From anxious kids to moaning parents & Labour set to overwhelm state schools – teachers have it harder than ever before
AS anyone who knows a teacher will tell you, they are modern day martyrs, constantly working: Before school, after school, during school. All our poor, poor teachers do is work.
So spare a thought for the edifiers of tomorrow’s minds ahead of their six-week holiday as it emerges you beastly parents are making them work EVEN HARDER.
As if they didn’t have enough on their plates — what with having to teach kids how to brush their teeth, and, ya know, read — now parents are loading up said plates with complaints.
Helicopter mums and dads, passing the buck, are moaning to schools when little Johnny comes home having had a bad day.
Overwhelmed heads are being forced to bring in consultants to build better relations with parents.
Schools said recent grievances included a primary losing a football match, badgers digging up a field and sports day being held on a Wednesday.
Others moaned to Ofsted — an organisation that already gives teachers nightmares — about the amount of homework or detentions being given out. As a result, teachers are fed up and quitting education.
The other problem, of course, is that more and more kids nowadays have access to smartphones and are essentially Trip Advisering their tutors.
“Mr Smith: Terrible cardigans, bad teeth, strongly do not recommend.”
Day in, day out, Mr and Mrs Teacher live in fear of being caught snapping at a badly behaved child and going viral, billed as the Planet’s Worst Educator.
Pampers-wearing piggies
As much as we joke about teachers claiming they are overworked and underpaid (see column intro), in 2024 they really do have it harder than ever before.
We are living in a world where more and more parents are failing to take responsibility.
One where they are passing off the very basics of child rearing on to poorly paid teachers.
And one where, post-pandemic, one in four kids are turning up at primary school in nappies.
On the one hand, parents are meddling like never before — micromanaging the most petty, trivial issues — and on the other, putting their heads in the sand and hoping someone else will do all the hard work for them.
Back in my day, I got on with school, made mistakes, earned detentions, tried to cheat in physics and generally acted like a naughtyish schoolchild.
With a Labour government threatening to overwhelm state schools by taxing the private sector, never have we needed teachers to be more on their A game
My folks never got involved and simply got an occasional rundown of my behaviour at parents’ evenings.
They were easy, uncomplicated days. And I never wore a nappy.
Today, in an increasingly angry world, it’s Parents v Schools — and the kids are stuck in the middle. Like little Pampers-wearing piggies.
Instead of looking for someone to blame, where is the parental responsibility?
The pride in raising decent, honest, well-rounded individuals, ones then given every opportunity to learn in the classroom?
With a Labour government threatening to overwhelm state schools by taxing the private sector, never have we needed teachers to be more on their A game.
And that means teach — not respond to green ink letters.
Hugh and Karen’s satire is so satisfying
DOUGLAS Is Cancelled, a new ITV satire starring Hugh Bonneville and Karen Gillan, both pictured, is brilliant.
Poking fun at maddening cancel culture, it successfully takes down every liberal/leftist wokeism.
And with episodes lasting only 40 minutes, it’s binegable. Give it a crack.
FUN times at Sun HQ last week. Grabbing some lunch on the 14th-floor restaurant, the cantankerous canteen lady seemed unusually friendly. “You look extra gorgeous today,” she said, as I went to pay for my grilled-chicken burger.
Baffled, I nonetheless thanked her profusely and muttered something about trying a new foundation.
“No. I asked if you wanted extra relish,” she sighed.
Rapist is no ‘star’
IN 2014, a Dutch monster called Steven van de Velde had sex with a 12-year-old British schoolgirl.
The rapist, who was 19 when he slept with the child, was sentenced to four years in jail, serving only one in a British jail before being repatriated to the Netherlands where he spent just a further month in prison.
Later this month, van de Velde will appear at the Olympics, a “star” of the national volleyball team.
A spokesman for the Dutch Volleyball Federation, said: “If someone has served his sentence he deserves a second chance.”
For all our faults, there is no way in hell any national sporting manager would give such a “man” a second chance.
Van de Velde has successfully rebuilt his life. One can only imagine the tatters of the young life he destroyed and how it must feel seeing her abuser on the global stage.
ARE we living in a parallel universe? How is it that the most powerful country in the world has boiled down to a face-off between a lovely old man who will soon need nappies and Donald Trump? Last week’s tete-a-tete was an embarrassment.
The choice between Joe Biden, a man born a year before the Pentagon was completed, and a convicted felon is no choice at all.
Happy at mum’s £90,000
A MARKETING manager has won more than £90,000 in a sex discrimination case after a new boss asked how old her young kids were – and promptly rescinded the job offer.
Now, I’m usually no fan of compo cases, they make my skin crawl.
But in this instance I’m entirely in agreement with the tribunal which ruled in Fong Fong Lee’s favour.
Because in no world would a question like this ever be asked of a man.
It’s clear women still have a mountain to climb in the battle for workplace equality and cases like this, hopefully, make male bosses think twice.
Either that, or never offer a woman of child-bearing age a job again.
Sigh.
It’s all going South
FOR a man so good at his own PR, it should come as little surprise that Gareth Southgate has single-handedly created a whole new brand of football: Anti-football.
England’s plodding, backwards, unimaginative style of play is something to behold.
The manager – a chap who helped the “shacket” become a thing and made hundreds of thousands from missing a penalty thanks to a Pizza Hut endorsement off the back of it – seems bafflingly unable to spin the same magic on his squad.
Anyway, we limp on.
And here’s hoping Saturday sees a miracle rebrand.
Failing that, a group deal with Pizza Hut.
“NEVER kissed a Tory” T-shirts are apparently doing a roaring trade ahead of Thursday. Because nothing says “kind, tolerant Left” like a spot of sartorial hatred.
Leah’s at loss
AMID all the Euros mania, spare a thought for our female counterparts.
Lioness Leah Williamson is studying accountancy part-time because she believes she won’t have earned enough to live off once she retires from the game.
She captained the women’s squad to Euros glory two years ago and was later presented with an OBE.
In stark contrast, the men’s captain, Harry Kane – trophy cabinet currently bare – earns £21.5million a YEAR.
Ah, equality.