Teachers : what's the worst thing about the job now?

[Floursacktabletop]

I've name changed , but been here many years and teaching for 22 years.
Dreading going back on Monday. For me , the worst bit is the increasingly poor behaviour of students and the continual parental complaints and allegations.
Anyone else dreading it and fancy a solidarity thread?

I currently have students on my registers in y11 and y10 who I rarely if ever see. They bounce in and out, screwing up lessons, upsetting people left right and centre, acting like entitled little brats, doing fuck all work.

Why, MrsHamlet, are you predicting Bob a grade 1? His target is a 6.

Well, oh great and powerful leader, I actually predicted him a U but I was told that was not acceptable.

🙄 How on earth are you supposed to get a 6 out of a kid who's hardly ever in lessons, and when they are, they do nothing but cause disruption? I don't have to put up with this bullshit any more, thank goodness (girls' grammar school).

We have a little Johnny in my child’s class. Hits the children and adults, swears and trashes everything in sight all day, every day. But it’s ok, there is no bad behaviour, only unmet needs! Now they are wondering why most of the class are on track not to pass their SATS. 6 1/2 years of their needs being ignored in favour of poor little Johnny.

Hell if I know. But that's his target so...

I could put the answers in front of him and he'd turn them into a paper aeroplane rather than write them down

Yes, we have to fuck over everyone else's needs in favour of Bob's need to be a dick

If you go by some of the stories on here/tiktok/reddit.

He will be a high flying CEO of his own company with staff that love him and the only reason why he acted up was because he had unmet needs and those nasty teachers kept picking on him.
Or he is a major internet influencer.
Or a surgeon.
But he will make it the world because he is no longer under the thumb of a system that never understood him.

The truth is that if he is lucky at some point there will be an epiphany he will turn it around and be a useful member of society.
But its more likely that he will continue to be influenced by not so nice people that will not care at all about him and use him and dispose of him once he gets into trouble.

I starting teaching in a Cat B prison and have never received nasty behaviour from a soul. It's the most positive environment in which I've ever worked. Very refreshing after school,pay not comparable though.

I'm in secondary and I agree that behaviour is really concerning. I'm teaching lots of students who just don't want to engage in school routine; turning up 5-20 minutes late every lesson (hiding in toilets), rude and horrible behaviour towards staff and their peers, apathy towards lessons (head on desk or blatant refusal to work). It's also complicated by the fact that most of these students have attached needs in the form of self-diagnosed or professionally diagnosed ADHD or SEMT issues. This makes it hard to get parents on board with negative sanctions; for example, I have a Yr10 girl who reduces one my department to tears. She is rude, prevents others learning, takes things out of people's pockets, wanders in and out of the classroom, and will scream at my teacher (who is very softly spoken and would never scream or argue back). The parent has said that we need to be more aware of the girl's SEND plan, and that she just doesn't like the lessons so it's not really her fault that she has to be there (in an options subject that she selected).
My teacher didn't sign up to be sworn at, or to be laughed at or even to be screamed at. She just wants to teach her subject.

Same issue here. I've just predicted a Year 11 a grade 1 for the same reasons and their mum emailed me yesterday to ask if I'm aware he has anxiety?
Shockingly he wasn't feeling too anxious when he brought a carton of eggs in to throw at Year 7s PE lesson last week 😳

Of course the precious little sausage has anxiety.

He's woefully unprepared for his GCSEs. I'd be anxious if I'd been fucking around for 5 years and knew nothing.

They never consider that though

🤣🤣🤣 harsh but fair @MrsHamlet

It's no more or less than I tell the kids flapping about.

It's normal to be nervous, but we can avoid panic by paying attention so we know what we're doing.

The medicalisation of "anxiety" has done many many kids a huge disservice.

Can we also talk about the parents who send an email 4pm and then chase it up 8am when you've not even read it yet. Even worse those that then call the school demanding you ring them back immediately or rock up refusing to leave till you have a meeting with them showing an absolute lack of self awareness and entitlement.
I work in an RI school and the behaviour is disgusting. But I left my leafy, high achieving school because the entitlement from parents was draining and I'd had enough. They lost 20% of teaching staff that year, most going off to worse schools.

Behaviour and then followed up by no support from the parents.

@MrsHamlet totally agree and l work in mental health.

@MrsHamlet absolutely spot on with the medicalisation of perfectly normal day to day anxiety. Sometimes our HOYs will name an issue in a meeting with the medical term and I'm afraid I'm always 'that' teacher who asks if this has been medically diagnosed or at the very least is being investigated? Absolutely there are some mental health and learning needs that we should be aware of but with the increased need to 'name' an issue I think there are a lot of false flags being raised when really the child is simply experiencing day to day worries. We need to put plans in place for the ones that really need it not for someone who is worried about speaking in class because it's a little embarrassing.

😂 it's selective though isn't it. I used to teach a girl I was told not to cold call (by school and parents) because of her anxiety and she would also refuse to say anything in the language I teach eg "ten" (would insist on saying in English). She had no issue shouting top of her voice at me across the classroom though

@Tia86 “Expectations over grades being down to the teacher not the student. The pressure over what you were doing to help them reach a 4 or higher, not what the student was doing to achieve this (actually revising).”

simple and accurate

I feel this deeply about my current year 11s.

And a teacher with this attitude caused severe ND burnout in my dd.

Despite having dreadful social anxiety and mutism, one twat of a teacher deliberately kept asking her questions, even though she was told not to. My dd became paralysed with anxiety and refused to go to A levels anymore.

Fortunately she got on an access course which had a completely different attitude and now has 5 university offers under her belt.

But you keep doing you.

Behaviour
Workload
Parents

Not sure you read my post properly. I’ve taught mute students and plenty of genuine ND pupils and have happily made accommodations. What I’m not willing to do is just write off interactions on a whim because of an email or that a student doesn’t want to do it. As for checking that the need is 'genuine' that is a question I put to the HOY or pastoral team not the child!
Feel free to call me a twat if you wish but I would suggest you should see just how many false ‘needs’ we as teachers are presented with and how it’s a judgement call we have to make. Those with genuine need get lost in the ‘noise’ of these spurious requests such as ‘my daughter needs a new fidget toy every day and will only write in purple pen’ - I kid you not!

You better hope she does because in case you haven’t noticed this country is running out of teachers quickly.
I’m sorry your daughter had this experience- it’s awful but most of us are going above and beyond every single day for young people.

My final Y6 class before I quit. Students 1 to 11 (out of 30) but have probably forgotten several. Sure there were some fidgets and cuddly toys in there too

1: Don't ask questions (makes them anxious)
2: Doesn't do homework (makes them anxious)
3: Can move into the corner to play with lego anytime they feel overwhelmed
4: Needs everything on green paper
5: Blue paper
6: Peach paper
7: Needs a special pen. Gets tired. Might need a laptop
8: Must have a desk covered with a sheet to use anytime as a den. Can't read or write. Smashes stuff up. Runs off.
9: Doesn't speak English. Hasn't been to school in home country.
10 & 11: Ongoing ridiculous feud. Keep separate.

Plus several working at year 1/2 level. Several at year 3/4 level. About 6 of these very fragile, can't do anything independently and cry regularly because of that. Mostly no TA. It's impossible.

Where did I say that I would keep asking a student questions if I had been told not to?

I didn't.

But there is a danger in normal "anxiousness" being turned into "anxiety", which can become paralysing if we don't help children understand that anxiousness is actually a normal feeling to have at times.