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.

It’s not low level disruption. It’s shouting at me directly, lying, arguing and throwing stuff in front of me.

No, I am assertive.

I am confident and engaging thanks. Plenty of students enjoy me teaching them.

I’m not going in and I’ve already told HR

Yes. Marked as an absence due to being unwell. I also sent them a massive email last night so I’ll see if I get a response.

Good for you OP. Just reading this gave me massive flashbacks to my ( short) time as a cover teacher. Horrendous. You sound like a wonderful teacher and science specialists are so much needed too! Have you thought about tutoring? It’s one-one or small groups which is so much better!
Also it sounds like this class is not your normal experience- something is kicking off here that SLT need to know about. Glad you wrote a massive email and I hope you identified individual names and behaviours. Just so grim.

I'm SLT. Was asked to remove a child from a lesson for disruption this week - as I attempted to do so, he said something to another student and they snapped. I intervened. I now have a black eye.

I have been teaching for 15 years, have confidence and assertiveness and presence. But enough is enough.

I would want to know if my DC had fallen into pack mentality- email the parents!

I did some cover the first year after I qualified. There were a shortage of teaching jobs then (I know!) so I secured a part time one and did cover for the other days.
I did a lot of rough schools but one in particular I refused to go back to. The kids were feral, but nasty with it. The school ended up closing down.

I mainly survived it by not getting too worried if the kids didn’t do much work. I just focussed on keeping them safe and all in the classroom and tried to build a rapport with them. It mostly worked as I did get called back regularly to one of the really rough schools. I quite liked the kids there, though I did have to split up one proper fight between two pupils 😅 I used to spend most of the lessons just chatting to different groups of kids in the room and trying to find some common ground. I can’t say they all did much work, but I figured for a cover lesson, it wasn’t too much of an issue.

But the school I refused to go back to was awful. I hated being sent there. The girls there were far worse than the boys. I could get the boys on side quite easily, but some of the girls were just horrendous.

I didn't mean to imply your issue today had been 'low level'. It was in response to another poster who had referred to low level disruption. That poster said they nipped it in the bud, but I just hate the way some parents don't understand how disruptive that behaviour can be.

We had one regular supply teacher who had qualified about fifty years earlier and saw no reason to update his teaching methods. He was absolutely terrifying and nobody ever, ever misbehaved in front of him.

Sorry OP but too many kids these days are horrific. Even worse are their entitled parents. The fact the school scenes during Adolescence were said to be so familiar to teachers is frightening. You all deserve medals dealing with such feral kids.

I agree.i already commented before but it was a secondary school i worked at.it is completely different to primary school kids,so i don’t believe you know just how bad it is.

I clearly said that secondary would be too much of a challenge for me. I don't know why you've turned my supportive comment into a fight? I know the differences. I was just saying people also shouldn't downplay so called low level disruption.

Having said that, every day I see primary aged children throwing chairs and pushing over tables, trashing whole classrooms so the class has to be evacuated for their own safety, biting/kicking and hitting staff, swearing in context at staff, aiming personal/rude/critical comments at staff etc etc etc. Seen it in every year group from reception to Y6. There are hardly any consequences we can give, no iso/detention and parents back their kids all the way. And don't go thinking I have another adult in the room with me either, because budget cuts have done away with all but absolutely essential one to ones. It isn't fair on staff OR the children in the room who have to put up with these kids in every lesson of every day.

Of course it's not the same as secondary school, but it does have its challenges that if we don't tackle in primary, just go on into secondary and I think we should be working together much more to try and solve it.

Yeah I can be demoralising. I actually teach most lessons. Not maths or coding though.

Male privilege.
Many children simply don’t respect women and it comes from their home culture. I’m sure you can figure out which ones I mean.

Thanks. It had been about 6 classes this week.

This is the issue - work is set and I am expected to teach it. Not just sit and chat to them.

Are you supply rather than cover?
I had work to give them, which I did, and I’d encourage them to do it, but at the end of the day, it was more about survival in the schools I did cover in.

It must be the same in all schools. I work in a secondary and it’s very true that some students have no respect for supply teachers or cover teachers. Until SLT step up and do something drastic about treatment , nothing will change. SLT are called, they go in the class, students behave and once they leave, the poor behaviour starts again. At least in our school the behaviour policy and sanctions remain no matter who is in front of the class. On a supply teacher’s first day last week (20 years plus of teaching and semi retired) a boy threatened to ‘bang him out’… pleased to say the lad was put out of circulation and suspended immediately. I feel for you OP, it’s a wonder anyone does that job.

I'll tell you what has to change....bloody parents should discipline their children!!!

Had we behaved like the feral youth of today, we'd have been given a short sharp shock when we got home. Instead now parents will make excuses and defend their miscreant children.
No parental oversight of the bad behaviour and to much "gentle parenting"

Kids are savages and need strict direction and boundaries to socialise them.

The type of people who are the parents to these brats aren't on Mumsnet. And if these particular parents received any communication from the school regarding their kids behaviour I shouldn't be think they'd give a toss. An awful sign of the times (along with many other things). I wouldn't wish being a teacher or a copper on anyone. I hope OP finds a more rewarding role or maybe this is the chance for a change.

Rubbish!!!

Good grief, what a dumb and unhelpful reply to the OP. You have no way of knowing any of this. The kids sound grim.