Thinking of ditching my career, help, teachers' POV be useful. Long.

[ConsiderTheArmchair]

Have namechanged incase I am recognised.

I am a primary school teacher and did really well at college and reasonably well in all previous posts. Now I am really struggling and feel like giving it up.

I have a part-time post and take a mixed age class for 2 days a week. There are a group of boys in the class who show no respect for me and are making my life miserable. I cannot maintain the pace of my lessons because of them and constantly have to battle to hold their attention, deal with shouting out etc. My colleague says they are not like that with her although she does admit they are not perfect either. I dread whole class times and lessons like drama where they continually disrupt the lesson.

I am feeling so anxious about the whole situation - totally frazzled at the end of the day and spend my days off worrying about the whole thing.

Is there anyway to regain lost respect?
If I walk away will I regret it and feel like a failure? (I know you can't tell me the answer here but want to know what you think)

I will be back shortly after DCs' bedtimes.

lo @ corss post with jennifer. I'd be putting fun on hold.

That's a very wide age-spread. How many are there in the class?

It must be hard for you to build up a positive relationship with each child when you only see them for two days, but they need to feel that you like and respect them for them to do the same for you. Don't take their "bad" behaviour personally - jennifersofia is right, it helps to work in fun and positive reinforcement of good behaviour all the time. Reward, reward, reward - stickers, marbles in a jar, points, whatever and maybe several different systems for different things. It takes some time, but it is so worth it.

I watched a teacher with a very difficult class the other day and her behaviour management was fantastic. She didn't get all stroppy with the ones doing the wrong thing, just an upbeat reminder quietly to them, or a very short time out counting to 30, lots of warnings but done in a positive tone, and lots of I can see how nicely x is sitting / Y is working so quietly....

Can you give the older ones some special responsibilities with the little ones?

Thanks again you have given me lots of think about. I will come back to this thread tomorrow.