To ask teachers about disruptive behaviour in secondary schools?

They wouldn’t need them for ‘modesty’ if they didn’t roll up their skirts to an immodest level…

@Pomegranatecarnage

Usually white crocs with knee high black socks. I know it’s unbelievable, but it’s true. SLT won’t stand up to it so they push and push.
Yes, it’s true. They are supposedly allowed to wear only tailored shorts-but a lot of girls wear the Nike pros.

This is grotesque. I'm surprised the school allow it. And, what's going on with the parents of these girls, why are they not parenting? If the school is this lax, it would be better to ditch any uniform requirement so that pupils can come to school in jeans, trainers and hoodies like in most of Europe and America.

Scrap progress 8 for a start.

We expect all children to take 8-10 GCSEs and the way progress 8 works the subjects are mostly picked for them with only a couple of choices.

So you have 30 kids in a class. Depending on the subject and whether the subject has put students in sets you might have a bunch of able kids (in that subject) but some of them might not be interested.

In another class you might have 30 children who are never going to get a GCSE at a decent grade and they know it.

You might have a child who is gifted at music and art but they have to sit GCSEs in science and may have a choice of one art subject.

Add in SEND students. Some SEND is fairly easy to accommodate (my default PowerPoints are on a blue background with a dyslexia friendly font) and I can email notes / handouts to them ahead of time, some isn't so easy.

Deaf students need time if they are using an interpreter for the interpreter to do their job. Some things they need to 'feel' eg putting some equipment together that makes a 'click' a Deaf student has to actual feel the 'click'.

If anyone fails then it is my fault not the child who has spent 2 years disrupting the class.

I have done for twenty one years now.

I don’t disagree with a lot that’s written here but I think that just dismissing it as ‘parenting’ is a lazy way out. It’s often borne from frustration but the problem is it leads to an ‘is vs them’ approach which never gets us anywhere.

I started my teaching career in a small secondary school in a deprived area - not the bronx sort of equivalent, just a shabby secondary school on a bit of a bleak housing estate. It was also poorly managed. A lot of the problems we had then aren’t ones I’m seeing so now so much - pregnancy in girls (obviously I suppose) smoking, violence against teachers (I know others have but I personally haven’t) probably a few more. Behaviour was really awful there and that was more than twenty years ago. I haven’t worked in a school like that since so I can’t say I find behaviour notably worse than when I started. And the low level stuff that’s actually not low level hasn’t changed. Every week I have to buy pens, that isn’t any different to how it’s always been, same with calling out, interrupting, arguing, stupid behaviour on the corridors and staircases.

@Piggywaspushed mentioned fiddly systems and ours absolutely are. For my lessons I am supposed to be out on the corridor, it is apparently a non negotiable, while there is a task up for students to get on with. (How I’m supposed to put this up and get the books out while also being on the corridor is a bit of an ongoing challenge.) Then a bell goes to signify that anyone arriving past this point will be marked as late; about a third of my class pile in just as it’s gone and I’ve no idea which ones they were. I think there a a significant minority who think they must not be in the classroom before that bell It is particularly bad after lunch because they always blow the whistle ridiculously early so I can have some kids in my class ten to fifteen minutes before others.

Then I do the register. Two kids aren’t here but have been marked present in their previous lessons so I have to send a safeguarding alert, this isn’t just pressing a button, I have to explain why. Of course, the second I do that, they arrive. So I have to recall that and mark them late and give a detention. I’m finally ready to start teaching And I haven’t even got to calling out, no pen etc.

But I do have compassion for a lot of parents because I can see they are dealing with a lot themselves. None of us are perfect and I’m not trying to demonise anyone. I think some parents get fed up of schools constantly contacting them to (as they perceive it) complain about their child and become hostile and defensive.

I wish I had easy answers here but it’s the same old stories. Ideally education would be a social leveller but it’s not.

So I have to ask, did she stay on after that? Because if she did I have to say I’m impressed.

It's been banned at my school!

Behaviour is by no means excellent at my school, but this thread has confirmed it's so much worse elsewhere. I think the difference is a head teacher who does daily staff briefings and is not afraid to permanently exclude children if necessary. Staff are supported although SLT could be more visible. We're backed up if we discipline pupils. FWIW, shouting at someone to fuck off is a criminal offence in public. Don't accept it in the workplace!

I take their tie. Have recently started doing it again as I am running seriously low on pens again. Had a tie on my desk for a week after the first pen I lent🤦🏼‍♀️

Omg we have the white socks over black tights thing too. Where has that come from?

@FrodosTemper

They wear crocs to school? What kind of school is this? It's unimaginable.

We sometimes have students wearing black crocs to school - I suppose at least they're black 🤷🏻‍♀️

We used to have a really strict uniform & behaviour was definitely better when the uniform was stricter.

Luckily we don't have the tight Nike shorts but some are also wearing leggings. The trend seems to be white sports socks over black tights. I think SLT have given up on this & loads are wearing them because apparently their feet are cold? I suggested wearing black or navy to blend in but they didn't want to do that!

100%
There was a mum on our local social media moaning about how strict the local 'outstanding' secondary is. Her poor darling was given a detention for constantly being late for lessons, shock horror! Every other kid makes it to lessons on time. She also moaned about them being sanctioned for wearing leggings, I think a lot of the parents need to grow the fuck up.

Usually white crocs with knee high black socks. I know it’s unbelievable, but it’s true. SLT won’t stand up to it so they push and push.

Yes, it’s true. They are supposedly allowed to wear only tailored shorts-but a lot of girls wear the Nike pros. To be fair, they are actually less revealing that an extremely short skirt with a thong underneath.

I agree. Follow the little rules then the big ones aren't such a shock.

Assume you don't work in a school?

They wear crocs to school? What kind of school is this? It's unimaginable.

Do they actually wear Nike shorts at school instead of the usual school uniform? Is this real? That sounds crazy.

At my dc's school girls wear Nike Pros under their school skirt for modesty and comfort.

Can I just say that if every parent had to spend a week, even a day, in a secondary school, seeing how hard the staff work and what they have to face every single day, I'm pretty damn sure you wouldn't get 99% of the comments above.

We had an NQT who tried this with a class who then all claimed not to have pens and pelted her with shoes.

When I did teacher training, there was a teacher at the school who would only lend out a pen in exchange for the pupil’s shoe. It reminded them to give the pen back at the end of the lesson because they needed their shoe back. Of course the classroom stank.

As I write this I'm thinking I'm probably BU just for asking teachers anything as I'm sure you don't have loads of spare time and mental energy!

Quite the opposite. Teachers love to moan about how terrible the profession is on Mumsnet! (I am a teacher).

Do you teach MFL by any chance?

Like these. No skirt. All day-not for PE. With a shirt tied at the waist to fashion a crop top and a school tie. Often with knee high socks and crocs.

I just asked DS, year ten at a leafy boys comp, mainly middle class catchment. They are quite hot on discipline and he said kids aren't disruptive in class. I do appreciate this is the view of a fourteen year old, but just wanted to reassure people it's not necessarily all doom and gloom.

As a private school parent with experience of state too, the absolute core of this is that private schools can kick disobedient pupils out and state schools can’t . Reopen PRUs and schools to help pupils with SEN and remove pupils from mainstream schools. This is at the core of the problems.