Do fee paying parents think there are no limits..

[darknessontheedgeoftown]

..to how much stress they can put teachers under? Have just spoken to yet another example colleague from a private school in an area of London full of high earning parents with massive equity and frankly spoiled and unpleasant children. I do wonder whether the parents know the pernicious effect they are having on teachers constantly expecting the earth and constantly fault finding. I myself left this destructive life behind as I couldn't face another 20 years of the stress and unpleasantness of the job. Admittedly SMT are gravely at fault for not protecting staff either but parents also need reining in.

I agree Beached

My children go private & have the nicest, kindest teachers in the world who obviously care passionately about education. I almost NEVER bug them, because they're great. I do suspect that some of the other parents are utter pains though.

We're going state in September after we move house, and I'm probably more likely to bug the teachers then because dd1 is a bit dreamy, and needs a bit of prodding, and dd2 is just really GOOD, so was overlooked constantly in her old school, where the naughty or more lively children got all the attention & the quiet ones seemed to be gratefully ignored.

In seriousness though, teaching doesn't sound any different to any other profession

To give you a serious answer, Beached

It isn't the job. It isn't really the laziness of some students or the heightened expectations of some parents.

It's the ever changing legislation, goalposts, specifications and job description.

Legislation changes can happen all at once, over time, be advertised and withdrawn 24 hours before implementation, or announced after school sbreak up for summer.

Specifications happen much the sme way. Did you know that some BTEC specifications rarely last, intact, for more than the 2 years it takes to teach them? That measn you are often left teaching the last year of one and the first year of the bnew one... eternally.

Did you know that many of the new GCSE and A level specifications were published, pulled, re-published... all when most teachers were off on summer holiday - and some were abandoned just weeks before teaching was to begin? That meant that even in the best case scenario teachers were left with a couple of paid days to re-write their lessons... the rest was done in that gloriously long holiday that teachers have!

Teaching is no longer teaching... it now includes aspects of SENCO work, which is fine, until a student really needs the help... and then an already stretched teacher with minimal training is supposed to magiically know all about very SEN ging, and to make all sorts of modifications to suit. Not really a goo idea... but no one pays for enough SENCOS these days.

There are many other things teachers do that aren't really teaching - the paperwork is a killer - as it is in every job. But the government spec is not accepted by SLTs or even Ofsted... so you have to sort of prepare for Armageddon for every inspection.

The expectation are weird - the "every student must achieve above average grades" isn't the only impossible benchmark the Goviots stet... are still setting.

It is the stress of the ever changing uncertainty that ends up being soul destroying.

I know a few teachers who are blissfully unaware of all of tis. They are the lucky ones, the ones who have a team that absorbs much of the crap and and SLT that actively strategises. But, as the maunderings of nany teachers here shows, there are very many shcools, departments, classrooms that don't have that support. It is disingenuous, at best, for anyteacher to state categorically that other teachers are just not up to the job. That shows a distinct lack of understanding and that they are surrounded by a bloody good mnagement team!

But, much as we aren't allowed to strike for the reaons we owuld want to strike - like "Could we please just use our skills and teach good lessons that kids enjoy?" we don't seem to tallow ourselves / be able to articulate clearly the very many little things that grow to be All Devouring Monsters - so e snipe at the easy targetes, the last person who made us want to slap!

I could go on forever, re-writing, refining, adding... but I want to be sure I have said it clearly ... it is NOT THE JOB.... it is the nonsensical. ever changing management of education that is the issue.

Once a teacher is aware of this the rot sets in and they lose the will to live. Ignorance truly is bliss!

I bloody proofed that one too! Sorry

But a lot of happens in other jobs - outsourcing, changes in ways of working, difficult people to work with, takeovers and uncertainty over jobs... nothing you have said is unique to teaching?

I work across both state and private sector in an area that has all income levels within a very short distance.

I can assure you that there are wonderful, friendly supportive parents and massive arse biscuit parents within every educational establishment in every area - regardless of income, job title or perceived 'status'.

I try and focus on the previous!

It is hard to explain. I have worked outside teaching, I have been made redundant twice, outside teaching. Nothing was as stressful as my last few years in teaching!

I think one of the reaosns it is so hard to explain is the cognitive dissonance... you teach because you want to help make a difference in young people's lives, you love your subject, can explain it, make it vibrant. And then stuff you have absolutely no control over, that has little to do with the every day job whittles away the time you have to spend doing the thing you love, trained for and are good at. Eventually the balance tips and you find yourself hating something hat was once the joy - both as a tpic/subject and as a job.

The very fact that teachers - people whose job it is to make the obscure clear - cannot explain the heart sinking, soul shrinking experience should be clue enough at how odd, dispiriting and utery devastating it is for those who find themselves ambushed by it!

OP I think you've come in for a bit of a hard time on here. Yes, there are nice parents. But the super rich parents didn't get that rich by being nice. They are used to scrambling over each other in the cut and thrust of their jobs so they probably aren't even aware that they are behaving this way towards the teachers. I know parents who deliberately want their child to be competitive so that they will survive the demands of a high earning career. I'm not defending them, but that is the sort of pack that sends that type of child to that type of school.

But a lot of happens in other jobs - outsourcing, changes in ways of working, difficult people to work with, takeovers and uncertainty over jobs... nothing you have said is unique to teaching?
Definitely!
There are immense pressures in business - ever changing priorities, goal posts, capricious decisions by clients and managers.
I am finding teaching easier, and more fun.

I am finding teaching easier, and more fun. And I have no regrets as I had more than 10 years of stress free teaching. Just the last 5 were nasty... as I moved into management, became more aware of the wider picture, the politicking!

"as I moved into management, became more aware of the wider picture, the politicking!"

This happens in every organisation in my experience

I wasn't going to reply any more, but it struck me that there is a lot of 'othering' going on.,

No teacher here (or in the plethora of similar threads) has said that teaching is harder than any other job, just that it is bloody hard and can be soul destroying.

Yet many, many posters seem to take great pains to deride, belittle, discount that. Why?

Scared your kids are being taught by someone who, on the surface, seems absolutely fine but may be moments away from a catastrophic sense of humour failure, nervous breakdown, etc?

Or is it just that the received wisdom: teacher = overpaid, over holidayed whinging twat, is too ingrained?

Teachers are, believe it or not, human beings who take on a job they love, have a passion for, and then, when its too late, realise that they have become the scapegoat for large sections of the population, government and media.

As have nurses, police, A+E staff, doctors and any mumber of other public service personnel. Wonder why? NO.. not the trite answer, the real, less pleasant one!

Athrawes

These parents are paying for a product.

Yes, but that "product" still needs the "product" to put the required effort in.

They are paying for the best grades and entrance into the best universities.
They aren't, they are paying for an education. the grades and entry comes from the effort put in by the child.

MrsGuyOfGisbo

Teachers who have never done another job seem to think theirs is uniquely difficult.

Just like any other person that has never done any other job.

Ok some concrete. A parent with a history of unreasonable demands emailing her child's head of year saying one of their teachers in a set subject was rubbish and the child had learned next to nothing that year and she was formally requesting a move. The teacher in question was understandably deeply upset and stressed when they saw the email. Other parents demanding more one to one tuition of Piers or Jemima, others demanding to know why their child hadn't got on a trip when their forms were late. When I see what these people are doing to the profession, to the health of others and even to their own children I am filled with contempt. Some of the early responses here, the drivel about "buying a product" and how these wealthy people are "paying your wages" just make me sick. I really think there is a massive problem with society and the Thatcherite valuing people on wealth culture. I also think that while it is understandable people are devoted to their own children that those who pursue their childrens advantage to the extent of causing unreasonable suffering to others are deeply unpleasant people and the less of them there are the better. I imagine that people with this mentality plus their au pairs and ski chalets and ballet lessons are never ever ever told by anyone on their lives that they are wrong and they are hurting others. So when they see themselves being called out they can't cope with it.

OPwhen I read your post I totally identified with it. I moved after 14 years in tough state schools to a semi-fee paying grammar where half the kids have come through prep. The difference in the parents ' attitudes to teachers was astounding. But not just that, the power and influence that the parents have , particularly the rich ones in top professions, over the teaching staff including SMT was staggering. Teachers are made often to feel like servants. It has taken me years to adjust and I still miss the state school sector. I had to grow a very thick skin and take criticism less personally, and some complaints I have heard have truly wounded me to the extent of wanting to pack it all in many times. And that's in spite of my HOD telling me I'm doing a great job with excellent exam results! Some parents- and yes it is usually the rich ones as SMT take their complaints more seriously- have completely unrealistic expectations and yes the cliche of helicopter parents and snowflake children is more apparent to me in a fee paying school. Having said that, I realise these parents only want the best for their children but we teachers are often collateral damage!

Darkness The three examples you gave in your last post are absolutely NOT specific to private/independent schools, and in my experience of working in both the private and state sectors, are just part of the everyday life of a school.

I have worked in the state system for 18 years now and in the last month my school has received demands for children to move classes, parents being highly critical and unpleasant about one of the teachers, move requests for individual support than I can shake a stick at. This is at a very normal, mixed catchment community primary school.

What makes the difference is how the senior leadership choose to deal with these issues. I have a great headteacher who will always sit in on difficult meetings, will always support their staff to unpick and problem, but will also tries to face staffing problems sensitively and fairly if it is a real issue.

Your friend's problem is not with the parents, it's with the management structure of the school who are allowing this to happen. This will not change so your friend needs to move schools.

Sorry - terrible proof reading!

I have met people in the past who think that just paying for their DCs to attend a school with excellent GCSE & A-Level grades also guarantees their DCs the same. Without realising that the students achieving those grades do actually have to work rather hard to get them!

That said, most of my teacher friends who are desperate to leave teaching (or already have done) are/were working in state schools in "naice", quiet, middle class locations. So it clearly isn't exclusively a private school problem.

Sounds like a shit head teacher. And as for banging on about not liking rich people or referring to kids as, what was it Piers and Jocasta? How blinkered and snotty.

My sister was approached by a child with a flick knife who said that he could cut her if he wanted (and demonstrated on her hand), also had parents screaming and yelling at her, turning up from jail threatening to kidnap their (estranged kids) do that she has police on speed dial, my brother threatened by a parent who was going to 'punch your light out' (who then tried to run him over), friend had a teenage girl tell him that she could tell lies to get him in trouble...

Yes all state schools must therefore be populated by the ferrel children or criminal parents. Or maybe normal people in general with a few nutters.

Private schools are the same. Just because a stroppy parent (and a teacher knows their bank balance - that's interesting) gets arsey and moans to the head rather that threaten to punch you, it's hardly a competition in which socio economic class has the worst behaviour.

As I said in the OP, I left teaching entirely mainly due to people like this some time ago

I'm glad to hear it.

I'm a teacher in a private school in London. The parents make me completely miserable. They email me all day long and expect instant replies, even when I'm timetabled to be teaching their child?! I'm leaving as soon as I can.

Sorry but that's the real world. Outside you get emails all hours and are expected to respond. And fuck all holidays. And shit pension. Enjoy.

Your school needs an email policy, Emma. Ours is a 48 hour holding email.

Yes, but original, think about it..
Our job is to teach, not respond to emails all day . I'm sorry, you're clearly not a teacher. I've had other jobs, this one is by far the most stressful.

I just think teachers sometimes take the view that their job is harder or more demanding than others, I hear quite often that they have to take work home, or stay after school, whereas I work a 12 hour day 6 days a week, and don't get 4 months of holidays to offset it. I agree that the demand from the general public can be horrendous, but it's part of every job, my objection is to this being painted as a class issue.

I also think the invention of email has created unreasonable expectations of instantaneous responses. People are just more demanding. As a PP suggests an email policy would help, but maybe also teaching the teachers some coping strategies, or some confidence training so they are better equipped to respond to the demands and hostility of the parents? I think then there would be less stress as fear surrounding the profession.