To think too much is expected of teachers these days

Tough love? No thank you! Many of us were hit with a ruler even for minor offences in the 50's. I was 4 when it happened to me.
Teachers are trained to understand special needs and emotional problems but can't spend much of their time dealing with this. They also don't resort to violence to cope with a class.

Having worked in both special needs schools and mainstream I can see the drawbacks of both if underfunded and the staff are not trained properly. In the 80's when I worked in special schools the staff understood the children's needs and were qualified to help them but the children were isolated from their peers they would have to interact with for the rest of their lives and could not always fit into society when they left school. They learned bad habits from each other.
Once I was back in the mainstream I could see the drawbacks and difficulties of teaching children with special needs in the ordinary classroom, not enough trained specialised help and the majority of the class missed out due to the amount of time that had to be given to the few.
So many governments have tried to put this right. Ask any teacher and they will have different views on how this should be approached. The one big issue is funding and specialised training for either teachers or other classroom specialists. No one can know enough to cover everything.

Nanna58

Why on earth should it be unreasonable to expect teachers to know about Special Needs - I did, it was my job to know!! Did plenty that wasn’t too; supplying breakfast , clean underwear and sometimes just plain love:

It's not unreasonable. However, it is unreasonable to expect teachers to be familiar with every single syndrome which has been identified and, furthermore, to have specific strategies to deal with every single syndrome, in addition to dealing with all the other individuals in the class - in the case of secondary teachers this is likely to be 200-300 pupils.

Not only that, but teachers have to keep their subject knowledge up-to-date, in addition to current trends in methodology (ie how to teach specific content) and all the legal requirements such as safeguarding issues.

How many hours/days a year do you reckon they need to do that?

Nanna58

Why on earth should it be unreasonable to expect teachers to know about Special Needs - I did, it was my job to know!! Did plenty that wasn’t too; supplying breakfast , clean underwear and sometimes just plain love:

It's not unreasonable. However, it is unreasonable to expect teachers to be familiar with every single syndrome which has been identified and, furthermore, to have specific strategies to deal with every single syndrome, in addition to dealing with all the other individuals in the class - in the case of secondary teachers this is likely to be 200-300 pupils.

Not only that, but teachers have to keep their subject knowledge up-to-date, in addition to current trends in methodology (ie how to teach specific content) and all the legal requirements such as safeguarding issues.

How many hours/days a year do you reckon they need to do that?

Not only that Yammy but there are some superficially high-achieving schools, who don't hide from parents that they don't have good special needs facilities. They actively encourage parents to send special needs children to other schools, which means that these schools have an unbalanced intake and find it even more difficult to cope with inadequate funding. Parents don't want to send their children to schools with a high number of special needs children, so some schools end up being "sink" schools.

I was a secondary teacher who hardly ever had a lunch break and was in the school building for 11 or 12 hours a day. No matter how much I did, I could never have given every one of the 200-300 children I taught individual attention. It's not just treating the job as a vocation or going on a tick box course - what is needed is money!

Half the kids today can't even feed themselves when they start school let alone spell when they leave.

Hmmm!

One of the things that brought this to my notice was the provision for special needs children in some schools in the US. Someone I know with a child with cerebral palsy told me that physiotherapy was actually provided in the school for her child. (I know this isn't the general rule) It brought to my mind a whole other sort of educational provision where services were provided to properly care for the whole child and teachers were free to teach. It would be much more expensive but would be so much better for children.

Wouldn't that be lovely trisher if it were available for every child who needed it.

I work with a number of children who receive physio in schools.

I agree and people wonder why teachers are stressed and leaving the profession in droves.

Yes.

Teachers are expected to carry out many of the tasks that parents did as a matter of course years ago.
They are expected to be social workers.
They need far more support with special needs pupils although I think provision is better in some areas than others.

Ellianne

I think every child in school is special and deserving of support. Be it the child whose dog has just died, the child whose father is fighting in Iraq, the child who refuses to eat the school lunches, and all the other little requirements that pop up as you say trisher. Everything needs to be fitted into the day.
As a teacher I never took a lunch break, I never left the building before 7 pm. I wanted to help the children in a pastoral role as much as in an educational one. That could my child and I would want the teacher with the best experience of the whole pupil to be the one to respond. If it meant missing my swim, then so be it.
I have no idea if this value added is possible at secondary level, I have no idea if it works with more than 20 in a class, but fortunately we were able to crack it as near as possible.
I'm also guessing it helped that we were able to go beyond what was required in the curriculum by selecting the good bits and ditching the bad.
"Just doing your job" is a good description, treating it as a vocation goes one step beyond.

You did what all good teachers do .....even in the state sector! And clearly there’s a difference when you have 30/32 per class in secondary schools.
There will be inadequate teachers of course as there inadequate plumbers, doctors, accountants, etc etc. But my experience has been that teachers care and do their best for their students often under very difficult circumstances.

Half the kids today can't even feed themselves when they start school let alone spell when they leave

Oh for goodness sake Ellanvannin. Are you talking about your own family or what?

Trisher fully agree with you.
Steps, albeit small ones, are being taken though. Sunderland, through a partnership between the NHS and the council now offer a Psychological Wellbeing Service and some of the practitioners are based in schools to provide early intervention for children struggling with mental health problems.

I realise that’s only a small part of what is needed & isn’t the same as special educational needs.

janeainsworth That sounds great. Wouldn't it be wonderful if a proper joined up service was offered everywhere. I'm sure children would not only do better in school but would live happier and more succesful lives. And who knows more people might stay in teaching.

^teachers care and do their best for their students often under very difficult circumstances.
Yes, Lucca, that's why I see teaching as a vocation, as is nursing or being part of the clergy. They are the type of jobs where you can't be thinking about your own needs.
How far you can ask a teacher to stretch that care is another matter, especially in dealing in large numbers.
Maybe I am getting close to the argument that class size really matters. Having just one or two extra children over a class roll of 20 must make the task far more difficult or even pretty impossible. It would feel like having another 12. That is why most independent schools restrict their class sizes and that appears to be beneficial all round.
janeainsworth is also right. What we are really talking about here has nothing to do with special educational needs. Every child is special.

X post trisher.
As you say it would be of so much benefit in the long term, throughout their lives.

In the 1990’s a child was transferred from a special school to my class. She came with daily support by trained staff to enable her to be part of the class. The support gradually dwindled, though the child’s needs did not.
2 years on, other children arrived with 1 week of induction support then an afternoon visit once a month, but no other support and I didn’t even have a TA in those days.
Training for recognising and dealing with different problems is essential, but funding for trained support for these children is essential too.
There are more and more problems identified now. Along with the usual curve of ability, my current class has 5 children with specific special needs, 3 of whom are on the spectrum and all with different needs.
There are 2 support assistants for the most difficult of these children, both without expertise, but both are doing training for working with ASD, and one TA.
It’s my job to ensure that the low, middle and high ability children make progress, whether or not they have a special need, also to provide planning and support for the 3 extra adults -the TA and the support staff in relation to the needs of their children.
Add to that the parenting and social worker aspect of the job which has always been there. but is increasingly complex and it’s obvious why I agree with the OP.

I changed careers from teaching to social work. Social work was much easier. Hours just as long, lots of problems of course but at least it was a defined job with defined rules and expectations and you were working with good teams of people who supported each other.

Ellianne. I have always said small class sizes would obviate the need for a lot of things such as non stop extra training targets blah blah etc etc

There’s a lot of talk about well-being and teacher workload at the moment.
The OP’s suggestion might help with that and make it easier to address each child as special.

I’m deeply grateful for the committed teachers who touched my life and gave me a light to carry in the darkness.

I can only hope my own children are so fortunate.

Yes, too much is expected of Teachers and TAs, with ever decreasing resources. Too much is also expected of children, who Government seem to think are like sponges and just need to be talked at. Children develop at different rates, there is very little room in the National Curriculum for this - Teach and Test. Some children struggle, loose confidence and switch off. This isn’t the Teachers fault. If the Government really cared about Education it would invest in smaller classes, better equipment etc.

What is wrong with a teacher telling girls they must expect unwanted attention if they wear skirts which barely cover their private parts? The silly girls say that they should be able to wear what they like and boys shouldn’t look. I read that a teacher was fired for telling them to use some common sense.

I don't think that too much is expected at all. I was a teacher (primary, secondary and university) and alas many of my colleagues, when I was doing my first degree, went into teacher training. Many of them could barely read and write themselves. So no shock when I look these days at the homework of some children to find it wrongly marked. Errors of basic grammar everywhere; correct grammar being marked as incorrect. I despair indeed. Teacher training needs to be of much higher quality. Teachers are not required to do anything outside of a curriculum that common sense and decency would not dictate. Alas, those two elements are also often lacking. Teachers are paid enough with long enough holidays to do what they should be doing and, often, fail to do. (I know this won't be a popular opinion).