Wish kids would stop coming in so early!

[blueirishues]

Registration is at 8:45.

I have children skulking around every morning from 8 onwards.

They have a warm canteen with toast and drinks, they have a warm library with huge cuddly chairs, computers and books, they have their OWN HOMES they could stay in. But no. Every day they stand in a cold, soulless corridor like abandoned pets.

Why? WHY?

[blueirishues]

Problem is I would have

• a long and loud dispute over who the first three actually were ('well Emma YOU were here' 'yeh but I was only following Sarah and then I went for toast!')
  

• probably kids deliberately messing up the classroom
  

• it would take me ages to get them out of the door. Longer than normal. This is an ongoing battle. That loud ringing sound means you go to your fucking lesson. My form haven't cottoned on yet.
  

No. I will stand firm. No kids! NO KIDS!

[LadyMonicaBaddingham]

I help in my school's breakfast club sometimes. Tiny little kids dropped off at the side of the road at barely 8 and left to it. Not to mention the ones who arrive just before or frequently after the end having had nothing to eat, with parents assuming we will provide...

[blueirishues]

Well, don't you? Not trying to sound contentious but this surely is the point of a breakfast club! My own children and my colleagues children would be dropped off at a breakfast club at 8, because we're in work!

[blueirishues]

User I didn't hit him but I am sorry you feel I am too chipper.

What do you feel I should be doing right now instead of posting here?

[AndNoneForGretchenWieners]

DS used to get to school by 7:30am every day, but would play football or go to the library to do his homework. Now he's in sixth form he's not too fussed about being early, but buses are only every hour here and if its late, or he misses one or it doesn't come, he risks being late - we live in a city and the traffic by the hospital holds his bus up for ages in the morning.

[rollonthesummer]

I totally sympathise. I'd shut your door and say you're very busy!

[blueirishues]

qwerty

If he's in my form, tell him to take his bloody coat off!

[phoe6e]

Have a word with the head. Ours/aren't allowed in until 8.45. They have to go to the canteen

[Puffinsareblackandwhite]

OP have you posted about this year 9 group before? If so, you made me LOL both times and I think of you when they (any year group) are being particularly annoying teenagers

Ignore the people complaining about you, you just need to offload sometimes. If we actually genuinely didn't care about the kids we'd leave the profession, what with all the great pay and working conditions But then I guess pointing that out would just make me a whining teacher...

Anyway, you've cheered me up - keep posting about 9D

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

OP, I mean this nicely but you really need to toughen up and not allow anyone in. If you really feel mean turning away very vulnerable ones, issue those pupils with a pass to come into your classroom before form. Maybe have a rule that it's 5-10 mins at a time or only 4 pupils allowed at once max or something. You need to be in charge of your space.

Seriously, I have no idea why teachers allow this when they are able to go elsewhere. When I was at school you did not dare approach a teacher before 8.45, it just wasn't done.

I work in a secondary school and have no idea how teachers manage when they feel they have to take on very trivial pastoral issues every day to the detriment of their lesson prep. You do not. it doesn't help the pupils to see that there are no boundaries to people's time and space. You end up with very entitled and mollycoddled young people and we don't want to send them out into the world with that attitude.

You are not their mate. You're their to oversee their welfare in school, and to pass on to relevant people if needed. You're not there to provide a warm space for 4 bickering pupils who are gossiping about what they saw on Instagram or who don't understand that they MUST NOT touch teacher's belongings.

Come on, toughen up! You can still be a nice and fair teacher without being a pushover.

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

I totally get you with the whole year 9 thing. I have a love/hate relationship with mine

but the one thing I've realised is that it doesn't actually help them in the long run to let them get away with too much.

[blueirishues]

I don't allow anyone in! But

Kid is there at 8, kid is shooed away.

Kid returns at ten past, sent away. Twenty past. Half past onwards is kids bleating 'can we come in yeeeeet?'

[blueirishues]

Can't win on here though! Either I'm evil teacher turning away vulnerable kids or Too Soft. Or should be having vigils for cyclists.

[blueirishues]

Yes Puffin!

9Dickheads are famous! Yay!

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Put a chair across the door. Sign on the door "no entry before 8.45" or whenever form starts.

[JennyOnAPlate]

Tell them that anyone seen loitering in the corridor before 8.30 will be given a job to do. Make a list of particularly unpleasant jobs and follow through.

[Oblomov17]

Ds1 walks to meet a friend who gets off the train at 7.50am. They get to school for 8.10am. I think it's far too early, but what am I to do?

[blueirishues]

And wait for the CLASH! CRASH! BASH! Chair flies across the room as the door is flung open!

'Soz! Miss can I just put my coat in? And my cooking ingredients?'



Then in form they always need to take said cooking ingredients to the food room. I am looking forward to the DT rotation finishing. Much less trouble when they are all doing resistant materials!!

[Keeptrudging]

Mine start arriving just after 8 (Primary school). Parents drop them off then go to work. I'm not a sodding creche . Before school I have work to do, books to sort, things to do on the computer, board to write up. The policy is supposed to be that pupils drop their stuff at class then go and play in the playground.

I used to spend most of my time trying to chuck them out, have now given up as it's easier to just work round them. If they get noisy, I chuck them out, they like being inside so generally behave now. In a way I like hearing all their stories in the morning .

[notangelinajolie]

Your school sounds like the one my daughter teaches in. We were having this exact conversation this weekend kind of... she was venting and I was listening!

I've been helping in my youngest DD's school with a school production and school is strictly off bounds until the bell goes - whatever the weather. The only place they can go is the canteen but they are only allowed in there if they are having food.

Different schools - different rules I guess!

[MsAwesomeDragon]

My form have free rein in my classroom in the mornings. I mark books/prepare for the day in the department office, as do some others in my department. My form know that the room must be clean and tidy before I arrive or I get shouty and threaten to lock the door the following day (I actually can't because the lock's broken). I do that because our kids mostly arrive by bus between 8 and 8:30, so they need somewhere to go.

Do you have anywhere else you could go to mark your books/prepare for the day so you don't have to supervise but the kids have a place to go? I know it's a pain, but it is usually easier to move yourself than to make others move.