I’m a Cover Supervisor and I just walked out.

[tellmesomethingtrue]

At the end of my tether. Pupils have been shouting at me, arguing with me for 3 hours straight today. I’ve told HR that I can’t cope with the final lesson and I’ve gone to sit in my car. I welcome the classes pleasantly, I am organised and the kids know me. Just because “I’m a sub” they are disrespectful and just awful. As soon as another teacher comes in to support me, the kids are fine. Today, I’ve sent 9 pupils to work elsewhere and called SLT three times. On the verge of (another) panic attack, enough is enough. I don’t think employment should be like this. Usually half the class are absolutely fine, do the right thing and work. Surely their parents would be mortified.

Even some teachers can't cope with certain children in class...as a cover you will get the worst out of them.... something really needs to be changed in the system....how are the kids getting away with such awful disruptive behaviour against cover teachers.

Sorry you've had a day like today. I'm a cover supervisor in a primary school (so the difference is that all the children know me and I know them) and although I've had days where children have made me cry, I've always said secondary cover would be too much of a challenge for me. Are you planning on going back?

What does annoy me is the phrase 'low level disruption'. Talking when the teacher is talking, singing in class, wandering around the room, asking silly questions/making silly comments or noises, chucking paper/pens around...they might not sound too bad, but they add up to a very disrupted learning environment which is unfair on the children who actually want to learn.

Bloody hell. Awful awful awful. This bit particularly stood out for me: the (male) head said that I needed to do more to build a positive relationship with the child and prove I liked him.. Back in the Stone Age when I was at school there was no expectation whatsoever that our teachers had to like us! We had to behave ourselves or we would be in trouble at school and in the vast majority of families also in trouble at home. Yes, they were tough times and some teachers and parents were bullies and abusive. Not all, though, and there were far fewer problems of discipline then than there seem to be now.

Cover supervisors aren’t trained teachers in general though. They aren’t paid as well as supply teachers either.

Sending hugs. How was your afternoon? Before teaching, I did a year as a cover supervisor. It’s absolutely draining. I remember having to send notes out of the classroom via the good kids to get help. Sometimes it came but most of the time it was a riot. Hope tomorrow is a better day for you x

Supply teachers aren’t paid all that well, either. I see advertisements from agencies offering £100 - £120 per day before deductions.

The schools will be paying more than that, though.

No, they're not, and I agree that qualified teachers should be teaching (and if behaviour wasn't so out of control, there wouldn't be so much sickness and attrition and there'd be less need for subs) but the point is that there comes a point when the problem is not behaviour management but behaviour. There's very little that can be done if 30 teenagers collectively decide to go up against 1 adult.

Yes, I agree. I think if most parents could see what actually goes on in classrooms they would be really shocked.

Are you following the behaviour policy? I found that you can't be soft. They see it as weakness. I found that fair but firm works best.

It’s an awful job. I did it for a bit. Teenagers bully cover supervisors, don’t treat them properly. I’d get out as soon as you can.

I don't blame u OP. I'm doing supply as and when at the moment. I have specified a particular school i will go to. I taught for 31 years before relocating and trying supply. I have made it clear to supply agency not prepared to go anywhere where the kids are difficult. If that means I don't get any work, then so be it. I don't see why you should have to put up with such disgusting behaviour. I feel sorry for the kids who want to learn.

I mean I knew secondary education was challenging but this thread has made me absolutely cringe. If I got an email that my kid had been disruptive in class, anything electronic would be removed from them until further notice and other consequences.
No one should have to work like this. Im sorry things have been so bad OP. Can you get signed off to help for a bit?

I left my very much loved job as a support technician in a school when the Head decided that, rather than recruit actual qualified teachers to cover lessons, the school would use technicians and other support staff. So for our pitiful wages we were going to be expected to stand in front of classes - no training, no prep - and keep order. We might even be expected to teach work if a teacher had left some.

How were we, with no behavioural training, going to keep control of a class of 30+ kids many of whom did not even want to be in school?

Education needs a big rethink. And a lot of kids need a big wake up shock.

Sorry you've had such a shit day OP.

I contemplated going onto supply teaching recently and remembered how sorry I felt for the cover supervisors and supply teachers when I was teaching full time. This thread has cemented my decision not to do supply.

Thinking of you. I did exactly the same when a Year 11 girl shoved me. I was walking across the playground at the time, saying nothing to nobody. I said to SLT that I considered it assault and the response was, “it doesn’t work like that here.” It works like that everywhere, it’s called the Health and Safety At Work Act. I got up and left. I put my c.v on Indeed and got my dream job 3 weeks later.

Don’t let anyone tell you this is your failing. Good teachers have fair, strong and consistent boundaries. You were clearly professional and caring. Now they will have to manage without you. Take care and be kind to yourself.

I knew I couldn't be a supply teacher any more when I one day had a tot of whisky to ease the pain when I got home at 4.30. That night I had a dream that I poked a particularly vile child's eye out with a pencil. This was after a day I had been slow handclapped and cried in the toilets. I never went back.

The only time supply was good was when I did long term sick cover or maternity leave.

Kids are difficult in all schools in the state sector.

Bloody hell I was paid £85 a day 30 years ago!

The thing is the behaviour does not have to be like this if parents and staff work.together. I have only ever worked in state schools.

I saw a cover supervisor role advertised and rang the agency for more details. She offered me the job and set up a trial visit in about 10mins.

Afterwards, I wondered how awful this job is that they'll more or less drag people in from the street. I didn't pursue it.

There's a reason there's so many job adverts for these positions.

I taught for about 20 years. When I went to do cover lessons I would open with “you don’t know me but I have been teaching in the school for * years, I know the school and the expectations for behaviour” It shouldn’t be like that and hats off to you OP for sticking out this long!

This is horrific. I don't know whether I am more shocked at how you have been treated or that this is not surprising!

I’m amazed that the senior leadership team even picked the phone up. My daughter did supply last year and was literally head out the door looking up and down the corridor and could hear their phones ringing as she dialled their numbers and they just completely ignored her.

This might cheer you up a bit by making you laugh.

One day I was sent to a secondary school in Central London. They airily told me I was to teach at 'the unit' and told me to get a bus to it.

Off I went to this 'unit' which I learned was for excluded/ highly dispruptive/ no hope of getting any GCSE's kids. I was LOCKED IN to a room with 15 teenagers and a panic button. I kid you not. I was meant to teach them design technology ( I didn't have a clue and there was no lesson plan) I think I lasted 20 minutes before I hit the panic button and a uniformed security guard rescued me.

Not much more, which is why you can’t find recruitment agencies that work in the education sector that give a shit. The margins have been cut to the bone