Mumsnet users discuss phrases that teachers always say

[EllieMumsnet]

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With National Teacher Day coming up on the 8th May MNHQ would love to know the phrases you remember your teachers always saying….also if you are currently a teacher please share the phrases you most commonly use during your classes.

Do you have strong memory of one of your teachers always using the ‘I’m not angry just disappointed’ line? Perhaps whenever your teacher was annoyed at someone they would say ‘It’s your own time your wasting’? Or maybe as a teacher you’re becoming known for saying one phrase in particular?

Whatever phrases you remember your teachers always saying, comment on the thread below to be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £100 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

If you keep talking you can go and talk to the Headmaster at home time while you clean his office!

very recherche - our chemistry master

Will you please go to your assigned seat and introduce your bottom to the chair

I'm a teacher - and it's not so much a phrase that I say but a sound. I've even started doing it with my friends' kids...

It's accompanied by a raised eyebrow, a loud voice and a very firm 'Errrrr no thank you!' It's the 'Errrr' that has the effect.

Worked a treat on a little toe rag in soft play once!

'could do better' ...thats what was always on my reports at school .

'stop running around like a headless chicken'
'if your friend jumped off a bridge would you do that too?'
.....think we can tell what sort of student i was

chairs have 4 legs for a reason.

"Tuck your shirt in!"

My teacher in Maths used to say to a friend and I 'since you enjoy talking so much perhaps you would like to come up to the front and teach the lesson'.

My science teacher always said "I'm here for your benefit not mine, I already know all of this stuff"

my teacher always said follow your passion

Are you making the right choice?

That was inappropriate.

Why aren't you writing?

Let's crack on!

Break-time was 10 minutes ago. Why didn't you go then? Invariably answered... I didn't need to then.

Positive mindset! Let's persevere!

Shall I chop it off? (First aid)

You waste my time, I'll waste yours.

Ah! The day when the cry of "You, Boy!" across the playground made every boys head swivel to the head of upper school and every girl look around to see if they could see who was going to be in trouble

but I have to say that teachers are absolutely amazing. I had one form tutor that called me sophisticated at parents evening, bless her heart. It wasn't the most classy school to be fair

You’re not here to socialise 🙈

Bags off desks this is a lesson not a disco

Mines are where you get coal
Its school not Drummond's Holiday camp stop slouching!
Oh come on you can do better than that
Can you not understand my good Glasgow accent
Do you not speak the English
Your my best class
Weirdly
Save the fractions
Latin did not kill the Romans
Pull you socks up
Right whos next for shaving

I am not going to say it again! ( a phrase that I have heard countless times as a teacher.) Teachers are always repeating it.

A phrase I heard a teacher tell his class so they wouldn't disturb him, he would say, "only disturb me if a child is on fire, and he doesn't know it!" That's how important it must be!

"Walk" "the bell is for me not you" "am I keeping you up" I always yawned in class

I was always getting told off for talking and multiple teachers used to tell me 'If you have something to say then tell the whole class and if not stop talking to your friend'

my teachers alwys told me i was always very good at debate!

Our teacher always used to say (to the child that had been naughty and wouldn't own up) 'you're spoiling it for the whole class now'
he'd then punish the whole class until the child felt enough pressure to confess

Stop talking. ...l heard that way YYYY too much

Anyone misbehaving will go to the headmaster to get the cane (I'm old!)

MY FRENCH TEACHER used to start evry lesson with a phrase that I didnt understand. It was years later that I realised it was "ecoute et repetez", - listen and repeat

In secondary school I remember our male form tutor telling us as we were looking in pocket mirrors or brushing our hair "Put that away! You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear".