To want parents to stop blaming their child's teacher for everything?

[starlightexpress]

I'm just so sick of reading parents on here moaning about how crap their child's teacher is for one reason or another (not aimed at any particular thread this evening, btw).

In any given class of thirty-three, seventy percent of my time is spent dealing with about three kids who couldn't give a fuck. They don't want to learn, they don't want anyone else to learn. I'm not talking SEN, here, I'm talking just plain naughty.

As far as I'm concerned, the majority of the time when a parent is on here moaning about how shitty their child's teacher is, it falls into one of four categories.

Either your child is:

a)Badly brought up and you're making excuses for them.

b)So-called "SEN" which means they can behave when they want to, but misbehave most of the time using said SEN as an excuse. You allow them to do this because you prefer not to take any responsibility for their behaviour.

c)Genuinely suffering from an SEN, which I probably know very little about and am given little support (either in terms of training or TAs or resources)for.

d)Suffering from the fall out of "inclusion" which means that so much of my time is spent firefighting (see a, b and c) that I don't have the time to spend on your child that they deserve.

Of course there are crap teachers. There are also medicore teachers and there are good teachers who have crap days and make crap judgements sometimes. But mostly it is not your child's teacher's fault.

If you are a C or a D parent, then get thee to the Head, the governers, the local MP and kick up an almighty fuss. You're right to be upset, I don't blame you, I'm not happy about it either but what can I do? I'm doing my very very best but I can't fight the system on my own.

If you're an A or a B parent, do what the fuck you want - that's what you do anyway, and I'm not interested in your whining.

Before you ask, I teach in an inner city secondary school. Not the worst school in the whole world but not great either.

I'm a relatively experienced teacher with a decent results record. I don't have classroom management issues - last Ofsted (they actally watched some of my lesson) they said that this was a strength, fwiw. It's worth nothing actually, as Ofsted couldn't identify one end of a decent lesson from another, but I know their opinion matters to a lot of you.

Go on, flame me, I will have heard worse at parents evening, I can take it.

AIBU?

"I do however stand by what I said to Violethill - I am envious but don?t mention your terms and conditions because of that but in the context of relativity to people with jobs in the commercial/ sphere who also have to do ??work in their own time ?"

I agree, Welshwoman. Lots of people have to work in their own time. No-one is clamiming that teachers are unique in this regard. No one has claimed that teacher's shouldn't have to work outside their contracted school hours either.

But what I'm trying to say is that as Violet said some time earlier, "...teaching, like some other careers, is one of those open ended things where you could work for literally every waking hour and still the job wouldn't be done."

This surely is the point. Teachers routinely work long hours 'in their own time' and yet there is always more that needs your attention. I'm saying that I have to give this 'extra' time to lots of things (planning, reports, moderation to name but a few), it's unrealistic to expect it all to go on just one thing (SEN).

So what I do is give my research on SEN some time, which is not as much as I would like in a ideal world, because though I could work three hours (or four hours, or five) every evening, there has to be a cut off point. I think two extra hours a night is reasonable. Clearly you don't.

Or maybe you do. I'm still not clear exactly how much time you think is reasonable.

I've got the wrong end of the stick, not unusual.
I took the initial post to be about those non-SEN pain in the *rse children who make the life of my Aspie difficult in class and disrupt everyone's learning by being so demanding of time and attention.
For no other reason than that they believe they are entitled to as much as they can take of everything, and that being class entertainment/dog's bllcks was all they wanted out of school.
Don't know how it came to be perceived as SEN parents stop blaming the teacher for everything.
I reckon an obedience training school might solve the problem, if boarding the troublemakers is a bit over budget.

It was inded, Goblin.

You're absolutely correct that I would have so much more time to spend with the kids who really need my extra time and support if I wasn't alawys dealing with the naughty rude ones.

It really wasn't intended to be a dig at SEN kids or their parents.

Starlight - I think you've been perfeclty clear all along. I'm still on your side