Discipline in schools

whether true or not…. apparently in the sepsis case the main/senior doctor had 191 patients to deal with that night…without knowing and I could be wrong but I'd say its a case of too many chiefs and not enough indians in that case…in general I think the worker at the coalface is being overloaded with ever increasing workloads while a certain cohort of management and middle management justify their existence by coming up with said additional workload and new time suck initiatives that make the job incrementally more unattractive for those that actually have to do it

Maybe I'm going too far here but I reckon less and less people want to do jobs like nursing, teaching etc etc…and if they have any sense less and less will want to be a doctor either….unless its in another country

It seemed to me like the system wants to keep asking for more and more without addressing any of its responsibilities to provide a reasonable workplace…….if its not one extreme its another.

How many times do students usually have to be suspended before getting expelled?

Without a legitimate fear of expulsion, I don't see how schools can get discipline issues under control.

Discipline is gone, positively chalenging students to achieve their potential is gone, expecting students and in a lot of cases parents to take any responsibility for their behaviour or academic progression is gone.

Sorry for the doom and gloom but this is my genuine experience. Students who ruin whole class groups with their behaviour are excused on the grounds of their neurodiversity and the wellbeing teams in schools indulge them in their blaming of teachers that dont understand their needs.

I'm leaving/taking early retirement at the end of this academic year. I agree with everything said above. I've been a year head for 35 years and it seems to be all about pandering to students now. Any attempt to get them to knuckle down and work/study has them running into the Principal's office playing the wellbeing card. One thing I really detest is the fact that parents and students can email us any time they want. If they don't attend class we're expected to post the class material on Google classroom for them. We're not allowed raise our voice at all. Sick of the whole thing and got a pleasant surprise when I got my statement of service from the DES as they let me buy back loads of part time service from back in the late 80s/early 90s which meant I could have gone last year. The bad language on the corridors and the general lack of respect has worn me down.

I don't think you can infer what Irish teachers are by the lack of response here. Boards is pretty quiet these days.

I think we're all exhausted tbh. Discipline is a disaster. Yes there is more diagnosis and more issues than ever. Yes there are hangovers from covid. But teaching is a battle nowadays even in good schools. Parents and students are more demanding of more and more from staff and have absolutely no boundaries. Class sizes are still too large. SNA's are reduced to physical needs assistants so there is no classroom support in the way other countries have classroom assistants. School buildings are disasters. Grants are given without adequate people to implement them, or are given with no ongoing maintenance or supports (ICT grants etc). Teaching is exhausting. I'm job sharing now and with my own kids its the only way I'm managing to keep my head above water