Has anyone else's DC ever just had a consistently and randomly unpleasant class depsite the rest of the school being nice?

[JessiCake]

I'm just a bit fed up with DD's class, and a bit sad for her that it's so rubbish :(

It's not teacher-specific. The issues have been the same since Reception and they're now Year 2. DD's teachers have always done the best they can (I feel) with a challenging group.

It's nothing (at least not usually) anything worth actually mentioning to staff. There was some actual bullying early in Y1 (not of DD) but it got sorted out tbf.

It's just general and fairly constant low-level unkindnesses, a couple of the girls in particular who seem to rule the roost and can be very cutting, a general lack of interest in learning so the teachers have to spend a lot of time on discipline which disrupts things for the kids who actually want to learn.

It's odd because my DD has friends with brothers and sisters in other years and there has never seemed to be a similar culture in other classes.

There are some very very big (and not terribly kind) peronalities in DD's class and I think maybe that sets the tone for how the entire class interacts?

Sigh. Just wish it was different for her. She's very gentle and not terribly assertive and the class isn't a good one for a child like her (or quite a few of the others, tbf, but there's a small majority that dominate).

It just strikes me as odd that an entire class in an otherwise lovely school can be so randomly not-lovely for no apparent reason.

Anyone else had this?

Across years of long term supply in secondary schools, I have no idea how many classes I've taught...

I have known a particularly difficult yr7 in school A, then in school B the next year it was a particularly difficult y8, then guess what the y9s then y10s were like in schools C and D! I remember my form tutor musing if there was unusual sunspot activity when the year group below me were born... the more likely theory was that it was a year group hit every few years by curriculum changes and tweaks which affect teachers' confidence in subject matter and general stress levels.

Some combinations just don't work. Obviously combinations of the "big" personalities is a factor either if they form a super-team or if there is rivalry. More subtly, the hanger-ons can make or break a class. I've had combinations that worked where the majority knuckled down and ignored notorious characters. One of the toughest class types is where your middle third feeds the big personalities with the attention they crave, and they are so hard to crack because each individual isn't doing anything particularly awful, but the amount of time consumed with constantly firefighting half the class over petty things is so, so wasteful and frustrating. At least outrageous behaviour is dealt with decisively!

The most radical class personality change was a tutor group based class with a bad dose of silly boy syndrome with a significant cluster competing with eachother to be class clown. One hanger-on left who regularly sniggered and giggled through their antics, and suddenly without that one member of adoring audience the lot of them significantly calmed down! I taught 5/7 classes out of that year group which was a disaster, especially on the day I taught 4 of them. They were well-networked and would feed off the crap that others had been up to earlier in the day (back when SMS was the new thing in the classroom).

My DCs are at a single intake school, but fortunately they seem to have amiable combinations in their classes. I know of a couple of year groups with a harder reputation that follows them through.

Interesting what you say about curriculum changes, AnotherPidgey, mine was a year which repeatedly seemed to hit new initiatives. I’ve never thought of the impact that might have had.