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If you are a teacher and have your own children

12 replies

tearosetulip · 22/02/2025 23:16

I’ve just been reading the threat about the worst parts of being a teacher and some of the comments are absolutely horrific, I am in disbelief at some of the things happening in our schools. My questions is if you are a teacher do you believe school is the best place for children?

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
CeciliaMars · 23/02/2025 07:25

Yes I do. You only read the horrific stuff. There is a huge amount of absolutely wonderful stuff going on in schools up and down the country every day. My three girls do amazing stuff at their local primary school and I am very happy with it.

petproject · 23/02/2025 07:46

Im a teacher and my children are now at university both having enjoyed and benefited hugely from their school experience. The academic and pastoral support and the extracurricular opportunities they were offered were exceptional - far outweighing my school experience in the 80's/90's. I also love my job and the school I work in despite it being challenging at times.

Phineyj · 23/02/2025 07:48

Yes. We live in a knowledge economy. There are few low skill jobs. Most young people aren't in a position to self educate and most parents don't want to home educate.

In every school I've taught in, there have been the hard cases (invariably with something going on at home) but most students have been happy to go most of the time.

I'm hardly going to start a thread "went to school, taught my well planned lessons, students did their best, we moaned a bit about the weather and the broken photocopier" am I?

Just like we never hear about the nice MIL, the DHs who get up with the baby and the people who park sensibly and get on with their neighbours!

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DrFosterWentToGloucester23 · 23/02/2025 07:49

Absolutely. My children’s primary school is amazing. My skillset is limited to one subject. There is no way I could offer the same breadth of education at home. You’ll rarely find home educating advocates amongst the teaching profession, despite the challenges it faces.

Whattodo121 · 23/02/2025 07:50

In my experience (good and bad of being a teacher since 2001) teachers do their utmost to shield their students from any negative impact that workload/conditions etc may be having. I know that I try my hardest to absorb the nonsense to ensure that students still have a positive experience. However this has a massive detrimental impact on our own mental health.

CaptainMyCaptain · 23/02/2025 07:54

I agree with all the above. I'm retired now but have grandchildren. The two still at school enjoy it and the two at university got good GCSE and A levels at their comprehensive in a deprived area. There are problems with the system but, as another pp said, teachers do their best to shield children from that.

Silvertulips · 23/02/2025 08:02

I think the point is - imagine a school day where every child sat a listened to the lesson you took hours to prepare. Imagine how well children would benefit.

Now throw in the mix children with such poor home lives, they don’t know how to behave, throw chairs, attack other children, swear about fight, and how many staff / time they take to deal with.

I was a TA and the amount of classes I had to cover as a teach dealt with an incident, phoned parents, had parent meetings, wrote forms, etc etc - now I was quite good cover, but I’m not a teacher. Teachers go off with stress, guess who’s covering again?

Parents complain, more time in meetings away from the class, preparing reports, we’ve had police come in for witness statements, we’ve had to clear whole class room because some kid is kicking off and throwing things, there’s a lack of special school or PRU places, they only take the worst ones.

Parents come in blaming XYZ and won’t accept help, won’t allow their kids to attend anger management coarse and the like - they think it doesn’t apply to their child.

Now there are some fantastic resilient kids out there who want to learn, who take full advantage, who’s parents have given them a leg up - read to them, played with them, engaged, been there as a friend and parent - these kids will always do well as they have a parent to lean on.

We had on kid who’s mother wanted the help and the father who didn’t - we need both parents to agree, so you can imagine parents at war -

KatieKat88 · 23/02/2025 08:06

Phineyj · 23/02/2025 07:48

Yes. We live in a knowledge economy. There are few low skill jobs. Most young people aren't in a position to self educate and most parents don't want to home educate.

In every school I've taught in, there have been the hard cases (invariably with something going on at home) but most students have been happy to go most of the time.

I'm hardly going to start a thread "went to school, taught my well planned lessons, students did their best, we moaned a bit about the weather and the broken photocopier" am I?

Just like we never hear about the nice MIL, the DHs who get up with the baby and the people who park sensibly and get on with their neighbours!

Agreed - my experience is much more akin to this than anything else! Apart from now we do booklets so hardly any day to day printing, thankfully!

cakeandcustard · 23/02/2025 08:11

I think as a teacher I was a lot more picky about which school I sent my kids to. One of the criteria was that the teachers didn't look like they were on their knees. There were five potential primaries in our local area and the poor NQT we met on one tour looked like she was going to cry.

Allswellthatendswelll · 23/02/2025 08:59

Every teacher at the school I teach at I'd be happy teaching my children. Where they will go I know lots of parents are also teachers and trust the school. Past schools I've worked at not so much! You learn what to look out for and I'm afraid some of it is just the cohort.

This doesn't mean that I don't think that lots of teachers time gets wasted by parents expecting teachers to parent their children. I also think there is a big SEN crisis that seems very hard to solve and has an impact on lots of children who would probably have had more support in the past. My only TA hours are now linked to EHCPs so lots of children who are lower attainers but not funded don't get that much support. I think in general lots of parents need to step up, just basic stuff like keeping on top of reading books etc, but at least being a teacher I'll know how to do this!

KatherineofGaunt · 23/02/2025 09:38

My DS is infants and I'm a former mainstream teacher now visiting peripatetic. I do feel that school is good for him in many ways. We like the school and I think they do a great job. A small part of me worries, though, mainly because I know the stress school staff are under, the squeezing of budgets and how I see teaching going in schools these days (too many MATs focus on powerpoints followed by worksheets).

Overall, though, I do believe school is best for him and his individual needs.

afuckinggoat · 23/02/2025 11:47

Former primary teacher. In the time I was teaching, I observed an accelerating movement away from a system/curriculum that was based in evidence derived from contemporary pedagogy.

I felt that we as a society have lost sight of the purpose of school. For me, a perfect system would not exclusively focus on core subjects in primary. Rather, it would promote independence, curiosity, resilience and confidence.

What we have now is a system that makes many children feel like failures from early on. If schools taught children how to learn, rather than focusing on teaching them how to remember shallowly-embedded facts, outcomes would be so much better for more children.

Children are disenfranchised with education before they even start high school. These children become parents who aren't engaged with education and the cycle continues and worsens.

I was lucky enough to be able to choose a small independent for my children. Not because I wanted better or more academic outcomes for them, but because I wanted them to feel valued for who they are.**

I feel shitty and guilty about this to be honest. All children should be able to meet their potential in a nurturing and adaptive environment.

If I hadn't have had access to independent, I'd have home educated.

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