to be absolutely horrified by Educating Essex

[spiderpig8]

i would stick pins in my eyes before i sent my kids to a place like that!!
I was watching it woth DS1 who is 16 and he was absolutely speechless at the lack of discipline and the immaturity of the pupils.
Where to start?

Why aren't they all seated in rows facing the front? They seem to be sitting clustered around tables like infants, .No wonder they don't concentrate and are disruptive.
The girls look like hookers with thick make up and very short skirts
If that was top set maths?? At 16 learning how to work out the area of a circle?? The teacher was uninspiring and unenthusiastic. And I had t laugh when it zoomed in on Carrie's so-called 9 GCSEs.She had b in English and |C in maths and that was it.the rest were btecs , functional skills, citizenship and crap that isn't worth the paper it's written on.

The head and deputy are twerps.Skating about in swivel chairs in the corridor, allowing the kids to snowball them.They try to be the kids mates rather than their role models.How can they command any respect?
Most of all allowing their pupils to appear on national television , making serious false allegations against staff, and sending abusive bullying texts.
And this is an ofsted outstanding school!!

"Its typical of the whole of the uk we reward fecklessness,laziness and violence"

Rolls eyes, shrugs shoulders, realises this is what we're dealing with.

Tell you what - sod corporal punishment, I wouldn't send my kids to any school that didn't have capital punishment. It's the only language they understand.

Totally agree with AllFallDowen et al - as somebody who works in many state schools I totally disagree with some of the coments here - especially about them being like zoos - secondry schools face a range of differing challenges but on the whole our education system is pretty good and the people who wrok in it under appreciated, underpaid and doing great work under extreme pressure and scrutiny

albertcamus WTF are you talking about my sisters kids go to private school and they are not stoned the children from the local comp near her home could tell you more about that as it was in the gazette for some of the students drug dealing to children in the younger years

And as for being happy i am sure they are in a school were c is not considered enough to be in the top set and at 15 students still have no clue what pie is but only seem to have knowledge of false eyelashes and make up if thats what you mean about being well equipped for life

I rather have the bullingdon club to deal with than some of these postcode gangs

Wonder the last time a private school student knifed someone hmmmmm

WetAugust ... If that's the view of a head of year nine, publicly expressed to a parent, he has no place in the teaching profession.

having major PC/keyboard issues - ignore typos - curser jumping to random places

Passmores is quite a small school therefore the range of abilities in the top set is going to be wider than that at a much larger school. I note that it also has 17% of its students statemented or on school action plus which is a much higher proportion than average which will also affect this.

I work in a state school with excellent results, the sort that middle class parents want to send their kids to. Yet what is portrayed in the programme is not completely alien to me, I recognise the kids, I also recognise the behaviour. It's in a minority at my school (as I imagine that it is at Passmores but they don't show the nice kids working hard), but it's definitely there.

I have been consistently impressed by the level of pastoral care those teachers lavish on their students. It's brilliant.

And I wish that more parents would watch the episode where Vinnie, an excellent student, goes downhill after his parents divorce. The head did a far better job than that poor boy's father.

I would be absolutely livid if I discovered that my DC's school agreed to be filmed.

That aside, my grandmother used to live in a cottage reached by an alley way in Cheltenham. Boys from the local school used to congregate in the alley to smoke (sometimes cigarettes, sometimes weed) and drink. The name of the school? Cheltenham Gentlemen's College. Comprehensives aren't the only schools with problem pupils.

I think 'where does pi come from' was a perfectly reasonable question for a GCSE-level student, and shows curiosity and desire to understand what's actually going on in maths, rather than just going through the motions of doing calculations as taught.

I wasn't really shocked by the school, as the one I went to had pupils who behaved equally badly. I thought it was normal! Obviously there were no mobile phones in those days though (I was a bit surprised they were allowed to use them in school) and my school did tend to expel the worst offenders eventually. And our top sets were mostly expected to get As, though there are no guarantees and there may have been some who got disappointing results on the day.

We never sat in rows facing the front either, surely that hasn't been the norm in schools for several decades?

maypole, I think the girls who were doing the bullying in this weeks programme (including the girl who didn't understand pi) should have been dealt with more severely. However sometimes it is difficult to judge whether intervening will make the situation worse for the person being excluded by her 'friends'. Sometimes it is better to observe for a couple of days and see if it blows over of its own accord. Kids do fall out all the time and a school cannot intervene in everything. I thought they were quite on the ball with the incident of the two sisters who had been sending nasty texts to another pupil.

Some of those pupils who are being disruptive have faced their parents splitting up, their parents being completely bloody useless and selfish. The only support they are getting is from the school. If the school washes its hands of them, then it's societies problem in the long run.

I do agree that caring for the most needy, shouldn't be at the expense of the hard working, well behaved pupils though. I guess it's a case of the ones who make the most noise, get attention, in the hope of minimising disruption for everyone else.

Worst school I ever worked in was a Catholic boys school - a true comprehensive - it had everything. Gang violence. Racism. Knives. Drugs. The pupils of that school systematically roved round looking for pupils from other schools to assault.

I went to two differnt secondary schools. The first was an average comprehensive which i was at until i did my gcses in 1999. It was very much like the school on educating essex although in some ways worse, for example there was alot more violence with a teacher being attacked with broken bottle in my final term for example. In other ways it was different obviously facebook etc wasnt about then but the school in educating essex seems ok to me.

The second school i went to after moving to the south east coast was a selective all girls school where i did my a levels, very very very different if i had only been to that school then i would be shocked by the programme as well! Pupils very sheltered, very well behaved and i camt actually think of a single incidence of violence or vanadlism i ever saw or heard of.

Allfalldown

If you take a look at the bullying thread you will soon see post after post were the school refuses to remove the bully instead choosing to protect them

Leaving the victim scared to come to school, often I'll and in some cases suicidal at the thought of having to face their tormentors every day for the next four years

all fall down if someone was bullying you on face book or at school, maybe beating you up,maybe being rasicst at work would you expect to have to face your tormentor?

If someone was disrupting your Childs class Being violent to the teachers and your child's work and grades were suffering you would be happy for the disruptive child to remain.

I feel so sorry for teachers to have to come up against biers like this can't imagine being a teacher who had been assaulted by a student that you know no matter what the do to you will never be removed by the school

How depressing to work in a envioment were the children have no ultimate sanction

I'm glad my classroom doesn't have a camera in!

WetAugust ... If that's the view of a head of year nine, publicly expressed to a parent, he has no place in the teaching profession.

I agree AllFallDown however he was the most caring and sympathetic member of staff we dealt with. The Head Teacher simply refused to acknowledge that there was any bullying at all his his school - not ven after my son's serious injuries but also after a boy with special needs was sexually assualted there.

I kind of feel I have to stand up for young people here... The assumption that all schools are like zoos is deeply unfair on most of the teenage population, and their parents.

Yes, all secondary schools have their problems- they all have bullying, drugs and drink but lets not forget all secondary schools have a greater proportion of honest, decent, hardworking and nice kids too- they are not all 'zoos'. There is a lot to be proud of in every school.

I have worked in a very rough comp and have been so touched at the generous nature of many students- many students had such difficult and sad backgrounds and probably every reason to rebel and many chose not to. They do not all behave badly.

The programme will only highlight parts of the school which make good television- the majority of classes where billy forgot his homework, or si and Jay talk over the teacher, or a class goes without problem are pretty boring to watch.... yet this is what makes up most of the school day.

I've only seen trailers for this programme, but I can imagine what it's like. In my experience as a supply teacher, many, if not most, large state schools are like this. What's surprising to me is that the public at large seem to be unaware of the fact. I'm lucky that I've never been sworn at, hit or had things thrown at me. Yet.

I thought it was a spoof at first too - just couldn't believe young kids were being paraded as the next lot of 'reality' fodder.

Also shocked at the lack of discipline. Pupils weren't challenged when they got up and wandered around in lessons simply to gossip with each other, and as for being allowed to play with their mobile phones during lessons - that just beggars belief. Do they not WANT them to concentrate?

It is true that a lot of head teachers will deny there is a problem in their school, particularly if they have 'good' reputation to maintain. So much depends upon the character of the head teacher - a great one can make even a challenging school, a good place to be. A bad one can turn an otherwise excellent school into an awful place to attend.

I did not see this programme.

I suggest that the school allowed this picture of their school to be broadcast (without realising it was going to be negative to the viewers) because they would get a nice fee for the 15 mins of fame.

The headmistress / headmaster should have been allowed to see it before it was broadcast so she / he could put forward a veto here and there or even for the whole lot.

If he / she did see it before it was broadcast, she / he should be sacked for running a school in this way. As for Ofsted - well!!

I know that they said in the programme that they wouldn't permanently exclude pupils, but they didn't say whether they would avoid managed moves which is an alternative to expulsion.

When I was on supply, I tried to get a pupil to remove her coat in the lesson and ended up getting shoved by said pupil. The head seemed to think it was my fault. In retrospect, I wish I'd called the police and had her prosecuted for assault, because the head just wanted to bury it, rather than admit these things happened in his school on a regular basis. Being on supply, it was easier for him to get rid of me than to deal with her properly.

At the time, I was too soft and didn't want her to have involvement with the police at such a young age and trusted my employer to deal with it appropriately.

Lots of schools are really rough places to be. That's why it is so important to have good head teachers who know how to manage the pupils while keeping the atmosphere as calm as possible for all the other pupils.

mapole1 ... I was fairly seriously bullied at school, actually. All my front teeth are chipped from having been kicked repeatedly in the face during one beating from one of my tormentors. In one lesson I was hit round the head with a bike chain by a different one.

Both the kids who did this came from very poor, broken homes. The kid who chipped all my teeth is now a chartered surveyor. The kid who hit me round the head with a bike chain is now a social worker. So no, I'm glad they weren't expelled and thereby almost certainly denied the opportunity to actually make something of their lives. Does that give me enough experience of suffering bullying and thinking about the consequences for you?

Colken - You didn't see the programme, but you think the head should be sacked for running the school that way? Bit of failure of logic on your part, perhaps?

Sad to say that this is the reason why I'm determined to move back home (abroad) before DS is secondary school age. No way in h* I'm sending him to that sort of school environment.

And how much kohl liner does Carrie use on a daily basis?????

I think it's fairly representative of school life.

Schools have to pick up all the problems the parents can't/won't deal with.

The more affluent the school, often the more problematic the pupils - and that is because you have the 'know my rights' brigade who consistently undermine any teachers authority. Parents can be a bit 'dim' with regard to what really goes on in schools. Things I would have been horrifed at a few years ago have merely desensitised me. I never thought in a million years I would walk corridors with tagged minors; or with serious criminal convictions for violence; nor sit across a table from a woman who beat her daughter with a dog chain.