How would you want UK schools to deal with badly-behaved students?

[GeordieDownSouth]

Everyday on Mumsnet, I see posts about children being bullied by other kids, teachers having breakdowns due to poor class behavior, and teachers leaving the profession in droves for better conditions.

As an ex teacher, my main reason for leaving was poor student behavior, and a lack of support from the management in relation to this. For example, a 14 year old girl once pulled my hair roughly when my back was turned. The SLT told me that her behavior was my fault as I should have been disciplining her before she did it!

Prior to being a UK teacher, I taught in China and South Korea, where bad behavior was not the norm. The approach out there is very much the stick over the carrot. If a kid was naughty once, they'd be punished. In Korea, they got no lunch or were made to clean the school toilets. It might sound harsh, but it definitely worked! The kids who confined to behave badly after this would simply be excluded, which everyone supported.

In my opinion, I think UK teachers should be allowed to punish students for poor behavior, such as by making them clean the school. I mean, in an ideal world, teachers would have the time and money for positive reinforcement but at the minute, we don't.

What do others think?

Even in early years behaviour has declined. Behaviour starts at home and boundaries and guidance need to be in place.

ive heard parents say :

” we don’t like to make them do that” eg wash their hands after being at the toilet
”we don’t like saying no”
” we don’t have rules at home”

good behaviour has to be developed and encouraged at a young age, with parents working with early years workers, primary teacher and secondary teachers to encourage their child to be the best they can be.

i heard a 4 year old tell one of my colleagues to “ shut it” today. And when he was spoken to he just laughed, mum couldn’t care less which reinforces that the child can behave as they wish with no consequences.

There are too many kids in school that should be on some sort of work programme or work experience, they're not a good fit with school life, there is nothing wrong with starting work early.

There are too many children whose needs arent met by mainstream school and need specialist placements, however they dont exist

Schools are too big meaning a lack of focus from staff on each child and it ends with crowd control as others have said

There would need to be a huge societal change for such punishments to become widespread. Most parents whose children are not ‘complying’ with the rules, will say they are not naughty, but there is an undiagnosed SEN. Even the SEN Code of Practice doesn’t talk about ‘behaviour’ any more, but it’s reframed as Social + Emotional Mental health. So the ‘behaviour’ is a communication for whatever is troubling them. If they can’t be punished or discriminated against for their SEN, then the punishment might be considered inappropriate.

Many parents will refuse to let their child even attend a detention-I can’t see litter picking going well! Schools can’t exclude without huge difficulties and red tape either, so they are in a tricky place.

If my DD pulled someone's hair, I'd be happy for her to be punished.

I have a real issue with the blanket belief that 'all behaviour is communication'

Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isnt.

I see it referred to all the time on here.

Have access to resources away from schools so that exclusion can happen in the worst cases.

I would also have parents held responsible or have some sanctions if they are unwilling to co-operate. Threatening to call Ofsted would become a criminal offence of threatening behaviour or blackmail.

This is a great suggestion!

I lived in China for 12 years and school behaviour was vg due to parental support imo. Parents respected teachers and expected their children to behave in class.
it was the same when I was growing up in the 1970s. My parents would have been extremely disappointed if I had behaved badly and would have punished me at home too.

It's the chronic lack of support in early years, and for households that need it, that's the issue. The children aren't bad but a product of their upbringing; it's not just poorer households, as children suffering 'affluent neglect' can be as messed up.

Really, these children need champions in school, coupled with predictable and rock-solid expectations and rules, but achieving that day after day is hard, and not all educators are made for it. I speak as one! I'm only recently qualified and working on this all the time. You have to stay calm, deflect secondary behaviour, never get drawn into arguments, never budge, never belittle, talk about the behaviour not the child and never let anything go. In reality, when a child is accusing you of unfairness, swearing at you, shouting, and you have no TA to stay in class at break when you have to go out and do duty so can't supervise a behaviour intervention that needs to be enforced, plus loads of other things on your mind... it's tricky.

Yes I agree.

Teachers should be allowed to get on and teach in safety. Any child who is disruptive/disrespectful or aggressive/violent should be removed until they can behave appropriately - for the benefit and safety of the children who do want to learn and that of the teacher who wants to teach rather than spending their time on crowd control.

School is not childcare.

I also agree that by the age of 14/15 some children need to be doing something else of use to them and society - learning a practical trade for example. I don't see how anyone benefits from forcing children to stay to 18. Except government figures of course

The obvious answer would be to remove disruptive children and get their parents to come and pick them up. If people are disruptive in other spheres of life, they are asked to leave. Not physically punished, not humiliated, just asked to leave.

Schools are an odd environment. Attendance for most children is compulsory and yet many schools are noisy, overwhelming and have little to offer many of their pupils. Some can't even offer a teacher qualified or with any experience in the subject being taught.

Of course you could keep kids in line by resorting to violence or intimidation - those methods worked quite well in the past and allowed all manner of issues to be swept under the carpet. But it would be preferable imo to look at ways to address marginalised and disengaged children so school works better for them and they are better able to cope with it.

What would be best would be having parents actually support the school rather than kicking off because little Jonny is an angel.

When I was at school if you got in trouble in class you'd get it in the neck at home too!

Nowadays it's 50/50 whether the parent will rock up and start screaming at the teacher.

It starts with the parents. To get the best out of children we need to better support parents to give their children the right start and guidance.

The "social contract" between parents and schools has been severely challenged in recent years and not entirely due to the parents.

Absolutely 100% this.

Honestly, there are no consequences to bad behaviour in schools anymore; I say this having worked in primary for nearly 15 years - a combination of management avoiding any meaningful sanctions and parents/guardians resistant to any discipline and/or penalty, often because they're trying to be 'friends' rather than parents.

Something has gone a bit topsy turvy in schools. In secondary school kids can get detention or sent to isolation for wearing the wrong socks or forgetting their pen or textbook. At the same time punishment for thumping somebody or disrupting the class is somehow harder to give out.

At school in the 70s most kids behaved themselves because if the parents got wind of bad behaviour a thick ear would be meted out on arrival home. Now if a child comes home and tells the parent they have been bollocked at school, parent marches down to school and gives the teacher a thick ear.
The balance of power has tipped too far the other way and the problem is how to fix it.

I personally think it has more to do with boredom. Screens are so entertaining now, and my kids learn more from watching YouTube than they do at school. For example my daughter (8) was doing probability at school, the teacher said what is the probability that the sun rises tomorrow….she replied that the sun doesn’t rise but the earth rotates…she learnt that from YouTube not school. I think kids realise that school is kinda pointless now. There needs to be an educational revolution where kids have more control over what they are learning, what interests them etc. I feel like there is zero point teaching a kid French GCSE who has their heart set on being a computer programmer for example 🤷‍♀️ Kids need more autonomy in education.

Perhaps they find it a better environment. Less disruption, clear boundaries, a calmer and more ordered classroom?

There's a happy medium between the Korean/ Shanghai model and the Anything Goes/ schools are powerless issue in the UK.

My DCs attended a big high school with a varied socio-economic and ethnic intake in the US. I can tell you from personal observation that what makes a difference to student performance amd engagement, if you're going to eschew corporal punishment, is money. A budget of $98+ million per year (this was ten years ago amd its gone up since then) means that class sizes are small, academic and vocational, sport and arts acilities are great, and the extensive pastoral care was top notch, with all sorts of options for assessment of kids with problems, and appropriate alternative education provision both within the school and farmed out to third party specialist educational providers.

Schools in the UK that don't just throw upntheir hands and have a revolving door for staff seem to prefer the boot camp approach, where students are shamed and harassed over uniform infractions, nobody has a locker or any sort of personal space within the building, students have to carry coats, sports gear, art stuff, cooking items around with them all day, and might not even have a place to eat lunch. None of this sort of approach is based on evidence. You can't solve seriois problems in schools without throwing money at them.

I don't think people are capable of proper parenting now. They obviously weren't properly parented themselves so they don't have a clue once they have their own children. They equate discipline with child abuse and want nothing to do with it. I also think many want an easy life and don't want to put the work in. Parenting is often a long, hard slog and it is a job. Obviously not all parents are like this, but too many are and it's affecting everyone now.

I think a lot of people in the UK are quite antisocial and destructive by nature and they're not being held to account. People would have been ashamed to behave like this at one time, but anything goes now. I think people drink too much as well. When I hear of drunk people in charge of children. It's just horrible.

Pandora's box has been opened now and there's no going back. The little feral darlings will continue to run amok. Just be aware that they're the ones who will be wiping your mum's bottom one day and perhaps even yours. Raising feral kids just helps to create a nasty, rough, dysfunctional society.

I know about discipline, I raised one with adhd and pda and another one with autism. They're good and well behaved adults now. I probably shouldn't print what I'd do with the feral kids in schools now. I don't go in for bleeding heart sob stories either. I had an upbringing so brutal and rough it's a miracle I survived. I managed to behave myself though. I never resorted to thumping peers or teachers. Everyone needs to get a grip. And no, I don't advocate for corporal punishment before anyone jumps to that conclusion.

To cut and paste my post from another thread, I think the government can’t win on this one. If they somehow siphoned off the less academic children into other routes early on they would be accused of condemning children too early, or underestimating them. It would probably be assumed to be class based, leaving the higher achieving routes to the wealthier or better supported children.

Its interesting to see whenever a discussion takes place about the MIchaela school, the school/head is slagged off hugely. Criticisms about children being taught like robots, not allowed to be individual, too strict, etc etc

Parents dont want firm boundaries

More and better funded PRUs.

It's not s school problem. School is fine....for the right people. Just everyone else is in there as well.

It's also a whole society problem

We over educate too young. Half the kids currently in secondary school need to be in productive work. We need to make it easier to return to education when they are ready.

We need to stop talking about human rights and start talking about responsibilities.

We need to value stay at home mums and unpaid carers. We need to properly support those with disabilities because we have a responsibility to others not just rights.

And yes the fact that individuals at every level of society couldn't understand why during covid their right to "relax and unwind" shouldn't come above their responsibility to do what was needed as a society for it to function is symptomatic of the whole problem.