What exactly is the strictness in English schools actually achieving?

Lovely ☺️

Can get in the bin? That’s the way you speak to people in real life? You can’t think as a professional that’s ok? I’m amazed at your manners - maybe they are saved up for MN.

Do you want your child to have teachers, or don't you?

Thank you

Lovely 🥰

Lunch hour <hollow laugh> our lunch 45 minutes takes place between ps 4 and 5. P5 is getting longer by the day. I’ve timed our whistle; 36 minutes. Sigh.

And any non-teacher who suggests a teacher can just 'do that in their lunch hour or after school' can get in the bin.

I wouldn't have the conversation during class. I would have it after lesson, during break, lunch or after school.

Disruptive children are well known for happily giving up their social time for conversations about their behaviour.

However, you’re right about the personal attacks and I apologise.

You couldn’t have it at the times you say as those are pupils own times. They need their breaks just like staff do. Even after lesson is a bad time because you would make them late for their next and impact on a colleague. Just saying.

Oh don't get me wrong. I know that is the case a lot of the time.

I think with how toxic this discussion has become the lines between the funding pressures and idiocy of a 1950s style curriculum that doesn't reflect modern life, the move towards a stricter rules based culture and expectation behaviour generally and individual teacher behaviour has all become blurred.

I did really well at school and for the most part enjoyed my time there. Never got a detention or in trouble. They allowed me the space to learn how to push for change effectively and at times encouraged it. There was a natural inclusion culture that meant those of us who were ND didn't struggle (which is in part why there are so many late diagnosis now.)

I look at how schools are now - the not fit for purpose curriculum, the lack of natural inclusion, the virtually termly updates and changes to the behaviour policies, some of the dafter rules and ridiculously strict uniform policies

And then specifically my own kids school from my interactions with them, as well as what the kids say.

I can say with near certainty that if I had gone through the school system as it is today, I wouldn't have done anywhere near as well. In fact I may very well have ended up being a school refuser!

Most teachers are trying their best within a culture that limits them - some teachers, like some kids are just dicks.

Either way, at the end of the day, its the kids tjat suffer the consequences of it.

You took an anecdote about an individual teacher who doesn't use seating plans, allows kids to piss about but who, according to your DD can still get the kids to do the work and made it a universal truth.

It's not a universal truth. 'That's the teacher who can get the kids to be quiet and do the work just by asking'. No, it's often not.

If you are unable to be respectful during a discussion with adults who don't agree with you and consistently resort to personal attacks, why would I assume you would behave any differently in the classroom?

What a completely stupid comment, but typical.

There is flex in the majority of cases. Where there isn't, kids have usually been utter dicks. Despite your child's reports.

I don't disagree at all

Hence my frustration with having that expectation of children in the classroom.

You didn't call me a liar while claiming the anecdote I shared could not possibly be true

Run that one by me again will you. Or are you calling my daughter a liar? Why would she lie about it in a perfectly normal day to day conversation - there was no motive, reason or benefit to her to so.

What bit do you feel is untrue - that the teacher doesn't have a seating plan? That she lets the kids talk when it is appropriate but then asks them to lock in when she needs them to listen? That she can ask and the vast vast majority of the time they listen?

Also I didn't 'decide' anything about how you treat your pupils, I made an assumption based on the content and tone of your responses on this thread.

If you are unable to be respectful during a discussion with adults who don't agree with you and consistently resort to personal attacks, why would I assume you would behave any differently in the classroom?

Never ever going to happen. With the best will in the world. There are too many variables for humans to be 100% consistent at all times. As you've repeatedly said, conversations and understanding lead to better outcomes. Those conversations are irrelevant and might as well not happen if 100% consistency is the goal. There has to be some flex in places and some accountability for individual circumstances.

Right so you decided to assume that I don't treat my pupils with respect and have gone on long and tedious rants at me when in fact you misread what I said and do actually agree with it?

Also, I didn't call you a liar, I said that this "The teacher who doesn't have a seating plan, only implements seat moves as part of the behaviour policy not as a weird powerplay, chats to the kids, sometimes lets them get loud but lays out their expectations at the start of the year. That's the teacher that can say "Quiet now everyone, its time to work" and they are listened to."

was untrue. Which it is. Laughably untrue.

Well - yes.

If a school can't get 200 adult, professionally trained staff who choose to work then and get paid for it to all behave in a consistent way and comply with policy, it just serves to further highlight how ridiculous it is to demand it from 1500 teenagers who don't have a choice to be there without being willing to engage in discussions about why it might not be working.

Not once have I said children shouldn't be expected to behave or that rules should be optional nor have I ever said there shouldn't be sanctions.

I can understand the fairly basic and accepted psychological position that it is perfectly normal and healthy for teenagers to push boundaries and defiance will be exacerbated by the attempted enforcement of blatantly stupid rules which blurs the boundaries of the reasonable ones.

I've said that if pupils think rules are inappropriate they should argue for change through appropriate channels and that schools should encourage that type of dialogue and critical thinking as part of learning.

I can agree that children should be expected to behave but that I think that expectation should come with an expectation of mutual earned respect, not top down authoritarianism and that we should seek to understand what drives children to misbehave.

None of those things are mutually exclusive.

All of your responses to me up until my suggestion of talking to pupils had been personal attacks including calling me a liar when I talked about my DDs experience of teachers that did take the time to speak with their pupils.

I assumed that given your already stated time constraints, your contempt for the idea of mutual respect and the view that I was lying about our experiences with teachers who did what I was suggesting, that it was something you had not done.

Maybe I was incorrect in that assumption - but Instead of responding in a mature and professional way and saying you had already done so but it hadn't worked for x, y, z reasons, or a, b, c is what works best and furthering the discussion you chose to launch yet another personal attack this time with CAPITALS!

@BloominNora I don't think anything you've said is inherently outlandish, disrespectful of other posters on here, or even wrong. I'm baffled by why it's become so toxic with defensiveness and incorrect assumptions (such as the one that it was me and my mates misbehaving in the classroom, when my best friend at the time was head girl and I was a prefect). People who are not teachers but who have experienced education from a different perspective can and should be able to voice an opinion (respectfully) without derision.

Huh? I have literally no idea how you've got that from anything I've said. 🤔

If it matters though, I was never once sent out of a classroom, never had a detention, I was never shouted at and got mostly As and Bs at both GCSE and A Level. I think you have me confused with someone else.

Not through lack of trying!

Turns out running a sch relies on ~200 people all saying and doing the same thing...

As was ever thus!

My first interaction with noblegiraffe was when they decided to take the idea that respect should be mutual and earned as a personal slight and critique on her own teaching methods.

I said "Spare us the parents who tell us that teachers have to 'earn the respect' of their pupils before they should be expected to behave for us."

You still have no idea what my teaching methods are, but do you identify with the suggestion that pupils shouldn't be expected to behave for teachers who they don't respect?

And yet many schools are still massively inconsistent 💁