Teachers are threatening to strike because they are fed up with the bad behaviour of unruly pupils — and feel bosses aren’t backing them up.There’s a shock…
Headteacher Hilary Torpey, who began her first full academic year at the school in September, said allegations relating to pupil behaviour were taken ‘extremely seriously’.Oh, really? Yet your employees seem to believe the opposite. Who's right, I wonder?
Coun Simon Huggill, associate governor, questioned the teachers’ actions. He said: “I want to express some element of surprise because I think a lot of this is far better sorted out out of the public eye because it can damage the confidence of pupils.”Sound to me like it isn’t their lack of confidence that’s the problem. It’s actually an excess of it that’s the problem…
Sounds to me too that the governing body at the school might hold some of the clues to why children seem to believe they can get away with poor behaviour.
It's all summed up by one of the problems cited:
ReplyDeletepupils filming teachers on mobile phones, which have then been confiscated by staff but later returned by senior management
And the senior management have to return the phones because if they don't, the school is cluttered up with indignant parents demanding their 'rights' and threatening legal action.
This is familiar ground; I was recently the subject of an allegation of assaulting a pupil after I stopped him slamming a locker door on another pupil by holding his arm.
He - and a friend - went to the Head the following day trailing clouds of righteous indignation and alleged that I had grabbed him by the throat and thrown him across the room; the Head acted on the assumption that the allegation was true, claiming that this was management policy.
This was despite the fact that over 24 hours had elapsed before the pupil thought to report it. On his visit to the Head, he was accompanied by a friend who had not witnessed the event but who had once been overheard announcing 'you can get loads of compensation if a teacher lays a hand on you'; the pair of them turned up repeatedly at the Head's office for days afterwards asking whether he had made a decision yet. Oh, and the boy is a foot taller than me and weighs twice as much.
The real issue here is that, under the current system, teachers are automatically presumed guilty and have to establish their innocence in the face of potentially malicious accusations.
The most left-wing profession in the country, in the vanguard of dismantling any sense of discipline or order in our culture, suddenly has to deal with the consequences.
ReplyDeleteSuck it up, fellas, suck it all up, every last drop.
An alternative title could be "Guardian readers meet world they created".
ReplyDelete"Teachers are threatening to strike because they are fed up with the bad behaviour of unruly pupils" ...
ReplyDeleteThey can blame their own profession for encouraging kids to address them on first name terms ..
For doing away with rows of desks & encouraging sitting around on bean-bags in "dicussion groups" ..
For the ending of learning by rote and the dumbing-down of standards ..
If Teachers are looking for "Sympathy" ... They'll find it in the Dictionary, somewhere between "Shit" & "Syphilis" ..
As Ye sow .. So shall Ye reap ..
"The real issue here is that, under the current system, teachers are automatically presumed guilty and have to establish their innocence..."
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, it seems the rest of our systems are quickly catching up to that outlook!
"The most left-wing profession in the country..."
Overall, maybe, but there are still good teachers out there. Mostly, though, they are now to be found outside the comprehensive system, for this very reason.
"An alternative title could be "Guardian readers meet world they created"."
Heh! Indeed!
"They can blame their own profession..."
Indeed. If you're part of the union, you're part of the problem?
Suck it up, fellas, suck it all up, every last drop.
ReplyDeleteOh yes indeedy.