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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think the teachers resent me?

113 replies

ThisMonkeysGoneToAldi · 27/06/2025 06:34

I work at lunchtimes only, minimum wage, I used to teach but like this role as it fits around school drop offs/pick ups.
At various times we need to line children up, gather them together to put sun hats on etc. Many staff let them run/scream to do this. But I prefer to get them walking rather than running, sing songs or read a quick story which keeps them calm. One girl can get extremely upset when it’s noisy, but LOVES songs. I get really bad vibes off the SLT when I do this but I’m sure it’s the right thing to do? One v sweet member of staff said ‘you get them sitting beautifully’ and TBH, I think I do?? But the leaders there really don’t like me!!

OP posts:
Pingiop · 27/06/2025 17:59

I suggest you just to what’s in your job role. Does it say you need to be telling them stories? The teachers are probably pissed that you’re spending reading stories instead of just getting the kids ready to play out. In my school we only had a 20 minute morning break, and that’s including getting the kids ready and back, so you’re wasting time that the kids could have playing. I find it out, never met lunch time supervisors like this, egoists it great you have these skills, I can imagine it’s annoying you are just doing your job. Feels like you’re just wanting to do what you want rather than what’s best for the kids.

proximalhumerous · 27/06/2025 18:23

I would be astonished if the SLT en masse give you more than a passing thought, to be perfectly honest.

(Also depressing how many teachers describe their pupils "sat" on the carpet.)

Muffsies · 27/06/2025 21:41

I like this. Your last paragraph could be one the money.

Muffsies · 27/06/2025 21:42

coolbreezes · 27/06/2025 14:45

What are you expecting them to do? Come and congratulate you continuously? They probably have other things on their mind.

They may just have more things they need to talk about with the full time staff? I think if you want to be treated like a teaching colleague you need to go back to being a teaching colleague?

I think you are making this into a big thing because it gives you some professional self esteem. But for every child who likes the orderly calm method there will be others who would rather have a little longer to tear about and be wild. It isn't a better /worse method it's just different

I like this post. Your last paragraph could be on the money.

Cutie101 · 28/06/2025 19:30

You sound like a dream! Don't suppose you are looking to swap schools?! I'd snap you up immediately if you were local to me, don't want to identify myself by I'm in an inner London (but only just) local authority

Xmasxrackers · 28/06/2025 21:29

ThisMonkeysGoneToAldi · 27/06/2025 06:48

The bad vibes are a sense of ‘being sent to Coventry’ which my colleague has picked up on too in terms of the way they behave towards me. My immediate boss is not part of the SLT in the area where I work, she’s lovely and not like that at all - so I stick with her appraisal of me. But it’s just not a nice ‘feeling’ to experience daily.

Edited

So you feel a bit like they look down their noses at tou? When I was a teaching assistant there were a few teachers who made me feel like that NQT now and I’d hate to make someone feel that way

jasminocereusbritannicus · 29/06/2025 07:03

At our school the TAs are the lunchtime supervisors. ( I chose not to be one) They don’t have time to do all that… it’s get the kids lined up to walk out and then let them have have half an hour’s play before lunch ( or vice versa depending on year groups). Then the teachers come and collect them at the end of lunch break. TAs then spend 10-15 mins returning left behind lunchboxes, drink bottles, sweatshirts, cardigans, coats ( presuming names are in them) and putting away abandoned play equipment. There is absolutely no time for songs and stories, so I suspect although you are not exactly doing anything wrong, it may just be raising eyebrows.

Pingiop · 29/06/2025 07:07

This reply has been deleted

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IButtleSir · 29/06/2025 09:11

Smartiepants79 · 27/06/2025 07:15

The tone of your post does come across as a bit smug and superior. Like you think you and your methods are brilliant and the other teachers (who let them ‘scream/run’??) are a bit crap. Maybe this is the vibe that you are giving off and it’s annoyed some colleagues. I don’t know. It’s a bit unusual for a SLT to be so involved in what sounds like lunchtime for EYFS. Maybe they are not very nice people?? We all have colleagues we just don’t jell with.
Have a word if it’s bothering you that much but you’re only there 1 and a half hours a day and it sounds like you have a couple of colleagues you get along with and the children like you so I’d just be ignoring and getting on with my day.

The tone of your post does come across as a bit smug and superior. Like you think you and your methods are brilliant and the other teachers (who let them ‘scream/run’??) are a bit crap. Maybe this is the vibe that you are giving off and it’s annoyed some colleagues.

Sorry, @ThisMonkeysGoneToAldi, this does sound quite likely. Either that or it's all in your head.

AJLOAL · 29/06/2025 16:52

Sorry, SLT?

Shinyandnew1 · 29/06/2025 17:10

What are the members of SLT doing/saying whilst you're doing this to make you think they don't like you?

Are they just standing there in the classroom watching you?

pharmer · 29/06/2025 23:16

pikkumyy77 · 27/06/2025 14:40

I agree with this. I interned at a school for a year while doing my social work degree (in the states) and I think this notion of the necessary free for all is bizarre. At line up, at recess, and at lunch (for example) children need a lot of help channeling their energy appropriately. Singing, marching, hopping, skipping are sll good ways of moving them through space to get out of doors. Reading a book to them, time permitting, is a great thing to do if the process is stalled by another teacher not getting her class ready.

Show quote history

With respect you were a social worker undergraduate, not a teacher, and don't necessarily understand why things are done a certain way in schools.

Mumoftrois · 03/07/2025 21:46

Oh that sounds lovely, as a Head of School I would love if our staff did that at lunch. Not sure where the bad vibes are coming from x

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