Secondary teachers – is this normal, or is this a badly run school?

[trufflesandolives]

Hi all,
Posting for perspective rather than to rant. My partner teaches secondary English and is increasingly demoralised, and I’m trying to understand whether what he’s experiencing is fairly standard these days or whether his school is particularly poorly managed.

Some of the issues:
• No gap at all between lessons – one class rushes out and the next rushes straight in, so there’s no time to reset the room or manage transitions
• Behaviour policies that exist on paper but aren’t enforced in practice – if pupils are asked to leave for disruptive behaviour, they often refuse or just wander the corridors
• Very limited or inconsistent TA support, even for lowest sets / SEND-heavy classes
• Senior staff regularly move high-performing or improving pupils into other classes, leaving some teachers with only very homogenous low/bottom sets term after term
• Teachers are criticised for using sanctions “too much” (e.g. removing pupils / parking), but aren’t given a clear alternative that actually works
• No visible union rep in school
• Full teaching timetables right up to the very last day of term (no enrichment, assemblies, etc.)
• Large volume of direct parent contact that classroom teachers are expected to manage themselves
• Very poor shared resources – most lessons have to be planned from scratch

I know teaching is incredibly tough everywhere right now, especially around behaviour, but I’m trying to work out whether this is just the reality of the job in 2025, or whether these are red flags that suggest a school where leadership isn’t functioning well.

Would really appreciate hearing from teachers (or partners of teachers!) about what’s “normal bad” versus “this isn’t okay”.

Thanks in advance.

I'm a union rep and very visible.

No gap between lessons - normal.
Behaviour appalling - yep
No TA support - there's no money and no one wants to do it because it's thankless and poorly paid.
Enrichent is rarely enriching. I'd kill it completely: we're there to teach not to entertain.
Parental contact - not too bad in my school.
Shared resources - dreadful

I think a lot of what you describe is normal (eg. no gap between lessons), down to funding (lack of TA support) etc.
The ones that I think good management would deal with are the behavioural problems and the shared planning. Is this the only school he has worked in? Moving schools really helps give perspective on what is possible to change and what is not.

I have been teaching over 25 years and in all but 1 school I have taught in, this is the norm.

He's worked at two schools since qualifying, this one and one before which he much preferred. His previous school had a really good enforcement system for parking children where another member of staff would turn up in a high vis jacket and escort the student out of the classroom. Unsurprisingly, this meant that behaviour management wasn't as challenging because children knew that consequences would follow. Management wouldn't poach students as soon as they started improving and keep all the top set classes to themselves. And they would give a bit of thought to the mix of classes they gave each teacher each term balancing low sets with some higher sets to make teaching more sustainable. All of which is in contrast to his current school. Retention is poor at his current school whereas it wasn't at his previous school. I find it hard to believe that most schools demonstrate the same self-serving selection of top set classes by management for themselves, as teaching is hard enough as it is and management have to try to attract more teachers to their schools due to the known recruitment problems, so wouldn't be so short-sighted. Unfortunately, he had to leave his previous school because we had to relocate in order to upsize with the birth of our DS and the commute is too long now. Due to his lack of lengthy experience in teaching, I wanted to get views on whether his current school is the norm and therefore his previous school was an exception.

I'm in secondary and some of what you describe is normal.

Rushing from lesson to lesson is normal. I am a HoD for a core subject but also have a form group and have to do 2 co curricular per week. I also have duties. Some of my days are insane when you look at them!

Behaviour-depends on the school. What you describe was normal in my last school. Current school is good to be fair.

TA support - yes, definitely need more but not enough money. I have a Y7 class of 20. 5 EHCP pupils, the other 15 are SEN K. All struggling with literacy and numeracy. I have 1 TA. Could absolutely make use of more!

Parent contact- yes, lots of that. Not just behavior but as a form tutor at mine, it's also things like attendance calls when it drops below a certain %.

No union rep in my school.

It's mad when you write it down 🤯

My advice to anyone without a rep in school is the same.... train to do it!

At my school:

• No gap at all between lessons – one class rushes out and the next rushes straight in, so there’s no time to reset the room or manage transitions - yes
• Behaviour policies that exist on paper but aren’t enforced in practice – if pupils are asked to leave for disruptive behaviour, they often refuse or just wander the corridors - yes
• Very limited or inconsistent TA support, even for lowest sets / SEND-heavy classes - yes, they are all leaving to work in retail as pays more and less stress
• Senior staff regularly move high-performing or improving pupils into other classes, leaving some teachers with only very homogenous low/bottom sets term after term - no, I haven't heard of this before
• Teachers are criticised for using sanctions “too much” (e.g. removing pupils / parking), but aren’t given a clear alternative that actually works - yes
• No visible union rep in school - until this year, yes. We have just set up a team of union reps, would strongly advise your partner to look into this
• Full teaching timetables right up to the very last day of term (no enrichment, assemblies, etc.) - pretty much yes
• Large volume of direct parent contact that classroom teachers are expected to manage themselves - yes
• Very poor shared resources – most lessons have to be planned from scratch - until recently, yes

No gap at all between lessons – one class rushes out and the next rushes straight in, so there’s no time to reset the room or manage transitions - ✅
• Behaviour policies that exist on paper but aren’t enforced in practice – if pupils are asked to leave for disruptive behaviour, they often refuse or just wander the corridors - ✅✅
• Very limited or inconsistent TA support, even for lowest sets / SEND-heavy classes - ✅✅
• Senior staff regularly move high-performing or improving pupils into other classes, leaving some teachers with only very homogenous low/bottom sets term after term - ✅ This was my timetable in my last school, all bottom sets apart from a Y7 class and they were split at half term and I ended up with bottom set Y7 too.
• Teachers are criticised for using sanctions “too much” (e.g. removing pupils / parking), but aren’t given a clear alternative that actually works - ✅ and when I asked for an alternative I was told to ‘build relationships’ 🙄
• No visible union rep in school - red ❌ Not in my experience, no.
• Full teaching timetables right up to the very last day of term (no enrichment, assemblies, etc.) - ✅ Increasingly so now
• Large volume of direct parent contact that classroom teachers are expected to manage themselves - ✅
• Very poor shared resources – most lessons have to be planned from scratch - ✅

These are the main reasons why I am no longer teaching. Fairly typical I would say.

Badly run!!! Change job ASAP.