was witnessed by staff what can we do? Teachers leave. And the 'good' kids just suffer more. While those in power have the money to send their kids to schools that are able to be selective and kick the challenging children out. I'd say I have no words but clearly I do because I always have a rant on threads like this lol

One of the better routes into teaching is Teach First. The grads are put in tough schools and it's sink or swim. It's a prep for leadership roles

We don’t need loads of leadership roles-we need good classroom teachers who will stay.

What we don’t need is

Another workload survey (with the only outcome being, they will repeat it in a couple of years to see if it’s gone up or down).

Another recruitment bright idea where the government spends a fortune on adverts telling us that ‘great teachers can earn £60k’, with a troops to teaching/mums to teaching/pensioners to teaching type theme of chucking bursaries at people so they stay for a year then leave.

What we do need…

The government to find out and understand why teachers are leaving and what would it take them to keep them. it’s only ever about recruitment. Solve retention and you might get somewhere.

So as an example a DC with autism - no reasonable adjustments for uniform, sensory issues, time out etc. Plans agreed and then when the DC tries to follow the plan being humiliated by the headteacher. A DC being told they can't be a comfortable temperature - could go on. DC who is polite, kind, friendly, does their best, gets to the point that they snap and answer back and all hell breaks loose! I see it time and time again. These schools need to sort themselves out.

But - with the greatest of respect - we have teachers saying a quarter to half their class have sensory issues, some kind of adjustment needed that means they can’t follow basic requirements, or some kind of specialist treatment. It’s not remotely enforceable and why is this level of need suddenly so high?

Not anymore. Teach First is now also accepting anyone who applies in an effort to meet targets and claim government bonuses.
We had a Teach First trainee who was so totally obviously unsuited to teaching that they should never have been accepted onto the course. They lasted a couple of weeks.

My DH is Kenyan. He told me how damn lucky he was not just to go to school, but to a pretty good school, for which his father had to work endlessly in low paid jobs to be able to afford.
DH didn’t come from money, neither did his peers. Behaviour in school was exemplary, because if you misbehaved you’d get battered by the teachers and then battered some more at home.

DH isn’t even 30 yet. He’s also very well educated, in a well paying career, has a very close and loving relationship with his parents, and suffers no trauma from school days.

This wouldn’t fly in the UK and yet we’re the ones with the feral children.

Because there aren't SEN school places and the DC becomes traumatised at school through the way they are treated and things just get worse and worse.

The fact is some schools are able to deal with DC with additional needs and some do treat the DC with respect - i.e can take their jumper off if need be. Yes, the situation is complex. But there is plenty that many of these schools could be doing.

I don't believe there is any excuse for the SEN department to formulate a plan only for the head teacher to over ride it and humiliate the DC. Just as one example.

That poster is just being goady. She has multiple threads explaining that she doesn't believe in ND or EHCPs. She thinks ND children should be left to sink. Her solutions usually involve violence. She has no experience of working in schools, or experience of schools as a parent as her eldest child is 4.

But you wouldn’t go to special school for struggling while wearing a jumper.

So many kids need some kind of adjustment now they’d have to do away with the rules altogether.

I’m really worried about our future workforce and will be encouraging my kids to emigrate because it will be chaos, if there is one at all. Nobody seems to be able to just do anything these days.

Excuse me? Are you confusing me with another poster? I have never condoned violence as a school punishment , and I’ve certainly never said I don’t believe in ND. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned EHCPs, I know nothing about them.

I don’t think anyone on this thread has said that this is every single state school have they? But even if it’s 10% and we all know it’s loads more than that, does that mean that parents in those schools who choose to move their children into private deserve the demonisation that they receive?

You see parents on here falling over themselves to explain their choices and justify their reasons for going private, when for a lot of parents, myself included, I just didn’t want my kids in the sort of chaotic, often violent and deeply damaging environment described here. Mine all did state primary, my eldest did a year of state secondary (highly sought after, over subscribed faith school in a wealthy area) and it was pure shit. Violence, appalling behaviour in lessons, low expectations, worn down staff etc. We’ve taken the massive financial hit and moved to the private sector, fully recognising our immense privilege in doing so and yes, making many sacrifices in order to do so. Teachers who can make the change to another career or move to private sector absolutely should.

Of course it’s unfair that the calm, ordered, nurturing and friendly learning environment that my kids now experience isn’t available to all, but it needs a massive societal shift to change this, rather than the race to the bottom that the hard left call for when they screech about the evils of private school.

We lived in Ireland for several years and private schools there are actually subsidised by the state. The same per-pupil € amount is paid to private schools as it is to state schools, with parents paying a top-up for the additional teachers/facilities each particular school offers. This keeps school fees down (average €3-4k a year I think, but haven’t done a recent Google) and means that private school is more accessible to many. A more mixed cohort at private means that the social and attainment gap between private and state is mostly narrower (with some exceptions for pricier schools of course), and pressure on the state sector is reduced too. Rather than penalising the sector, the government there supports it as it reduces the burden on the state-only sector and supports the overall goal of a highly educated population across the board.

Could you imagine the hysterical shrieking that would emanate from the hard left at the mere suggestion? The outcome of private school being accessible to more pupils would be completely lost in the howls of ‘subsidising the rich’ and ‘perpetuating inequality’ and ‘if I can’t afford it, no one else should have it’.

Maybe you haven't mentioned EHCPs, but you mention adjustments. You have many times condened violence as a punishment. As I say, a quick look at her previous threads.

Please quote verbatim where I have said violence should be a punishment in schools. Or a punishment in general.

All the parents that have bought up these children will be crying when there is no one to teach them anymore.

Yet somehow they will still know their rights despite not being able to spell them.

Until discipline issues are dealt with this will continue. Lockdown wasn't traumatic for kids, they loved being on their phones etc at home. The trauma was going back to a disciplined environment.

Where will the 6,500 new teachers come from? How long will they stay? Safest teaching job I ever had was our local prison.

People always seem aghast at Katherine Birbalsingh's ethos, but when I read threads like this, I think we need to clone her and put a Katherine in every school with shitty behaviour.