How regular an occurrence are fights in secondary schools?

[Tuibby]

It appears my son who is in his first year at secondary school says there are often fights at lunchtime between the boys. He isn’t involved himself. It seems pretty much an accepted regular thing. The school is actually very well thought of and at its limit in capacity.

I am wondering if we moved him whether we would find the same in most schools and it is just typical ?

You'd probably need to ask a representative sample of pupils and teachers to get an accurate answer. However, my own teen DC say it's quite rare, although fights outside of school at the end of the school day are more common. This might vary according to catchment (I live rural so a large proportion are collected by car reducing fight potential).

There are plenty of teenage hormones, people offended by comments on social media and disagreements can escalate quickly.

I imagine some of it is messing about and a lesser amount is having fisticuffs.

Very rare in my experience, but I know it happened a lot when I was at school. I think most schools tend to be harder about physical assaults now.

Depends on whether you mean a proper brawl with a circle of kids watching that needs breaking up (not often) or a couple of boys having a scuffle and getting each other in a headlock and a bit of shoving (v common )

I agree with @noblegiraffe.

Really depends on the school - anywhere from once a week or more to practically never, in my experience. Very rare for anyone to get properly hurt though. If he's not personally involved and it's otherwise a good school I'm not sure it'd be worth moving him just because of that, unless it's really upsetting him and there's a good alternative option.

Completely agree with nobel
All scuffles are called fights, actual fights are rare. Also lots of talking about fights that never happen.

Rarer than once a month I'd say IME. Sometimes though you get kids that are struggling with self control, for lots of reasons, and I'm generally impressed at the skill senior leaders have in getting it back under control.

I've also observed that generally it's other kids attitudes that go a long way to a fighter getting their shit together. The herd wants a quiet life, after a while they get really cheesed off with a gobby hothead and once they lose the attention they get in line.

I wouldn't say it's only the boys. My kids spent some time in a secondary school and witnessed quite a vicious fight between two girls - and as it was filmed and distributed on social media I saw it too.

Rare enough that it's still a spectacle, other than in the school local to where I used to live (pre DS) whose Ofsted said the school had 'an endemic problem with violence'

Teacher having to break it up maybe once a day… outside/after school once a day.

Mini/kind of play fights that escalate 5 times a day

Yes, girls can have properly vicious fights of the kids in a circle watching type, but the scuffley ones are always boys having a bit of a tussle. You'll walk down the corridor and regularly see a boy in a headlock (saying 'it's fine miss') in a way that you'd never see a girl.

Daily in my experience, I have two boys at two different Secondary schools.

As noble said, lots of little scuffles according to my DC, actual serious fights less common.

When I was at an all girls school, we used to have horrendous fights, admittedly was rough part of inner London a long time ago, but it was very common.

I'm wondering why you're considering moving him for this?

Ok thanks. Sounds fairly common then. We have two lots of kids suspended in his year group since September. Police involved at times. There is a certain group you have to keep your head down and stay out the way of. I just want him to have a safe place to go to school but perhaps this is what it is like in a lot of state schools.

I am aware that a lot of it is teenage drama and perhaps not really “fights”

Daily seems far too much. I’ve worked in a range of schools and that seems a lot.

Doesn’t mean your son is in danger though- could well be within groups of friends who won’t bother him at all.

How big is the school and do you mean physical ? My kids sometimes report fights but there's never been physical injuries in the ones that they've seen.

Yes one fight recently did end up with ambulance coming for the injury. Not sure if it was just an unlucky punch

My kids are in a 1800 student school and they mention it about once or twice a year ? They might see more but maybe they are stopped quickly. They've never reported an ambulance and they are upper end of school

Is that uk state school bananaPB ?

Nearly every week at DC's school & it's rated outstanding by Ofsted. Go figure that!
Though 99% of the time it's YR 7-9 that fight as by the time the kids are in Y10 they seem to have grown out of it

Yes I'm in England and it's state

My D.C. went to an ‘outstanding’ comp with a great rep and good results.

Apparently playground and dining room fights were not all that common but certainly not rare. I think more scuffle than blood Bath.