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 ?

Quite a range of replies. From “daily” to “almost never” I wonder which goes wrong in the “daily”schools,

*what goes wrong I mean

In my case it's how often they mention it so it could be more. Maybe they don't mention it if it's broken up quickly?

Wishing they were a bit less frequent at my child’s school

Gosh I'm surprised at these responses, going to my high school was like entering the Thunderdome.

Very frequent in year 7 unfortunately, DS has never so much as pushed someone before and got jumped on half way through his 1st year of secondary school. It was absolutely awful, wrong place at the wrong time.

He's in year 8 now and the boys seem to have settled now significantly compared to last year when he was coming home telling me of fights breaking out every week.

Oh and another thing-the girls were just as bad as the boys! Constantly punching them, kicking, tripping, throwing their stuff and od course the boys can't fight back. Appalling behaviour.

No, absolutely rare at my sons' secondary.

Okay, again, highly rated very 'MC' school. Actual fighting really not a thing.

Again I am deeply grateful to have been able to buy our way into this catchment.

Fordian, our school is actually one that has to be bought in to with very high house prices too. That’s part of the reason I am feeling quite disappointed about this. Next step move would possibly be to go private.

@Fordian

How do you know the are rare out of interest?

@Fordian

No, absolutely rare at my sons' secondary.

Okay, again, highly rated very 'MC' school. Actual fighting really not a thing.

Again I am deeply grateful to have been able to buy our way into this catchment.

Respectfully I'd suggest that 'fights' are rebranded or you do not hear the full story. I've worked in a wide range of schools across the financial divide. The volume of scuffles are the same, the response to them is different.

I think noble has hit on an important difference between fight and scuffle. The former is not regular and I work at a school in a very deprived area (one of the most in the country) where you would reasonably expect there to be fights. We are hot on having a staff presence around the school and high behaviour standards though.

In my experience (15 years teaching) scuffling and horseplay/headlocks is a daily occurrence. Tends to be within friendship groups and generally good natured/reciprocal.

Serious fights? Very very rare, maybe once a year if that? There have been two incidents like that since I’ve been at my current school (three years) and in both instances we were tipped off by other kids that it was brewing so loads of staff were on hand so it all dispersed pretty quickly.

I've not really thought about scuffle vs fight but the last one they saw involved 2 girls screaming at each other and hair pulling. Adults are alerted fast because people start whooping and crowding round.

Are there police vans outside the school at lunch-time and home-time?

Has the air ambulance ever been called?

If the answer is 'no', your child is probably in the sort of school described by noble and others.

Which is fine.

I’m in my 8th year of children being in the same secondary school and have never ever heard any of my 3 mention any kind of fight

Actual fights, where children are aiming to cause real harm to one another, planned and watched by others? Maybe 3-4 times a year at my school. Probably 50:50 boy on boy:girl on girl.

Scuffles and skirmishes amongst friendship groups with no one hurt at all: pretty common.

A single punch or lash that may cause harm, isn't good-natured but also not pre-planned: kind of common and very often involve children with additional needs or complex home lives who cannot regulate their emotions.

My school is semi-rural, average catchment, reputation: not the best school in the area, far from the worst.

Correction: for the first category of actual fights, it's realistically more like 1-2 times a year, not 3-4.

There was a nasty fight in a classroom between two girls this week - proper punches. But it's really rare.

I imagine the pandemic has made them all more stressed and that's why they're lashing out.

In our case the school was not ‘going wrong’ it was just, like many excellent London comps, reflecting a very broad demographic.

My Dc were never remotely involved. It taught them very good street smart skills, how to walk away from brewing trouble, when not to catch someone’s eye. They were never frightened because it only affected those involved.

When sixth form opened up to many kids who arrived from private schools they were shocked by the behaviour of many of them. Drugs. Sexist views from boys. Ripping off Uber drivers. Snobbery. Insidious racism.

Just bring your kids up to be the best they can be and make the best of the education on offer.

Thanks. I know this theory about it teaching them street smart skills and it would be nice to think there is a benefit to it. But I just don’t know how well it works in reality. I want him to feel safe and nurtured. Is there really much benefit to learning to keep your head down and keep out these kids way. I myself went to a fairly “rough” school and my parents used the line of it teaching us how to live in the real world. I don’t remember many fights but it wasn’t all that great an atmosphere there. And my own world now doesn’t really consist of anyone I need to avoid fights with as an adult.

Tuibby, in my purely anecdotal experience, secondary schools, regardless of the number of fights or how 'rough' they are, don't have nurturing atmospheres. It's such a complicated time and senior schools are the first foray away into the reality of the world.

I don't spend much time avoiding fights, but anyone who uses public transport, goes out to busy pubs/clubs in the evening or works with the general public will have had to avoid a fight or at least a scenario that has real potential of escalating to that.

My 12 year old DS often mentions 'fights' in his year group although I do take some of it with a pinch of salt.

Friends report the same at other mixed secondary schools and I think the word scuffle is probably more apt.

As another poster mentioned above I knew it was going to be a shock for my DS when he left the lovely bubble to secondary, which is brutal in comparison.

Y8 DS is at private, 'fights' are also seemingly a regular occurrence (weekly), so moving him to private won't necessarily fix the problem. My understanding is that it's a scuffle rather than fists flying, but still far too common for my liking. There is a zero tolerance approach though and 3 children have already been suspended for a couple of days this year because of it.

It sounds slightly higher than my experience but equally dc went private later and still some there...
I think there is quite a difference between scuffles/fights and feeling unsafe....so would definitely keep an ear out on how he feels..rather than the volume and also how the school deals with them

Moving school can be ok especially if early before picking options but if otherwise he's doing well and has friends probably wouldn't!