New teacher has unsettled the class (year 7). Basic empathy skills needed.

[clementinio]

DD is very happy at at his new secondary - everything has been going well. However his form teacher, who also takes him for French, has just gone on maternity leave. There was a replacement teacher lined up but it fell through at short notice, so I think the teacher who has now filled the gap is an agency temp. DD likes her, and said she's a good French teacher, but that "everybody's being mean to her" - telling her they preferred their previous teacher, being really noisy and deliberately confusing her about school policy, which she's presumably just getting to grips with.

I've told DD that this happens a lot at secondary, but it's so sad to see the kids behaving in this way - they've obviously been unsettled by the change, but are lacking in basic empathy for this poor new teacher. Obviously the teacher will need support, and possibly some of the kids will be 'disciplined' but do schools ever just talk to the kids about empathising with new teachers and treating them with kindness and respect? They're always being educated not to bully each other, and it seems to work reasonably well - certainly they call each other out over it much more than kids did when I was at school - but I haven't seen the same approach applied to the way students treat their teachers.

Unfortunately substitute teachers have been seen as 'fair game' at several schools I've worked in. They don't know names. They don't know the behaviour policy or systems. I'm sorry it's affecting your daughters learning, as obviously this isn't fair. Hopefully they'll employ someone more permanent soon.

As for being taught to treat others with respect, one would hope it's something children are taught at home, by their parents way before secondary school! But clearly this doesn't always happen.

Kids always bang on about how they prefer the previous teacher to you. Miss X always let us...
They don’t like change.

If they’re a supply teacher they should be used to it, it’ll blow over.

I don’t think that appealing to the better nature of a group ofYear 7s will work. The teacher needs to establish a relationship with the classes and it is often difficult for supply teachers.

She needs to set out her expectations, follow the behaviour policy and ask for support if necessary.

Just be glad that your dd is a good ‘un.

Kids don't like change. They tend to be quite vocal about it (and can be downright nasty/rude about it in some circumstances). Teachers know this (or are very naive if they don't). THe vast majority would try not to take it to heart...

Students don't like change.

When you teach them they'll like you most of the time, respect you, still complain thay you make them do soooooo mucccchhh wooorrrrkkk and claim no other class in the universe is doing as much work as them (teens love hyperbole). You'll be the most annoying person on earth to them at times for keeping behaviour standards etc. But in a weird way they wouldn't have you any other way so when you leave or are off sick for more than a few days whoever comes in has a case of 'yeah but you're not our actual teacher'.
If they're well trained by the class teacher then it will be instilled in them not to be awful for cover staff so they might not work as hard for cover staff but they'll still be polite and produce a readonable amount (just not the same as for their normal teacher). If the class haven't had time to be trained well or the teacher didn't run a tight ship then there can be issues.

Long term supply from an agency will probably be seen more as a real teacher than someone on day to day supply.

It also will depend on the supply teacher. Some are awesome but others act like a warm body in a room and make very little attempts to do anything about behaviour or disruption.

It's not great but doesn't sound unusual.