Super-Strict UK Secondary Schools

[LuluBlakey1]

This is a minor trend at the moment. A small number of, mainly, academies and Free Schools use this type of system and embed this culture- some very successfully. It provokes views at opposite ends of the spectrum. However, behaviour is a really big issue, particularly in secondary schools and an increasing problem. I suspect most parents would be very shocked by the daily experience of students from Y7-13 in state schools.

I don't know how widespread this sort of system is across the country or how well-known it is to parents generally.

I have seen a system very like this in a Teeside Church school several years ago. Its effect on behaviour in classrooms and corridors and at break and lunchtime was amazing but they had not managed to embed high quality teaching so staff only used it as a means to control behaviour without it being tied into creating a place for calm thinking, concentration, reflection, listening to others, thoughtful contributing, pacy learning, creative spaces etc.

How it is introduced and embedded matters hugely and how staff and students are trained to use it matters hugely- and the quality of teaching and learning has to be high on that agenda. The balance between enforced control and a system everyone finds helps them so 'agree' to using is important.

I can see many students would find it calming, creating a place that felt safe, gave them space to think and learn. Others would rebel. Some wouldn't cope and would end up excluded or simply sitting in silence not learning if a teacher was not on the ball.

I wonder how parents feel about it? I think it is probably aimed at 11+. I haven't seen it in a primary school.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/world/europe/uk-strict-schools.html?unlocked_article_code=1.b00.uKgO.msv0Y5lP7vrS&smid=url-share

I agree with this:

Ms. Birbalsingh argues that wealthy children can afford to waste time at school because “their parents take them to museums and art galleries,” she said, whereas for children from poorer backgrounds, “the only way you’re going to know about some Roman history is if you’re in your school learning.” Accepting the tiniest misbehavior or adapting expectations to students’ circumstances, she said, “means that there is no social mobility for any of these children.”

It's well known that DC with well-educated parents who are invested in their DC's learning and future success do better than those who don't have those kind of parents. So how do you get DC who really need to make the most of every day at school and learn all they can, do that? This approach clearly works. It has it's detractors, but if the DC say they like their school and they're learning and having successful outcomes, who's to criticise, quite frankly? Lax attitudes and a culture of 'prizes for all' leads to ill discipline and poor educational outcomes and do disadvantaged pupils benefit from either of those things? No.

What I don't understand is why countries with much better educational outcomes than England achieve their outcomes without the need to impose these incredibly strict disciplinarian policies. I work in Finland a lot, and Finnish kids seem no different to English children, so why do the English children need to be subjected to such draconian school policies for, on the whole, poorer outcomes?

@LuluBlakey1 also, you might want to edit your title. These super-strict academies are very much an English phenomenon, not a UK-wide one.

Maybe the support for families is better in Finland @coureur? Scandinavian countries are known for their high taxes and high levels of state support.

I was watching episode 2 of a documentary last night (BBC2 'Darren McGarvey: The State We're In'). It's about poverty and how the various state institutions inc. schools, aren't doing a great job in the UK, and he was in a Finnish school. It seemed pretty relaxed - no uniform, calling the teacher by his first name, starting school at 7 rather than 4+, using Minecraft as a learning tool - but the clapping thing was used there too to get DC's attention and that clearly works much better than the teacher shouting.

Hardly a minor trend.

Loads of schools do it.

I find it horrible. And insulting to teachers, too, who are forced to operate to a script.

Good teachers with a critical mass of time and resources can use their own experience and expertise to manage kids.

But Gvt has interfered and under-funded and driven so many of our best teachers out of the system.

I dislike schools like this and think there has to be a middle ground. It also very much depends on the type of DC that you have. Some thrive in that kind of environment but some crumble.

My DCs school has a new head who is trying to assert his authority by clamping down on uniform. Suddenly things that were acceptable are not and kids are being sent home for wearing the same clothes they've been wearing for two years (think, the wrong shade of grey, a tiny logo). It makes me sad as I purposefully didn't send my kids to a school which was that strict but now it seems they are at one anyway.

Behaviour in the UK schools is shocking, children as young as 5 calling their teacher a f!@#ing c!@#

I remember when Worlds Strictest Parents used to be on, and the British kids were sent to European, Asian, African and even some parts of (Bible belt) America, the hosts and their children were shocked. Very entertaining TV viewing!

No, I don't want to edit my title. I am interested in all info and views. Someone may know of schools in other parts of Britain which operate a system like this.

There is no doubt (from my experience as a teacher and as a local authority School Improvement Advisor) that where behaviour is poor in schools you either need:
a) Very strong teachers- who have excellent subject knowledge, understand how children learn their subject, understand the skills needed (not just subject but literacy and numeracy) and how to teach them effectively, can engage children in lessons, understand behaviours and have the skills to manage behaviours with subtlety and build strong, positive, effective relationships, and can keep up to date with planning, assessment and marking- in relation to all students in a class.
It's no wonder most teachers are not these teachers.
Or you need
b) Clear, effective discipline systems that allow classroom behaviour to be managed effectively using these systems. The issues here are manyfold. The systems have to be used consistently by all staff to work. If only weaker staff use them, children do not respect the. However, very effective teachers don't need them and manage classrooms in very subtle ways. They find the systems cumbersome and irritating. The staff who need to use them can often use them very harshly and children resent that and see it as unfair. Consistency of use is vital but it involves really extensive training of all staff and all students if the system is going to actually work. In my experience they rarely work effectively- they end up as a half-in/half-out system that is actually very inefficient- staffing has to be put in place to support the system every lesson ie to collect the children who will not co-operate or to support the staff who over-rely on it. The analysis of it is key- and it always shows staff who completely over-use it and put children out if lessons every lesson because they are either new teachers and have not developed effective skills yet or ate poor teachers, set in their ways who can't manage teaching, learning or build effective relationships. Schools rarely have the capacity to address the personal issues with these staff and coach them to improve.
Currently, I am seeing behaviour at its lowest point in the 21 years I have worked in schools. I much prefer the option of excellent teachers who have great all-round skills- they are worth their weight in gold to a school. They get the best results for children and teach interesting lessons in well-ordered, low-fuss classrooms where expectations are clear and respect levels are high between them and children. Their reputations are widespread across a school and reach beyond their classroom. However, even some of these staff are fed up and finding , particularly teenagers, very challenging.

I don't believe the answers are things like:
More classroom support assistants/teaching assistants
Smaller classes
Rigorous systems like the one in the article
Excluding students

I'm not sure what the answers are fully but they include:
More rigorous, entirely school-based, teacher training run by the best schools from a range of socio-economic catchments that set themselves the highest standards in their practice. Universities are not the best places to teach someone to be a teacher. Initial Teacher Training should weed out poor teachers- currently it dies everything to pass every participant however weak they are.
A whole new curriculum for all age-groups of children- the current one is the most unfit for purpose we have had in the last 50 years. It's appalling- particularly in secondary schools. Michael Gove should be held to account for the damage he did in implementing the curriculum change he put in place.
Better parenting. Poor parenting is a really significant issue in the behaviour of children. I have NEVER seen really poorly behaved children who do not have very poorly behaved parents. The standards, values, expectations and manners are set at home and schools face the problems of those. Every child can make a mistake, have a bad patch because of worries, or have an undiagnosed need that affects their behaviour - but ingrained awful behaviour making repeated awful choices comes from what happens at home. We are seeing fast-increasing numbers of children who are growing up with incompetent parents who don't understand/care about what the role of a parent is or how their own behaviours affect those of their children.
A wholescale look again at the systems that diagnose and support SEN.

The local authority I work for is a good one. The one next to us is turfing out children across our borders, into our schools at the rate of half a dozen + a week into secondary schools because of the numbers their schools are permanently excluding- officially or unofficially. Most do not settle and their parents move them back in a short space of time, or they simply do not attend, or when the parents discover their local authority has not actually permanently excluded their child and they have a right for their child to return to the school or to another school local to them, they take that option.

The whole system is a terrible mess. None of the systems that support mainstream schools are functioning with any capacity- children's social care, children's services, CAMHS, out of school provision, PRUs, special schools, ed psychs, SALTs, family support teams.

The burden falls on the schools with the poorest catchments where the biggest social problems exist. It's a vicious circle and has been exacerbated by increased poverty and all the issues that go with it.

I genuinely think the teachers who advocate this approach have issues.

There's nothing else to say really. Very sad situation for their guinea pig students.

The definition of 'much better educational outcomes' needs unpicking.

We are obsessed by a strict definition of 'academic' outcomes and a very narrow academic curriculum for children - that becomes narrower and duller the older they get.

In Finland primary education is much more free and relaxed. There is much less testing of children and very little ongoing rigorous assessment of children or indeed of teachers- of their planning or marking. However, there is a greater responsibility on parents to provide support and teaching and structures for their children- to assure they attend school, to embed manners, family life and education are more important. People pay higher taxes, and a higher form of national insurance for better pubic services and state input. In many countries in northern Europe there is a highly valued vocational and technical educational strand - it doesn't exist in the UK. vocational in schools here are just academic courses.
I do not understand why it is seen as unacceptable to provide properly taught and certified vocational courses. We can not provide plumbers, bricklayers, roofers, joiners of any quality to the building trade- the consequence of which is new housing standards are shoddy. Why are we not training them on a proper pathway from aged 14?
ICT and Computer Science in schools is so low-level and based on 3 hours a week. Why isn't it a specialist pathway for some children from 14?
Why isn't science?
Technology- design and build?
I'm kind of thinking as I'm writing and I am sure people will have other ideas.
As a country our industrial base has died and not really been replaced. We need to replace it and to re-build our infrastructures instead of relying on our big employers of hospitality, bar work, online-shopping related packaging and delivery work.
If we didn't have the civil service, the NHS, schools and adult social care and these few above we'd be struggling even more for employment.

I'm not a fan of Ms Birbalsingh on a lot of levels. But I think there are some kids those schools can really help, because they really need structure and absolutely no wriggle room so that they can actually learn and not get distracted or be distracted by other kids.

I don't think they perpetuate a culture of unquestioning servitude and misery, or produce personality-free drones, nothing's actually capable of doing that - kids are kids and can be lively, expressive people even if they go to a strict school.

I have seen articles purporting to be 'exposes' of such schools which, when you actually read them, don't suggest they are having a terrible effect on their students. One I read about Michaela started really ominously and I expected it to conclude that kids were all suffering from anxiety and mental health issues, or there were high levels of suicide or eating disorders or that actually the kids weren't achieving academically after all this, but all they could seem to come up with is 'Silent corridors seem creepy and it was weird and unnatural that the kids spoke so enthusiatically about their learning', which was hardly damning.

It's existed for long enough now that I think if it were absolutely dreadful for its pupils there would be no shortage of accounts online about how it had ruined people's lives.

I think these schools sound brilliant and if only more schools adopted their approach it would be great!

Teacher here. All schools should be much stricter and I really like the idea of Michaela.

Children and staff need to feel safe. We are setting the bar so low on what is acceptable behaviour.

I have worked in a strict school and it was a joy to work at. The pupils were happy and well mannered.

I now work in a school which is outstanding and the behaviour is bad, pupils are rude, arrogant and lots seemingly have mental health problems

And the discipline and management is way too relaxed

@RedStripeypillow when was the school last OFSTEDed out of interest and has there been any changes in the SLT since the last time?

I don't want to come with a heavy judgemental comment but foreign kids are taught respect and normality in their own families. I just called my brother the other day, his kids are teen and go to just schools in the capital city. Toilets are not locked, there is not any rude behaviour, kids study hard because they want to do well.

Not sure what is going on in the UK and why

In England there needs to be a huge shift onto parents and the teenagers themselves to be responsible for their learning and for allowing others to learn and teachers to teach.

Part of this involves giving families the support they need as poverty and no access to libraries, sports facilities, etc. doesn't support schools as well as proper medical and mental health support.

Making schools a one-stop shop and then failing to resource them is never going to be the answer.

Headteachers like Birbalsingh are running essentially SELECTIVE schools where parents have bought into the ethos and support the homework policy, etc.

Well it isnt an article about UK or even English schools - it is an article about Michaela from which wider conclusions have been drawn without specific examples.

Not sure it always works. We have one like that near us. I purposefully didn't send my child there. She is thriving at her school and kids are on the whole well behaved. Friends have kids at the other school and behaviour is worse.

Finnish educational outcomes are not as good as they used to be.

Very few countries are looking at Finland any more as a model of success.

Not least because Finland is a very culturally and ethnically homogeneous society. As the Scandinavian societies are starting to experience more diversity through immigration they are starting to run into the problems that other countries have always had when you have an education system that has to deal with children who aren't fluent in the language of the school, have suffered trauma, etc etc.

You can (and should) make behavioural discipline stricter without giving punishments for infringements of ridiculously petty rules. All this walking down the corridor with your hands on your back, sitting up poker-straight and tracking the teacher with your eyes at all times is bonkers.

When a country decimates frontline public services (mental health, gp clinics, antenatal, sure start, libraries, council funded adult education, district nurses, etc etc) and most are struggling to make ends meet while the very rich get richer, parenting suffers. People have been low level stressed in this country for a decade and it’s showing in the children they are bringing up.
I hate these super strict schools and my kids hated them too, and did not thrive in them. The best teacher they had was one in juniors who never shouted or punished by could instill great respect ( and maybe a little awe) quietly and calmly.
I also agree about the boring and demoralising curriculum and found it did not foster any love of learning.
Children are switched off, treated like criminals in schools and tested endlessly as they are fed through a rigid system that doesn’t work for the majority.
It makes me very depressed.

Astrea do this across their whole trust.

x.com/warwickmansell/status/1765339892630835424?s=46

Yes yes yes to your last point!
One school in an area could shout about this ethos, become particularly oversubscribed and leave the others as sink schools. Ms B is also always trumpeting about the high % of children from ethnic minority backgrounds but this is also a huge advantage in terms of test scores (as PISA data shows).

I think Michaela's value as a model for other schools is seriously limited.

BUT other schools e.g. Sam Strickland at The Duston School in Northampton (in a very challenging catchment) seems to have a better balance- positive as well as strict, and with a leadership team that see ensuring children behave so they can learn as their most important job. I don't know all the details, but I see him on Twitter and I know what that school was like historically!