u/Affectionate-Gap8919

I’m a second-year teacher and lately I’ve been feeling really lost about whether what I’m experiencing is normal school culture or whether something is genuinely off.

Recently, in one of my classes, a student accidentally spilled water on the floor. I checked the situation and believed it wasn’t intentional, so I handled it calmly and moved on. Another teacher who saw it strongly disagreed with my handling of it. Later that day, in front of other staff in the staffroom, he publicly criticised me over the incident and made me feel pretty humiliated.

After that, my HoD talked to me, but instead of focusing only on that incident, the conversation turned into criticism of basically my whole teaching. Some things I can admit were fair enough — like:
- I didn’t give students a warm-up during roll marking,
- I allowed too many students to go to the toilet at once,
- my pacing can be too slow sometimes.

I know I’m still learning and I’m not trying to pretend I’m a perfect teacher.

But it became really overwhelming because it felt like everything about my teaching was suddenly wrong all at once.

One thing that really got to me was being criticised over my notes on Windows. I was told my notes didn’t look good enough compared to another teacher in the department who uses an iPad. I explained that the other teacher writes on an iPad and I don’t even own one, but I was basically told that didn’t matter and that I should still make my notes look just as good on a computer.

The water-spill incident also kept getting brought up afterwards. I still believed the student didn’t do it intentionally, while the other teacher insisted it was deliberate and continued criticising my judgement over it.

Now a class that was originally my own class is being changed into co-teaching, and honestly I don’t know how to interpret that. I don’t know if it’s support, supervision, or a sign that leadership no longer trusts me.

What’s making this harder is the department dynamic itself. There’s one teacher who has a lot of influence socially in the department, and it honestly feels like if he likes you, you’ll be fine there, but if he doesn’t, life becomes very difficult，like mine now. I’ve started feeling excluded, isolated, and like I can never fully fit into the team.

At this point I’m constantly stressed and second-guessing everything I do. I’m trying really hard to improve, but I also feel like I’m under a microscope all the time.

For experienced teachers：
How do you tell the difference between genuine mentoring and being targeted?
Is moving someone into co-teaching usually supportive or a bad sign?
How would you handle this professionally without making things worse?

Would really appreciate honest advice.

I’m a relatively new teacher at a school and I’m trying to work out whether I’m genuinely handling things badly or whether the way I’m being treated is inappropriate.

Recently in one of my maths classes, a student accidentally spilled water on the floor. I went over, checked the situation, and it genuinely appeared accidental. I handled it calmly and moved on.

Later, another teacher who witnessed it detained the students involved and then criticised me quite harshly, saying I shouldn’t have let them go and implying I handled the situation completely wrong.

I admitted that I’m still new to the school and not fully familiar with every behavioural expectation or procedure yet. But what bothered me wasn’t just the feedback itself, it was the tone and delivery. It felt less like professional guidance and more like being publicly dressed down because when I tried to educate students he didn't say a word but after that he deliberately called it out in front of everyone in the staffroom, in a very loud voice saying I shouldn't let them go.

The issue is that this doesn’t feel isolated. There have been multiple situations with this teacher, and at times another teacher in the department, where I’ve felt undermined, nitpicked, or spoken to in a way that feels unnecessarily hostile. My HoD hasn’t really intervened, which makes me unsure whether this is just “normal school culture” that I need to toughen up to,

I’m completely open to constructive criticism and I know I still have a lot to learn as a newer teacher. But I’m starting to dread interactions with certain colleagues because I constantly feel like I’m being watched for mistakes.

For experienced teachers:
- How would you professionally handle this situation?
-any ways to make this situation better？