I really think I'm done now.

[Shamazing]

Horrendously behaved children with no manners. Zero support from SLT who seem to be scared of both the pupils and their parents. Staff morale is so low, I can't remember the last time I went into the staffroom and someone wasn't in tears. Oh and this is in a 'nice' area. Just emotionally exhausted with it all, so it looks like this is it for me.

Oh I’m so sorry to hear that. Is half term starting tomorrow? Lack of support and accountability from SLT is an absolute killer. Am also finding that a sizeable minority of kids have appalling manners and general poor attitude. My tutor group in particular has some real charmers, and it’s so exhausting.

Do you have an exit plan?

I think behaviour is the unspoken issue nationally in schools. Teachers are really struggling with it but SLT, LEAs and nationally it is not publicly recognised for the issue it is.

I am a SAHM who was a Deputy Head in a secondary school and am doing contract projects as and when to keep my skills up to date. I have done some work for three secondary schools in the last year around looking at learning. One was a school in Special Measures in a tough area, one was a Good school in a tough area and one was an Outstanding School in a naice area. In each of them behaviour was a significant issue. The worst was the Good school.
The school in Special Measures was very small so although there was more extreme behaviour, there were fewer children, smaller classes and more staff. The staff however were ground down by the behaviour. There were children who had each been removed from classrooms 80+ times in a term after 4 warnings. The sanctions were ineffective and they simply continued to behave the same way.The school received no support from the parents- who were as or more challenging than their children.
The Outstanding school was very large - 8x bigger than the Sp Measures school. It had the same kind of challenging students but they were lost in huge year groups and actually tended to give up and be less challenging the longer they were there- the very able, motivated, well-behaved students were the overwhelming culture. Parents were much more likely to be supportive of the school.
The Good school struggled the most.It's catchment was mainly in a deprived area. The top end of it was still pretty low income, and mainly rented housing. It was about 2.5 times the size of the Sp Measures school but had very few very able, motivated, well-behaved students so what happened was the culture was skewed by the mass of poorly motivated, middle ability, easily distracted students who allowed the most challenging students to disrupt every lesson.
I do consultancy work so see lots of schools. There is no doubt the changes to the curriculum at Ks3 and 4 have had a significant impact on students from the most deprived backgrounds who usually do not have the cultural literacy to deal with these courses and examinations. These are the schools where results have been most affected and where behaviour has become much more challenging. These students affect all students if their numbers are large enough and classrooms become very difficult places.
I also work for LEAs sometimes in an advisory or research role. I recently sat in on a 'Fair Access' panel which meets fortnightly to consider students who schools are saying they can no longer manage and are about to Permanently Exclude or asking to Managed Move them. The panel is a mixture of the Heads and LEA behaviour leads. They can not cope with the number of referrals they get every week- usually 15 -20+ a week where the schools are saying they have reached the end of the road.
These are children and families who desperately need support - but there is no ability to make social services, CAMHS and Health offer the support the families need, even if it still exists amongst the huge cuts that have taken place to these services. CAMHS in that LEA has a waiting list of over 1000 children. The wait for an initial appointment is currently a year. All of the Special Schools and the PRU are full. The only option is Alternative Provision. SEN services are sluggish and overwhelmed and work to their own agenda.
It is a pattern being repeated around the country. Most parents are unaware of it and would be quite horrified by what some of their children experience every day and by how school staff are treated.
There is no quick fix for behaviour. It needs to be dealt with firstly as a parenting issue. It is an issue often linked to poverty in families and everything that brings with it. It is often related to family breakdowns, poor relationships and role models. It is a social issue in deprived areas where gangs and anti-social behaviour are common. It is ingrained in children between the ages of 5-11 and by the time they come to secondary school they can not cope and the die is cast. The curriculum is a significant factor. I don't mean it needs dumbing down but it needs to be useful and appropriate.
I feel sorry for school staff. I see some awful things and understand how fed up teachers are. My plan has been to return but I honestly am unsure if I will. DH is a Head in a secondary school and he says behaviour is the biggest day to day pressure and frustration in the school.

Move schools.

I take it you love up to your username oneliner but your responses on staffroom threads aren't helpful.

Assume that's deliberate.

live up obviously.

Are we at the same school OP? Feeling utterly battered today by it all - if it hadn’t been half term I think I might have been at signing off stage. It’s miserable.

Today I had a form period in the afternoon at an otherwise seemingly good school. I was doing supply. Asked them to stand behind desks and silence before being dismissed. Well, you might have thought I had asked them to sacrifice a baby on a altar the way they were carrying on. I swear they weren't silent for nearly ten mins. All the while moaning about how I was making them late and how awful I was and how they hope she doesn't have us again. I just wanted five seconds of silence to dismiss and I waited til I got it.

I mean surely a quiet orderly exit is a usual expectation, or is it not nowadays?

I quit teaching a month before Xmas. Since then I've been waking up happy, have been able to come off anti-depressants and have been able to cope with stresses that would have had me in tears at the time. That's despite financial difficulties and a family bereavement.

I'm going back to work in two weeks as a TA in a two form entry school, I'm really looking forward to it now. I think the cost of teaching on mental health and a work life balance is too much for the benefits if I'm entirely honest.

I'm so glad it's half term, I'm going to have a really good think over the next week to decide what to do.

I just feel so ... flat. I love the actual teaching, it's just all the other bullshit that goes with it. I'm seeing such a massive difference in the behaviour of the children over the last 5 years and it seems to get worse every year. Being told to fuck off by a 9 year old before 9am is just depressing.

@LuluJakey1 what a brilliant and insightful post. I recognise so much of what you say as I'm in a 'Good' school in the exact circumstances you describe.

LuluJakey That is an astonishing post.

You're spot on that most parents have no idea.

The silence around this is staggering.

And I think part of the silence is a result of 1. The complexity and multi-determination of the issue 2. The non-availability off solutions 3. The fact that so many of the 'stake-holders' are pitted against each other.

All of which you've covered in your post.

Have you thought about researching and writing your observations a/thoughts in a longer, more durable form?

Someone, somewhere needs to start putting together the elements of this issue & producing a public debate about it - in a non-piecemeal fashion.

@LuluJakey1 very interesting post, great insight

This is such an interesting thread.

I worked as a TA in Japanese junior high and primary schools, and then did my secondary PGCE in Scotland 20 years ago. Then I moved to SE London and did something else entirely.

3 children and a variety of jobs later, I am a TA in a state primary in SE London with a very challenging intake.

Last week over 4 days I was hit, had stones thrown at me, was told I was a little bitch (I am 5’8” and average build so I quite liked that one), and told to shut my stupid face. This is by Y4 children. 8-9 year olds. And this is not because I am ‘just’ a TA, the teachers all the way up to the head get it too.

It breaks my heart thinking about how unboundaried and unmanageable their behaviour will be by the time they get to 14/15... they will not be able to manage in education, in the workplace, or in society.

A 7 year old I work with with spoke to me very rudely, and I stopped him, and reminded him about speaking respectfully to adults. And he just said ‘but I speak to my mum like this, and she doesn’t mind’.

It’s a very hard debate to start, as it has the whiff of the dreaded ‘being judgemental’, but as previous posters have mentioned, it’s the lack of support from parents, or just lack of actual parenting, that makes this job so tricky I think.

its the lack of support from parents, or just lack of actual parenting, that makes this job so tricky I think

Do the parents know their kids are like this? It seems to me that a lot of school refuse to report these issues either because the parents don’t care - or the kids get punished harshly at home.

My mums school has set letters, example

Your child was sent out of class
Given two warnings
Swore at an adult

Etc etc

Then you need to

Sign and return the letter
Speak to the teacher via phone
Arrange a meeting with teacher
Meet with the head teacher
Etc before the child returns to school

It was quite effective as it out the parents out

@LuluJakey1 I have read your post over and over, you are so right on each point.

@GreenTulips on my school, I spend a large amount of time calling parents after school. Most don't seem to care. When I called the mother of the 9 year old who told me to fuck off - she laughed. She actually laughed and said 'He's such a little shit isn't he'. Many think it's just not their problem and really don't want to know.

Being told to fuck off by a 9 year old before 9am is just depressing.

I got called a cunt by a nursery child a few years ago. The parents didn’t care.

Do you think this behaviour has changed over the last 30 years, and if so why?

My daughter is in Y7 at an ordinary comprehensive with a fairly mixed intake & I am surprised by the disruptive behaviour of some of her peers. But I went to an all girls private school so can't truly say whether it is very different to "in my day"...

Shamazing Do you work in my school? Your description could be mine too.
We are having a big exodus of teachers in the summer or people reducing their hours as we can't take any more of this shit.
You have my sympathy. No job is worth this level of stress, but when will anyone do anything about it

Our school is full of nurturing approaches as that seems to be the current in-thing. They don't work for the majority of pupils and other kids are now asking why these ones get rewarded for bad behaviour. Nobody seems to be able to give them an answer.

Oneliner it isn't as easy as moving schools. Where I am, there are virtually no jobs to apply for.

Our school is full of nurturing approaches as that seems to be the current in-thing. They don't work for the majority of pupils and other kids are now asking why these ones get rewarded for bad behaviour. Nobody seems to be able to give them an answer.

Exactly this. I’m completely for a nurturing approach for children who have suffered a genuine trauma.
But to the other children it looks like ‘he’s behaving like a dick and gets to go and play with Lego’.

Our school is full of nurturing approaches as that seems to be the current in-thing. They don't work for the majority of pupils and other kids are now asking why these ones get rewarded for bad behaviour. Nobody seems to be able to give them an answer.

This ^ a hundred times over. Our school is a restorative justice school, which seems to mean that they bend over backwards for the kids who spend their time terrorising each other and staff, while the kids doing their best in school are barely noticed. It's an absolute disaster.

Behaviour really is shocking and getting worse. This week 2 colleagues got attacked by students an der many, many more were sworn at or ridiculed. I wish we were able to film the behaviour!

I fear for what is going to become of these kids. Nobody will want to employ them!

Something happened to me last year which sticks in my mind. I was at the hairdressers in a not particularly rough suburban town and a 15yo girl came in with her mum to choose a package for her prom night. She had to choose a nail colour and shape but couldn't cope with the choices, or the eye contact, and was relying on her mum to speak for her. She also had her slippers and PJ bottoms on.
She was pregnant.
She was in a sulk because her scan was the day before her scan and she was worried the ultrasound gel would spoil her spray tan.
Let's imagine - fast forward 10-12 years years and she's still only 25 and I'm ringing home to have a professional conversation to discuss behaviour, disruption, the need to focus on study and future career, potentially undiagnosed SEN etc etc. It's going to go in one ear and out the other, isn't it?
I know I'm generalizing but when I think of 'parents' on the other end of the phone, I'm imagining 100% of them are pro-active parents, in a settled home with boundaries, at least one sensible adult making intelligent choices with an interest in and understanding of their child's education.
Increasingly, this isn't the case.

Our school is a restorative justice school,

Rather you than me. I'd never work at a school that used RJ ever again.

I was a teacher for over 20 years, but most of them abroad. I burnt out in the UK and taught in Greece, Sweden and the UAE where I had by and large lovely classes and the absolute joy of teaching kids who were motivated to learn (as I say, by and large!) The moves and localities didn't come without their pressures, but they were NOTHING in comparison to children in the UK. I was trained in inner city schools, but even then (I guess 25 years ago or so) although the kids were very damaged and disruptive, there were boundaries still. Fast forward to when I returned to the UK and began nurture group teaching and intervention work. I couldn't believe how depressing it all was. OP I want to send you the biggest hug and I couldn't so what you are doing and I thank you that you get out of bed every day and do your absolute best under dreadful circumstances. It's not worth your health and sanity, though, at the end of the day.

I noticed in my DS's school that he was just not being supported (ASD high functioning) because there were 10 in his class with severe SEN and I was known as a teacher and Governor, so was left to pick up the pieces because staff knew DS was supported at home. Meanwhile he couldn't access the curriculum because of the distress and challenges of so many other poor kids in his class.

In the end I moved him to a very tiny local independent prep. I wouldn't say the teaching there is particularly inspiring, lots of chalk and talk and quite traditional. What has happened, however, is that he has absolutely blossomed because as PP says the culture is high motivation, high achievement. Classes are quiet and well-ordered. He no longer uses a writing slope, a lap weight, sensory breaks etc and skips into and out of school every day. I hate that as a Mum this felt like the only solution. It's going to cripple us to maintain him in an independent secondary, but I don't see an alternative.