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

Anxiety or whatever? We’re not allowed to be anxious anymore ?

People suffered from anxiety 30 years ago. They were just forced through it. I can remember being sat outside having resigned from a corporate job and having what would now be described as a panic attack we just didn’t know what it was called then.

Seems cruel to push them through these things if they don’t have to and they don’t.

Homeschooling is absolutely not the answer, I see the homeschool groups at museums etc when with my preschooler and they’re the same kids who can’t handle the social side of school, because of anxiety or whatever. Don’t want my children growing up with that social contagion being the majority of their peer group, social skills are as important as academic ones for future happiness and success.

I admittedly have a narrow viewpoint as my job is around social care/mental health/criminal justice.

So I inevitably hear about the most troubling/challenging/worrying cases.

But they're all mainstream secondary schools where wands are being used that I'm talking about. In addition to them sometimes being used in specialised schools or referral units.

And more in secondary but weapons in schools problems are an increasing problem in mainstream PRIMARY schools. Though I'm not aware of wands being used there. Yet.

Most schools will have a weapons in schools policy now.

It’s not for their benefit though is it? It’s for the benefit of the rest of the class who can actually get on and learn without them there, and frankly that’s who I care about.

@frozendaisy

"But neither do teachers in main stream
They are trained to teach a class not dedicate their entire lesson to one child."
Actually, completely agree with you here.

"It should be, well it is for us, if you want your child in main stream, especially if you push for a particular school, they need to be able to cope with the lessons as they are, right now, with whatever support is available."
I've met less than a handful of kids with parents pushing mainstream even where I thought it was totally inappropriate. The vast majority of parents with children with significant SEND in mainstream are absolutely desperate to get them into specialist settings.

"I didn’t think much of it at the beginning of our teens entering secondary, but their lessons are minimally disrupted because pupils get removed. No one has time for this nonsense lesson after lesson. They both go to academies with higher than average expulsion rates. It works for us, we don’t see that as a failing. Quite the opposite."
Inclusion as it was imagined has totally and utterly failed everyone. I personally think the answer either lies in radically changing our idea of mainstream education or hugely upping the number of specialist settings (which is segregation but I honestly think that currently most children with significant SEND are happier, healthier and better educated in special schools).

How widespread is that do you know?

Those kids just aren't going to comply but you can't have them in regular class because then nobody gets a proper education.

In a lot of cases they shouldn't even be in mainstream education.

I agree. There's barely any discipine/law compliance in lots of places anymore in the adult world, so it's hardly surprising that schools are suffering from it too. Too many people have no regard for laws/rules anymore, and that will permeate throughout society.

It depends on the school. In the worst inner city comps, I can imagine it's unmanageable and made worse by some of the irresponsible immigration we've had since Blair (and the general mass-liberalism since he came in). You've also got kids who just shouldn't be in mainstream education but special schools have been cut back on.

But there are schools that are just soft and won't back their own teachers up over some feral yob of a kid and back down to their unruly parents.

Our society is in the gutter in general so schools are only an extension of that. Law and order is long gone.

Or perhaps they see that the classes those children aren't in are actually getting some teaching done?

What, in your experience does work for children such as these?

I get the impression you haven't had much to do with education for a long time. Or just experience of a certain type of school.

We're employing teachers now for whom part of their working day is 'wanding' DCs bands and person to check for weapons Yes, the type of 'wand' the security in an airport use.

You're about 20 years behind the 'discipline in schools' debate. It's gone way beyond 'send them out of class' as a solution.

Yes, it is far worse now. I've already explained why 'kick a couple out and crack on' doesn't work. Schools do establish their rules from day 1. Why wouldn't they? Parents of badly-behaved kids do know the disciplinary procedures. They just either can't or won't make their dc behave, or they are all in favour of the procedures until the procedures are used on their child. I've also explained that the measures you mention do not change the behaviour of the many regular offenders. Schools simply aren't allowed to just keep kids out of class long-term (internally or on suspension).

The reason it matters that lots of kids don't care about punishments is that they don't create a deterrent (except to the kids who do care and are therefore not behaving in this way). This is one of the reasons that 'zero tolerance' doesn't necessarily work well except in schools with massive parental support for it (like in the Michaela school). The good kids are terrified and stressed by it, while the regular miscreants carry right on behaving badly.

Honestly, do you think schools just don't bother thinking about how to deal with the behaviour problems that plague them every day and affect their results? If the standard punishments worked, we wouldn't be in this mess!

Honestly if I had young children i'd homeschool or go private, whatever I could afford, than put them in the liberal hellhole of the typical comp these days, where it's the yobs and their feckless parents who have all the rights and other kids who should be in specialist schools making the learning environment impossible for everyone else.

Everything is back to front in this country these days.

But neither do teachers in main stream
They are trained to teach a class not dedicate their entire lesson to one child.

It should be, well it is for us, if you want your child in main stream, especially if you push for a particular school, they need to be able to cope with the lessons as they are, right now, with whatever support is available.

I didn’t think much of it at the beginning of our teens entering secondary, but their lessons are minimally disrupted because pupils get removed. No one has time for this nonsense lesson after lesson. They both go to academies with higher than average expulsion rates. It works for us, we don’t see that as a failing. Quite the opposite.

I don't think many people understand what it's like to parent or educate children with additional needs at all.

I don't want to sound like a snob, but quite a lot of parents (whether their children have SEND or not) would not have the skills to deliver specialist approaches to fully educate disabled children. It's not just a case of common sense and repetition as it is with neurological children.

Not just parenting. Also the enormous volume of children with specific needs schools are trying to cater to, which is to the detriment of all children including those who would manage well in a “normal” school environment were they not being confronted with challenging and violent behaviour all day every day and expected to put up with it in the name of inclusivity.

Maybe it's just far worse now, but there's always been a few disruptive kids in class. Their behaviour wouldn't be tolerated, they'd be kicked out and the class would crack on.

Zero tolerance needs to be put in place before the first day of term. Parents should be made aware of the disciplinary procedures and that the school will back the teachers. Whether the pupil cares or not, if they disrupt the lesson then they're out, if they continue they're suspended.

Then parents of these children need to find a way so they can be in that class. A teacher, as has been pointed out, has plenty to get through.

What do the parents think is going to happen when their children look for a job not being able to follow instructions or questioning authority? Isn’t that part of what the parents and those children need to get to grips with?

Because if there are children whom will never get an education in main stream as it is they will need other workers to pay tax, so let the ones who have a chance get on with it instead of lesson after lesson after lesson being lost for everyone because one child “questions authority”.

They get dragged out of our teens’s schools by the Head and put in a separate room with worksheets because what else can you do? They can question authority all they like then. And have separate break ties because other children don’t deserve to be on the receiving end of their frustrations either.

@SomethingInnocuousForNowbut then we go back to making excuses for the behaviour, yes it might be the reason but diagnosis or not, there needs to be consequences or boundaries and give the children strategies to support them to regulate. Low level disruption or not is still harming others learning - whether they have SEN or not! It’s still not ok! Especially at secondary.

I taught between 2002 and 2008 and even then we had demanding, entitled parents who assumed that we would change an entire course to suit their little darling. Then we had the parents who didn’t go to school much themselves and so didn’t respect teachers or education and would think nothing if phoning up the school and objecting to any minor bit of discipline.
Other parents were great and supportive, but the ones who were shit and who raised kids to become disrespectful and impossible to teach sadly spoilt it for the kids and their parents who really wanted to learn and get good grades and get the fuck out of the shitty area where they lived.
I was then a school,Governor for 12 years and, guess what? It was still the same. Shitty parents raising shitty kids who spoil it for the ones who want to learn.

Yes, I'm aware what they are there for, having been a teacher for 30 years (now in a girls' grammar school, thank god - I've done my time and won't go back). What do you do when a 3rd of the class don't care? How do you supervise potentially multiple kids per class who don't care, in a school of nearly 2000 students? You are not seeing the scale of the problem (in some, not all schools, obviously).

It's getting the disruptive kids who 'don't care' out the lesson, if they won't behave, so everyone else can learn which is what they're there for.