To think disruptive behaviour in schools is out of hand?

I hate the Michaela ethos. I know for me it would have caused massive anxiety and I'd have constantly been in trouble for things that I now know were caused by ADHD. I wasn't disruptive but I was distractable and forgetful. My daughter would also find it extremely anxiety inducing for different reasons.

However, I also think that children who want to learn shouldn't have that ruined by children who don't.

Maybe every catchment needs a Michaela style school and a more relaxed school. If you demonstrate through primary school you can't behave yourself at a relaxed school, you get sent to the Michaela style school.

There need to be tougher sanctions for the persistent offenders (not those with SEND). Mine go to a pretty good secondary in a pretty nice area. There are still some feral kids and I often seethe about how their selfishness is disrupting my DCs education. How dare they?! Overwhelmingly it tends to be boys and I think there’s a really misogynistic approach taken to punishments - boys will be boys and all that. I’m not backwards at coming forwards when I think this needs to be pointed out to the school.

What caused this attitude? Covid maybe?

Isnt this why classes are streamed in state school? I remember in my high school days all the disruptive ones were clumped together in third year. I know DS found it got a lot easier when he hit third year and they were filtered by ability.

I once read that way back when the leaving age was 12 it was actually age 12 OR if a child had passed Standard 5 (Year 7 in new money).
Many boys apparently would work extra hard to pass early so they could leave.
I don't know how big amounts of children that actually was though.

I have a sen child too. Which is why they needed private school as they could cope with the screeching rampant chaos of the state secondary. She can behave wonderfully. It’s the crazy, screeching chair throwers that shouldn’t be included.

Plymouth UTC takes children from yr 7. It's a valid choice compared to the local Comprehensive schools.

Did boys used to have exams at a different time?

Admittedly for centuries a lot of boys weren't in school for long but working

I have a different perspective on this because I clerk exclusion panels for a living.

So first I think schools can and do exclude pupils and can and do suspend pupils. (We dont get 10-20k fines in my LA)

Second, every exclusion I have been in has shown a long list of external agencies to the school letting pupils down. I am not blaming the agencies, they are also underfunded /staffed.

But i do think if send support, social services, youth mentors, etc were functioning there would be less of an issue and I dont think schools can solve these problems alone.

Thats before you get to just general class disruption that is no way near the level of suspension..

Used to be a TA but left due the constant stress of poor behaviour, no budgets and children who did need support not getting enough funding.
I work in a totally different sector now and I love it but I still have many friends and family members working in education because it’s their true vocation.
I met up with some of them last week to catch up and one was saying that a 5 year old turned around and told her that she couldn’t tell her off, her Mum had told her so and that she would tell her Mum if they did….
my own children are polite and academic but some of their lessons have been chaos because of poor classroom behaviour.

Amen.

Ikwym. I still want women to be able to work though. If SEN children are mainly the ones being disruptive (do we know for sure?) Then I think the answer is to stop the mainstream solution.

Hasn't school attendance always been compulsory?

That is an issue - I was also thinking that a route back is needed at 16 or perhaps older. There used to be really good adult education but as you say it's been hollowed out massively. I did a GCSE in Italian at "night school" but you can't do that where I live anymore.

Why are you using the word "inclusion"? A lot of SEN kids are much better behaved than some others, who have just learnt at home that it's ok to mess around and waste everyone's time. And that you shouldn't respect school teachers.

Not controversial at all, it makes perfect sense to me.

This Idea was put to me by a teacher at my son's school. Exams come at the wrong time for boys.
They are immature (not all obviously). Let them loose into the world to grow up.
Even the Amish have the rumspringa for their teenagers.

@Absentosaur

Not sure I agree. Is that from a right wing newspaper?

I’ve taught in both and find the overwhelming factor for good behaviour is a strong SLT with clear behaviour policy. And I’ve seen this work best in a state school in a deprived area.

Worst behaviour I’ve seen is in private, where SLT were more focussed on ‘show’ and selling - than clear strategies and provision. However they do sell well and I think most parents believe the hype.

There is more low level bad behaviour too - helping out on trips etc, I was amazed to see that pit of a class of 33, only two kids heard their name the first time when the teacher was doing a register before leaving as the rest were chatting.

i don’t think that would’ve happened twenty years ago…exasperating for the teacher.

I'm a school governor at a primary school locally, where my kids now attend (I joined as gov before they were school aged). It's a good school, Ofsted Good, and a village primary in a pleasant area.

I was shocked to see the behaviour of the children during my first year visiting and it really opened my eyes. I initially played the role of Gov responsible for monitoring safeguarding, but now also responsible for monitoring SEN provision. The school does so much to support SEN, but it still leads to lots of disruption for other children in the classes. A fair chunk of SEN kids would honestly be far better supported in a specialist school, but the places are non-existent.

Meanwhile, there are some non-SEN kids that cause a lot of disruption too. Sometimes these children have chaotic family lives etc., but many come from totally 'naice' normal families. They just have no respect or care for rules. One in particular was physically hurting staff and children regularly, the school tried to keep him away from other children as far as possible for their safety but this just left the poor support staff being hurt and two ended up on sick leave with stress. Parents, staff etc. all asking for action to be taken to remove pupil permanently but it was so so difficult to actually do in practice. So many hurdles for school to jump through that LA set before perm exclusion could even be considered. It was shocking to witness. Add to that the fact that perm exclusions are not viewed positively by Ofsted, and the school itself becomes less inclined to opt for this outcome as the last resort.

Absolutely.

The issue is that in the schools that are unsupportive DC are much more likely to reach crisis point regularly.