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

I'm sure you just forgot to say unless there's a medical condition. I hope you did anyway. My daughter was born without an anus so her bowel system was created surgically over 4 operations as a baby. But it doesn't work as well as a normal one would. She's bright, healthy, happy and has no developmental delays at all apart from still wearing a pull-ups as her nerves don't tell her when she needs to go. I am aware that she takes up some of the TAs time but banning her from attending school would not only be deeply immoral but it would also be against the law. Perhaps you weren't thinking about children with medical conditions when you wrote your blanket statement about no child should be allowed to attend preschool unless they're out of nappies. But, as a mother of a child with a bowel condition of which there are quite a few of us, people's ignorance and lack of thought can be tiring.

So much sympathy for you! Sadly I recognise all the problems. Add to that a bully or 2 on the staff, terrifingly unreasonable Ofsted inspections and never working under 80 hours a week, always taking work away on holiday....knowing you have never done enough.
Teaching broke me as a classroom teacher and Ofsted broke my DH.
My hard won advice? If teaching is making you ill, physically or mentally, get out at soon as you can.

I wasn't, but I have pointed out down thread that, of course, children with special needs are excluded from this ban. Read the whole thread before you jump on people.

The problem is they have considered the fact that parents will do almost anything to keep their child in private school once they are there (including taking out loans or asking family for help if the fees increase) but not how many parents will not consider private school from the start if they are 20% more expensive.

It's not going to level out any playing fields. Parents no longer paying out £15kpa on school fees will spend it on moving to better catchment areas, extra tuition, educational trips. Some might even reduce their working hours and provide high quality home ed instead. The money will still be invested in giving their children advantages.

I'm opposed to taxing education anyway, especially as every child that does not use the state system already saves the system £7kpa, but even if I wasn't, I think it's a messy and ill-thought out plan.

I would never go back into teaching in any format, but I do know friends who left the state sector and went into private schools, and they will not be returning to the state sector if their schools close, so it won't increase the number of teachers.

I think it will cost the state a lot of money and not really have any benefits.

Re parenting courses, in an ideal world, we'd be able to stop people having babies until they've passed a competency course, but that would be fascist and we could never trust our government to have that kind of power, so it's a non-starter.

In a nutshell you are spot on

One of the things I am finding very scary at the moment is the number of children (primary aged) who are threatening staff members with false allegations.

“I will say you touched me”
”You hit me”
”You tried to have sex with me”
”I’ll say you’re a paedo and get you sacked”

A colleague is currently on sick leave as he has had enough as is too stressed, another has had to be on leave 3 times because of fictitious allegations.

Where are they getting this from? Children aged 10 and younger threatening adults in this manner, threatening to have them sacked from their jobs with false allegations of sexual misconduct, it is very scary and as a professional what you must protect yourself against nowadays.

Labour plans to use the money collected from VAT on independent schools to fund more teachers in state schools. This assumes that there are people waiting to be recruited.

Yes, this is the most ridiculous part of the whole thing imo. Where are they going to get these teachers from?! Yes, schools' budgets are shot to bits, but often schools who are currently willing and able to pay a new teacher cannot find one. Having some of Keir's VAT money isn't going to change that.

So it's up to the parents to make sure their child has a fair start when they decide to conceive the child? As if you would know beforehand that your child was going to have a medical condition/special needs? Wow. I missed out on that one. Ofcourse you do EVERYTHING for your child so he/she can thrive but don't you think society should be inclusive and that school should be available for ALL children ? Or should we just lock them up somewhere since they are different? And do this apply to your parents needing extra help when getting older? Or when you need the NHS? Or is it just Sen/children with medical conditions we should exclude? We are not in Germany anno 1940 but your reasoning sounds utterly familiar..

This is truly awful. I'm a teacher too (Primary) and have experienced exactly the same things. I was often called every name under the sun and had a child in my class arrested for criminal damage when he threw a chair through a window. When the police came, he launched a torrent of foul abuse at them so they handcuffed him and chucked him in the back of the van. He then wet his pants.
I loved working there because I was given the support from SLT. However, there were many times when I wanted to quit because the stress and workload was unsustainable. I don't think I could handle it now.

About 11 years ago, I made the decision to teach internationally and haven't looked back. I have a day and a half of non contact time which means I haven't taken ANY work home in 11 years, kids are lovely (though there are a couple of scamps), my take home salary is more than I would earn in the UK before tax etc and next year, I hope to move to a country where my salary would double.
Also, my kids get their tuition fees paid. They are receiving a quality education and have so many opportunities. For example, my son has travelled around SE Asia to represent the school in football tournaments, we have taken groups of children to Texas for the VEX robotics world championships. My daughter is able to do things like ballet, jazz, piano and receive excellent medical care for her juvenile arthritis without being on a waiting list.

The private medical insurance is excellent. I was diagnosed with skin cancer (melanoma) twice last year (stage 2 and stage 1) and both times I had the surgery to remove it within a week. My son was also diagnosed with it (the day of my second surgery) and he too was able to have part of his ear removed. The plastic surgeon was very skilled and was able to graft skin from his groin to replace it.

Basically, if it's an option, this is a route I highly recommend and could help your husband to fall in love with teaching again as he will be able to do his job effectively.

Unfortunately there’s too many feral kids and their feckless parents straight out of ‘Shameless’. These people never have and never will be any benefit to society, yet they make other people’s lives a misery. But if you call them out, apparently your are privileged and unreasonable.

I agree. Personal and parental responsibility has all but disappeared in some quarters, being replaced by rights. The pendulum has swung too far. Labour’s tax on private education smacks of the politics of envy, and won’t improve the behaviour of feral parents and their undisciplined offspring.

Agree. It’s always ‘they need more support’ but all that does is lower their ability to cope individually so then it’s ’they need even more support’, I’m tired of supporting people tbh

My DC were small in the 70s, when families like those were very much the minority. Might be because most were working, (benefits were scarcer) plus two parents in a household was much more the norm. People often lived in an area most of their lives, neighbours knew the families and bad behaviour was usually dealt with promptly.

With the right support in place people thrive. The majority of people in this country require support. Are we removing support from only ND DC or everyone? Should lifts and wheelchairs be removed? Assisted births? The NHS? Free education to anyone that isn't a net contributor?

It's already happening.
Hence I began retraining 2yrs ago and haven't looked back.
Most people on my conversion masters were also from education backgrounds.

What field did you change to? I'm horrified by the stories on this thread and have one friend teaching in special education who gets attacked every day. I'd love to know some good options for her.

I don't quite understand your comment. My responsibility to do what? Her school have been wonderfully supportive and I haven't had an issue at all. The law supports the right of disabled children to go to school. The only issue I've had is from a small number of Internet people making judgements and assumptions about children going to school in nappies. I don't announce the fact my daughter has a bowel condition to anyone. Most parents of children with bowel issues don't as it's not our bodies so not for us to tell the world. Thankfully more young people with stomas and bowel conditions are "coming out" about it which is helping the world know they exist. I believe it's better not to make any assumptions as to why children are still in nappies and just not mention children being in nappies all, in my opinion, because it just fuels stigma and prejudice against those who have a genuine reason to be in them. No mountains have had to be moved, just a little education needed online.

I can't imagine what parents of SEN children have to go through considering my daughter's medical issues are minor really. But I believe that it is our responsibility as a society as a whole to make to fair for all by giving access to all. Individual parents are powerlesss and I believe it's just one frustrating fight against another. It shouldn't matter if a child is in a wheelchair or is neurodivergent, every child has a right to a school education. As this thread seems to be proving from comments by teachers, the issues they face are far more to do with awful parents, lack of management support, constant government changes and not enough budgets for the support they need. That's why we need to be carefully who we vote for in the next election.

I chose Quantity Surveying. It is a great job which needs good interpersonal skills and attention to detail. My job is to monitor the costs and maintain positive relationships with subcontractors and clients. Contract administration needs confidence and resilience.
I am currently a trainee and on completion of my course this year will be promoted.
Pay is very good, private healthcare and a company car when I pass my test. Supportive company who encourage me to progress.

I worked in education on and off for over 20yrs. I've worked in primary, secondary and post 16. Mainstream and SEN, also PRUs.
Please tell your friend that there is a massive skills shortage in construction. ( Brexit effect and looming retirement of most of the work force)
Site and project managers, site administrators, document controllers are a real problem. As well as all trades are short of staff. From bricklaying to drylining, electricians, heritage stone masons- there's such a variety of work available.
Then add the lack of health, safety and wellbeing officers you have so many options.

My thinking was, if I'm going to be screamed at, attacked at work, I may as well get paid decently for it lol
However I don't get treated they way I was in education. Schools are very odd places to work where bullying is rife but everyone puts up with it.
There have always been families with challenging circumstances but education is a political punch bag. How can you expect people to be stable at work when the goalposts are constantly moving?
If anyone wants to ask me anything at all about the work I do just sent me a message.

I'd suggest that schools are not the primary problem, that's just where some parts of the problem gets concentrated.

Society is broken. Where do you start to fix it?

Casual classism on this page alone of this thread is shocking.

I’m going to repeat it because seriously it needs to be said. I work in a very deprived area and many of the parents work hard to raise their children to be responsible polite members of society despite being on benefits. I have friends in middle class schools who say the selfishness, entitlement and rudeness from the parents is utterly shocking and just feeds the dreadful behaviour of the children.

You only have to see the bloody ridiculous threads on here to know this is true. child bleats that they have been treated ‘unfairly’ and suddenly it’s a matter for governors, local LADO, ofsted etc etc. child just becomes more rude, selfish and entitled.

It is across society and not just ‘feral kids from disadvantaged backgrounds’!

I think private schools just perpetuate the haves and have nots. There's nothing wrong with the teachers at my son's school. It's the fact that the clever, nice kids are dominated by kids with poor behaviour, exacerbated by the COVID years IMO.

If there were more good kids and good behaviour, my son would have more kids around him that are like him. He wouldn't be so isolated.

The 'bad kids ' have strength in numbers and it's not balanced.

We've basically ghettoised schools.

But most of Mumsnet are high earning middle classes who love that Tory ideal that if you can't afford private school, you've not tried or sacrificed enough. It's a lie to keep the privilege. Truth is an awful lot of private school people don't get a toss about other people's kids and society. I'm alright jack. That's it.

The bright, kind, sensitive kids especially those with autism, are being eaten alive in state schools. If more kids like them were around, they'd have ' their people ' but so many are siphoned off, they're in the minority and bullied.

And sorry @Elasticatedtrousers . I've read my post and then just read yours. Of course, there are nice kids from disadvantaged backgrounds too. I just see the unruly ones seem to dominate at my child's school.

Even in top sets, my son is putting up with behaviour issues. That didn't happen at my school back in the day. Hence my comment. It's the demographic. The higher achieving kids get siphoned off round here so it really impacts on those kids in state schools because it's so imbalanced.

@SodOffbacktoaibu fwiw your post was balanced and fair, I’m referring to a couple of comments a few hours ago.

I want safe and calm classrooms for ALL children regardless of class, and that starts with society in general respecting education, teachers and teaching kids that adhering to rules is just the way society manages to work successfully.

I have a family member who works in secondary as well and describes the middle class gangster wannabes behaving appallingly. As I say it’s a societal problem not a failing of one particular class.

We had quite a few families from Eastern Europe move into our area and the children come to our school. Usually mum worked daytime in a fish factory then dad went out to work in the evenings. The homework was always done and when they came up on parents' evenings, they were interested in their child's behaviour and how hard they were working. Compare that to the local entitled lot with pots of money - dad on the oil rigs etc - all they were interested in was if their child was in a class with their friends and causing a massive fuss if they weren't. They would also email or demand to see teachers for the silliest of reasons or to complain that somebody had told their child off.