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

And I'd argue it does the children no favours in the end. If they don't change their behaviour they are on a fast track to a difficult life. They need to have consequences for their behaviour to make them change. Appropriate support should also be put in place but not instead of consequences, as well as.

I qualified as a lecturer over 15 years ago. I managed 3 years working in a college and gave it up.
I worked part time so only got paid for contact hours, when I was physically in a class room and didn't get any paid planning time. I had to do planning and marking in my own time, so basically doing a full time job for a part time wage.
I worked within a mostly male student environment and was subjected to verbal abuse, sexual inappropriateness and aggression by students regularly. One student threw a chair in a class room, had nothing but a slap on the wrist and then the week after dropped his pants in my class and told the TA to suck his you know what whilst helicoptering it about! The only saving grace was that she had been in the job a long time and she very calmly told him to put it away as she didn't have her glasses on to see anything anyway! He then eventually got expelled.

My husband still teaches and gets abuse on a daily basis too!

Whole society is broken. People have no time as they work long hours (to pay horrendous bills),commute, wrap around care, quick dinner (often something readymade) and sleep. Rinse and repeat. No time for the kids.Weekend is for catching up on the housekeeping and so what.

Kids hardly see their parents so they are easily influenced.Internet and social media has a lot to answer to.

Some people don’t give a shit.

Parenting and „soft,soft” approach. No discipline, no accountability,no responsibility,no boundaries,no consequences.

Entitlement, expectation and no gratitude.

There’s the result.

Look at any of the threads in here that are about kids and even adults behaviour. Every single one of them you’ll find posters excusing bad behaviour.

We need discipline and education in society and some common sense. Sadly some people mistake discipline with punishment,they don’t value education and common sense seems to be gone from all areas of life.

@Pantaloons99 It's nice to hear, that out there somewhere there is some support from SLT. I have found that most provide nothing more than a toxic work environment. Where what they say goes and if your face doesn't fit, or you won't dance to their tune, then your ousted. We need to go back to the drawing board, re think our whole education system. Let's start by not paying principals over inflated salaries. Stop making them a law unto themselves, after all they are only egotistical, power hungry teachers, that haven't spent a day in a classroom for many, many years.

Plus the dig of you have the summer off.

In reality that time is earned for the late finishes marking stuff and prepping stuff.

Never mind when colleagues go off sick your lightly to lose any no contact time.

One of my friends was a lecturer and was quite common at times of the year working to midnight to keep up with above and up early to get a couple of hour done before kids were awake.

Oh and feral kids another friend told me when she was subbing kids were open they took it as a challenge to get a sub to quit. Their own teacher I believe was off with stress.

i feel for anyone in Education, at any level. Getting kicked from all directions.

I think a lot of it is having a curriculum that is not fit for purpose. Children expected to sit through lessons for exams that everyone knows they are going to fail. It's not too surprising then that they disengage. The exams are testing the wrong things. Why memorise quotes or equations in a time where we can find these things on the Internet easily enough? I think GCSEs need a massive rethink, especially now children are expected to stay in education to 18. Even by the end of primary the work is too hard for a lot children.

It would be good if education were put into the hands of education experts rather than politicians. A bit like interest rates are now decided by the Bank of England. The curriculum and exams could be planned by an expert body based on research not whims and rose tinted glasses.

Gove has a lot to answer for.

Sadly none of what you have described sounds unusual.
People think I’m joking when I say I split up more fights than some door staff (mainstream secondary).
However it’s the parents who make it unbearable. The vitriol they spew on social media, targeted hate campaigns and pure lies about “no teachers trying to stop the fights” (when we’re literally bruised, scratched and frightened on a weekly, sometimes daily basis) is the hardest part for me.

@Garibaldhead yes totally agree.

Unless you have spent time in schools, I think most people wouldn't really believe what goes on - I know my OH didn't.

Our HT was terrified to open her computer in the morning because of the emails from parents - they were either vitriolic or making a fuss about utter, utter shite.

Our school had very entitled parents and, through them very entitled pupils who could do no wrong in their parents' eyes.

My daughter is 15 ..very nearly 16. It makes me laugh when comments on here" my husband is from Kenya..would never happen to my children. Given that 15 % of all girls in Kenya are still the victims of fgm I find it mind boggling she thinks this is something to aspire to. My daughter refuses to go to school. Is very creative and has an apprenticeship lined up when she is 16. Not mentally ill, comes from a family where she is loved and firm rules put in place. Pupils not happy ,teachers not happy, lord knows what the answer is...

Radically, I think the time has come to charge everyone for secondary education. Revert to a Victorian model. Reduce income tax on earnings accordingly, but re-create the notion that education costs and must be valued and taken seriously as the stepping stone to earning more as an adult. Heaven knows how anyone would make it work though.

I’m a secondary school teacher and retiring at the end of term: six years early. Most of my colleagues are in their fifties and early sixties. When they go I dread to think what will happen.

What a load of nonsense

Why?

I've heard parents "joking" that their child can't do X, Y or X but they're not worried because the school will do it for them. Some parents seem to think their responsibility ends when they give birth.
I trained as a TEACHER not a nappy changer, tooth brusher and whatever else skills their parents can't be bothered to teach them

There are quite a few people here refuting my point about needing an overall academic standard for teachers, so I will say this; of course there will be exceptional teachers who are unqualified or didn’t complete a degree or transferred from a completely unrelated career. The point is, they are exceptions to the rule. The best tutor my child has ever had was a first year university student who had gained all A/A* at GCSE / A Level, they clicked with my child and managed to engage him where others could not.

However, just because exceptional people exist, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have an overall standard to try to recruit high quality, academically successful teachers. If I am being taught something, I expect it to be by someone who has at least mastered it at a basic level. A - now ex - Geography teacher I know achieved a C at GCSE, D at A Level, 2:2 degree, then went on to do teacher training. Unsurprisingly, they just about made it through the PGCE and then dropped out in their QTS year. I am not condoning children misbehaving or generally being rude, but one of the key things the children picked up on was the fact he ‘didn’t know the answers himself’. If you, as a teacher and so called subject specialist, are googling the answers in front of your class, you can expect to become the subject of complaints, disrespect and ridicule. Until leaving state education two years ago, I was unfortunate enough to see this scenario time and time again, particularly in recent years.

Absolute tripe

My partner is a teacher and is planning to leave. He says that behaviour is awful and this year, since they changed their SLT lead, he didn’t get backing from SLT for something a child did - the child decided not to hand in their assessment - then complained and blamed it on mental health 3 months after the deadline - SLT backed the parent.

So many people are leaving his school.

It’s a shame because he loves what he teaches and likes working with young people but like other PPs have said - the system is a mess.

As a parent, I do not understand why there are loads of parents constantly taking their children’s side when they know that they are in the wrong. As a society we are letting young people get away with everything and the. We wonder why we are not a polite society.

I did twenty odd and could not believe how great it felt NOT to be teaching any more. MY biggest regret is that I stayed so long. If I had my time over I would not have become a teacher and would never advise anyone else to go in to it either.

100% agree.

How incredibly sad to read. I am a teacher ( presently on maternity) and yes there are times when I would happily walk but I am fortunate that my little school is well supported by a fab head. Support from the top has a huge difference in teachers.
I wish him in well in his future career

Twice I had the opportunity to leave teaching and do something else but was stopped from doing so by my mother.

I qualified in the early 80s when it was an enjoyable job but retired 2 years ago as I couldn't bear the thought of continuing as things were only going to get worse,

Forty years ago.."kids watch too much telly "!! You can't parent like your parents did, kids aren't the same. The world has changed. School has refused to keep up.

@Shudahaddogs so what do you expect schools to do?

Simple: give schools the power to temporary/permanently exclude pupils. It could be internal exclusion (isolation).
Encourage schools to treat every offense seriously. Threats/violence/theft should be reported to the police, cctv should be investigated, etc.
Basically if there are consequences the thugs will either stop or leave. This leaves the SN students but I have a feeling that 1) it will be easier for them to cope with less disruption and 2) teachers will have more time and energy to assist them if they don’t have to worry about discipline.