If a student swears at you, what happens in your school?

I have been verbally abused many times in front of lots of students.
If you are seen to 'provoke' the child then you're on to a loser. By 'provoke' I mean consistently asking them to get on with their work, maybe the massive provocation of simply being in the classroom and not understanding or being aware of their latest 'issues'. God help you if you happen to shout at them because you are angry that they have just kicked the living daylights out of some other student. I am well aware some students have genuinely horrific backgrounds. I am passionate about providing a safe and rewarding environment in which they can achieve. It is the main reason I came in to teaching. However, there is such a ?blame culture? and we are expected to be on the receiving end of it all the time. The disparity between our welfare and the students is huge.

Example: A colleague was repeatedly abused in front of a large amount of pupils, however due to the shear embarrassment of the situation laughed as she did not know what else to do. This was deemed 'provocation' for the abuse to continue. No consideration was given to the fact the teacher did nothing whatsoever to warrant the abuse in the first place (if there is such a thing as warranting abuse!!!).
The pupil was given 'a little holiday' yet at no point was a face-to-face apology offered. At no point was the teacher asked about her welfare.
Is this normal?

Are teachers made to feel like second class citizens in your school?

 

I have been verbally abused many times in front of lots of students.
If you are seen to 'provoke' the child then you're on to a loser. By 'provoke' I mean consistently asking them to get on with their work, maybe the massive provocation of simply being in the classroom and not understanding or being aware of their latest 'issues'. God help you if you happen to shout at them because you are angry that they have just kicked the living daylights out of some other student. I am well aware some students have genuinely horrific backgrounds. I am passionate about providing a safe and rewarding environment in which they can achieve. It is the main reason I came in to teaching. However, there is such a ?blame culture? and we are expected to be on the receiving end of it all the time. The disparity between our welfare and the students is huge.

Example: A colleague was repeatedly abused in front of a large amount of pupils, however due to the shear embarrassment of the situation laughed as she did not know what else to do. This was deemed 'provocation' for the abuse to continue. No consideration was given to the fact the teacher did nothing whatsoever to warrant the abuse in the first place (if there is such a thing as warranting abuse!!!).
The pupil was given 'a little holiday' yet at no point was a face-to-face apology offered. At no point was the teacher asked about her welfare.
Is this normal?

Are teachers made to feel like second class citizens in your school?

 

They would get a fixed term exclusion. There would not be any question about this,irrelevant of any 'issues.' There is no system for an apology, although personally I would demand one.

 

Nothing!

 

We're expected to immediately send a student who swears at us to our HoD, who issues a 1hr departmental detention. We would then be consulted on whether we wanted it to go any further, i.e. escalation to HoY and potential exclusion.

 

nothing!



in my class one of the pupils balled the head teacher a b***h. Obviously I couldn´t accept this and send him to her (which is the system in our school since it is no small there is no HoD). She didnt even speak to hime about it, in fact one when I asked if she wanted me to put a detention form in she said she´d deal with it. One of the other teachers overheard her saying to the pupil that Miss ..... spoke to me about. and that I had more of a problem than she did!!! So obviously now if any pupils say anything about the head teacher I shouldn´t bother about it?



so infuriating

 

In my school if a pupil swears at ANY member of staff, teacher or otherwise they are immediately suspended pending an investigation. If the investigation reveals that the pupil was at fault then they are immediately expelled. There is no discussion of issues or other factors. Certain things are unacceptable and that is one of them.

 

1 day exclusion. Students are expected to apologize.

 

I would be interested to know about your school Karvol!

Do you have a discipline and sanction policy?

Expulsion seems very strong for a student swearing at you. An external exclusion possibly one day and extended thereafter for a second offence.

In my county, you would struggle to get this past an Inclusion Officer at tribunal.

How many expulsions have you had for this?

 

Do you think it matters if it's primary or secondary?

IN the primary school I work at there are detentions for swearing but I know of one infamous pupil whose final remarks to a teacher were "you f****ing b***ch" and he was permanently excluded-this was the last straw on top of a lot of poor behaviour. He was Y5.

Before anyone starts on about 'kids today' though, I remember seeing one boy in my class at primary school telling the teacher to Eff off when she sent him to the Head. He didn't go and she couldn't make him- this was the mid 1970s, Y5.

 

I don't teach in England. I teach in a boarding school in Switzerland. We don't have much in the way of discipline problems as the students and their parents know that we do not tolerate any type of misbehavior. Why should we? We are teachers, not crowd control specialists. If the students don't like the rules they can go somewhere else.

 

Expelled? As in 'you no longer come to this school, find another one'. The pupil would have to swear at you every day for a year to come close to getting this result in my school. Do you really mean expelled?

 

I really mean expelled. I have never taught in the State school system in the UK so I do not really know the type of environment that is referred to in this forum. Although when I taught in boarding schools in the UK, any student swearing at a member of staff would be at the very least suspended, and more than likely expelled if the offense was repeated.Not every school is a battlefield or stressful to teach in. In my school the students enter at the age of 8 and sit their first external exam at the age of 18. We have no IGCSE, no SATs, or anything to really worry about until the students start their IB. If I told you some of the things that happen here you would say I am making it up and living in a fantasy world.

 

Swearing at me? Not a lot


Swearing at a member of SMT? Close the door behind you on your way out....

 

With the 'credit crunch' affecting many parents' ability to pay and with numbers dropping, you might find that more swearing be tolerated at independent schools!

Heads might be more reticent to throw pupils out - too many and it may mean staffing reductions.

 

Is that ALL?



A one hour detention?



And we wonder what the education system is struggling

 

That sounds familiar!

When I joined my school we were all told all staff were equal blah blah blah. One would therefore assume students would be given the same punishment no matter who they abused.

One should never assume.

It seems some are more equal than others.

 

I was told to "**** off you stupid sl*g" by a pupil. All I said to her was "I know you don't neccessarily want to work in this group but I'd like you to try at least for today".



She got one day sitting in isolation (isolation is of course with about 30 other kids and they all sit round chatting and being given biscuits).



Wasn't told to apologise and was back in my class the next lesson.

El

 

I think that part of the trouble is that swearing has become so much an accepted part of vernacular speech amongst certain types of parents, that pupils don't actually see what our problem is about bad language.

I

 

I think that part of the trouble is that swearing has become so much an accepted part of vernacular speech amongst certain types of parents, that pupils don't actually see what our problem is about bad language.

I
teach