To think disruptive behaviour in schools is out of hand?

I’m a teacher in a large comprehensive secondary and I don’t recognise these comments at all. Our school has a good behaviour policy that everyone follows and I would say very little lesson time (if any) is taken with dealing with disruption.

I suspect that the parents of children with SEND, high needs etc disproportionately choose other schools. Michaela can’t overtly select, but simply by having the policies they do they put off a whole segment of the population from sending their kids there.

Take my child with SEN as an example - even without all the other ridiculous policies, a school that bans all outside foods and insists on a pescatarian sit down school lunch each day is not accessible to my child with autism and a very restricted diet. I’m unwilling to send them to a school where they can’t eat anything all day. Therefore I would send them to any other school. It skews their intake.

She went into my 'unreconstructed class warrior who should go back to the 1980s' box within weeks of her appointment.

And how much guidance would you think appropriate before she is booted out, given that her ‘messing about’ is impacting the learning of her peers ?

@InMyShowgirlEra

In my opinion, Supernanny gets it right. But she is providing the boundaries and guidance - so she is the key person to the improvement in behaviour. And I still think it’s not the child’s ‘fault’ if they haven’t been given the right support.

Yep. Streaming for behaviour as well as intellect

And along with it more scrutiny so more people will get to find out what she's really like. I'm looking forward to it.

She only speaks in slogans which have no substance behind them. Start seriously listening to what she says, there is zero actual meaning behind it other than constantly making digs at independent schools.

I would say the majority of kids will be disruptive at some point or another, they are children after all.

She does bang on about a 'broad and balanced education' and 'every child having a high quality education'. I find her self-righteous and rigid. It looks as though her star is on the rise, however.

Asking well behaved kids to share a classroom with disruptive kids is just like women being asked to share loos with transwomen. No They shouldn’t have to budge up and accommodate just because having to sort out an alternative is a ball ache for service providers. Not the well behaved kids problem to solve.

when nearly every kid in the class has ADHD what do you expect of course schools are disruptive these days

She doesn't possess the skills of "objectivity, self-knowledge and curiosity". She also has no interest in education, she really only cares about soggy toast and blazers! She has no interest in actual education

Please don't tie all parents with disruptive children together!
My child is what you call a disruptive child, he has ASD and ADHD, and his anxiety is through the roof! Which because he can not communicate effectively he meltdowns!

I sit with him in school with his 1 to 1 until 10am every day as that is all he can manage for the past 18 months sitting in a room trying to get him to push through his anxiety and help him do work!

I with the school, have fought for an EHCP! And literally begged for help from LA!
They can not meet need and he desperately needs another school but the LA knows better!

My child does not play with others, hasn't been in a classroom for over a year!
I have had to give up work,social life (my child so of course I had to).
Mostly because he can not manage mainstream and partly because it is not fair to cause disruption.

So please stop also saying that it does not effect the disruptive child because it can and does!

This is the bottom line for me. The child removed from school doesn't disappear from the community. Yes, some may find alternative schooling or be home schooled by their parents. But those where the parents really don't care will not start being educated by their parents, they will be out bored in the community with zero support or guidance. And the same people saying 'remove them from school' will be asking 'what aren't these children in school?'. Many of those removed from school live as adults in the community with limited legal means of supporting their families. Out of sight doesn't mean they cease to exist, they just become a much bigger and more serious problem for the community.

BP has blotted her copybook IMO over Michaela. Where are her objectivity, self-knowledge and curiosity? She could have said: 'Michaela's approach works. Personally, I don't like it but let me visit and see what I can learn.'

I went to a fairly ‘rough’ state school

In my experience, sixth form was absolutely fine because all the disruptive kids had left.
I also found being in the ‘top sets’ in years 7-11 meant you didn’t really get the full picture of everything going on either.

Of course that doesn’t solve the wider problems for everyone else but wondered whether it’s still the case? Or is there even problems in state sixth forms?

This is what I wish too.
I know Germany and the USA have similar systems. Seems bonkers that we don't...

They are not "disruptive." They are CHOOSING to behave in a disruptive way.

Telling them that it's someone else's fault they are disruptive and they can't stop being like that unless they get "support" is disempowering- and schools like Michaela, as much as I dislike them, prove that when accountability is put onto the child they rise to meet it.

And suddenly, they are a child who no longer chooses to act in a disruptive way. Because they know that if they do, there will be no excuse made for them.

You only have to go on the NEET Reddit subreddit and read the threads to see the consequences of not holding children accountable for anything, mollycoddling, giving into their every whim and demand or never teaching them to build resilience, go out of their comfort zone or be criticised. So many young adults with poor socialisation and work ethic on there lamenting (upon self-reflection) on how their current state is most probably due to getting away with wanting to do whatever they wanted as kid, never being held accountable for anything and being able to opt out of anything that wasn't the least bit fun or gave them endless euphoric joy.

There's also a severe shift in the age-appropriate minimum standards of behaviour or responsibility by so many children. When I was at school (bog standard state school), I can't recall a single time anyone ever asked the teacher for a pen because they didn't have one. They usually had good enough habits/muscle memory to bring one each day or they had average enough socialisation skills to ask the person next to them for one. So many kids these days seem to have neither. We even took our exercise books home for each subject each night and then bought them in the next day. Even the most lowest ability, disruptive, neglected or deprived child brought in their pens and books. No child wasted the teachers time on not being able to do the most bare minimum low-stakes responsibility tasks possible. There wasn't this learned-helplessness. Nowadays expecting children to have a pen so time isn't wasted is tantamount to child abuse apparently.

Covid definitely exacerbated the situation but the decline was there beforehand. Covid just probably bought it forward 5 years.

Can't cope?!

I suppose you think that Axel Rudubukana "couldn't cope" when he took a knife to a roomful of little girls? Or maybe the kids running around trying to set fire to migrant hotels just need a hug?

The bar for loss of control in law is very high, and rightly so. A teenager making the decision to swear and be violent need to be made responsible for his own behaviour.

Educate them separately from non-disruptive kids obviously. Why should the rest of the class suffer?

@SallySuperTrooper

Well seeing as you’ve just written off a whole group of society there as ‘disruptive’ yes that is where the problem lies. Shall we just write them off? What would you like to do with them all? Wash our hands of them? Ship them off on a plane somewhere?

The selection is that parents have to want their DC to go there - the parent want the strict ethos.

A huge factor in making children disruptive in class is the attitude of the parents.