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?

I think you're right in terms of the optics of the situation

But the reality is, not everyone is cut out for attending school until 19 (or being in formal education in that way). we need to move away from academic qualifications being seen as the holy grail, we need to move away from jobs wanting these qualifications and degrees for the most mundane of jobs, its ridiculous. We need to move away from university being seen as the automatic pathway and if you dont go you've failed in some way

We seem to have developed a culture where that is the narrative and its seen as 'fact' that this must be the path

Im reminded of the thread recently on that very young darts player. Huge class disparity exhibited because the lad hadnt taken his exams or only some of them or something and how that was an awful indictment of his education overall and future.

Exactly this.
SEN, disability or any disadvantage, poverty etc means no education in some countries.

Absolutely this. Many children would benefit from a vocational training from the age of 14 or 15.
Why not have courses on hair and beauty, electrical engineering, plumbing, bricklaying, etc?
If children are actually interested in what they are studying they are far less likely to be disruptive.

Not with restorative justice!

I'm sorry but this is shockingly horrific.

I couldn't advocate for any system if I didn't know where the most vulnerable in that system ended up.

Having always had a specific interest in children who didn't fit with the mainstream, which then became personal with my own child, i can tell you you're attitude that it can be disciplined out of the children is waaaaay off base.

I agree OP. I remember telling my mum I got a detention ( only got one so it was memorable) and she just said well you must’ve deserved it. That doesn’t happen now. The parent rings the headteacher to ask what and why and give excuses for their child’s behaviour.

The only way is to exclude disruptive kids and ultimately inconvenience parents by sending them home. Unfortunately there are no sanctions that schools can impose which many kids actually care about. There is no real deterrent to poor behaviour.

Well-behaved kids get pulled up on small, petty uniform infractions while they watch staff walking on eggshells around violent and disruptive kids, who often get few sanctions because they just kick off and refuse to cooperate when they are tackled about their behaviour. Whether they have genuine reasons for their behaviour or not, that makes no difference to the disruption of other kids' education.

Anyone disagreeing would drastically change their opinion I think if they spent even one hour as a teacher in a classroom in this country. We are being walked all over the top of. Then when you’re already black and blue, up to your eyes in work and now paperwork for everything that’s happening, a parent will phone in to complain about YOU. Make it make sense! 🤯 I ended up taking so much anxiety medication every morning on the way to work then taking herbal medication as well as beta blockers throughout the day just to try to stop the panic attacks. I was on my actual knees with it all. I’d cry all the time because I was just so miserable and anxious 24/7. You can’t even function as a human when you’re like this, let alone teach a lesson or firefight your way through it. I used to not even be able to get a sentence out in my class without an interruption, it was non stop. I couldn’t even count the number of times I was assaulted, in all three schools I worked in, it would be around 300 or 400 probably. The head teacher in one school walked around with a black eye at one point where a pupil had cracked her. A child (8) brought a knife in and nearly stabbed the depute head. It was carnage!

I think the problem is children now see it starting from nursery/infants so they know the score, even at 4 and 5 years old. They know kids not only get away with being abusive and violent but they will be actively rewarded for doing so. Children aren’t stupid so will obviously jump on the bandwagon. By which point the teacher doesn’t stand a fighting chance of containing it. Parents then (understandably) complain but I don’t even think they have a clue the level of danger and disruption their child is actually being exposed to day in day out. There would be families in my last school who would never have swore infront of their 5 year old but at school they listened to every swear word going getting roared across the class. Everything I bought would be destroyed. I spent over £500 on supplies one summer, things like pencils since the school didn’t provide them and everything was ruined within weeks. Name another job where a professional employed by a company has to bring in their own supplies to physically be able to do their job. Not extras, just the basics.

I used to say every school should have a room with an army sergeant type in it and if you pressed your buzzer he would march into your room and escort the child out. No one would know what happened after that. It would most likely be a telling off that they would never want again but they wouldn’t return to the classroom until a certain period of time later. I guarantee that would solve sooo much of the misbehaviour in our schools. It would nip it in the bud on day 1 instead of letting it spiral out of control. I would say in the last 3-5 years it has got so much worse at the lower end of the school too and I keep saying I can’t imagine what will happen when these kids are at secondary and then in employment. We are setting them up for failure by making them think it’s okay to go on like that. It’s not and they will very quickly realise that in the big bad world but by then itl be too late to fix it.

Soon to be ex-teacher

We would end up with a ton of YouTuber wannabes and little else.

When I did a placement in a secondary school I saw some of the teachers treat the SEN children like absolute dirt. Then I realised that no wonder parents have to turn up at school to defend their children. It put me off teaching completely

I think that its a bit of both. There is understanding of what is driving the behaviour - however that shouldnt be an excuse to not address the behaviour. As kids grow into adults, if they want to function in the real world, they will need to learn how to regulate their emotions, how to control their impulses and how not to just bash someone because they stressed them out.

Not saying thats an easy thing to do, and with MH services as breaking point too, and very little anyway in regards helping SEN kids to manage themselves, I dont think that it is teachers responsibility to do this

But too many parents use the 'oh but he's got X Y Z' as some kind of get out for doing any kind of control management

And I say that as a parent of two ND kids, and ND/ADHD myself too.

Parenting is the issue 99% of the time here - SEN or not. Parenting is hard, and I fear that a huge number just arent really up to the job. Sure they love their kids, but they are not doing them, or society, any favours

In my experience, feckless parents whose children often get into trouble simply switch off their phones as soon as their offspring leave the house.

And if the parent refuses to come, or cant come because they're a 2 hour commute away?

And if the child just goes home and its no inconvenience to the parent but really enjoyed by the child because they dont want to be there?

What about fines for parents?

Social problems have a lot to do with it. Poverty, poor diet, addition and families with generational worklmessness. We have also have less traditional family structures and no a no religion. These aren't bad per say, but are elements that encourage people to tow the line!

I think discipline is the only way. Strictness and structure are what makes it. You need to make kids unlearn bad habits from home. I also think sport is extremely important- especially for boys. Gives a direction for anger. My sons school (primary) doesn't even have a PE teacher. So we have to pay out of pocket for it after school m

I lived in SE Asia for years too. Agree behaviour is largely cultural. I lived in HK and Singapore, ND kids were actually treated well; there was space and time to give them the extra care and attention they need, as the rest of the class are behaving quietly, working away.

I can’t see how the same principles could work here, society is just too different now.

The thing is these kids are probably going to be the the ones on minimum wage and benefits anyway, so I don’t really care what happens to them as long as they’re not disrupting my child’s education or bullying them. Maybe that a a bit harsh but I’m pretty certain the kid in my class at school that threatened someone with a knife but wasn’t excluded didn’t go on to have a glittering career, last I heard he had a tag on his leg.

My eldest had behaviour issues in reception amd y1. School did ignore all the flags and had poor supervision - in class and playground. Yes it has turned out to be sen. And yes if school had supported identifying the huge flags for this i dont think we would have ended up going to secondary without the diagnosis etc.

But the lack of supervision in school did mean by y6 many of the kids (who arent sen and were fine previously) had turned feral.

Even in primary the only intervention was beimg sent to another class.

But secondary (an oversubscribed school) is a **show. Of behaviour issues. Kids from presumably even worse primaries. And this is rural.
Constant swearing including at others (strangers)
Trying to kick unknown kid's shoes off (by much older kids- adult man size)
Saying they wamt to die (presumably bored) in class
Being sent to behavioural support (several classmates each day)
Shouting out in class random things
Kids getting formal warning for not joining in

I think we need to head back to easier exclusion.

It really affects the whole class dynamic. But also the whole school. This is where we are sending just turned 11yo kids!
Again i would put it down to time unsupervised.
The swearing at dd was just random other y7 kids she doesnt know and wasnt talking to or anything.

The feral y6 though still wasnt on the scale of secondary. But it was not listening to scout leaders and mean jokes about other kids to their faces.
Basically the behaviour is not challenged.

In another after school club the kids were getting too rowdy but the people in charge didnt actually warn the kids. Just emailed the parents a warning. So i dont think the child realised they were pushing it sooo far. I would say this was being sat next to their friends etc.

But even with after school activities (and relating to my dc) you will see other dc being frankly naughty but it isnt mentioned to parents and the sen kids do something and they get a warning. They are less likely to pick up on signals (and possibly less liked by leaders).

But also i dont get why the parents of these kids picked the more academic school? People just dont seem to look at their child's abilities. With higher birth rates i guess there are more kids at inappropriate schools.

The LA where I work does not allow permanent exclusions and rarely allows even a short, temporary exclusion. Behavioural problems have definitely increased.

I returned to teaching on a part-time basis last month. I don't think I'll be doing it for much longer: I stopped a feral [Sorry!] child from beating up a quiet child last week. The next day, I took a punch intended for another pupil.

I teach children from 11-18. Luckily for me, the miscreants last week were only 12 years old, but they were still stronger than I am. (I'm 5ft9, but one lad was taller than I am.) I'm in my 60s.

Exclusion then parents may actually do something and sure every child needs education but if child A's behaviour stops child B'C'D etc. from learning then they need to be removed

And yes i would include my child in this if they were distracting others

Teachers and students are there to learn not have to manage behaviour

@ChunkyMonkey3

You've nailed it on the head with your insightful 📫 post.

I personally think it stems from 'gentle parenting' and not disciplining children. Not discipling children I think is a form of neglect.... Teaching children that there are no consequences to their actions and that everyone will love them/not shout at them etc etc.... Is not real life! Apart from you and your family ... No one will really care about your child when they are an adult... They will just be another member of the workforce/human race. So not providing adequate social skills/instilling respect means they won't have the skills required to be a functioning adult in a huge wide world. They will be at a disadvantage pitted up against more functioning people from other countries who actually bring their children up to be a functioning member of society. There is a huge lack of social skills. I actually can't believe what some parents let their kids get away with or don't bother to teach their kids. Mine are definitely no angels!!! but they know basic respect and basic social skills. Am talking about 8/9 year olds who can't use a knife and fork, tie shoelaces etc....list is endless

My ds’s school have just promoted the deputy to head. He had a meet the head evening after the first term where he explained his new rules. He’s had cctv put in as much as possible. If a child is violent, they are suspended. Same for swearing at a member of staff. There were a few other similar infractions that mean they are also suspended. He said in the first few weeks of the new rules he had suspended lots of pupils but most had not repeated the offence and they now don’t have the fights breaking out that they used to.

I think this post says more than you think it does. Even the "good" parents think a child doing this is acceptable. It's fairly obvious that the teacher was looking for a word like 'certain' or 'definitely' as it was a maths lesson about probability. The sun rising was used as a colloquialism, not a literal scientific definition. The sun rise/sun set is recorded in official weather reports.

This smart Alec response, although seemingly intelligent, was lacking in social awareness and caused disruption to the whole class' learning. Yet any teacher daring to correct this behaviour would be accused of being bullying/dictatorship/the child being defended to the hilt because the child was right, teachers an idiot etc.

Why not have courses on hair and beauty, electrical engineering, plumbing, bricklaying, etc?

This was called technical college @Felicia19 - even as a sixth form student I had to do an afternoon a week at the tech learning shorthand and typing - shorthand was useless except for writing my diary but boy am I glad I learnt to touch type once computers came along!

Agreed, I have experience of South African high schooling and discipline was well enforced but rarely needed as respect was demanded and reinforced from the majority of homes.
Sadly I feel we have lost all respect and power for the most part. It's no surprise that you take away schools authority and its respect and of course the education side falls to crap.