Behaviour, is it just my school?

[PupInAPram]

In the decades I've worked here, behaviour has never been this bad. Off the scale bad. Is it something to do with my school, or is it happening in all schools?

One of the biggest deterrents to playing up at school when I was a teen was the prospect of what your mum or dad would do/say when you got home.

My mum made it crystal clear that should there be a need for her to be summoned to the school there would be actual hell to pay afterwards. She meant every word. She didn't need violence but she'd see a threat through to the end.

That seemingly does not happen. Parents summoned to the school are regularly banned themselves for their abuse of teachers. Kids learn this attitude at home, thus it proliferates at school.

Teachers must have the support of the leaders and governors to act. The school must be able to act. This nonsense about x numbers of children incidents before permanent exclusion needs to stop. An excluded child puts the accountability back on their parents and lets the rest of the kids enjoy the education that is their right too.

Yes, this all sounds draconian. No, there are no rainbow steps or whatever. Once you're past that, you have to be able to change gear.

This is definitely what is happening with kids at my son's primary school. The parents deny there is a problem one way or another and it doesn't help anyone.

Parents and kids need consequences. But also next steps support as part of that.

My friends (both 30 years as teachers, primary) have said that behaviour is far worse since covid, but they are getting no back up from parents who seem to have washed their hands of responsibility for disciplining their children. They call parents in for meetings and assuming they actually turn up tell them they have had enough and it's the schools responsibility for everything basically, one set of parents (actually married) asked the school to call social services for foster care because the children were out of control.

I'm wonder if children were essentially indulged for a year during covid, no rules, certainly no bed times, etc and can't adjust back to life

Interesting @JaninaDuszejko. My husband is a teacher (as am I) who deals with PGCE ECTs (I do not). The last two years he's said they're pretty uniformly odd- acting more like sixth formers than graduates and who are more comfortable around the older kids than their colleagues. Says their social skills are shocking towards other adults and they don't know what's appropriate to say/not say or wear or behaviour in a professional setting.

I have worked on and off at one primary school for the last 15 years. Behaviour has improved and then crashed again in that time. Behaviour improved about 12 years ago when the school seemed to have plenty of pupil premium money to spend on TAs. Children that needed support got it, on the whole. At that point, there was perhaps one particularly challenging child per class, which with that TA support was manageable. Now however, each class seems to have 3 or 4 seriously challenging children. Yet TA numbers have been massively cut. Money has dried up in schools it seems. Teachers are left coping alone with these highly disruptive children, trying to manage their behaviour and teach at the same time. I often do supply at the school and have never had issues with controlling a class until now (and I've worked in some hard places!) It has really changed....especially the last year it seems to me. Not only are these challenging children's needs not being met, but the whole class suffers from constant disruption. 😥

Blimey this thread makes me glad I home educated my DD! It wasn’t this bad when I made that decision, either (pre-Covid). She’d never have coped in an environment like those described here.

Our primary is exactly the same. It's awful, and frankly, a lot of our foundation subjects are dull as dirt the way they're taught not to be 'uniform' across the classes and allow for no deviations/variety/fun stuff in a lot of them.

Crap leadership
No funding
School staff members not feeling supported by said crap leadership
Children with educational needs, neurodiversities, and mental health issues being dismissed - families go to GP and GPs say 'school will put something in place'. But school have NOTHING to put it place. NOTHING.
A one size fits all approach which doesn't take into account the needs of said children with educational needs, neurodiversities, and mental health issues