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?

Yes Janeite I am amazed at how you can swing from feeling on top of the world to God I am shite!

Although today is a good day as even my bottom set year 9s were fabulous today. That is worth feeling good about I practically floated out of school and could not wait to mark their books.

'Could not wait to mark their books' - now that IS a high!!

I absolutely love planning lesons/writing schemes of work etc/love doing AFL, peer assessment etc/love speaking to the pupils about their work - but could happily live without 'marking' ever again (just got over the moderation period where I marked 1000 pieces of c/wk - groan).

I am a freak I love marking. My year 7s did an exam on Monday and I they were marked by the end of they day as I was so excited to see how they had done.

I am regularly mocked in the staffroom.

I do support my school and the teachers.
Perhaps I have been unlucky to have encountered two teachers int he same school with appalling attitudes to SEN.
''I'm sorry, You'll find i am rather old-fashioned - there's no such thing as dyslexia - just idle little boys who don't want to read and can't concentrate''

Followed by: ''maybe you need to talk to your son about becoming a binman - council jobs are good, they get pensions and binmen won't have to do any paperwork''

• this on seeing proof of ds's dyslexia diagosis.

You know what? I had a really nice day today.

Sometimes that happens. You have a horrible day when you feel like jacking it in and then just when you're about to start pouring over the TES, your Year 10s are really funny and your after-school club goes really well and one of your form proudly tells you about being picked to represent the borough for swimming and you have a nice conversation about The Apprentice in the staffroom...

Yesterday was bad. Today was good. Like all jobs, I suppose. And I'm lucky enough to really love mine most of the time.

But...While I'm not so full of righteous bile as I was yesterday, I do sincerely mean lots of what I said in my OP.

forgive me. I am having also hving a bad day.

Yes, I get mocked for emailing other teachers in the summer hols raving about how excited I am over my new SoW for 'The Tempest' or whatever. Freak Teachers Of The World Unite!

Trolleyroger, that's appalling. I hope you went straight to the head?

flatcap and janeite, you are mental.

When do you get time to watch Jeremy Kyle if you spend all your holidays on SOW and marking and the like?

I can quite proudly say I don't think I have ever watched Jeremy Kyle, well maybe once for research.

Ah see janeite that is where we differ, I like to get maximum money for minimum effort .

Teaching is a calling for sure, but I do think the work teachers do is far more important socially than what I do.

I can still remember the great teachers I had throughout my school time, I doubt terribly many people can remember who ran an office they worked in 20 years ago.

Right I am off to mark some books, plan a lesson and make a display.

In God's name woman, what's wrong with you?! It's TV gold , I tell you!

My dd told me once that she would never be a teacher as we are the poorest family she knows (she doesn;t have a Wii or a horse that apparantly is the definition of poverty here in Dorset ) so I think she wishes I had your mindset Morloth.

clemette.. Thanks for being the only teacher to respond to my ligitimate concern.It's actually a shame to think you are leaving the profession (congrats again by the way).

I did actually leave teaching because of the stress of working in a bad school. And I found the courage to do it and make a big jump with the help on MN, mainly teachers but not all. the thing is I was a good teacher - all observations and OFSTED, etc said so too. But I got so fed up of managing behaviour (ironically always a area highlighted as a strength by observers!) instead of teaching and it got me down, really down - to the point that it was making me ill. I needed out. Initially it wasn't necessarily for good - I stayed in education albeit in a prison. But now I don;t want to go back to secondary school teaching. For me, the stresses are no longer worth it. Yes, the good school I worked at was fab, but the failing one took all the pleasure away completely.

I now work as a TA in an infant school and I love it. I found the courage to go back into schools after a few months helping at DD's school and just having such a great time. And maybe ne day I may go and teach again - but am very swayed to infants now. But not whilst DD is young - teaching took over too much of my life, and I currently enjoy that life and the time I have to spend and enjoy with DD; not ready to give it up just yet.

And the attituide of OP is why my DD will not be attending school.

YABVVVVVVVVVVU OP

Suggest you read this book so you can learn about why your labelling of certain children is so wrong, probably your worst enemy in teaching. Oh, and watch this too.

barnsleybelle my youngest siblings live in Barnsley. My brother who is 8 has speech delay and aspergers and goes to a wonderful primary school. My dad raves about them (and he has his fair share of experience of tricky kids being head of the PRU in Barnsley).

I certainly don't blame teachers for everything. I work in administration in an inner city school, some of the teachers are fantastic and I don't know how they do it. However, some of them definitely aren't and it seems impossible to get rid of them. On a different note. I wrote about my dd's science marks dropping considerably a short while ago as the teacher was unable to control the class. I had several helpful replies from MN teachers. The teacher tried to blame my dds behaviour but had given her a good report, which I pointed out at the time (she also gets excellent comments for her behavoiur and effort from all other subject teachers). Yesterday I had a phone call from the teacher saying that she had had to send dd out of the class twice and that they had done a test and she didn't know how well my dd had done. She was clearly trying to cover her back and was trying to get in first by blaming my dds behaviour. She clearly is a very poor teacher and quite frankly a 5 year old could see through her plan. So yes, in her case I do blame her. However my dcs have lots of teachers, most of whom I think are good.

Are you a teacher, dizietsma?

OP TOTALLY agree

"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection:

To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1

To make excuses for why your child did not do his work - Press 2

To complain about what we do - Press 3

To swear at staff members - Press 4

To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you - Press 5

If you want us to raise your child - Press 6

If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7

To request another teacher, for the third time this year - Press 8

To complain about bus transportation - Press 9

To complain about school lunches - Press 0"

Kid - that was brilliant!!!!

dizietsma so you have written of the whole state education system because of one teacher after a bad day?

clemette... In all fairness my son's school has been wonderful up until he started year 2. I wouldn't like to say it's a teacher problem as i'm not qualified to say that and have no idea what it's like inside the classroom day to day. However, my son is bright, able and well behaved, the teacher herself has told me this. When he and his friends are commenting on the fact that the naughty ones are getting rewarded for a flicker of good behaviour, yet the consistantly well behaved ones don't then surely that's not right.
Especially when the op admits that only 30% of her time is spent on well behaved children. I have to say i find it alarming.

...and i have had problems with DS1s school but am in quandry as am teacher and don't know whose side to be on sometimes though...i appreciate the tough job that is teaching but then i feel as if my boy sometimes gets the rough end of it in his class - its a toughie being a teacher with a child who isn't exactly a high academic flyer.

stillenacht... I see your point, a friend of mine had a similar problem, however there can only be one side, that of your son.