To ask teachers about disruptive behaviour in secondary schools?

I don't know of any school that gives a detention or other sanction for a breaking of a minor rule once.

Once again, you're using this tactic where you invoke obviously justifiable rules that are in place nearly everywhere, including "less strict" schools, in order to justify arbitrary ones with no evident purpose other than to assert authority for its own sake. Yes, societies have rules. And no, that doesn't justify any random rule an authority figure happens to come up with.

And if you did happen to forget a pen or forget to take your jacket off, you would not be spoken to contemptuously or made to stay 30 minutes after work. You would be politely reminded of the rule, provided you hadn't made a habit of it.

KillerTomato7

If you were constantly needling and punishing your employees for violating any one of hundreds of arbitrary rules, with no apparent connection to the actual work of the company, you would be despised and viewed as a contemptible bully by your employees, and your workplace would be a toxic workplace that couldn't attract and retain talent.

Some of these hundreds of arbitrary rules in the workplace are required by law.

Only if poor grades is a side effect of poor behaviour in most cases.

sorry hercisback1 - apologies! I think you were replying to Killertomato's nonsense and I misread it.

I'm so sorry to hear this. Please call the school and ask to speak to the person in charge of pastoral care for your daughter (at my school, this would be the head of house, but it could be a head of year or someone else again). Explain to them what is happening and how it is affecting your daughter. She deserves better and school should be eager to support her xxx

@cansu you may have tagged the wrong person, I am in total agreement with you.

Hercisback1
Many workplaces have rules. I work in a school.
I have to turn up on time.
I have to have the things I need to do my job.
I have to do things to a deadline.
I may not have a uniform but there are things I cannot wear. E.g, I can't wear trainers nor jeans or sportswear and need to look smart.
I have to be polite to my colleagues and to parents.
I have to respect the environment and look after the equipment provided to me.
I can't eat, drink or go to the loo whenever I feel like it.
I don't always like all my colleagues but I am not allowed to be abusive or difficult when speaking to them. I am expected to work with people that I may not like personally.
I have parts of my job that I find boring and annoying. I still have to do them.

Hmm sounds pretty much what is expected of students. I have worked many different jobs with similar rules.

Absolutely prepares them for the world of work and to negotiate life in general

I am wondering whether I am enforcing petty rules to expect kids not to swear constantly at the top of their voice in the corridors, barge each other about and occasionally staff, trip each other up, run in the corridors, or jump down flight of stairs?

These are common behaviours. Adults don't tend to this. It's an invidious comparison to keep talking about adult environments.

If I correct these behaviours (or attempt to) I get automatic lip and argument these days. This does not happen in my classroom so this is about students not automatically acceding to reasonable correction and intervention from adults. Call it respect, if you will.

They're not Che Guevara on an ideological mission or rebels raging against the machine or sticking it to the man.

Private schools also have the ultimate in sanctions in that if you do enough wrong, you will get kicked out. And that includes grades as well as behaviour.

The very opposite of this is objectively true. Like it or not. Schools don’t police uniform for the sake of it but because, as per the infamous ‘broken windows’ policy that turned New York around decades ago, boundaries matter. Kids who learn that school stand firm on uniform are less likely to take the piss in more significant areas.

Gentle parenting should be a crime. It’s child abuse. All known evidence shows that children thrive with firm, fair boundaries in place. It makes them feel loved and secure. The best ways to fuck up your kids is to either be too permissive or too authoritarian.

We were at an event recently and while all the Teens were generally lovely DS was the only one opening doors for adults, offering to get chairs, keeping his jacket and tie on and making polite conversation with adults.
I help 2 schools with Y11 Mock interviews and the school with the tighter discipline certainly better prepares the DC for the world of work based on what I see.

Interesting to hear that behaviour at a private secondary is so much better . Presumably smaller class numbers, fewer SN as many private schools can’t or won’t deal with these.Parents are paying considerable sums so are invested in success and it seems SLT are hot on discipline issues. Going to be hard to emulate this in state unfortunately, SLT could help more but the threat of exclusion/withdrawal isn’t as available and schools have to accommodate a huge breadth of ability and needs alongside many parents who frankly couldn’t give a or have their own agendas re schools.

If as an employer, employees were constantly breaking the rules, they'd be fired.

I remember one poor young lad first term at Secondary school being barked at by one of the senior students as he hadn't opened the door for me as I carried the registers along the corridor.

I used to get the same treatment out of school if I saw any of the pupils out and about. I was the receptionist - not even a teacher

I bet if I ever bumped into any of these now adults I'd be treated with the same respect

But of course private schools aren't worth the money are they?

If you were constantly needling and punishing your employees for violating any one of hundreds of arbitrary rules, with no apparent connection to the actual work of the company, you would be despised and viewed as a contemptible bully by your employees, and your workplace would be a toxic workplace that couldn't attract and retain talent.

It's interesting. Some of the teachers here go on about wanting to leave the field because of a lack of respect by students and parent. And yet if they did, they would be right back on this forum in two years complaining about how their employees lack respect. And they would never figure it out.

A moments inattention in my current industry (and several previous ones) could see you killed.
Not wearing the correct "uniform" could see you with a life long injury.
As an example both of these could happen (have happened) when people don't see the point in wearing the correct "uniform" for the 30 seconds to a minute that it takes to go through the warehouse.

Agree with many posters. I think that there are so many threads on here where parents are unhappy when their child is challenged.

• lack of concentration has increased
• not having right equipment
• constantly swigging drinks & then needing the toilet & refusing to go at break as they prefer to miss lessons
• barging past people & that includes teachers & visitors
• deliberately rocking up late to a lesson & then making a load of noise getting coat off, unpacking bag (when I had already done register & am trying to explain the starter)
• arguing back about getting a late mark & being asked to settle down
• calling out & interrupting the lesson & then arguing about being issued a level
• wearing false eyelashes, nose studs & acrylic nails to school & getting huffy when challenged

And its very important for kids to learn that you can't just do what you want with no consequences and teaching that in school prepares them for work.
Best they learn the lesson that things can be "unfair" but sometimes you need to suck it up at school than when they have a mortgage to pay

Oh come on. Teenagers are a different age group, not a different species. If we would justifiably hate and rebel against something as adults, we shouldn't expect 16-18 year olds to be any different.

And I'm sure kids are filled with anxiety because they're "choosing to break the rules," not because they're worried about being hauled up at any minute for the slightest moment of inattention. If you wouldn't see that as bullying in an adult workplace, then I'm glad you're a teacher and not a boss.

Because that is what we would call it if bosses in adult workplaces acted like this -- bullying.

Plenty of workplaces have seemingly stupid rules that employees have to follow otherwise they'll get a disciplinary. Schools are the same. The rules look extreme, but really they're about having to keep hundreds of children safe.

This is exactly the response when I call home and say, ‘Your child told me to fuck off and die because I marked him late.’
’I think that’s a bit unfair. He says he was upset you marked him late, and he didn’t tell you to fuck off.’

KillerTomato7

Many staff also hate rules that essentially place us in the position of bullying good kids that already have enough on their plate as teenagers. Because that is what we would call it if bosses in adult workplaces acted like this -- bullying.

You really need to redefine what you consider "bullying", I will even go so far as to say that this attitude is why schools are having so many problems.

Ehcp and getting in to SEN school is not easy, my daughter is in the process of transitioning.
she has had a EHCP since reception
full time 1-1 32.5 hours direct in primary school.
autism, communication language disorder , cerebral palsy, heart disease, bowel disease, ambulant wheelchair user, IV lines, feeding tubes - barely makes it through a school day in year 6 mainstream and they have still sent her ehcp to the local mainstream secondary schools - because she is academically with her peers 😭