It is not a school's job to control your children, it is a school's job to educate them - it is a parent's job to get them to school with the right behavioural attitudes and social abilities to learn

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(excluding diagnosed behavioural SN) your thoughts?

My own experience, as a teacher of secondary English with 11 years experience, is that if you can crack:

1. 'This is something you can do successfully/improve at/aspire to'
2. 'This is something that you will directly & measurably benefit from' (eg. by getting on to a college course that requires a good pass in English)

then very, very few kids need anything else in the way of control.

Of course, a tipping point does get reached when you've got, for example, 30 students in a lower ability set with no ETA.

There's a point where, say, 5 people in the room can't get on with a task unless someone comes & explains/encourages; so 4 of them are getting restive because you're with the 5th...& the other uncomfortable truth is that if 4 students are misbehaving, half the class will start pratting about too despite the fact that they could perfectly well ignore & get on with their own work....

I suspect the dark days of big classes playing silly buggers for want of attention may well be returning, which does rather fill me with despondency.

But I do teach quite a few arsey, opininated teenagers who are all too used to bossing, if not outright bullying, their parents - & I honestly do find that the vast majority of them want to do well.

Small children starting school lacking in basic independence skills in another matter & not control as such...?

ravenAK
'1) 'This is something you can do successfully/improve at/aspire to'
2) 'This is something that you will directly & measurably benefit from' '

Well said - exactly the same with Y2. Aspiration, praise, closing the gap, encouragement and getting prizes for target achievement. Works all the time.

what annoys me about this thread is that it is yet another "them and us" mentality. Since I send my children to school I have to rely on them to deliver some parts of my child's education, including an environment that is conducive to learning. They have often failed to deliver that. I also expect them to correctly identify my child's level of ability and educate them accordingly. Until A level level that has been a constant problem for one of them, with the result that they have often been bored. Their behaviour has never been criticised by their school, although some of it would be deemed unacceptable at home.

It concerns me a lot that children are being taught by people who are often unable to handle criticism constructively and insist on blaming any problem on someone else. In my line of work if someone presents you with a problem you are expected to find a solution, not an excuse.

You do expect a bit of co operation though, ellisbell.
I think that everyone accepts that some DCs are challenging (some are just natural born rebels!) However they need to work on it together -with the home backing up the school.

ellisbell what is your line of work?

Unfortunately, when your line of work is children, it isn't always that simple.

Especially when...

a child (6) has phoned the police the night before to report his dad for attacking his mum,

a child (6) arrives at school not having eaten because mum's in bed drunk and they got themselves to school,

mum is 'working' from home and the child (9) is in the house at the time - fully aware of what is going on,

one parent has been left severely disabled following an accident and their child (4) is having to come to terms with it,

a parent picks the child (4) up from school and instead of greeting with "hi sweetheart have you had a lovely day. Oh is that a picture for mummy? Isn't it lovely" is greeted with "'ere's y' fkn cake. an' you start whinging for anything else I'll fkn smack y'".

a parent doesn't believe that their new DP was guilty of child abuse, even though they served a prison sentence for it until they had proof of partners said predilection - and then one day their DD (7) stayed in at playtime to tell the teacher something.

These are all real experiences from my personal and professional life and often mean that the child rarely, if ever, arrives with the right behavioural attitude and social abilities to learn.

of course - but this thread is not about how you achieve cooperation. It is about whining not why some children arrive at school without the right behavioural attitudes and social abilities to learn and how you might develop those skills.

Jellykat I agree with your post. I was a TA and followed the same class of Y11s from subject to subject. They were a lower set with a high level of SENs in a sink school. In English they were awful. Even my "named child" (who was a good kid) messed about in English because the teacher was useless. Similarly in Chemistry, where there was a high level of disruption and destruction and it was impossible to work- again useless teacher who shouted and screamed but achieved nothing. (Eventually said teacher got a promotion to a different school )

History was a different story. Everyone quiet and working. No disruption at all. Exactly the same kids and a teacher who set out the rules at the start of every term and did not allow even a minor infringement. And they knew it. Similar story in biology where the teacher (4ft nothing and looked like a strong wind would blow her away) never ever raised her voice but commanded instant respect.

Ask them which subjects they liked and they always picked those with the really strict teachers.

Did anyone one the channel 4 series about the schook with Jamie Oliver? I found it fascinating that the 'kids' (in reality, school leavers) were desperate for disciplline and structure.

The head was very liberal and keen to listen to and be led by the pupils. When a visiting philosopher from Oxford was stuggling to get control to begin the lesson, she asked the pupils what she needed to do to get them on board. They told her to send out, immediately, any one who spoke or faffed about. She was stunned. But thats it from the pupils mouths, they want order, they want peace to be taught and become disinterested very quickly when it's just another rabble.

This thread has been intersesting bacuase there are many valid reasons why children come to school not ready to learn. I'm sure forty years ago there were just as many kids from dysfunctional homes/abusive homes/poverty but that didn't seem to translate into lack of order in the class room. Why?

schook? Back to school for me.

Why exclsuiding diagnosed SN?

DS4 is being assessed: do his needs only begin with a dx that can take years, I wonder?

What interests me is I help in a learning abse for kids with Sn and the whole bad manners thing doesn;t seem to apply tbh: tehre's variation but the kids are fab. IME the kids who have bad manners are the ones who have the most 'Bodenny' of famillies- these are the kids who cll ds1 a retard and whose mums front up saying it's OK becuase it's a medical term.

Whereas I have found the poorer schools have different sets of issues entirely.

my boys attend (well the two in MS primary education) a lcoal CofW school, a very nice MC chool. I say at dinner' would you eat like that at school?'- they say yes. nothing seems to get reinforced. It takes school and aprents to raise a primary aged child.

'I'm sure forty years ago there were just as many kids from dysfunctional homes/abusive homes/poverty but that didn't seem to translate into lack of order in the class room. Why?
'

Dad's childhood.

Becuase his mum kept him home so he could work and earn a few quid or steal something for dinner? Becuase he was expelled before he was ten?

I'm sorry Peachy, I don't understand your point. Tis early on Sunday for me

Your dad being expelled surely is a sign of how discipline was strongly enforced all those years ago. Are you saying he was expelled because he was absent so much, by his mums direction?

Yes thats exactluy why he was expelled, and becuase when he was there he was hungry and tired. He started work aged 5. His dad was an alkie, his mum disabled and bedridden; he was child 15 / 16.

There was nobody from the state able to step in and say do better or the kis will be taken off you: kids like him just vanished from the system

He did manage to pass the 11+ but coudln't afford uniform so could not go. He left school as he hit his teens, just to survive.

Fuck me peachy - that's distressing. :( I can't even say anything that doesn't sound accidentally patronising but I hope his life got a lot better.

I see, and there were somewhat similar backgrounds in my mums family. My mother was forced to stay home and raise her siblings whilst her mother worked to support them.

The system was more brutal and less inclusive, the state smaller. What I see now though is that society has just as many problems within families, of abuse, lack of parenting skills, maybe due to their own parents lack of education, maybe not. What has changed is that there is a a huge social services network and this surely should help translate into more order in school, not less? Kids should never nowadays be forced to turn up to school exhausted from caring for their siblings, fending for their own food and the like. They do, and it's shocking.

Having said that, I don't this these examples explain fully why so many kids are simply unprepared for school. I see a helluva lot of child centric parenting gone wrong within my own circle.

Yes it did.

Some of his siblings have died from alcohol dmage so not for all of tehm.

dad worked his way up to be a secoind level Manager in a massive factory responsible for hundreds of people; he has he says had a good life. he drank for a decade but managed to get off it, he is pretty amazing to me; some of his siblings might ahve died or ended up in priosn, otehrs have made massive careers- including traniing olympic sports people. The younger ones amde it as they ahd siblings to help out: the older ones didn;t, in the main- one got out and emigrated, she was OK.

Dad stills works at almost 70 as his pension hit the skids ( company bought by Americans who sued it to pay an asbestos claim- well, many asbestos calims) which has been a bit of a bugger but he seems to like work and feels he is secure and happy. Which is more than many have.

Well I'm glad that he did make it and :( for his older siblings who suffered more - what a terrible situation.
Sorry for minor hijack, I couldn't just let that pass without saying something.

Social services has no impact on school provision. Social services help virtually nobody anyway as they are broke. Theyc an;t even afford to help someone like em who was looking for help with room hire to run a group for kids at risk of being disaffected (spec. kisd with a sibling with ASD).

'Kids should never nowadays be forced to turn up to school exhausted from caring for their siblings, fending for their own food and the like. They do, and it's shocking.
'

Yes it is. but SSD don;t offer regualr help to child carers necessarily. DS2 turns up tired becuase his ASD siblings don't sleep. We don;t get help.

AM not a fan of the sott of aprenting that does not put rules in place and set boundaries, not for me at all- I try to be loving but have definite authoritarian inclinations (needed with my 4 boys). But the famillies I know who follow the extreme parenting styles are MC; those with no rules due to otehr factors usually dealing with amssive shite (usued to work for HomeTsart so saw that often). Most people though are doing their level best but ofen have noe xperience of babysitting, younger siblings, chidl rearing. it's quite possibly a dying skill.

when i started attendin surestart, my dd would never sit still in roup time, now after 8 mnths she is startin to, it takes consistent practice and attendance, but if there was no sure start she wouldnt have learnt.
this shows the importance of ss.

it is because at home when we read books it is more interactive, she points to the pictures, counts the apples in hunry caterpillar, and turns the paes and she wanted to do all that in roup time as well, but of course you cant s you et in the way of everyone else.

nailak have you got a crumb stuck under your 'g' key?

If you trhink about how long (6.5 hrs) they spend at school a day (32.5hrs a week), that's a long time away from parents to expect the teachers to have no input in behaviour.

In fact, for parents who haven't quite mastered the discipline thing yet (myself included ), it provides a good opportunity for the school to 'shape' them a bit into behaving.

My DCs behave far better at school than at home and I'm glad it's that was around.

So good, positive parenting, coupled with the same tones being encouraged by teachers is a good thing.