'Well-behaved' girls 'socialising' 'challenging' boys at primary school

How would I know what the solution is I'm not a teacher I havent when to university I haven't had training. But what do any if us do when we are faced with challenging behaviour ? We research on line. Join forums like this one. Get advice. Lokl for articles published about dealing with particular issues. There must be more ideas out there besides. Find a quiet kid.

The behaviour just needs to be dealt with as opposed to hidden. Because by picking that quiet child one who will carry on being kicked punched etc isn't dealing with abything it's just hiding it. There must be sanctions at school?loss of break, banned from trips, suspensions maybe. You can't just throw yiu r hands in the air muttering about funding and carry on as you are knowing full well that quiet kid is being assaulted unde your nose.

I have not seen the pattern before. i just thought it was rotten luck that her reading partner/computer partner/deskmate was always a naughty boy.

My personal experience was decades ago. It's horrendous this is still happening but from what I've read about schools continuing to cover up sexual assault it's SAMO. On or off school property, the assault of pupils results in victim blaming and preferential treatment of the benighted offenders.

If my experience were repeated today, I have no confidence that schools would intervene to protect the casualty of the beating. Like me, they'd have to continue to share a classroom with those who had carried out what would be categorised as GBH had they been older.

Giles I'm not saying it's the child's fault though am I. I'm saying you aren't moving anywhere near a solution by blaming somebody who has few other options.

Again you seem to think there is a solution teachers just can't be arsed to use. What do you think this solution is?

I’ve found my Dd is often the target of the problem student. At first I thought it was dumb luck, then I realized it is because the teacher seats her next to those students. They don’t say anything, they just put the well-behaved smart girl next to the troublemaker. Eventually there will be an incident that is significant enough that we can insist the particular student no longer be allowed on the same side of the classroom as mine, let alone seated side by side.

One year it was hair pulling that got excused away because of special needs. It took my Dd getting hit with a lunchbox to get the situation dealt with.

Last year, the troublemaker took one of my dd’s Papers and covered it in swear words. Then he told the teacher she had done it. Thankfully the teacher knew better, and we were finally able to get him seated away from her for the remainder of the year.

My tolerance for inclusion and understanding for troubled kids has been tested to the point of breaking. Thankfully this year’s teacher is unconventional and I don’t think she will use this peer model technique.

Oh god this is happening to my daughter, right now.

I have not seen the pattern before. i just thought it was rotten luck that her reading partner/computer partner/deskmate was always a naughty boy.

I will keep a very very close eye on it now and challenge it if it happens again. wow. Thanks for the information.

The shitty situation is also not the kids fault though is it.

And if an adult with years of training cabt cope then what on earth makes anyone think a young child. One who's still learning themselves, can succeed where every adult the other kid has met has failed?

River as i said before I really dint think it’s girls been used to calm disruptive children.
It’s just the quieter ones, the ones that won’t make a fuss.
Both of mines have been ‘used’ like this. They are both boys.

It’s not an issue with NAMALT. More that it’s the sort of technique used by teachers, regardless of the sex of the pupils.
I do agree though thatbthe aortnif disruption we are talkingout is more likely to be coming form a boy.
The child with the calming influence can be a boy or a girl imo.

And some of those really fab teachers who go above and beyond have never really been in truely challenging situations. Difficult maybe but not truely challenging. It's easy to be all bells and whistles with the wind behind you. Some of the crap ones are actually just drowning, knowing everyone thinks they are shitty when in fact they are in an impossible situation.

The reason this situation exists has very little to do with the quality of the teacher, though obviously it contributes, and almost entirely to do with a chronically underfunded service, scarce support, no back up and a constant message that if you can't handle what is in front of you, it's your fault. You are a failure. No matter how extreme the situation.

My main point being that this won't end if we do not pin point the root cause of the problem. Scapegoating teachers with few other options won't create the solution .

Using girls as a tool to pacify disruptive boys is forcing girls to perform unpaid emotional labour at a very early age. This conditions girls to do unpaid emotional labour for life.

When the girl is forced to sit next to a boy who kicks her, tries to touch her indecently, shoves her in the middle of writing so that her pencil is jolted and writing is disrupted, and otherwise infringes upon her body and mind, this is a state-sanctioned, teacher-imposed violation of her boundaries. How is she supposed to learn boundaries and learn to trust her intuition about a "wrong'un" to steer clear of dangerous men if she is forced to sit next to a boundary-violating boy?

Teachers, you are the ones who are paid and trained to do the job. You do your job without enslaving* girls to do it for you.

• What else do you called forced, unpaid emotional labour?

No I just believe teachers are people and as such some are fab. Some go above and beyond. Some get to know their class and help every single one of them. And some will be rude or lazy or shouty or knowingly turn a blind eye to things that would make their life difficult. And everything in between.

There are plenty if people here with direct experience of these methods and how they fail both parties.

Giles you obviously believe teachers are made of eyes with x-ray vision and have magic powers to solve all problems and yet they choose to ignore violent behaviour for mysterious reasons of their own. I can see why you would find these situations frustrating.

arranfan and YY it's victim-blaming and deeply unreasonable to expect kids to navigate this.

Because, if you read the thread title and OP, what is being discussed is the situations where well-behaved girls appear to be used to address the behaviour of challenging boys.

Feel free to start your own thread about well-behaved boys being used to address the behaviour of devious girls. And now that extends into real life beyond the primary classroom. Somehow, though I’m happy to be proved wrong, you won’t get as many responses. But well done with your attempt at NAMALT.

@luckymumny I agree!!!! Annoys me that boys always presumed to be the problem when girls are far more devious!!!!

When the girls start beating me up or groping my vulva, I'll regard them as being as bad as the boys.

Dealing with the behaviour. They seem to be able to notice no tie in a sea of 400 plus children in a hall. I don't believe they can't see a kid misbehaving sorry.

No. The disruptive child is noticed because of the obvious disruption otherwise they wouldn't have been moved next to a less disruptive child. A child quietly distracting or hitting/kicking another isn't always obvious. Hence why being more vocal about what is happening is beneficial to the child being hurt.

Again, I'm still wondering what it is you think teachers should be doing first that would solve the problem and yet use no time, money or resources that they just can't be arsed to do in the first place.

Of course they notice. Or the kid wouldn't have been classes as disruptive and moved in the first place. And these children you think should change who they are are picked precisely because of the very natures of their personality you say they should be changing. You cant use these kids to your advantage then blame it all on them for not speaking up. So as I said. When all these quiet kids start speaking up what do the teachers do then and why can't it be implemented from the beginning.

I agree!!!! Annoys me that boys always presumed to be the problem when girls are far more devious!!!!

Giles do you believe teachers should be lying on the floor looking for kicking legs? What about all the unwatched hands when they are on the floor?

They might have to spend some time actually teaching. So for the most part, if children don't say something is wrong, it won't be noticed.

I'm also not sure what you think they 'should' be doing from the start? Seeing as teachers have very little power over resources, external agencies etc etc

I could advocate for myself - I had to. I was a child with a significant disability in a mainstream school.

I had to advocate for myself despite hostile teachers and students. Something that wasn't helped by assigning the flower of local sociopathology to me to help them with their reading or generally socialist them.

It didn't prevent me from being beaten to a pulp and literally unconscious. It hasn't prevented that beating from having long-term consequences.

But yes adults - feel free to offload all of that responsibility onto a young child.

Yes - I'm bitter and resentful that it's still happening and still being left up to (predominantly) girls and women to solve.

The girls in her class who are little buggers do more underhand / quiet stuff, from what I've seen and heard. So the girls exclude, say mean stuff etc. While the boys are more loud and hitty.

Both bad behaivours in different ways.

I mean, I stead of trying to get kids to speak up etc why can't they act as if they would if they had mone of these quiet compliant kids and focus on the disruptive child themselves.

Can I just ask.... why is it always presumed to be naughty boys?? I remember some awful girls that were badly behaved when I was at school too?!!

So again.Why can't they just do this stuff yo start witg?