Shit day work stories

[BeauMirchoff]

I have had a really shit day at work. Spilled coffee on my lap and burned myself, my y11 behaved like idiots (which actually made me think - what's the point of all this? They don't want to learn!) and I had a really unpleasant conversation with a parent.
Misery likes company so...tell me about your shit day!

I seem to be having a shit week.

Monday I was called a freak by a child I don't even teach, spent lunchtime finding out who they are and speaking to their hoy about them, missed my free for an appraisal meeting (where we discussed exam results etc).

Tuesday I arrived later than normal because there was a crash on my commute (send to be minor according to the local news), then missed a free because of our collapsed timetable citizenship lessons.

Wednesday full day teaching, detention duty at lunch, y 11 whack a mole last lesson (they'd nicked some play doh from geography and were throwing it at each other!!!!), Massive headache and a sore throat developed throughout the day.

Tomorrow I will have my first free of the week :) but I will also have a twilight inset after school :( because we only had one inset day before the kids started instead of our usual 2. I'd much rather have done an extra day in the holidays than have so many long days.

I'm not a teacher, but reading this thread I can fully understand why teachers are leaving the profession in droves.

It sounds horrendous. Thank you all for what you do for our kids.

I'm not a teacher either. I'm a parent who's first child has just started reception. It saddens me to read about how difficult the profession has become, and how hideous children's behaviour can be. Thank you, thank you so much for what you do.

Thank YOU Misty for appreciating it. It makes all the difference

Shit day here. Most of it would be far too outing. I need out of this job!!!!!

Virtual gin to all who clearly need it on this thread.

In answer to above: day 2 as we're probably getting downgraded. We'll find out tomorrow.

If you counted value added, we'd be amazing, but getting newly arrived, EAL and often traumatised pupils to just under national average counts for nothing these days.

3 lots of whack a mole for me today, all Year 8.
Meetings before and after school.
Confiscated 3 phones, emailed 20 parents, chased up detentions at break and lunch.

Came home, ate my 'lunch' at 4.30pm and marked 56 books.
Tired!

Another shit day here too. Nearly cried in front of a class.

I hope everyone's day is less shit today.

I've got a stinking headache and full blown cold :( But it's easier to be at school than to think up cover work for all my classes, so in I go.

Ugh. A child came and complained that they felt sick this morning and they were sitting with the bucket. A colleague came in who taught the child last year and quietly said that they were trying it on and removed the bucket...you can guess what happened next (not envy!)...said colleague is now in a non-teaching role so was invited to come and clean up

A parent complained that I didn't let their child with a dairy allergy have ice-cream, because it's only milk they're allergic to (i.e. don't like).

A parent complained that I lost their child's jumper, which was later found hanging from a tree beside the football field (clue: wasn't me).

My child with ASN sang the Wheels on the Bus from 9am-3.15, apart from a brief interlude where he sang London Bridge for half an hour. The noise is appalling and I know he can't help it but FFS.

Side note: my DC has a milk allergy but can tolerate it in melted cheese and chocolate form..... so it's not always just that the child 'doesn't like it'. Something to do with how the proteins are broken down when processed/cooked.

Today can just fuck right off. Bloody awful and I've still got a bunch of work to do for tomorrow.

OK - was there ever a golden age of teaching, where the job wasn't like this? I do really enjoy it, but the days are way too long for my liking! As an old bird of 49 I need my sleep! I know a lot of stuff will get easier with time, and I already feel a bit more at home with my class, but It feels like such a whirl. I wonder when it was ever better really. Teachers always had to plan and mark didn't they?

@noblegiraffe this week can fuck right off, more like 😭

There was a time when your plan consisted of 'teach them to read, write and count'.

It was a time of joy and we did not know we were living.

I remember a time when we marked homework with a score out of 20 and a 'Good job!' if they got them all right. No emails. No endless sodding data tracking. And you got a pay rise.

The joy of ticking a book and putting a score! I get strange thrills out of beautifully laid out chimney sums and a red pen. Aaaaah.

Stupid number lines and 'active' maths ruining my beautiful jotters.

I'm not convinced about this layering of methods. I only ever learnt column and bus stop methods for + - division and x - it was really easy once you got the hang of it - now there are arrays, number lines, partitioning etc etc - quite a lot of techniques to remember IMO.

The Golden Age of teaching was when my mother and her cronies were teaching. Now all retired (at 60) on pensions more than an NQT earns.

She used to go in to school at 8.50 and leave at 3,30, carrying only her handbag - no meetings after school, shit like INSET etc etc.

They could leave jobs at will and find other ones immediately. She once turned down a job that was 2 miles away because it was too far

Now they "can't understand why there are all these classroom assistants and kids who can't behave themselves......... I could go on and on

Yes, little my parents were both teachers and say things like that. My dad had a fifth form (y11 before they were called y11), in the year they raised the school leaving age from 15 to 16. He tells everyone how he taught them probability for weeks by playing card games! Can you imagine that today? My bottom set y11 have to sit a GCSE and get a grade (some of them won't, but that's not due to lack of work on their part, or mine).

This year is particularly hard for me because of the new A level syllabus. But then again, the past 2 years have also been hard because of the new GCSE syllabus.

Pupils were great today.

However I had to leave class quite urgently 3 times as my body has decided having a period isn't enough - it must throw all the blood on it from my fanjo like a bullet from a gun.
I'm now feeling drained, have a massive belly and TFI Friday tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure my ds teachers have had days like some of yours though. He's year 9 and a few are behaving to year 9 stereotype and ds with ASD is melting down left right and centre as a reaction to it.

We went to Sainsbury's on the way home for cake!

Today has been nice, actually.

I spent ages planning a Probability lesson last night, got my special soft (no noise!) dice out, and programmed a spreadsheet and chart with the intention of conducting 300 experiments in class and showing the children how the probability gets closer to the theoretical value as the number of experiments increases. Took me ages!

Got to class all excited and I'd left the dice on the coffee table at home! So I changed it to tossing coins, but reprogrammed the spreadsheet wrong whilst the children were making a racket with their experiments so the graph looked very strange.... managed to get it sorted though. Have promised them we will do dice next time.

And it's Friday tomorrow so I'm happy.

Ofsted earlier in the week and Y6 open evening tonight. The students were fine today but I think the prospective parents must have thought that I was a gibbering idiot tonight. 'Still trying to unwind even though I was 'dead on my feet' earlier. Poets day tomorrow!

I'd have made a great teacher in the golden age of teaching. Like Mrs May just deciding to put on a play. Decided today that I'm too soft for it. I'm having to be incredibly strict to get decent work out of my class and I did not go into teaching to make children feel bad about themselves. Another statistc.