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

To be fair grammars do this as much as/ more than private schools.

Ah yes @twistyizzy perhaps in areas that have them. We have a grammar school but it is in fact a fee paying private school entirely.

The only other one I know of is about 30 miles away and for girls only.

They're not a thing here.

Neither are they here but in areas where there are grammars then those tend to cream off the top pupils, independent schools get the next batch and then, as you rightly say, the rest go to comps.
The fundamental issue is that 1 size fits all simply doesn't work. We actually need more choice not less so that parents can choose the delivery model that best suits their child.

We have grammars here and it's awful. All the money goes there (and to the church schools) and the poorer DC have to go the terrible comprehensives.

My DB lives in a non- grammar area. For his family the transition to high school was much easier than here. The parents choose between 2 good comprehensives and their DC goes up with lots of others from their school. All very relaxed.

Here, it's fraught. Have they passed the 11+? Is there score high enough to get into the school they want? What will we do if the don't pass? Which comprehensive is the least worse option? Can I get them into a church school? Now I need to appeal as my ASD DC got the dreadful Comp up the road. Which school shall I switch to as my DC hates their comprehensive/hasn't settled/needs not being met. Will I just have to home educate?

I'm not saying that's all exclusive to grammar school areas but that's my comparison with my DB.

We do have those, but my experience is that we're also having problems from mollycoddled middle class children whose helicopter parents simply will not believe that their children might not be perfect. They have an answer to everything.

We had one boy who kept chasing after younger girls and "imprisoning" them during lunch. (I reported him after two of the girls told me about it.)

He was also sending them lewd pics.

The parent's response was that the was only "playing" (in S4/Y10?) and that his account had been "hacked".

When I had to remove him from a younger teacher's class because of his lewd comments towards her, it was the school's fault for influencing him via the set text we were using and it was my fault that he didn't get a particular exam pass. He hadn't been entered at that level because his grades weren't good enough. (If the parents had paid attention to the documentation and reports they'd been sent plus the meetings we'd had, they'd have known that he'd never been entered for that level. )

The constant problems caused by that one pupil and his parents meant that already time-deprived staff were put under even more pressure and other pupils lost out because of his constant disruption.

@SodOffbacktoaibu

The higher achieving kids get siphoned off round here so it really impacts on those kids in state schools because it's so imbalanced.

Where do they get siphoned off to?

I've already related my experience, but one thing I'd forgotten to mention - this should all come as no surprise. Back in the 80's, no less, I joined up with an organisation called "The Escape Committee" which basically advised teachers who had had enough. The signs were clear; they had a consumer base to subscribe to their magazine, after all!
I cannot begin the enumerate the harebrained initiatives I have seen come and go since then. They come round in cycles. Yes I was one of the old sweats muttering at the staff meeting where the latest dazzling new scheme was proposed, ""Yes we tried that in 1974, and it didn't work then....." By my reckoning, I just kept doing what seemed to work well, and, cyclically, I was trendy four times over the years. This is not to say that my mind was closed to new ideas, but I tried to be realistic about them,
However, I didn't stay in the state system; foolishly, I allowed myself to become better qualified and experienced, hence more expensive. In the independent sector, which I had never considered, I was actually paid a salary supplement, a business decision on the part of management who saw well-qualified staff as a business asset.
Politicians come and go; they move on to be minster of something else quite quickly, so it is all novel to them, and they want to implement the quick, easy fix that shows results before they've gone. Anything costly, and a bit pragmatic and dull, doesn't really appeal, neither is there willingness to see things through and evaluate them realistically.

Depends on their age? For instance where my DGC live the outstanding selective 6th form college has a mixture of high achievers from different (pretty decent) comps along with ex private school pupils.

@Seymour5 thank you for answering my question.

Unfortunately schools are often dominated by badly-behaved kids even in areas with no grammar schools and where almost everyone goes to the local comp. Where I live, virtually all kids go to a handful of local comprehensives. The odd one or two go to the grammar schools a bit further away, over the county border, but certainly not enough to 'cream off' the top layer. There are no private schools in the immediate area. Behaviour in the comps is bad and getting worse.

@starrynight009 I asked to have my post of last night taken down, and would like to apologise publicly. I wrote in haste, and intemperately, and was horrified when I read it back this morning. I'm sorry that it has taken me 24 hours to say so.

I get annoyed when teachers moan about a lack of disclipine. If a pupil swears at a teacher the response should be simple "You are in detention this evening, You will stay after school for two hours". That is what used to happen at my school, it did mean the teachers had a rota to stay late to watch those in detention but it worked well.

The same for any other act that is wrong, punish it.

And if the parents then go in screaming and swearing that they’re taking their kid home and why should they be punished for ‘mental health’..?

A pupil will quite simply not turn up for a detention. They will just go home. Parents won’t support the school so the bad behaviour continues. It is very difficult to enforce discipline when so many parents are unsupportive.

I fundamentally disagree with this. I don’t agree that, even in the few areas with grammars, that the “top” pupils are “creamed off” - and what a way to think about kids. There’s many different ways of being intelligent and talented.

Grammars take the most academically able kids at 11. But one of the flaws of the old grammar system was that plenty of clever kids didn’t get into the grammars for different reasons - didn’t apply themselves, didn’t have parents who valued education, were immature at 11, or just messed up the exam.

That’s why, even in a grammar area, non-grammars have to be truly comprehensive - to cater for the most able as well as the least.

In all but 2 of the inner London boroughs, 10-50% of kids are in independent school. But no-one thinks of this as “creaming off” the “top pupils” and no-one would consider that the comprehensives are less comprehensive as a result. There are loads of super bright kids in London comprehensives. Mossbourne Academy gives the private schools a run for their money.

So what if the parents decide that their little precious doesn’t deserve the detention?

They shout, swear, abuse the teacher. Go straight to the head, complain to ofsted on some nefarious safeguarding nonsense. And yes complain about poor little babies mental health.

What about the children who just don’t care? They’re so traumatised by life, detention is nothing to them? In fact it’s better than being at home?

I don’t think you understand kids or families nowadays at all!

@Mirabai but London is very different to where I live. I agree, kids need to be supported in all their talents and we need people with trades and all sorts of skills in our society, but what I am saying is if there are fewer academic type children in an area, and then a significant proportion of those
go to private schools or are able to go to one or two better state schools, the ones that are left to go to the rest of the state schools stick out like a sore thumb. Top sets don't even cater for them.... They're less able to fit in if they're bookish and not into football and tiktok or whatever.

My kid has been badly bullied....the bullies take up a majority of some of his classes. It's mob rule.

Punishment doesn't work. Behaviour points and detentions. They don't care.

I would love to hear ideas on how we make state schools better for all children? Because at the moment, the answer from a lot on mn is you'd manage to send them to private school if you cared enough and as long as those badly behaved kids aren't near mine, that's fine.

I get annoyed when teachers moan about a lack of disclipine. If a pupil swears at a teacher the response should be simple "You are in detention this evening, You will stay after school for two hours". That is what used to happen at my school, it did mean the teachers had a rota to stay late to watch those in detention but it worked well.
The same for any other act that is wrong, punish it.

Fgs. Do you think teachers are stupid? Do you think they would read your post and think 'Oh yes - I could give them a detention! Why didn't I think of that before?!'

Teachers do give detentions. Detentions, or even the threat of detentions, have a deterrent effect on good kids who give a shit, but not on the ones who most deserve detention. Those ones either don't turn up, or do turn up but don't really care if they get more detentions, so they carry right on behaving badly.

Unfortunately, detention, isolation, suspension and expulsion are the only weapons in schools' arsenal. I've already explained why the first one doesn't work well. Similar story with isolation. You can only get away with suspending a student a certain number of times (it goes on the school's record), and expulsion is very hard to do, requires a LOT of hoop-jumping by the school and is often overturned on appeal. Even if you do manage it, it just moves the problem to another school, and you may get another troublesome student in return.

So sorry you get annoyed when teachers 'moan about discipline'. Maybe consider that you don't really understand the problem.

I can see there are parents like this. Sorry to keep flogging this, but some parents will be those with SEN kids who are being punished continually for things they really need help with - fidgeting, struggling to sit still for an hour without movement.

We've experienced this. My son is intelligent , does well in school, great reports. Yet, this part is a challenge. He is kind, he isn't mean but he is ' annoying'.

I cannot win against the system and I am a very responsible parent. I have never and never would go storming in over anything. But a point can come where a parent says, no more, please stop punishing. Could you just please try this? It's a nightmare as most SEN parents will tell you, because some teachers just haven't got the skill or patience. I do get that it's hard for them if not experienced in this.

My son got dragged into class by the collar in year 2 of primary. His friend also. I didn't complain. Because overall the teacher was good, he just lost it that day and it was a one off. I kind of understood. If the teacher was a bully then it would have been different. I also want my son to realise that I can't come in and fix everything because I feel that causes issues. The other parent complained non stop about this. I did see her point of view. My son wasn't too phased and we laugh about it now.

If you've ever watched ' teaching Yorkshire', this is so insightful. It shows you what a difference a good teacher can make. It does however show you how awful it can be for so many kids if the teacher or Head cannot deal with the kids effectively. ( Supporting the victims of bullies properly for example).

If you've ever watched ' teaching Yorkshire', this is so insightful. It shows you what a difference a good teacher can make. It does however show you how awful it can be for so many kids if the teacher or Head cannot deal with the kids effectively. ( Supporting the victims of bullies properly for example).

The thing is, no school can expect to have all excellent teachers with outstanding classroom management. By definition, most teachers will be average, and some below average. Unfortunately some SLTs totally fail to understand this. They operate on the basis that if you can't stop bad behaviour, it's your fault, and they make you feel like you are a failure.

But the fact is that stopping bad behaviour in your classroom sometimes isn't really possible. There are kids who are unmanageable for all or nearly all teachers. SLTs need to acknowledge that, and shape policy accordingly. Such as (in a secondary school) by having a couple of SLT members circulating at all times and removing disruptive students.

I suppose all parents should support the teachers just as my parents supported the teachers when I was at school, and I supported the teachers while my children were at school.
Maybe schools should simply tell all parents that if they wish to discus any issue they need to make an appointment (and the wait for an appointment could be several weeks).

Teachers are trained as general class teachers - not specialists in every area of SEN. Teachers are often teaching classes with a third of children with SEN/English as an additional language - often more. Some SLT are worse than OFSTED. Parents and children are often emotionally pampered for poor behaviour. 'Called someone a c*nt... There there! Let's do some play therapy.'

@NotTooOldPaul has the right idea but not enough support for it these days (unfortunately) - and that is why it's all going down the pan.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft yes I can see how way too much is put upon teachers and schools rather than actually giving them the resources they need to be able to accommodate kids who need more.

The 'inclusion' agenda not only fails those children most in need, but the rest of the classes who are just held back in many cases. It was a cost cutting exercise that fails everyone.

So depressing and sad.

Nothing of value to add. I’ve just left and won’t be returning. It wasn’t the kids for me but the toxic culture and stress and insane workload: the majority of which provided zero benefit whatsoever to teachers or learners.

Adding more and more work that is patently worthless speaks volumes about the perceived value of teachers time and wellbeing.

As someone else said I feel like I’m getting out of an abusive relationship and it’s going to take some time to process and put myself back together again.

I will genuinely miss the kids and teaching. It’s a shame it isn’t the job or culture I signed up for over 20 years ago or I’d happily continue.