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

It's a separate but very related issue.

It's not all about 'severity' but just taking autism and ADHD (although I detest that SEND has basically been reduced to these two), for some (not all) kids with these forms of neurodivergence, even if they don't have 'severe' needs, things like shouting out, getting out of their seat, saying inappropriate things, forgetting equipment, struggling to follow instructions, questioning authority / not understanding hierarchy, low level disruption are a core part of their diagnoses.

This displays a total lack of understanding of the situation. What do you think teachers can actually do to discipline these kids? You can't possibly be naïve enough to think that merely warning or removing from a lesson the kind of kids who are capable of displaying this kind of appalling behaviour is enough to 'end most of it at source'? Honestly that is laughable.

Essentially, schools can remove from class, give detentions, internally isolate. In extreme cases briefly suspend. Aside from expulsion, which is rarely possible, what other forms of discipline do you think we have in our arsenal that kids (or their parents) would be remotely bothered or deterred by? They. Don't. Care. And in the case of detention they often don't bother turning up. Even the ones who do turn up, or who are put in isolation, it doesn't remotely change their behaviour afterwards. You see exactly the same kids in detention and iso, week after week.

Yeah, but that's a school problem. The schools should back their teachers and not kowtow to feckless parents and their yobbish offspring.

Schools can't wonder why behaviour is bad when they won't instill discipline.

Just have a detention room through the day. If the kids kick off there as well then suspend them.

Zero tolerance to bad behaviour will end most of it.

Replace "won't" with "can't" and you may have something. How about the time my colleague was told to fuck off by 15 yo in front of a class. He was removed pending investigation which turned into a shit show of parental denial and threats, the other kids being too scared to be witnesses and my colleague being told therefore that it was her word against his so it wouldn't stand up. She threatened to resign if he was put back in her class so he got to move up a set. He told her to fuck off btw because she had asked him to put his phone away and engage with the lesson.

I was doing differentiated work when l
oeft in 2021. It’s a basic core of teaching.

You need plenty of staff to deal with even minimal levels of "kicking out". You can't just have kids roam the corridors or the streets.

I actually feel like it’s mainstream that needs to change. We teach everything far too fast and move on before half the class has cemented a concept as we have so much to fit in.

No there needs to a return to differentiated work. There are more able children who aren't challenged by it at all and are bored. The problem is they are trying to do this levelling approach of giving all the kids exactly the same, its simultaneously incredibly off putting/too hard for the lower 20% who are struggling, and boring/too easy and lacking engagement for the upper 20% who are more academically inclined.

@SomethingInnocuousForNow
but it’s not just those children with severe SEN who are ‘misbehaving’ and SEN is a separate issue to behaviour in school, as especially in secondary as it’s not necessarily the SEN children misbehaving, but kids with attitudes and think the world resolves around them and thinking they are equals to teachers (and their parents)! And don’t like hearing the word NO!

Whilst the education system needs to change and hopefully will go back to old labour and explores the creative, curiosity approach to education rather than test test data data, death by powerpoint, which is killing the love of learning for children and teachers.

But, Attitudes and entitlement of children and parents need to change and children need boundaries and consequences - not you’ve attacked your teacher, trashed the classroom- have a biscuit and an iPad and then go back to class and carry on as normal.

Doesn't help though does it !!!!

Children test boundaries, it's what they do.

If a child disrupts the lesson they should be kicked out, or at best get one warning. Same if they disrespect the teacher. That would end most of it at source. If schools/teachers won't discipline children then they can't be surprised when behaviour is bad.

It sort of is about SEND though - well unsupported SEND.

Obviously, not all children with SEND have behaviour issues and not all children with behaviour issues have SEND but anyone who has worked in education or children's social care is aware that SEND is one of the biggest (if not the biggest factors in 'behaviour'). Although some posters on this thread have said "it's not about SEND", pretty much every commenting teacher has cited it as a factor.

"As a parent with a child with AuDHD if they misbehave at school, they will be told off at home. I don’t think having a diagnosis means they can do what they want without consequences that’s not life! Whilst their level of need isn’t severe, if they were being disrespectful to teacher, disrupting others learning, being violent dysregulated or not, that isn’t ok! And I feel lots of parents, who shouldn’t, use this as an excuse for their child’s poor behaviour."
I definitely recognise children like yours from when I was teaching but not all SEND / neurodivergence is the same and you've said yourself that your child's "level of need isn't severe". Imagine a child with a severe learning disability who literally can't understand consequences - their behaviour is not going to be the same as your child's.

Differences in social understanding/ behaviours is literally a core characteristic of autism, so although it might present differently in different children, some autistic children will behave differently to the expected standard and that is a core part of their diagnosis or disability. The same with impulsivity and ADHD.

The mainstream school system does not support children with SEND who present in this way, so the whole thing gets worse and worse.

This is an interesting post and I agree.

My DC's got some SEN but is academically able. She just wasn't ready for a lot of the content in primary. She's doing much better in year 7 now she has matured a bit. But we live in a grammar area so this could potentially have changed her whole life educationally, as that system relies on early academic maturity.

There shouldn't be this hard and fast division between "academic" and "vocational" pathways either. Why shouldn't we have plumbers who enjoy Shakespeare and PhDs who can mend a bike? (I'm sure such people exist but the system certainly doesn't encourage it).

I agree that the SPaG content could do with some tweaking, but I'm not sure why people get so worked up about fronted adverbials. It's just a slightly silly, off-putting name for a perfectly simple thing. I teach 3 languages and did Latin A Level. Not sure I agree aboit Latin vs English. English grammar is a bit bonkers!

It can be a struggle for those who can’t cope in mainstream school but most children with SEND don’t behave any worse than their peers.

Very low expectations from parents really doesn’t help. There seems to be an assumption from some parents that children are badly behaved, loud, charmless, unhealthy and lazy so they don’t think they are responsible for it in their own offspring.

I think doing a huge amount more enjoyable exercise at home and school would help children mentally and physically and that would lead to better behaviour and concentration. I do think it would be a game changer.

Exactly.

It's not solely children, it's a societal shift and from other posts on here from posters who attended, they didn't think it was particularly aimed at parenting as it was also talking about the aggression and violence FROM parents to staff. Which has exploded.

Same as with violence and aggression to all public sector workers, retail staff, public transport including airlines.

When our hospitals, GP surgeries, job centres, schools, housing offices, ticket offices and shops need security measures in place to protect staff from the violent and aggressive public, something is very wrong.

Which can't all be put down to poor parenting, SEN, the cost of living or whatever else the violence apologists want it to be.

I don't believe most of what teachers unions say anymore when I see bristol national teachers union trotting about trans rights parades and they can't tell me what a woman is.
I respect teachers an awful lot. I couldn't do the job they do. My DS school is a primary thrive school (academy) of excellence - a third of his school have children with SEND. My DD secondary school is an academy and has a SLT which is diabolical, constantly dishing out ridiculous rules, rewriting policies, refusing to help kids with SEND because they don't have the provisions due to recently scoring inadequate in their ofsted report. They constantly suspend kids for a day for "defiance" ... aka having the wrong shoes/socks on etc. Utter shambles.

This isn’t about SEN children.

We have a generation of children where a good proportion of them don’t respect their parents, teachers, elders or others in their community. Nothing is their fault, it’s someone else, they are entitled and they take no accountability for their actions and often parents back them up without exploring what actually might have happened. Also as someone who works in education I do feel children are more violent to each other and adults than they ever were and I work in an infant school! So the reason for this needs exploring too.

As a parent with a child with AuDHD if they misbehave at school, they will be told off at home. I don’t think having a diagnosis means they can do what they want without consequences that’s not life! Whilst their level of need isn’t severe, if they were being disrespectful to teacher, disrupting others learning, being violent dysregulated or not, that isn’t ok! And I feel lots of parents, who shouldn’t, use this as an excuse for their child’s poor behaviour.

They have just gone up to secondary school and the stories they come back with, attitude to teachers, children constantly being given detentions, sent to isolation and excluded is scary to think they are only year 7! God help the teachers as they get older!

I think we have a societal problem, parents aren’t parenting as well as they perhaps should, children aren’t having the quality time with parents they should. Life is so much rushed now, so it’s hard for parents working or not, to give the quality time due to the demands of daily life. I think technology, food quality also isn’t helping children’s young minds develop as they did.

Weak parenting, weak schools, lack of discipline, lack of boundaries, kids heads wrecked by social media and screens. Lack of specialist schools to teach children who shouldn't be in mainstream education.

That's about the size of it and it's condemning a whole generation to the scrapheap.

Don't you think the lack of care workers has more to do with the appalling pay and conditions than anything else?

I don't think that's what they were saying by the sounds of it.

I agree about too much academic filigree at a young age. I’d never even heard of fronted adverbials at age 40. The children in a school I volunteer in learn French, which is good. and I think it would be good if they learned phrases. But they seem to learn really obscure vocabulary, and exercises such as: fill in the name Yves or Chantelle in the blanks:
……. est amusant.
……. est intelligente.
They have to hear very subtle difference in the ending, which is always drowned by the cries of “I don’t get it!” I think such is for secondary, not 9 years old.

Hard one to answer as it’s not all parenting. But maybe a (large) proportion is.

I don’t think SEN are always supported well and it seems we will have more inclusion but with lower funding which won’t be good for anyone.

Dc are also subject to poor parenting, sometimes very poor and the impact of that will be seen in the classroom.

Just by chance I happened to walk past a group of around 14 year olds outside a large Sainsbury’s swearing their heads off and just hanging out. I can imagine how they are in class.

Children don't seem to "play out" any more. When I was a kid, we'd all play outside, riding bikes, roller skating, skate boarding and generally just "hanging out". We were allowed to get the bus into town (6 miles away) once we reached secondary school age. And at weekends my parents would take us on long country walks (which I hated!).

Increased traffic has made that less safe, and the cost of living means that far fewer families have a stay at home parent, so that sort of informal, unstructured play doesn't seem to happen. Consequently, I think it's harder for kids to develop the ability to entertain themselves.

Letting a bunch of 9-11 year olds go and "build camps" in the woods for hours would probably result in a visit from children's services these days.