Why must NQTs go through hell?

[Acopyofacopy]

Four weeks in and another batch of bright eyed and bushy tailed NQTs have successfully been broken at my school.

It's not only my department, there seems to be a school wide consensus that NQTs must be given all of the bottom sets. On top of that, everything they do must be ripped to pieces and nobody is ever allowed to make any positive remarks. Two competent, nice people have already quit.

I know that the working atmosphere in my school is not nice, but this happens every single year. When will the powers that be cotton on to the fact that, maybe, it's not the NQTs, it's the way this school treats them???

Lots of bog standard teachers like me are trying their best to be welcoming and supportive, but that is not enough to balance out the weekly onslaught of mentor meetings that make Guantanamo Bay look like Butlins and observation feedback that is designed to get rid of any self esteem that might be left over.

[DumbledoresApprentice]

I think it was a long time ago. I was our union rep for a short time and she told me then that she'd been a rep before.

We can't even find NQTs for some posts. We've had to rely on agencies to plug gaps for a term or two at a time.

[Acopyofacopy]

Ex-union rep HT? I don't want to believe you.
We had a well being survey in school last year and never heard anything back. I think the results might not have been to SLT's liking.

We're struggling to recruit, too. NQTs are the only ones applying and are told tales about how great the school is. Any more experienced teacher would see right through it.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

Our nqts are very well supported. Their mentor is fab with them and feedback is really well thought through, always including some strengths and some areas for development. Generally, they stay for at least a few years, if not permanently.

I, however, did my nqt year in a shit hole. It sounds very much as you describe, and I still have nightmares about going back to that place. I have no idea how I managed to stick out 2 years there (most of the second year I was counting down the days till I left).

[DumbledoresApprentice]

It is a great place to work. It's not perfect but it's a place where it's possible to still enjoy the job. I love it every single day.
I don't understand schools that place such ridiculous pressure on their staff. It's not necessary, it doesn't make the school better.

[leccybill]

I weep at the thought of your ex-union HT and wellbeing actually being a thing Dumbledore, it sounds like a nice place to work.

The academy I'm in has no union representation at all, no wellbeing group, no staffroom, but it does have huge amounts of pressure and unreasonable expectations. Luckily I won't be there long.
The NQTs look absolutely shell-shocked. I want to whisper to them 'not all schools are like this, find yourself a decent one' but I can't.

[DumbledoresApprentice]

How are your school managing to recruit at all? I work in an outstanding secondary with reasonable SLT, an ex-union rep HT, excellent behaviour, sensible expectations in terms of marking and where there is a member of SLT with staff wellbeing listed in their responsibilities. We struggle to fill posts at the minute. How has your school even managed to find NQTs willing to work there? It sounds like hell on earth.

[Acopyofacopy]

Funnily enough students are so far down the food chain that they get dealt with by bog standard, kind souls who have no SLT ambitions and don't get a kick out of bullying newbies.

[noblegiraffe]

How awful. Being an NQT is bad enough without the school being against you. I thought you weren't allowed to give NQTs particularly difficult classes?

Maybe teachers quitting a month in leaving them up shit creek will make them rethink?

Those poor NQTs. Training for a year then coming up against a bunch of bastards. If they were quitters they wouldn't have made it through the PGCE.

[MummySparkle]

Sometimes I think that senior leadership at my school are on another planet... they have just bought a school smart phone as the new oncall phone so that staff can go around and take photos of staff taking lessons.

So far one of our new staff has been reduced to tears by another member of staff in front of students, it’s not a great start to the year. (And don’t get me started on the NQT who the head had to ask him to leave because the caretakers wanted to lock up and he didn’t take the hint...)

[Balfe]

How horrible to treat people like that, what do they do to the students that come? Tar and feather them?

(not digging at you, just the system)

My school tries really hard with NQTs- decent class, not always the best, but just general friendliness.