Interesting advice re selecting (and de-selecting) secondary schools...

[MrsGuyOfGisbourne]

here
Ride the local busses when the school kids and teachers are on! And don't go near schools with teachers like this one who command and deserve no respect..

[Grovemum]

Typical Daily Mail crap, written with a good deal of creative embellishment I think. I believe I know the school involved, in fact it was the one I went to myself. The school is in an extremely deprived area but the results are improving. I see kids from posh independents doing similar things on the buses - saw some particular nasty racist bullies from More House on the bus last week. If you get a group of teenagers together - you get teenage behaviour. I don't think it intimidates adults, just annoys. In most cases the bus drivers do stop the bus and order kids off if the behaviour is too bad. Clearly the journo is not used to teenagers or slumming it on public transport.

[MrsGuyOfGisbourne]

Okay - so you have no problem with that behaviour - a boy who was prevented from getting off for two stops, who was openly bullied - that's okay for your chidren is it?
If it was a librarian or a TA does that mean te kids don't need to repsec those adults, or that they don't GAF when htey see bullying of children they know?
Fine - send YOUR children to that school ((but I bet you don't!)

[katycarr]

My dd does go to that kind of school and probably will go to that kind of secondary school.

I agree it was unlikely to be a teacher.

I am not excusing the behaviour at all. I used to have to ride home with students on the bus to control them.

Am I right in thinking then that you would not want your child educated with mine because some of the children from her school act badly?

[MrsGuyOfGisbourne]

I would not want to send them to a schooll where staff ignore behaviour like that. As it happens with a few mouse clicks it is easy to identify that school.
The advise- to take a bus ride a school closing time sounds quite reaosnable. If you do, encounter that behaviour and decide its okay and you're happy for you children to be exposed to it, then where's the problem? You can choose it. Others who don't think its fine can choose another or at least know what they kids wil be exposed to if they go there.
Not sure why previous poster assumed it was a state school and referred sneeringly to independents - does teh author actually make that statement, and if not why assume it? Not a state v private issue is it?

[LynetteScavo]

Well, I see things haven't changed that much since I was at high school then.

I would have bee that kids being slapped around the head. And I can tell you I would have been in there like a shot if I'd been on that bus.(Defending the kid, not joining in with the slapping, obviously) In lots of ways going to a "hard" school has stood me in good stead in lots of ways in later life.

This was the easiest type of bullying to cope with though, I found girls verbal bullying (which probably goes on in the nicest girls independent schools)much harder to deal with.

[cory]

Agree that this sounds far more like what I remember of the seventies than anything I have heard or seen from dcs' schools. Bullying was rife in those days.

[katycarr]

Most people don't choose it though MrsGuy, they are left with little choice of where to send their children to school once those with money and the know how have taken all the places at the "desirable" schools.

Unless I pay, which I don't want to ( why should my dd have a better education because someone has offered to pay?) there is one school she can go to. Unless we move.

[AnnaSergeyevna]

I defy anyone to get on a bus near a secondary school and declare that they would be happy to send their dc to the school.
I live near one of the top schools in london and still avoid the "coming out" time - the behaviour, sheer loudness and annoying behaviour of teenages is enough to set anyones teeth on edge.

[katycarr]

I agree with the last 2 posts.

[bruffin]

That type of bullying does go on though. About a month ago DS got off the train, two boys came up behind him, one grabbed his bag and unzipped it and the other opened his coat and threatened to punch him if he moved and took his phone. These boys were from a school in a couple of miles away who come up to our area after school to hang around the station and cause trouble.

My mum was living down in South London and was getting really fed up of the behaviour on the buses. She has just moved to Norfolk and ended up on the school bus by mistake (long story) and the children were really lovely, none of the behaviour of south east london.

[katycarr]

I know it does bruffin, every school will have bullying. A school that does not is lying. Sadly bullying is part of human nature.

[bruffin]

But some schools deal with it and others don't and absent themselves from any responsibility if it's out of school. I know our local tescos are very relieved one school has moved. They had far more trouble from the kids in that school than any other.

He is fine Pixie, he is a very laid back teenager caused me a lot more sleepness nights than he has.

[katycarr]

I agree Bruffin, bad schools don't deal with bullying. Good schools do. But it cannot be eliminated sadly.

[mumzy]

I too have witnessed similar incidents on London buses. The most shocking was a group of about 5 girls (9-11yrs) who got on a bus and proceeded to continously ring the bell, harrass fellow passengers and have their music on at a deafening volume. A woman in her 30s asked one of them to turn it down as it was disturbing others and then she got off at the next stop. The ringleader told the others they would going to get off at the next stop and follow the woman and "get her". I decided to get off as well to see what they were up to luckily the woman was nowhere to be seen but the girls were a law unto themselves. I can't believe the attitudes of some young children and feel the parents and the entitlement culture in this country are very much to blame for their behaviour

[DancingHippoOnAcid]

MrsGuyofGisbourne - you asked why one poster assumed the schol referred to in the article was a state school.

Actually, the article does refer to the kids getting onthe bus "fresh from the local comp". So yes, the article IS bashing state secondaries.

I'm not sure if the author intends it to be a state v private school thing, as she does not go on to contrast this behaviour with that of private school kids on buses, but she does make it clear this is a state school.

Actually, most private schools lay on private buses to take thier kids to school so would not see so many of their pupils on public buses.

[katycarr]

Our local private schools ( most of which are boarding so we don't have that many being shipped about) drive the kids about in a mini bus. You would have to be quite hardcore to riot on a minibus.

[Caoimhe]

I am frequently on the bus with girls from the local extremely highly regarded girls' comprehensive school (one of the top in the country) and they can be awful. But the boys from the private school up the road can also be awful.

Yet I was recently on a bus which was packed with teenagers from the school no-one wants to go to accompanied by my ds and, although some of them were a bit loud, overall their hehaviour was impeccable. One very tall, imposing boy gave up his seat for my son which impressed me greatly.

[DancingHippoOnAcid]

Caoimhe - I think in general teenage girls are worse than teenage boys. Girls, I have found can be extremely aggressive and threatening to innocent bystanders. I have experienced this first hand quite a few times.

By contrast, I have frequently found that even quite frightening looking hulking teenage boys are usually really polite and helpful, and lovely with small DCs. They might be rowdy with their mates but they rarely cause problems for other people on the bus.

[katycarr]

I agree about girls, I also find that very often even the naughtiest boy is very very polite to a woman.

[DancingHippoOnAcid]

I would like to say that, though i find girls tend to be more aggressive than boys, the VAST majority of teenage girls, though they may giggle and shout in an annoying way, will not actually have a go at people around them, and are usually very sweet if you talk to them.

Though I have NEVER been threatened by even the most aggressive teenage boy.