To ask teachers about disruptive behaviour in secondary schools?

You see it on here. Parents (some) justifying their children's atrocious behaviour. Blaming it on just being a teenager. Always believing what a child says before speaking with the school. It was bad years ago but now it's even worse.

It's not just a recent thing. 25 years ago I had a reception class where the general behaviour was poor. I was an experienced teacher even then and at times was at my wits end. However, at a general parents' meeting I made it very clear that I put the responsibility on them and I expected support from home. Education is a team effort between parents and school.
I'm told by my DD who works in a school that teachers wouldn't be allowed to say things like that to parents now. Sod that!

Only if you fundamentally misunderstand what it means.

It doesn't mean that you have to accept poor behaviour or are not supposed to apply firm boundaries.

It means that if you can work out the reason for the behaviour you are seeing, or talk to the young person about it, you might be able to prevent it from happening in the first place.

An awful lot of poor behaviour in secondary school is from youngsters (esp young men) posturing. This is either to curry favour with peers or to cover up that they cannot effectively access the work. Incidents of the latter have increased dramatically since the new curriculum which is overly packed, deliberately difficult and psychologically damaging to all but the most able children. For example, AQA biology in 2023 to get a grade 9 - a score attained by just the top few percent - you had to get 63 percent or thereabouts. What is the point of a GCSE set so difficult that even the brightest few percent of children cannot access 1/3 of the paper? That means that kids who are ok at biology and "passing" are getting probably just 30-40 percent correct. If you sat an exam where you couldn't answer well over half the paper, would you enjoy it? Would you feel like you were doing ok?

Pass marks in the higher maths for grade 4 have hovered around 26 percent. Again, this is psychologically damaging.

Our less academically able youngsters are sitting in classes day in and day our where the majority of the work is not accessible to them. And I am not talking about kids with severe learning difficulties here, I mean ordinary average range kids who are perfectly capable of functioning well in society.

I am telling you now that changing the curriculum to one that is flexible enough to meet the needs of ALL children, not just aimed at the academically most able ten percent, one that acknowledged and celebrates creativity, sporting prowess, working with one's hands, problem solving as well as a narrow academic focus, would solve a heck of a lot of the problems around behaviour in schools today.

If I was in a job where everyday 3/4 of what I was asked to do made no sense to me and then I got into trouble for not being able to do the stuff that made no sense, I took would be pissed off and mucking about within a couple of months, and clinging to the things that do bring me happiness in that situation - friends, football, whatever.

Well who do you blame then? All this gentle parenting crap is producing generations of ill disciplined, entitled, spoilt brats.

Not all schools have sixth forms. So it certainly wasn’t the case that this was standard.

I find them talking to students a bit disruptive if we’re trying to work on something quietly. And I just don’t find them helpful. That’s not a reflection on them as people, it’s the role.

We certainly didn’t have TAs in our secondary school.
However there clearly was a need for them because what actually happened was that sixth formers were encouraged to volunteer to help struggling students further down the school. Some of us were asked to give up a free period to help support a child in a lesson. I gave up two frees a week to help with homework with two kids who didn’t attend German lessons (we did two languages and it was felt they would be better off concentrating on one). They came to me for an hour and we would go over a piece or two of homework. Most of my friends volunteered. Essentially a TA job done by good natured willing sixth formers. I
left school in 1995.

I'm not a teacher, but am a parent and am reading through this thread just horrified at what teachers have to put up with. I grew up abroad. Where I'm from, we have a huge respect for education and we were expected to follow school rules, have good manners and behaviour in school (and out of school). We didn't have to clean the school, but did have to tidy and keep our classrooms/school areas neat (or no break times). My DP wouldn't stand for bad behaviour or disrespect, and heaven help us if a teacher spoke to them about us in anything but a good light. Our schools were strict but we knew where we stood, and knew not to push any boundaries or break rules.

I have taught my DC similar to what my parents taught me: good manners, respect (for education, for rules and for others). I've told the teachers that educate my DC that I expect to be told if there is any bad behaviour from my DC, and that I would back any sanctions that they give. Hopefully that keeps my DC on a good path, and lets the teachers know that I won't stand for any nonsense from my DC. So far, this has worked!!

I work in a nice suburban school. It’s a comprehensive so obviously still plenty of poor behaviour.

An American parent once said to me in disbelief; how do you get the respect needed from students and parents when the government don’t let you provide any of the grade yourself? And he had a good point; the removal of coursework and all parts of gcse that teacher gave the grade for was a move to undermine the authority of teachers and makes the job harder. I see why it it’s potentially problematic, but many students don’t feel they ‘need’ you now-they feel they can get what they need from YouTube in June while cramming (not true but it’s a battle to fight!)

I think having a government hostile to teachers over the last 14 years has made it harder. Other things that have made behaviour worse include:

Lack of SEN support and resources, even falling apart buildings and clear poverty in schools has made it harder for school to seem fun and exciting and has subtly transmitted to kids that society doesn’t care that much about what goes on in schools.

A very academic curriculum that is totally inappropriate and demoralising for swathes of pupils.

Mobile phones making it easier for students to be influenced by people who don’t love them/have their best interests at heart.

Time poor, stressed parents who don’t have the mental space/support to provide what is needed to be successful in school (structure, sleep, good food, help when needed, engagement in homework etc etc) I’m not judging, I’m a time poor stressed parent myself!

Closure of PRUs and the pressure to keep students who can’t cope and influence the behaviour of others.

Also, hear me out…school sites used to be open. Safeguarding is massively improved since the 90s when I was at school, it is a huge win that is not celebrated enough. But kids are now locked into schools. The ones who would have wondered out at break having fallen out with someone p2 are now on site, causing issues all day! Where we once bunked off, they now truant on site-taking up staff resources and disrupting lessons. Not saying this is wrong, just that it is a consequence of the changed culture.

I teach in a secondary school where the behaviour is good. I can't remember the last time I was sworn at and no-one has ever thrown a chair. However, there is constant disruption because;
I need a pen
I don't have my book
I need to go outside for a drink
Can I go to the toilet
He took my pencil case
Can I go to the safe haven room?
I need a paracetamol
I forgot my homework
Can I move seats?
I have a lamda class
He's staring at me
Tell her to stop that
Can you put the blinds down?
Can I borrow a green pen
I didn't get a sheet
What's my log in details?
Can I fill up my water bottle?
I can't see

Etc etc etc

Parents and students don't realise how disruptive it is to be disorganised.

What do they do differently at your DDs school?

QED

In agreement that a significant part is parenting. I don't think it's entirely softlysoftly parenting, quite a bit is very erratic parenting, which I find does lead to more of the testing behavours, and a significant part is social media and other internet access doing the parenting.

Another part is policies (and in my experience especially academy trust policies) that are about ten years behind and are more about appearances and ticking all the boxes for OFSTED than sorting anything out.

For example, the anti-bullying policy has every -ist type of bullying one can think of and each type is recorded separately for tracking/because OFSTED likes to see that it's being tracked - but a major issue in some years group is what I can only call "perceived social justice' bullying, which is typically only tracked as 'interpersonal conflict'.

So, we'll have students do things like ask someone how to say or spell the word black in Spanish (a language taught at the school), that leads to the child who responds being called racist, especially if they're perceived as White which leads to harassment and physical attacks even in class that the perpetrators justify with "well, they're racist, so its okay," when actually it was just one of the native Spanish speakers or a child who who did Spanish at primary who thought they were being helpful. We're all aware this is fuelled by social media, that snapchat and similar are largely the ones teaching this, not parents directly, but when 11 year olds are doing these, there does come questioning of why parents allow their kids on platforms they're not even meant to be on and is creating this disruptions. That we're having to basically tell the helpful kids "don't respond to questions about colours from your peers" and similar rather than really dealing with the issue is beyond frustrating, but it has lowered disruption (until they get accusations that not responding to questions makes someone whatever -ist, that happens too though tends to not get as disruptive).

Can we update the policy or the tracking? No, that's under the trust's decisions.

I wouldn't say it's simply a culture thing or a cultural thing of one particular group (there is no singular White English culture), but cultures and values clashing while being hamstrung by lack of wider support and fiddly systems and policies that sound nice, but do little but tickboxes.

I agree with this. I went to school in the 70s and 80s. My primary school was a bit rough, but this was an absolute given in how we were all brought up respect adults, accept boundaries and do as they’re told. We all knew not to answer back.

Why don't you like them in your lessons?
Fair point about there being no TAs in schools in the 90s. Do you think there has been an increase of SEN children?

TeacherTapp asks this question a lot and most teacher do agree behaviour is one of the biggest issues in their school.

Some think behaviour is better because of all the tick box systems and reliance on the spreadsheet. Statistically it has if you measure a school on exclusions and schools stop excluding.

What has stopped is the silly low level classroom mob stuff like making a silly noise which gets passed around, passing notes, old school stuff. The general misogynistic boy pupil stuff is basically the same but emboldened by negative role models. The number of students (including a rising number of girls) with complex needs and very challenging behaviour has increased.

Can I ask the teachers what you do for the children who aren’t like that (or what could be done?) We’ve moved DD to private school which is excellent and she is flying, but we persevered with her state primary until I stopped trusting the school to care about her or was keeping her safe as it was clearly affecting her negatively.

In year 4 there were boys calling teachers fucking bitches or ugly cunts, fights including in the classroom, talk about first person shooter games and horror films, one of the 8 year olds smoked and set of a fire alarm and one boy got suspended as he kept asking girls to touch inside their pants. Lots of bullying - not her in particular but really horrible to be around. This is Year 4. Her class ended up being taught by the head as 2 form tutors resigned (one walked out the classroom in tears and they never saw her again and the other told them they were the worst class she had ever taught and swore at them).

What did it for me was DD was frequently sat at next to one of the naughtiest kids and asked to explain work to her (I know the is some pedagogy about reinforcing learning etc) but she found it stressful so I don’t really care. After we moved her she was diagnosed dyslexic; but because of the mantra that you don’t ask for help unless you’ve really tried she started to believe she was stupid because she couldn’t read the instructions and the teacher dismissed her. I even had a teacher tell me she was disregulated and should work on her resilience when she was very obviously scared.

I understand it’s horrible for teachers and the different causes and solutions being suggested, but what can a school of teacher do to support a child like mine? She always got excellent marks for effort, was polite, kind and wanted to work? She’s come on leaps and bounds academically and socially since we moved her but we never ever thought we would use private schools. She definitely won’t be going back to a state secondary if it’s just a continuation of what happened in primary which is what everyone seems to be saying.

Standard behaviour where DH and I are too (close to Japan), each classroom has around 6 mops and the children clean the school before lessons each morning. Even to the point of some of them are on the roads around the school doing litter picking. As far as I know a school of 2,000 children will have 2-3 handy people, all routine cleaning (even toilets) is done by the children. Bif things like floor waxing will have a contractor come in every 3 months or so.

Children are on a pass the year system where they move from year to year by getting a passing grade for the current/previous year. Refusal to participate in cleaning will be recorded and may lead to failing and repeating the year.

In general even teenage children around here are polite and respectful of virtually everyone they meet.

Its also interesting to note that around here that at any age female (school to pensioner) thinks nothing of walking home after dark. The number of single 20-40 yo female joggers after dark here is amazing. DD18 thinks nothing of taking the metro/bus and then walking from the bus stop alone at 10-11 pm. I wonder if some of this safety comes from the respect and honour the boys here have to give their female teachers in schools?

I can relate to all of that @Piggywaspushed 😩

Especially fiddly systems!

At my school, behaviour in most lessons is good (there are issues with their respect to supply etc but that's not new) but our systems are tick boxy and fiddly.

But our kids are a nightmare in corridors. Things that no longer exist :

personal space (including when moving past adults)
holding doors open
opening doors with hands
indoor voices
no running in corridors.

These basics don't seem to be taught at our feeder schools any more.

I am so stressed by the end of lunchtime.

My school is one that is really liberal about phone use and this doesn't help.

I also agree with PP about medication.

ADHD is a medical condition whose front line treatment is meds. Why are you giving your kids a choice about taking it? They will end up self-medicating with alcohol or drugs, and their outcomes will be far poorer.

If a child has diabetes, it's controlled by meds. I fail to see how ADHD is different.

(DS1 is medicated for ADHD and is doing extremely well academically - because he can concentrate!).

I think that this debate is an interesting one. I don’t really like it when TAs support in my lessons and I do feel the impact they have on progress is questionable (I mean specifically for secondary here, I know it’s different in primary.)

That isn’t a comment about TAs as people; most are lovely. But if people want to hark back to yesteryear then you didn’t see TAs in the 90s in secondary schools.

I think what would happen is that the students who dont already have behaviour issues would end up doing it all whilst those that 'cant cope' will do nothing and behave as normal and think it is their right to not do anything because someone has told them that they can't or don't have to do it.