to be shocked about the amount of suppo rt a teacher gets when they nearly kill a pupil

[2shoes]

now I know it sounds like the boy was not a good kid, but he was 14, the teacher nearly killed him, yet on here and in the media the teacher has been getting so much support.
yet a boy was nearly killed...........
(prepares to be flamed)

It is terrible that he thought his only options were to be off sick with stress or whack the pupil.

Why did he feel there were no other options?

Can children just treat teachers badly with no consequence?

out of interest.....
if you are a secondry school teacher and you change and move to primary?

SilkyBreeks, I thought your post made absolute sense, actually. I agree.

2shoes you can't just move to primary

believe it or not there is training specific to each role and the person would need to re-train completely I believe

Miggsie in answer to your last question; yes.

That's why I'm glad I teach in Oz, where, for the moment, and it IS a moment, teachers have a little clout. This will not last long, as the government is going the same way as in the UK, where the interests of the scrote erring child will outweigh the interests of any other human being at all.

kitkat can you please try to understand I am not blaming teachers. And as I said the present system develops ideas like sticking plasters to put over gaping wounds - asking teachers to entertain their students is not going to help when the larger system does not change. As I said there are some wonderful individual teachers but they cannot create change on their own. There has to be a huge overhaul of the current system.

I am horrified by what happened - horrified that such behaviuor towards a teacher went unpunished and unchecked for so long as to drive someone to commit a horrific act.

I agree with everyone who has said that teachers are not there to bring up the children of lazy parents who can't be bothered to guide and discipline their own children. What this man did was terrible, but I bet those kids won't be so quick to bully another person like that again....

But it has changed. We now apply the requirements of the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda to our planning, as well as SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning). Then there is the Personal Learning and Thinking framework, and all this is on top of National Curriculum and literacy/numeracy/ICT frameworks. If students can't engage with education it's not for want of planning for it. Unfortunately IME, SLTs are afraid or unwilling to address shocking behaviour and even cheating.

This is the message we are giving to our next generation of young adults. Terribly, terribly sad (and frightening).

I wish Fiona Pilkington had walked out of her front door and beaten one of her tormentors to death, rather than killing herself and her child. These creatures are feral and I have no sympathy for the boy involved whatsoever. The only positive that may come out of this is that some of the tormentors (and their 'parents') who witnessed the escalating campaign against that teacher will come to their bloody senses when it comes to acting like thugs.

rofl - pofaced

I'm sorry -you have no idea what you are talking about as you have no direct experience of working in a secondary school classroom.

i've worked in a variety of secondary schools. " depressing buildings" i worked in a school with a new build(beautiful state of the art classrooms. it was a constant battle to keep the buildings graffitti free and stop some students destroying the very fabric of the buildings.

properly stimulated/ supported? i inherited an all boy group at my new lovely leafy surburban school who announced to me they would "rag" me until i left. They were truly vile to me and my ta- even when heavily pregnant and still suffering from hyperemesis. one to one nice chats, "games", rewards for good work not expected standards of behaviour, document and record poor behaviour, detentions, positive phone calls home i had to do it all to keep everything on an even keel. I am trained and heavily experienced in behaviour management. i like working with teenagers i've worked in inner city schools and met kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who found it difficult to control themselves in the classroom and were on the whole nice kids.my management supported me and in the end after all avenues and tens of hours outside the classroom and had the feral misogynistic arrogant shitty ringleader removed. He was removed after an incident refusing to put mobile phone away and then a refusal to have it conficated and excluded. He told me he hope my baby would die as he left- he knew exactly what to say to hurt me. he came from a "nice" background. he was a bad egg. despite being 15. in 14 years teaching i've met a few mad and bad and later read the court report in the paper as they have grown up to bemad and bad. I can count these kids on one hand- i've taught hundreds possibly thousands of nice/ok kids. but there are some really mad bad and vile kids in the "system" just as there are mad bad and vile adults in soceity who have had support and advantages in life.

that poor man lost it in a moment of madness imo.
i could not comment on the student but as i say i've met a couple who were extreme.

walk in someones shoes and that

sleepingsowell thanks just wondered

That teacher asked for help and his own school ignored him, perhaps I am shocked that a school ignored a teachers cry for help and it wasn't taken seriuosly.

teacher are under a lot of pressure and that fact was ignored.

he was a dedicated teacher and schools have changed and policies have changed to put children in control of teacher.

i really hope lessons can be learned form this and authorities take notes - but as the cynic I am I doubt anything of note will happen

sorry for typos - baby on lap

He is a waste of sperm and education and got what he deserved.

No doubt he will loaf his way through school, and then spend his life poncing off the taxpayer courtesy of Nu Labour.

But this is all supposed to change at the hands of teachers alone. It can't if the greater framework does not change.

Do you all really think that these children are feral and deserve corporal punishment to keep them in line?

Phrenology you sound just like a Dickens character.

The language may have been a tad extreme, but the sentiment remains.

isoldeone - my own mother worked in a rough city state school and a child kicked her in the stomach when she was heavily pregnant.

Rofl at you that to say the system need to be changed and that children can have a better and more fulfilling education, and that children can be saved from a lifetime of failing and bad behaviour is dismissed.

I think it's shocking that teachers are doing one of the most important jobs - educating future generations - yet they do not get the support they need.

These children know that they have greater rights than their teachers, and can get away with terrible behaviour without punishment, and IMO, that is the root of the problem.

Children in general shouldn't be vilified, but those who are genuine trouble makers, particularly in school, jeopardise their own education, and that of others, and this should be treated seriously. (part of me thinks that there should be some sort of boot camp for these children, as they obviously need more discipline than schools are allowed to dish out - but I'm whispering this, as I'm sure most will disagree with me )

In no way was the teacher right to do what he did, and I'm sure he knows it, but he should never have been left to cope with the shit he had to put up with, and until someone has been bullied in that way, they will never know how much it can affect you.

teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2008/01/03/welcome-or-welcome-back-to-the-battleground/

oldandrew has some very interesting things to say in his personal blog. Some of his experiences on behaviour resonate with me. You willneed to read it all through and understand that some contribution all the tongue in cheek have a serious message

Some of it is witty but a lot is VERY true.

btw I don't think coporal punishment is the answer but the one size fits all doesn't necessarily work. I've worked abroad in a country where the grammar/ secondary modern systems still exist. Mind you those sysytems aren't perfect either.

Yes, MintHumbug. All too often, teachers are made to feel that atrocious behaviour is somehow down to their own inadequacy. That's why people like Mr Harvey and that female teacher who was recently cleared of a charge of sex with a student don't feel supported or able to ask for it.