What a nasty little shit that link tutor sounds like - pretty much like the one I had who is presumably some kind of sociopath. Her advice to me before she observed my lesson (bearing in mind very young children involved) was 'be horrible to them, really horrible.'

 WTF - stupid cow!

Where do they find these people? The link tutor I had boasted the she always made her students cry. Like you, I afterwards spoke to other people who had had horrible experiences with her so I know it wasn't just me.Must be their little power trip.

I pretty much had a nervous breakdown - my partner had never see me like that before and was astonished so it's not as though I am neurotic.

 Your experience sounds similar to mine - mentor teacher hiding resources/deliberately tripping me up in front of the class etc. Why use teachers as mentors who are quite evidently so insecure and paranoid that they cannot handle a student in their clasroom? It's not as if I wanted her job - the school was horrible with a weak head (hence crap work envionment and bullying atmosphere).

 Oh yes, the 'unprofessional' accusation! That was hurled at me by the director of the pgce course and the placement head at the college when I had the temerity to put down in writing that the college like tutor was harrassing me. I've never witnessed behaviour like that before and I am in my 40s and have worked in loads of different fields!

I just WISH I had taped the feedback she gave me after my final observation - an hour of verbal abuse. Quite extraordinary. I suppose she got off on it - how creepy is that?

You did well to get through. I just lost all motivation.  Now I look back on that part of my life, I realise that it was totally niave of me to imagine that success in teaching would  have much to do with actually teaching. Like other areas of work (although I do think the teaching profession is particularly bad in this respect) it is more to do with negotiating the snake-pit, side-stepping the psyociopaths and generally not being dragged down into a swamp of politics, power-playing and mind games.

Such  a shame - I genuinely like children and what's more I am good with them and I can also teach and did not have a hidden agenda. Guess that's just too threatening for some people! After a year or so away from it all, and a good dose of therapy and self-esteem boosting, I can now see it for what it was - a sort of character assassination.

Good luck - with the level of AWARENESS you now have you should be able to spot the sharks.  

f***! I thought that the PT at my last school was a total nut-job, but some of the tales over the last few pages have been utterly harrowing. These vile PTs and tutors have made me stressed out of my box, and I've just read about them!

I was at a Roman Catholic Secondary school in Glasgow last year, and the PT of English was a total *** witch (there's not many of them in RC secondaries in Glasgow- perhaps you know her!!). It was a female-dominated department, and she had a clique of girls whom she fawned over, and treated far better than she treated me. After the horror stories of the past few pages my anecdotes are going to pale in comparison, but I'll divulge anyway. I came in one morning and the nut-job PT was talking to her girls about- oh I don't know- a load of pish: X Factor or something- laughing and joking. I had a question about a unit of work for the PT, and so I waited until she was done. She went into her room and I followed her. As she was writing up the learning intentions on her board I cheerily greeted her with a "good morning", which was not reciprocated. I began to ask her the question that I had, and she just stopped me in my tracks: in a ridiculosuly patronising tone of voice I was told that she was too busy to talk to me, and that I should just sort it out myself. This was straight she had been laughing and joking with various other members of the department for the past 20 minutes!

The same thing happened again one day when I knocked on her door and entered to ask her a question- she basically told me to eff off: "can't you see I'm busy?!" *rolls eyes*.

Then, on my last day, she grudgingly came to my room to say goodbye. As long as I live, I will never forget her closing words to me: "I was going to ask the head teacher if you could stay on for next year, but it totally slipped my mind- you know how it is."

Totally. ***. Dumbfounded. I was lost for words. I literally couldn't speak, so shocked was I at how effortless and casual her evil little put-down was.

So yes, there are a lot of disturned individuals out there in very senior teaching positions.

 I  have just spent a good while reading through most of the posts here. If I hadn't read them, I really wouldn't have believed that some of your experiences could have been so absolutely awful. I'm shocked to be honest. I take my hat off to all of you who have been through these experiences and managed to get through despite them - and to those who dropped out, I'm not surprised at all. In fact, I am surprised more people haven't.

 As a (mature) person who is about to begin her PGDE in August, I can only pray that I will not suffer the same awful experiences.

My experience echos this. Both schools I've been to (PGDE at strathy) have been fantastic, supportive staff and managment.

Point is not all schools are like the ones depicted here.