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

No one's really answered why it's hardly ever the assertive confident kids picked. The ones who would put their hands up with "sir/miss X is kicking me under the table"
Its the ones who would put up with being kicked under the table who are picked. If you are really lucky there's a glare or telling off for talking if you tell them to stop it.
Because it's a lazy seating strategy in my opinion.

Sitting a disruptive student away from other disruptive students is reasonable.
Sitting a disruptive student next to quiet hard working students means the quiet hard working student is always expected to out up with their learning being affected and they also lose out when it comes to paired discussions (exception being if it's a normally disruptive student who behaves well for that teacher).

I tend to sit my more restless and disruptive students next to hard working, confident students (range of abilities) who'll not tolerate any nonsense. If they disrupt learning and I miss it, I know the students will call them out or make a fuss and I can intervene. Repeated attempts to disrupt other students is removal from the classroom.
I don't see why others should suffer.

But then again I've been told on MN that I'm very unreasonable for this approach

I know its been said

Yes it happens and benefits both parties

But not necessarily

And we also have to ask where this tolerance is fit the quiet well behaved kids used. Being bright and capable or appearing not to be distracted etc who's to say the child involved isn't dealing equally with many issues . Do these issues only really matter if you disrupt a class or kick off in some way?

Makes me appreciate my single sex education taught with aisles between the rows. I though it Dickensian at the time but if you didn’t want to be distracted it was hard for the distractor to achieve it without attracting the attention of the teacher.

I agree too much group work at secondary these days.

I'm in my mid 30s and this happened to me. I spent my entire GCSE French years next to the 'troublemaker'. In hindsight I assume he was in my class to separate him from his friend (I was top set and he really wasn't top set material), I found it difficult working with him and I do think I'd have done better not being sat next to him. The only plus side was that I bumped into him about 5 years ago and he thanked me for helping - apparently French was one the few gcses he didn't fail.

Me and my friends were also used as the befrienders for new starters. We absolutely hated this. We were at the worst school in the county so 99% of the people starting midterm were those who had been excluded from the better schools and whom quite frankly had absolutely no interest in socialising with us geeks yet if we didn't hang around with them we'd be in trouble.

JimmyGrimble

"Girl’s schools are best for girls"
It will still happen in an all girl environment.

To a much lesser extent. When I went from mixed primary to all-girl secondary, I went from physical beatings and sexual assault to a bit of cattiness and one outright bully who was shunned by everyone else in the year and eventually left.

Not having to face being held by two boys whilst a third punched me in the stomach, or having two boys corner me and grab my vulva, greatly improved my ability to focus in school and removed an enormous motivation to truant.

And the point is that only certain kids are ever asked to be the ones who are 'more tolerant'. What about the kids who witness how being saddled with a disruptive or less clever pupil as a responsibility, is a good reason not to be tolerant or not to show that you are clever / a good reason to misbehave

Well that's just it isn't it? I mean tolerance should be being caught to everyone and any one all the time. It's surely never just been about putting up and shutting up with certain behaviours no matter how badly it impacts you.

Yes. It happened to my dd and was very stressful for her.
Also happened to DS who was good friends with a lovely little girl with SN. He was tasked with teaching her to add up and take away. He was 7. Every day in number work he was told this was his responsibility. He became very anxious and sad that he wasn't succeeding.
But IME it happens more with girls.
But our primary school system consistently fails boys. It is a complex issue.

Girl’s schools are best for girls
It will still happen in an all girl environment.

The benefits are that all children grow up more tolerant and accepting of differences.

BULLSHIT

This is an ideological position.

If someone has their confidence destroyed in the process of this, how does that make them more accepting? Though conditioning to be compliant?

And the point is that only certain kids are ever asked to be the ones who are 'more tolerant'. What about the kids who witness how being saddled with a disruptive or less clever pupil as a responsibility, is a good reason not to be tolerant or not to show that you are clever / a good reason to misbehave.

Seriously, what is the bull crap based on?

It plays to the interests of the centre and the majority, but it really has negative effects for a lot of individual kids. It doesn't necessarily make for tolerance.

Mixing with different groups IS helpful and SHOULD be encouraged socially, but there does need to be consideration as to where this is done and the impact on education in the process.

No one ever focuses on or considers the kids for whom this policy has long lasting devastating effects cos of 'the greater good' mentality. There should be much more consideration of this, not a lazy attitude of doing so by just chucking kids together and hoping it works out for them both.

That comment makes me VERY angry tbh.

It happened to me at school (I’m 51) and to both my DDs (18 and 15) at primary school.

And I wonder if the teachers on here saying they use this technique have any idea how stressful and worrying it is for the focused kid. My dd1 in particular used to be in tears about being constantly placed next to the same disruptive boy, term after term. It was left up to us to teach her coping strategies because the teachers couldn’t see a problem.

I think group worked could be used in differentiation, small groups of the brightest well behaved who can be trusted to work well together and the teacher freed up to focus more on the struggling children.

Sorry cross post. Ladybirds

To add, my daughter went to an all girls school and sixth form after primary and then to a top university. She did get that first in her degree and is successfully working in London and loving it.

My last post was in response to Ladybirds

placemats

Ah I see. I have seen similar good pairings.

The only person it benefits is the teacher.

No one's really answered why it's hardly ever the assertive confident kids picked. The ones who would put their hands up with "sir/miss X is kicking me under the table"

Its the ones who would put up with being kicked under the table who are picked. If you are really lucky there's a glare or telling off for talking if you tell them to stop it.

Well to be honest we didn't know about his background. The teacher was very careful not to reveal it. It was only on chatting to his foster parents that we knew he was in foster care and that was all. Not that it in any way changed our minds.

It actually helped our daughter too on reflection. She became much more engaged with the rest of her peers.

Speaking and listening skills (especially important in schools with lots of pupils with EAL) are developed, understanding of how they are learning (metacognition), questioning each others ideas, bouncing ideas off each others, like adults do in grown up work. Developing empathy (god forbid!)

1. Speaking and listening skills are better developed via whole class discussion, with the teacher modelling and requiring well-constructed sentence structure and extended vocabulary, etc. Interacting primarily with children of the same age and often the same language deficits can only go so far.
2. There is no evidence that this is a good

1. While brief sessions of paired discussion can be useful in developing ideas and promoting speaking and listening, a great deal of group work time tends to be spent off-topic. It's impossible for a teacher to police a number of groups at once to ensure this doesn't happen.
2. Very little time is spent by adult at work "bouncing ideas off each other". Most group projects in the workplace involve individuals getting on individually with their own assigned tasks.
3. There is little evidence that this practice "develops empathy" and quite a lot that it provokes resentment. Children have plenty of opportunity in their day to day interactions to develop empathy, which is a natural and gradual developmental process.
4. Small amounts of group work are fine, but many schools use it far too much. The opportunity cost of doing so is enormous, in terms of time that could be better spent in more effective teaching, especially since so many lower-achieving children essentially spend a lot of it not actually working or learning.

"Yes it happens and benefits both parties."

This is 100% a blanket statement.

Happened to me, many decades ago.

Hence the truism, mixed schools are best for boys, girls schools are best for girls.

Any policy that makes fellow pupils responsible for the progress or behaviour of their peers is reprehensible.

placemats

That sounds like a really great outcome for all concerned. It's really good that your school discussed it and gained your daughter's consent. It strikes me, though, that here's a potential issue there of how much a teacher is able to share with other parents about another child. And that being the case it can happen in a rather less 'open' way, making girls - who as I said are often give big praise for their self-sacrifice - the ones to suffer.

Oh and it didn't impact on her academic success at all.

My daughter was partnered with a boy with 'challenging behaviour' in primary school in Yr 5 not always and only in the afternoon. She was the bright child in her class and a quiet and somewhat introverted child. However, she liked him and was happy with the arrangement. The teacher discussed it with us as parents and we discussed it with our daughter. Nothing contentious at all.

The young boy's foster parents thanked us. He settled better in class and turned out to be a bright and more engaging pupil, with some issues still, obviously.

i had no idea that this happened! (bit late to all this parenting thing) but there is no doubt in my mind that the girls will be disadvantaged by this. Here's a thought - why don't I spend a day in class sitting next to their bloody parents. I would quite happily "assist" with their behaviour!