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A teacher has opened up about the worst parts of their job – and has encouraged other school workers to share their own stories.
Taking to Mumsnet, the anonymous staff member said they have been teaching for just over two decades and were “dreading” going back to the classroom after the weekend.
Discussing the worst parts of their job, they said “the increasingly poor behaviour of students” and the “continual parental complaints and allegations” make their work much more difficult.
Their post prompted a surge of responses from fellow teachers – and there were two clear themes: poor behaviour among pupils is causing a major headache for today’s teaching staff. And so, too, are parents.
“If you’d have asked me this three years ago, I’d have said workload,” said one teacher in the comments section. “Now I say behaviour. The workload hasn’t eased at all though.”
Another said “behaviour” is “without a doubt” the worst part of the job.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deliver curriculum whilst managing the frankly dreadful behaviour of a significant minority of pupils. Soul destroying. I’ll be gone within the next 12 months,” they added.
According to data on the school workforce in England, teacher vacancies increased by 20% to 2,800 in November 2023 (up from 2,300 the year before).
Parents are also part of the problem
On the Mumsnet thread, multiple teachers also cited “parents” and “parental interference” as being the worst aspects of their line of work.
“They will blame school for every little problem they can actually think of,” one teacher said of their pupils’ parents. “Some things are so ridiculous you couldn’t make them up!”
Another teacher at an infant school said they’d given their work email address to pupils’ parents during the Covid-19 pandemic and “now the constant stream of anxious/entitled parents flooding my inbox is adding to my workload”.
Even in secondary school, the same themes prevail. A teacher of a core subject said: “The worst part is behaviour without a doubt…. and I work in a ‘nice’ school. Students just don’t fear consequences.
“Also the parents who take no accountability for their child’s bad attendance/behaviour/results etc.”
One parent, who is also a teacher, said the “worst” parents are “the ones who back their kid no matter what, and their kid knows it”.
After reading through the responses, the OP (original poster) said: “It makes me feel better that it’s a national picture. I used to love it, but now it feels like I’m a hostage.”
The issue has been bubbling away for some time
In a report by Ofsted in 2019, teachers said there was a lack of support for tackling poor classroom behaviour, either from school leaders or from parents.
Unsurprisingly, it also found managing poor behaviour in the classroom is one of the main causes of low morale among staff.
The same report highlighted that the overall wellbeing of most teachers was low.
Government guidance acknowledges that dealing with misbehaviour negatively affects the wellbeing of teachers and, for some, “it is a reason why they leave the profession”. The same guidance adds that it is “for individual schools to develop their own best practice for managing behaviour”.
Echoing the anecdotes shared by teachers on Mumsnet, the report by Ofsted also found relationships with parents can add greatly to stress at work.
Parents were often a “source of anxiety and increased workload” for a variety of reasons including: having unrealistic expectations for their child, the frequency of emails expecting an instant reply and raising concerns or complaints inappropriately.
What can parents do to help?
There are many ways parents can better support teachers. In a post on Reddit, a parent of two girls asked how they can make teachers’ jobs easier.
The top comment read: “Parent your child and [don’t] expect school to do it.” They added that teachers aren’t there to teach children life skills like wiping their bottoms after going to the toilet, or using a knife and fork.
Similarly, other teachers recommended for parents to teach their kids skills like tying shoelaces and zipping up their own coats.
Another commenter suggested ensuring kids are toilet trained before starting primary school, as well as encouraging children to read books by regularly taking them to the library.
“Don’t undermine the authority of the teacher,” they added. “Kids learn that teachers can be ignored from somewhere.”
One Reddit user urged parents to “not assume” their child is an “angel” and “can do no wrong”.
They added that their mum, who was a teacher, saw “a huge change in attitude from parents during her time”.
“When she started, if she’d had to tell off a child for misbehaving, the parents would nearly always side with her and would often discipline the child as well … Towards the end, parents would storm into school and berate her for daring to chastise their offspring.”
One teacher concluded: “Your child may be an absolute delight at home, but some children – quite a lot of children – behave differently at school. Your child may be wonderful in a one-to-one conversation with you, but please believe us and don’t endlessly doubt us if we say that your child is totally different in class as they try to impress their peers.”
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