Very Pushy Parents

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My other half is a teacher, a good one too. He is always marking planning and works late doing after school additional lessons. Since leaving the local comprehensive he joined a private school in September. He has been told on a few occasions by parents that they "pay his salary". His view is that he would rather go back to the comp and deal with difficult children who can change, but are initially the way they are due to challenging home environments. He said nothing can be done to solve the problem of difficult parents. He has had parents scream at him because their dc was moved down one set. His words were "they do more damage by pushing us constantly, it's tiring, degrading and when that happens I feel worthless. I struggle to put together a decent lesson after things like this happen."

He also felt that parents in the comp respected teachers but in the private school they see it as customer service where they buy the product.

I have a dd who I put through a private school, I let the school make the decisions with what group she would be in, I never interfered.

I struggle to empathasise with those, who I am sure are on here too, think they know their child's ability in the subject better than the professionals.

My other half is now thinking of resigning, but feels guilty knowing the school as do many other schools, struggle to find maths teachers.

Leave the teachers alone folks. Let them do what they need to.

Also , in universities, they are only too well aware that there are many DC in both sectors who are aware of the opportunities in overseas universities.
At my DC school, DC are now increasingly applying to the US Ivy League and choosing that over Oxbridge offers because of the (non means-tested) scholarships on offer. So maybe the Oxbridge thing will not be such a chip on the shoulder in the future.

MsHerodotus
Either you are an inexperienced teacher or you are calming you are one but not one. I have worked with students on a daily basis for university applications for the last 14 years. My current responsibility other than teaching entails post 16 UCAS applications. I know exactly what universities look for. I am merely giving an overview of what goes on.

I also think a lot of opinions are entirely biased & based on where a persons own child is with the exception of the OP.
Talk to teachers outside of their jobs to get a true reflection.

I don't think any of mind if universities prefer students with slightly lower grades who had a hard time and we never have. It could apply to me too - most people didn't go to university from my private school so I was similarly exceptional. There are private schools where particularly low IQ children go and as the brighter ones go to other private schools in the area the school should get university preference compared to children in the local comp which takes both bright and not bright children.

My children's schools (which are pretty high up the league table academic ones) have NOT noticed difficulty in getting pupils into most good universities because the children pay fees. Universities want children who will adore the subject and are bright. So I have certainly never feared that paying for a school place is going to mean my child has fewer life chances and won't get to university.

Each to their own.

Anyway, I am happy where I am now as will be OP's DH. Back to the real world.

nottweeting good luck with the university applications - you are coming across as very naïve.

There is no disadvantage in university places by sending your child to a private school, but equally there really is no advantage either is what I am trying to say. There use to be an advantage for private for the very top grade students, but that is now changing very quickly as universities continue to develop strategies to spot exam trained students.

I have a friend who teaches in a prep. They take a test to see if they get a scholarship (the better they do the better the scholarship). She has parents screaming at her because they blame her if their dc doesn't get full scholarship. As very few get them, that's a lot of upset parents. Her husband teachers the older kids in the independent school next door and gets kids talking down at him telling him their parents are paying his wages and it's his fault if they fail (even though those ones are usually the drug addicted idiots who will fail due to their own laziness). I don't have many friends who use independent school but the ones that do seem to have a lot of trouble with bullying and my only other experience was a boy who came to my (old) office on work experience. I was a senior member of the team and he was in my department for a morning. I made an official complaint about his rudeness and discovered many others had issues with him too. MD made a complaint to the principal of his school and we received a gushing apology. Basically this boy didn't give a crap because he was going to work for daddy's company after school anyway - he told us this, I'm not stereotyping.
I'm sure some lovely kids and families use independent schooling, but mine will go to state school and be taught manners and will value things that aren't linked to how much money you have.
Glad you dh is getting out if he's unhappy. Overall he's not alone in finding this.

MrsHeredotus-
The mere fact you continue to say "naive" shows that you are not basing any arguments on facts or data. It is your opinion. This is exactly what pushy parents do, ignore hard facts.

db went to Cambridge, my grand father to Imperial (Oxbridge didn't do the course he wanted), and my great grandfather went to Oxford. db and grandfather went to state school, not sure re great grandfather - I think he may have been in a public school but died before I was born and I've never asked.

Has he discussed it with the head teacher? How do other teachers deal with these parents? I wonder if these parents aren't trying it on with the new teacher, having already discovered the limits the other teachers will tolerate?

Dont quit after 1 year because of 1 family.

m0therofdragons-
I have had a number of students who have done that, after we have gone to the trouble of finding every child a place for work experience. It is highly embarrassing for the school, but it always happens, every year.
There are some lovely children in the private sector too, they are often backed with lovely parents. But there are plenty of arrogant ones too.

notweeding Westminster sends yr in yr out 50%+ a year to Oxbrdge SPS 40+% Win 33+% Eton the same so well coached are they that not only can Oxbridge admissions not tell if they've been spoon fed to get the right grades and coached for the interview they carry in offering them places because because they're obviously so well spoon fed and coached by their schools are they that once there they carry on pulling the wool over every bodies eyes!!
My DS's school is yr on yr sending more to the even more competitive Ivy League here again the staff are unable to see that these boys are only of average intelligence but very well coached.

happy indeed.
Today had lunch with friend who is Oxford don - and is the same story - school is irrelevant - will they get a First?

...and he is aware that the ablest are also applying to Ivy League so they can no longer rely on Oxbridge automatically getting the best applicants.
At DS school they are actively encouraging ivy League applications and have a team employed to facilitate.

DS and friends are looking at Ivy League with Oxbridge as fallback if they don't get in to US colleges which have far better non means tested scholarships than UK.

Just briefly to say to notweeting that i have had a very similar 'worst parent' experience - including the scared child lying - but in a state primary. They do exist in both sectors.

i thought I had added to this thread earlier when it was talking about quality of teachers - because I felt that a point being ignored was that virtually no teacher is brilliant for everyone, in all environments. The teacher who is ideal for a small top set in a selective indie might fail to teach a similarly-sized small lower set in a state school (not because of behaviour, but because they cannot see why the subject matter isn't obvious), while the teacher with whom the lower set will make astonishing progress might well not be a good top set teacher. Equally in primaries, the best reception teacher muight make the worst year 6 eacher, and vice versa.

Teaching is quite a complex mix of subject knowledge and 'craft of teaching', so it isn't predictable, either from academic qualifications OR teaching qualification, who will make a great teacher for a specific class in a particular subject at a specific age.

There are a VERY few teachers who are excellent in almost every context - I know one, who is universally hailed as amazing and inspirational, whether they teach A-level physics, Year 7 ICT or NVQ childcare, and gets students brilliant grades in all. The very, very large majority of great teachers are very good in their 'best' context, and less good in others. But it isn't as simple as 'better qualifications = better teacher for bright children'. As a very personal example, i am quite rare as a state primary teacher because I have a first class Oxbridge science degree (prizes for top degree results, that type of stuff) and PhD. Yet I teach a lower maths set, because I happen to do that very well.

(I seem to remember that the strongest predictor of a child's educational success is the mother's level of education. On this measure at least, DS and DD are quite well set up...)

I couldn't agree more teacher and to add into that mix we had an lecturer at Uni voted many years ago by his students as lecturer of the year most thought he was the best lecturer that they'd ever listened too, my friend: she hated him couldn't understand why people loved his lectures.
I wasted spent many hours being trained on my horse I thought the trainer who tried to teach me was fantastic, my friend hated him "he doesn't say enough" I on the other hand hated her trainer "she never stops talking"!
Teaching and styles of teaching and how individuals respond is not black and white, and not all can be outstanding.

Agree, happy, that not even the 'best' teacher may be good for your speciic child.

So looking down a long list of staff and qualifications - or teaching qualifications - it is NEVER possible to predict who will be a good teacher FOR YOUR CHILD.

Continuing along this theme, some children and students want teachers who teach them exactly what thy need to pass an exam, others like the ones who go off on a tangent. Again different children, different needs. I think children do realise that some teachers are better for others or those that could be good but have poor crowd control techniques.
I am sure that on another thread it was claimed that PhDs who became school teachers had to be failed academics and therefore undesirable as teachers. I think teacherwithtwokids credentials clearly show this not to be the case. Out of interest teacherwithtwokids, if you don't mind saying, at what point did you change tack or did you do your PhD after you qualified as a teacher?

PhD was the start of career 1, which didn't happen. The PhD was quite enough to convince me that I didn't want to be a science academic - not because I couldn't, but because I didn't want to.

Then had career 2: conventional large multinational, middle management type thing.

Then children. SAHM through conviction and choice.

Then career 3: trained as a teacher. Love teaching children 'in the round' across all subjects, so did primary not secondary.

Basically having my own children turned me from a 'personal career centred person' to someone who thought children, and by extension their education, were vitally, virtally important. So that was what I decided to do with the rest of my life.

Could you be cloned ? Might be the solution to the complaints about poor teachers in the state system .

When I used to ride all the time my long suffering trainer used to wait optimistically hoping that I might work out for myself where I was going wrong, poor deluded fool. He also believed in keeping even the most complicated of exercises simple. The horse and I had the odd rare moments when we actually looked pretty good. My friends trainer never stopped bombarding you with instructions, I used to find that I was either literally about to do it any way or I was so busy listening to what she was endlessly saying I forget to be doing what I was meant to do; concentrate on the next stride the horse was taking and it all went wrong, my friend on her horse under her trainer in contrast like me had the odd rare moment when it all looked pretty good.
I understand from when I did a couple of weeks helping out in our local primary school to see if I wanted to become a teacher that in the state sector teaching is often very prescribed, with little freedoms to do what you want, not the fault of the teacher but the fault of same faceless bureaucrat who decides what should be learnt this week. I also fairly recently looked at state secondary ed to teach my degree subject and was told by others who teach it that there is little opportunity to teach off the curriculum. The advantage of the independent sector is that they are less bound by the requirement of the curriculum and therefore freer to go off at a tangent. I'm sure many independent schools don't allow this to happen regularly but for those that do teaching something you feel passionately about and which may not be on the curriculum must be an absolute joy.

I have dcs at private schools. I have just checked their website and without exception ALL teachers have degrees from Oxbridge or RG unis. Most have post grad quals too. All teach their subjects and nothing else. Some have a PGCE, but what matters to me is small classes, great facilities and well qualified, inspiring teachers and, yes, a well behaved, well mannered academic peer group.

I have taught in state and have been threatened by parents, physically, verbally and with legal action because " little Johnny" didn't get his grade...the fact that "little Johnny" did no work did not occur to them.
At least at the indies the parents are engaged with their dcs education...in the state schools many parents don't care. I am paying for my dcs education and I expect a good service and I certainly think market forces help.
I am amazed that anyone can seriously think state schools are better or provide better teaching. Perhaps they are more comfortable for "some" teachers

Many are better.

State schools vary as do private schools.There are plenty of crap and mediocre private schools.

Also re private parents being engaged.Not what I've heard from friends paying for private who moan re disinterested parents who think because they pay no other input is needed.

Many,many state parents are pushy.I'm one of them.