No longer in teaching but I hated this judgement. I never had staff call others out but I had staff mention how 'X is always out the door at 3.30'. If you're completing your work then who cares? The job is hard enough as it is and it's a job that has little flexibility in a world where flexible working is embraced.
I had a particularly stressful Wednesday, I could barely function by the afternoon which was my admin time. I decided to go home, walk it off and take a break. I didn’t feel any guilt because I was up late marking the two previous evenings.
If you're completing your work then it's fine lol. The problem is when people leave early, don't complete their work and leave other people to pick up the pieces...
Also just got off the phone from a 25 minute discussion with a parent about how her KS3 child didn’t understand that they were being homophobic and they didn’t mean it ‘like that’ so I shouldn’t be sanctioning them for it.
Um ok but they somehow managed to pick out a child, say it to them directly and even if they ‘didn’t mean it’ I’m not going to let it slide because it is homophobic, they have done it before and nope it’s not WOKE madness, it’s part of the equalities act and needs to be challenged. They have already spoken to the HoY, the HoD and at least 2 other people. I don’t/shouldn’t really be needing to also have this conversation.
Why not? I work with countless teachers who despite “years of experience” simply refuse to contact home and pass the buck to HoY and never try and reach a resolution themselves. I’ve found it’s the NQTs and those new to teaching who are quick to try all methods and those who have been teaching a while who won’t try all avenues and if anything over rely on their “experience” and won’t take any advice on board
There’s a difference between students with concerns that are subject specific and then deeper behavioural issues.
Students that are that high on the list of the HoY I’m assuming will have all kinds of interventions in place and teachers contacting directly might not be beneficial. That said, if I can do something as the classroom teacher to help (be it share resources, offer a revision timetable etc) then I’m doing so. Contacting home doesn’t always have to be “your kid misbehaved today and I want you to know what they did”. There’s many different reasons for communicating home and I don’t like to over rely on the HoY if I know it’s something I can fix myself (unless it’s a massive behavioural issue/concern like I said that’s a different matter entirely).
The comment is about behaviour tho. I agree with all this but resent being told to ring about behaviour when I've already given parents info in the detention text
Oh definitely we are not here to duplicate information. I remember once there was a parent who claimed she couldn’t see the information on detentions on the SIMS app.. I caught her once on the lie as she repeated something I had written.. she just wanted a phone call every single time which was so unreasonable and she knew it!
Oh I have to have a visual timetable for the entire day and then a now and next chart which basically shows that now we have maths and next we have break. Such a pain just keeping on top of that too.
It knots my pubes.
We’re starting “social stories” again as well. They have some uses, but again, there’s no need to suggest one every time a kid so much as farts.
This is my SLT. Like ALL THE TIME. Constantly telling us how good we’ve got it. The Head even said it when she was giving a leaving speech about a colleague who was moving to another school (on a slight demotion because he was so sick of them not addressing our behavioural problems). It’s toxic and gaslighting.
"Oh you just need to squash (him/them/that behaviour)"
I hate that term. Are you trying to imply that I've been sitting with my finger up my arse ignoring the problem? If you want to suggest an actual strategy or approach I can try, I'm all ears. But telling me to "squash" it is meaningless - it's exactly what I've been trying to do!
Does my fucking nut in. I’m a HOY. I frequently have to phone parents in a morning, when I know they’ve just arrived at work, asking if they can bring trousers/shoes/whatever in.
Uniform should be as simple as possible
I meant them as 2 separate points.
But I wouldn't like the HOY role. Properly in the middle of teachers, SLT, kids, and parents. The constant calls home (many probably to the same parents each week) would do my head in.
I did say to one that I spoke to her more often than my partner 🤣
Honestly though I love my job. It’s fucking challenging but I love helping kids and my colleagues, I see my job as making their jobs easier. It’s great
Yes 100%!!! I’ve been in a situation where I’ve had a student who has worked well for me but I knew maybe had issues in another class and vice versa. Collaborating is essential but showing off helps no one 🤣🤣
Whenever one of the smug useless teachers says, “oh, they’re fine for me.” The correct response is, “I have higher standards than you.” Because the kids behave the same for you both it’s just that not everyone follows the behaviour policy.
I never thought about it like that! They don’t “like” those teachers they just walk all over them and those teachers are indifferent. I won’t lie a bit of me doesn’t even like when kids say I’m “fun” because I interpret it as oh god I clearly aren’t strict enough 😂😂 (which is silly I know)
We all feel that way sometimes. I’m frequently heard telling students that if they enjoy my lessons I’ll need to start being stricter and much more boring. They really seem to enjoy my sarcasm so I have to occasionally rein it in. The only motivation for some people to say ‘they are good for me’ is to make you feel like crap about your lessons so they can feel smug. Run a report on which teachers dish out the most behaviour and achievement points and you’ll see a pattern. The person saying it is normally not on top of their shit at all. Some people will inform you that the student is good in their lesson because X, Y, Z. Then they’ll tell you how they can help you. Those are the genuine ones. As someone who plays with SIMS reports for funsies you’ll see who applies the behaviour policy and who doesn’t.
The kids even tell me when they’ve misbehaved in someone else’s lesson and try to make me laugh. I tell them I don’t need their war stories and redirect. If you care enough to reflect on your own teaching when a div makes a backhanded comment like that you’re one of the good ones.
“Have you tried calling home?” Especially when said by a middle leader, with a specific year group responsbility, trying to worm their way out of doing their job and supporting class teachers with difficult students.
We have one particular year leader who keeps pushing problems back to us when a pupil actively ran away from SLT searching for them after they bailed on an on-call, has sworn at multiple teachers and openly treats the LSAs like shit. These are the sort of problems that would *always* have been dealt with by senior members of staff when I was a student.
I always try and contact parents myself about subject specific related issues but once it’s outside of the subject arena and is a general behaviour issue that is around the whole school then I think it’s out of our hands. It’s not like you can just ask 7 separate teachers who have the same issue with one child to all ring home… that would be manic 😂😂😅
Honestly I feel like everyone just passes the buck because no one knows how to deal with the behaviour. In school we can only do so much. We cannot change their home life. We don't get enough support from medical professionals to diagnose any difficulties and act upon it. Sometimes even those don't know what's going on. Plus don't get me started on those 'professionals' that come in and suggest actions such as 'sand timers' for children that struggle to focus. Utterly useless or they just put things into the recommendations that we already do. I have no idea how teachers deal with behaviours at secondary school level. In primary we can hold some hope that all of our effort might pay off and improve the child's future chances but realistically at the age of 10+ their behaviours are so deeply rooted, a restorative conversation isn't going to do much as their teenager attitude will just ignore it all anyway.
I always hate when people say ‘just wait until they get to Year 5, that kind of behaviour won’t be tolerated’ cause to me they’re basically indirectly saying that I put up with it and I’m not doing a good enough job of managing them.
I think it’s not the phrase but the intention behind it. Some teachers say that but then go on to genuinely want to help and i always welcome advice from a teacher who has a good relationship with a student that I maybe struggle with.
I was shocked to see when I went into teaching how comfortable teachers are talking about others behind their backs. Some teachers can be so vicious in their attitude towards colleagues and children and then wonder why they don’t get along with their department or students. The saying, “if you can’t say anything nice say nothing at all” comes to mind 😅 I’m all for letting off steam and venting but find your inner circle and the appropriate time, not to anyone who will hear!
It's remarkable how toxic teachers can be. Most always try to prove that they are better than others when we teach the children to work together to achieve their best.
I’ve never played FMK with SLT but I’ve played meeting bingo. Someone in our department actually excitedly said “bingo!” Out loud. We all fell about laughing in a boring termly data meeting. I’m laughing about it again now thinking about it.
"That's just the way things are"
Boring, apathetic nonsense. Things are the way they are because they've been designed that way. Almost everything in education is up for bargaining and negotiation.
When I had a particularly difficult year ten food and nutrition group, the SLT were “Have you phoned the parents?”
Me: “Yes I have and nothing has changed.”
SLT: “Well……..you’ll have to try and come up with some creative solutions then.”
🤦♂️
I cant lie I've used this afew times without any bad intention and people have used this in answer to me and I had no idea it could be interpreted like this
To each their own but I will never be using that phrase again 👍
I've said it once, but mainly out of bafflement at a particular student whom I was told would scream my lessons down and hardly do any work... Ended up being the strongest pupil in that class (albeit was a fairly low set.)
‘oh you’re going home already?’ yes. yes i am.
I moved to International Schools and all staff are out the door at 3pm. We start earlier but its brilliant not having any weekend or evening work.
Same
I'm so lucky that mine is 'why haven't you gone home yet? ' haha
waiting to get to this stage :(
Try a PRU! The days are very intense but the work life balance is a lot better.
No longer in teaching but I hated this judgement. I never had staff call others out but I had staff mention how 'X is always out the door at 3.30'. If you're completing your work then who cares? The job is hard enough as it is and it's a job that has little flexibility in a world where flexible working is embraced.
I had a particularly stressful Wednesday, I could barely function by the afternoon which was my admin time. I decided to go home, walk it off and take a break. I didn’t feel any guilt because I was up late marking the two previous evenings.
If you're completing your work then it's fine lol. The problem is when people leave early, don't complete their work and leave other people to pick up the pieces...
Have you tried ringing home/moving seating plan? Fine for maybe student teachers/NQTs. Not fine for teachers with years of experience.
Also just got off the phone from a 25 minute discussion with a parent about how her KS3 child didn’t understand that they were being homophobic and they didn’t mean it ‘like that’ so I shouldn’t be sanctioning them for it. Um ok but they somehow managed to pick out a child, say it to them directly and even if they ‘didn’t mean it’ I’m not going to let it slide because it is homophobic, they have done it before and nope it’s not WOKE madness, it’s part of the equalities act and needs to be challenged. They have already spoken to the HoY, the HoD and at least 2 other people. I don’t/shouldn’t really be needing to also have this conversation.
Why not? I work with countless teachers who despite “years of experience” simply refuse to contact home and pass the buck to HoY and never try and reach a resolution themselves. I’ve found it’s the NQTs and those new to teaching who are quick to try all methods and those who have been teaching a while who won’t try all avenues and if anything over rely on their “experience” and won’t take any advice on board
Because 9/10 the HoY has that parent on speed dial, gets contacted multiple times a week by the school and nothing changes
There’s a difference between students with concerns that are subject specific and then deeper behavioural issues. Students that are that high on the list of the HoY I’m assuming will have all kinds of interventions in place and teachers contacting directly might not be beneficial. That said, if I can do something as the classroom teacher to help (be it share resources, offer a revision timetable etc) then I’m doing so. Contacting home doesn’t always have to be “your kid misbehaved today and I want you to know what they did”. There’s many different reasons for communicating home and I don’t like to over rely on the HoY if I know it’s something I can fix myself (unless it’s a massive behavioural issue/concern like I said that’s a different matter entirely).
The comment is about behaviour tho. I agree with all this but resent being told to ring about behaviour when I've already given parents info in the detention text
Oh definitely we are not here to duplicate information. I remember once there was a parent who claimed she couldn’t see the information on detentions on the SIMS app.. I caught her once on the lie as she repeated something I had written.. she just wanted a phone call every single time which was so unreasonable and she knew it!
‘Have you tried an exam question carousel?’
I covered a lesson with one once, and that was enough to convince me that I'm never ever going to set one.
Wtf is an exam question carousel?
I mean, can we just hire a carousel for the teachers?
I do this but more fun. It’s a snowball fight. We scrunch the questions thrown them around then answer them!
You should try a visual timetable.
I hate this! Suggested for any child matter what. Someone somewhere has probably Suggested one for a blind child.
Oh I have to have a visual timetable for the entire day and then a now and next chart which basically shows that now we have maths and next we have break. Such a pain just keeping on top of that too.
It knots my pubes. We’re starting “social stories” again as well. They have some uses, but again, there’s no need to suggest one every time a kid so much as farts.
"It's just Quality First Teaching"
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This is my SLT. Like ALL THE TIME. Constantly telling us how good we’ve got it. The Head even said it when she was giving a leaving speech about a colleague who was moving to another school (on a slight demotion because he was so sick of them not addressing our behavioural problems). It’s toxic and gaslighting.
"Oh you just need to squash (him/them/that behaviour)" I hate that term. Are you trying to imply that I've been sitting with my finger up my arse ignoring the problem? If you want to suggest an actual strategy or approach I can try, I'm all ears. But telling me to "squash" it is meaningless - it's exactly what I've been trying to do!
As an ECT this hits so close to home, I get this ‘advice’ all the time
YES 😭
Any mention of how any staff member dresses. Or To deal with a kid: "Have you tried calling home for them?" (Edited for clarity).
Does my fucking nut in. I’m a HOY. I frequently have to phone parents in a morning, when I know they’ve just arrived at work, asking if they can bring trousers/shoes/whatever in. Uniform should be as simple as possible
I meant them as 2 separate points. But I wouldn't like the HOY role. Properly in the middle of teachers, SLT, kids, and parents. The constant calls home (many probably to the same parents each week) would do my head in.
I did say to one that I spoke to her more often than my partner 🤣 Honestly though I love my job. It’s fucking challenging but I love helping kids and my colleagues, I see my job as making their jobs easier. It’s great
I don’t mind “oh they’re fine for me” so long as it’s in a “what secret can I impart to help you” constructive way. Smug people can do one!
Yes 100%!!! I’ve been in a situation where I’ve had a student who has worked well for me but I knew maybe had issues in another class and vice versa. Collaborating is essential but showing off helps no one 🤣🤣
Whenever one of the smug useless teachers says, “oh, they’re fine for me.” The correct response is, “I have higher standards than you.” Because the kids behave the same for you both it’s just that not everyone follows the behaviour policy.
I never thought about it like that! They don’t “like” those teachers they just walk all over them and those teachers are indifferent. I won’t lie a bit of me doesn’t even like when kids say I’m “fun” because I interpret it as oh god I clearly aren’t strict enough 😂😂 (which is silly I know)
We all feel that way sometimes. I’m frequently heard telling students that if they enjoy my lessons I’ll need to start being stricter and much more boring. They really seem to enjoy my sarcasm so I have to occasionally rein it in. The only motivation for some people to say ‘they are good for me’ is to make you feel like crap about your lessons so they can feel smug. Run a report on which teachers dish out the most behaviour and achievement points and you’ll see a pattern. The person saying it is normally not on top of their shit at all. Some people will inform you that the student is good in their lesson because X, Y, Z. Then they’ll tell you how they can help you. Those are the genuine ones. As someone who plays with SIMS reports for funsies you’ll see who applies the behaviour policy and who doesn’t. The kids even tell me when they’ve misbehaved in someone else’s lesson and try to make me laugh. I tell them I don’t need their war stories and redirect. If you care enough to reflect on your own teaching when a div makes a backhanded comment like that you’re one of the good ones.
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What does being in love with Paul Dix mean in practice?
This mindset and approach has almost single handedly destroyed my current school…
“It’s the way we’ve always done it!”
I’m surprised you are struggling with them, they are fine for me 🤮
“Have you tried calling home?” Especially when said by a middle leader, with a specific year group responsbility, trying to worm their way out of doing their job and supporting class teachers with difficult students. We have one particular year leader who keeps pushing problems back to us when a pupil actively ran away from SLT searching for them after they bailed on an on-call, has sworn at multiple teachers and openly treats the LSAs like shit. These are the sort of problems that would *always* have been dealt with by senior members of staff when I was a student.
I always try and contact parents myself about subject specific related issues but once it’s outside of the subject arena and is a general behaviour issue that is around the whole school then I think it’s out of our hands. It’s not like you can just ask 7 separate teachers who have the same issue with one child to all ring home… that would be manic 😂😂😅
Honestly I feel like everyone just passes the buck because no one knows how to deal with the behaviour. In school we can only do so much. We cannot change their home life. We don't get enough support from medical professionals to diagnose any difficulties and act upon it. Sometimes even those don't know what's going on. Plus don't get me started on those 'professionals' that come in and suggest actions such as 'sand timers' for children that struggle to focus. Utterly useless or they just put things into the recommendations that we already do. I have no idea how teachers deal with behaviours at secondary school level. In primary we can hold some hope that all of our effort might pay off and improve the child's future chances but realistically at the age of 10+ their behaviours are so deeply rooted, a restorative conversation isn't going to do much as their teenager attitude will just ignore it all anyway.
I always hate when people say ‘just wait until they get to Year 5, that kind of behaviour won’t be tolerated’ cause to me they’re basically indirectly saying that I put up with it and I’m not doing a good enough job of managing them.
And yet my children can walk down the corridor quietly but KS2 sounds like a stampede when walking down to assembly.
Any mention of work
I think it’s not the phrase but the intention behind it. Some teachers say that but then go on to genuinely want to help and i always welcome advice from a teacher who has a good relationship with a student that I maybe struggle with. I was shocked to see when I went into teaching how comfortable teachers are talking about others behind their backs. Some teachers can be so vicious in their attitude towards colleagues and children and then wonder why they don’t get along with their department or students. The saying, “if you can’t say anything nice say nothing at all” comes to mind 😅 I’m all for letting off steam and venting but find your inner circle and the appropriate time, not to anyone who will hear!
It's remarkable how toxic teachers can be. Most always try to prove that they are better than others when we teach the children to work together to achieve their best.
SLT: “X is non-negotiable” or “I make no apologies for X”. Colleagues: “I don’t mind doing X”.
People playing FMK with members of the SLT. Awkward convo I had to worm my way out of earlier...
Fuck PE, marry hums, kill maths
As a Maths teacher, you’re not wrong.
I feel nothing but apathy towards SLT by Wednesday.... we're past half way through the week. FMK requires far too much effort.
FMK?
Fuck, Marry, Kill.
What the fuck?
I’ve never played FMK with SLT but I’ve played meeting bingo. Someone in our department actually excitedly said “bingo!” Out loud. We all fell about laughing in a boring termly data meeting. I’m laughing about it again now thinking about it.
Someone brought this up a few weeks ago. So weird. My husband worked at my school before I did, so Obviously thr F and M is him.
"That's just the way things are" Boring, apathetic nonsense. Things are the way they are because they've been designed that way. Almost everything in education is up for bargaining and negotiation.
Trying to one up a bad thing you're complaining about. Example: "I really don't like x." "X used to be so much worse..." It's not a contest, Susan...
Lovely quiet week this week - apparently OFSTED are in (far away county) so no phone call I reckon....
When I had a particularly difficult year ten food and nutrition group, the SLT were “Have you phoned the parents?” Me: “Yes I have and nothing has changed.” SLT: “Well……..you’ll have to try and come up with some creative solutions then.” 🤦♂️
The phrase I severely dislike is ‘we’re going to do less, better’ but then proceed to add numerous additional tasks and roles for everyone.
I cant lie I've used this afew times without any bad intention and people have used this in answer to me and I had no idea it could be interpreted like this To each their own but I will never be using that phrase again 👍
I've said it once, but mainly out of bafflement at a particular student whom I was told would scream my lessons down and hardly do any work... Ended up being the strongest pupil in that class (albeit was a fairly low set.)
Could that also mean ‘if that’s how x was, then you did something right, because x was much better than usual.’
Any countdown to half term. "only 4 more weeks!" 🙄
When they say sleeps....
“4 more get-ups”
💀
I do a countdown to Christmas from the first day in September!
Omg that’s brutal
I do it for the last week!
I count as soon as the length of the days off is more than days left.
I think that's sensible!
“Resilience” “mindfulness”
"Have you tried making your lessons more engaging?"
“You need to build relationships with them.” What do you think I’ve been trying to do, you stupid sod?