To say the behaviour crisis in schools can't just be blamed on parenting

I also feel expectations are at an all time low. When I first started teaching, I was in a very affluent part of London, but parents had high expectations of their children as ultimately, they knew if they go to uni, get a good job, they'll be able to stay close to home when they have their own families and their children had seen how hard work breeds success
Now, I feel more and more parents are wanting their children to do trades (no problem with that) because uni is no longer the pathway to guaranteed success or higher earnings, but then they know they only need a 4 in English and Maths, so they don't care if their child is pissing about in French or RE.

If your child is so clever, they'll be given more difficult work or put up a class, that's what happens to most children who are smart. "Thou doth protest too much"

@Sinuhe had your "bored" child, completed all their work?
Where did their level of arrogance that it's OK to disrupt everyone else's learning because they're done?
Although of course with such a high level of intelligence theyll be leaving all their peers behind with their stratospheric academic career soon!

I do agree that other children either get pulled in by the behaviour, or start their own behavioural issues when there’s so much else going on. But then in that class there are also the kids who are there to learn get on with it, and they’re the ones who are more likely to succeed. It’s not a good trait to start trouble because you’re bored.

You do not know my DC or myself. You don't know the schools DC attended or the teachers that have taught my DC.
But I do know that not everything is just down to poor parenting.

Teachers aren't untouchable, they can get things wrong but you keep riding your high horse while I keep sitting on mine.

The school educational system does not meet the needs of pupils or teachers.
It is a very out dated system and we live in very different times to when it was first introduced and the reasons it was introduced.
The world has moved on, schools haven't.
Sending a child to school is same as sending a horse and cart down the motorway, and expecting a successful result. It is totally unworkable.

I don’t agree with trade unions about much. But placing the blame on parents for the general poor conduct of children in schools seems fair enough.

Whatever the circumstances of any particular school or teacher, children should still behave. That begins at home.

What you describe here, was one of the reasons for my DC's behaviour in primary school.

A bored child can be an very disruptive child. A clever and bored child will come up with inappropriate pranks that are really annoying and disruptive.

@Sinuheseveral posters have now told you the same thing - that the problem is your dc’s behaviour and your parenting. You have come back to the thread with the same opinion. Don’t you want the best for your child? Haven’t you ever considered the thought that the adults who work with your child on a daily basis may be right?

But even if it is poor teaching or poor behaviour control, then what? You’re just going to allow your son to continue to misbehave and fall behind until what happens? There isn’t going to be a miracle teacher who comes in and sorts him out, he either knuckles down or he fails, and you fail him by looking for other people to blame.

If your child is being treated the same way by multiple teachers, then surely your child is the common denominator? Its not rocket science. Also, why not move schools if you think the teachers are that bad, no way I'd allow my child at a school if I thought the teachers were treating them unfairly

I agree that SEN is a completely different thing BUT I have to say that when I sit on PX Panels in a couple of schools so |I see the worst behaved DC who have displayed really extreme behaviour over a long period there is always bad parenting involved.

Is it only your child being sent out? Presumably all the children are behaving in a similarly bad fashion with the low calibre of the teacher then. You sound like the problem.

🤣

Therin lies the problem, doesn't it?
Poor teaching or poor teacher training can't possibly be a factor. There is a lot more wrong in schools than just poor behaviour from pupils that gets blamed on parents. But no, it has to be my little darling Tarquin and his overbearing mother who are at fault.

But it is financially possible.

It would require a different economic system, but it is completely possible.

The analysis of the last 20 years of neoliberal globalism in the 'you don't need tariffs, you need a revolution' meme applies as much to the UK as it does to the US.

Part of the problem is that every time anyone says anything like ‘bad behaviour is the fault of poor parenting’ or ‘children starting school in nappies is a big problem’ then people start saying ‘what about children with SEN’ when that is not the issue.

I don’t think it’s just parenting no. I work in secondary, and almost all of our biggest behaviour issues are SEND children. There’s a couple who aren’t, and of those one of them is currently being assessed, but the most extreme behavioural issues are students with SEND who seem to be untouchable. Everything is put back on staff. We’ve got huge classes, and as soon as a kid kicks off we have to explain what we did. Did we follow their plan? Did they have adequate warnings? Did we use their name? Talk in a calm manner? Offer a chance to go for a walk outside? And it’s usually the parents who want all this information as if they are looking for a loophole for their child to not be sanctioned. It’s so hard to manage all of these plans when you have a class with so many different plans in action, it feels like spinning plates. If you have 8 plans in a class, and all 8 kids are misbehaving, it’s really hard to follow the behaviour policy and ensure each step of the plan is being followed- don’t make eye contact with A as he’ll see it as a challenge, don’t let B get near C because they’ll fight, but make sure to allow B regular breaks out of his seat, use a soft tone for D and give them options, but an assertive and literal tone for E. It’s exhausting, and then at the end of the day we get emails from parents saying their kid won’t be sanctioned because of a small loophole and then wonder why it all happens again the next day.

‘Not receiving an education’
This is why I’ve left mainstream teaching sadly. I just couldn’t continue once I realised SLT think this is acceptable for SEN children.

All written instructions is absolutely unreasonable. How could a teacher ever achieve that? I can't see how a parent could possibly do that either?

“We are sorry. Prolonged lockdowns caused far more problems than they solved. We are deeply, deeply regretful that we failed to oppose them, that we were complicit in stifling any debate about them, that we threw children under the bus in the hope of lowering the death figures, and that at every turn, we opposed any lifting of the restrictions which caused so much damage to our children, and the most vulnerable members of our society.”

We can only dream of a politician saying this. Indeed, none of them want to admit that the lockdowns which most of them cheered on caused massive, massive damage.

Your last sentence is bang on and one of the reasons I left teaching.

The extended Covid lockdowns put a great batch of children and young people through the mill - from the newborns to university students - they all paid the price.

Then poof! it's all over and we go back to normal; maybe fine for us fully grown adults not so fine for those young brains forced into 'solitude' by 'fear of death' or 'harming others'.

Of course there's going to be an effect on their behaviour today.

"I know of some placements which cost tens of thousands per week for 1 child."
Yes, this does happen but it is always for the most extreme cases (less than a handful per Local Authority). There is no way LAs are funding £380k plus packages for children who don't absolutely need them. Exceptionally needs placements used to be part of my job.

"a bespoke education for half of kids just isn’t financially possible."
Again, very few children get a 'bespoke' education (I.e. EOTAS) as you have to prove that it would be inappropriate for that child to attend any school. It certainly won't ever be "half of kids". I think the number of children in special schools is still like 1%?

"Plus before any child with SEMH issues gets a referral to CAMHS, they should have college confiscation of screens, gaming and junk food for 3 months."
This is silly. So because they have mental health problems you'd take away all their screens? You still, despite your own thread, can't completely prove a causal link. No expert would ever advocate for this and it wouldn't work.

The accommodations my ASD child needs are basically free and are things great teachers do by default.

Things like providing all instructions in writing. They might also provide them verbally because some students understand them best that way, but my child needs them written down. Things like not pairing students in group work where the smart well behaved ASD girl is being used to both control and teach the boisterous boy who is falling being. Yes, it’s not worded that way, but that is actually in my child’s plan because it happened so often.

when we meet to write the plan, we ask the teachers on the committee how to frame things in a way that will help our child, but not be a burden on them.

Not all special needs provisioning is complicated or expensive. Yet we have been met time and time again with teachers who are outright hostile to being expected to comply with our child’s plan. These classrooms always seem to be horribly run in general.

Classroom behavior and management could go a long way towards improving just by looking at the teachers who automatically do the kind of things that make the experience better for vulnerable children. Those practices make the learning environment better for all children.