tennisoz

Yes, and parents are not superior beings, they have no right to treat teachers inappropriately (a joke, I think!)

I don't want to take this thread off track but here is an example drawn from my experience in the last few days in a Scottish secondary school. There is a class of 20 pupils (S4 or Year 10)and they are given a task to complete. One pupil sits there and deliberately refuses to write even one word. Said pupil is offered kind and cheery assistance by the teacher and the learning support teacher in the class to assist - still refuses to do anything. Pupil is asked repeatedly to do the task, otherwise he will have to do it for homework or will be kept in over morning break to complete it. The pupil cannot be seen to 'win' and do no work as this sets a chaotic precedence for the rest of the class so just leave him alone is not an option by the way.

The possibility of missing said break (and possibly a fag or stronger) lights the blue touch paper. Pupil starts shouting 'I'm no f'ingwell doing it' repeatedly and pushes a chair over. I won't bore you with the rest of the details but it culminated in a threat to do something with the f'ing well chair - how would you deal with this situation? (remember the ads for the police with all the celebrities saying 'I don't think I could do that'?)

Would you believe the pupil cannot be excluded from my school for this incident and it is not deemed serious enough (compared to what else can go on) by senior management to even put the pupil in the behaviour support unit (which used to be called a sin bin but now it has a positive name!) because it was only a first major offence. This boy's mother, I'm almost certain, if told about the incident would be straight up to the school to threaten the teacher with physical damage by her or her live in boyfriend (single mother, current partner not father etc).

Please, please, please, this has got nothing to do with the 6 year old in Brisbane and I probably should have started a new thread, it is just to let you know about the type of thing teachers have to put up with these days. Despite this I love doing my job and fortunately incidents such as these are the exception rather than the norm - but they are becoming more frequent. It can be difficult to focus on and attend to the other 19 in this type of situation.

I haven't even touched on how much we get paid relative to other graduate occupations for putting up with this type of thing. Get out of teaching isn't an option, society has to reward those who go into the profession.

Quite a lot of tinaj's (right poster?) comments struck a chord with me. Right, that will do

TennisOz

mr mover

A good post T/o . you will pobably realise that the same thing is happening here, the education department reacts by ,putting the teachers on stress leave,and requesting they dont speak to the media . I hear from police friends of mine ,stories of teachers assaulted by 12/13 year olds ,who are 6ft tall and weigh 80kgs ,and totally out of control, or the bus driver friend of ours ,who after going to the assistance of two elderly women,who were being harrassed by a 15 yr old, is sacked because he threw the youth off his bus causing, him to fall and break his nose. the TWU is still fighting this one,hopefully he will get his job back. We are all paying now for the ,preachings of the social apologists, and the politically correct, who fortunatly do not live in the areas were these problems occur.......... MM

jeannie

DOTTY...

How did this situation end up ????.........

CHnJ

So what happened at the Friday meeting with the principal?

dotty

Hi jeannie


Basically it was like having a meeting with a couple of stuffed puppets with zipped lips. They were as non commital as anyone could possibly be. I got the very distinct feeling they thought we may be going to sue or something, they certainly were not admitting to anything. Sadly a response predicted by some other parents who have made similar complaints.

We did however detail fully our complaint in writing, with input from ourselves, the boys mum and two people who are backing us up all the way.

Despite the zipped lip approach I basically refused to leave the office untill I was assured water bottles will be allowed even if they need to be hidden under a towel or something to deter magpies. Also that if the boy in question feels heat fatigue he will be allowed to raise his hand and sit quietly for 5 minutes before resuming.

I must stress again, this is not a behavioral issue, I am fully for appropriate discipline in schools. This was about a child too fatigued to continue and then subjected to completely inapropriate behavior by a Teacher.

Our boys mum, despite what she is going through is now planning to seek advice on where to take this matter further. from what I have seen and heard the last few days she is going to have a huge amount of support and help from plenty of people not just us either.

Anyway thank you for asking and thanks to everyone for the dozens of messages of support we got.

By the way we are really enjoying having this lad stay with us, hes formed a great friendship with our dog, and is highly impressed with the big lizards we get in our creek, he thinks I am a complete nerd as I am hopeless at playstation, hes off to see his mum tomorrow and has made a giant card with lizards and dogs on it. How people can be so cruel to someone of this age becomes harder for me to understand every day.

philj6969

Dotty,

I would just like to say that I hope to have a friend like you when we finally get over to Australia. This thread has struck a chord with me as I have a six year old boy ( and a 4 year old, and a two year old girl). I couldnt trust him to look after his needs at school, I would be relying on the teacher. The teacher obviously doesnt have any children of her own, she would not have behaved that way otherwise.

On the same subject, my six year old's (Ryan) school only allows 30 minutes for lunch, 15 to eat then they are herded out of the classroom to play for the remaining 15 minutes, Ryan's lunchbox is always coming back with untouched food in, I was horrified to get the reply from Ryan "I didnt have time to eat it", this is almost a daily occurence. It makes you wonder at the competence of those in control of the school timetable, the teachers would rather get out of work 15 minutes early than let the children eat their dinners. I raised this point with a teacher, asking if they could shorten a lesson to lengthen lunchtime, she said that they hardly have enough time to teach the curriculum anyway.

I am sure that school didnt finish so early when I was younger.

Back to the main subject, Dotty you are an angel

Phil.

Surfer Chick

On the same subject, my six year old's (Ryan) school only allows 30 minutes for lunch, 15 to eat then they are herded out of the classroom to play for the remaining 15 minutes, Ryan's lunchbox is always coming back with untouched food in, I was horrified to get the reply from Ryan "I didnt have time to eat it", this is almost a daily occurence. It makes you wonder at the competence of those in control of the school timetable, the teachers would rather get out of work 15 minutes early than let the children eat their dinners. I raised this point with a teacher, asking if they could shorten a lesson to lengthen lunchtime, she said that they hardly have enough time to teach the curriculum anyway.

I am sure that school didnt finish so early when I was younger.

Back to the main subject, Dotty you are an angel

Phil. [/QUOTE]


Just two weeks ago I was up at the school because my daughter was having the same problem, I feel this is difficult for any normal child who has to be expected to concentrate in the afternoon, let alone for my child who goes directly to gymnastics after school, everyday, and does not get home to eat undtil 8.30pm!

The problem was the dinner ladies, not the teachers. They like to keep to a strict timetable, but by the time the children have decided who their sitting next to and all got the lunchbox from the same place (nightmare) they have lost 5 to 10 minutes already. The head teacher said it shouldn't have happened and kept and I on it. Everythings fine now

chippy

Well done Dot. Good for you, and the kid I hope.

Larissa

Good post Tennis Oz
Although I think that the teacher that Dotty's on about needs sorting out, I do think that people just don't get what teachers have to contend with on a daily basis.
Although you do get 6 weeks holiday in the summer in the UK, the rest of the year can be a real nightmare. It's a job where you are constantly having to "perform" - making your lessons lively and having to keep an eye out for problem behaviour all the time (and that's not even including the parents!). I got really hacked off with the out of hours work I had to do, staying up late when I should have been getting to bed as the job is physically exhausting too. Then the kids are always in your head - it's hard to switch off and get on with life when you're worried about a child in your class.
However, mad as it's sounds, after a year out for the birth of my little boy, I'm starting to get the teacher bug again... last night I dreamt vividly about my last class, wondering how they are doing etc. They were such a good class and we bonded really well - think it may have been because I was pregnant and they were fascinated with finding out about how the baby was developing and wanted to help me out, doing loads of little jobs etc. Most teachers aren't at all like the one that Dotty encountered - though I agree that there are some... one was my year leader the year before last! When he shouted at the kids mine would giggle as we'd jump out of our skins sometimes! Guess which teacher was commended by Ofsted for the good relationships with their class - yes, Mister shouting nutter! (They must have been scared into putting on a good performance!)
Larissa
PS It's a shame that teachers have to go through so much stress - with inspections, performance reviews etc. Although I worked my socks off and was a good teacher, no-one ever tells you you're doing well! I don't think that any other profession has quite the same amount of checking up - it's like you're being treated like a child yourself!
Sorry for going off tangent - you won't make me do lines will ya?

jeannie

Hi Dotty.

Most people would not have bothered Dotty.. (with the exception of some on here )"lol"... so good on you....
You have changed things for all the kids and thats a good thing........
ps. Tell all the Moms to keep an eye on that !!!Broad....:scared:

jayr

Good to see that your upbringing has turned you into such a sensitive, mature, rational, thoughtful adult.

chippy

Maybe you, jayr, should read and take in what this guy is saying here instead of thinking of what second rate retort you can throw in the hat.