To think that schools need to get much tougher on low level disruption & it's no wonder we're apparently falling behind other countries in terms of educational attainment.

[Cortina]

After reading the Ofsted report for a local primary I have been thinking that parents and teachers should get much tougher and expect higher standards of behaviour from children. It's no wonder we're apparently falling behind in terms of educational attainment when so many excuses are seemingly made for poor behaviour and low level disruption. At the risk of sounding ancient the sort of letter received by pupils below would be unthinkable 20 years ago.

Excerpts from Ofsted 'letter to pupils':

Sometimes we saw that the work teachers set was either too hard or too easy or a bit boring and then unsurprisingly some of you lost interest and started to misbehave. We think you behave well most of the time, especially in interesting and enjoyable lessons. Sometimes, when the lessons are a bit dull and not so exciting, some of you get restless and begin to disturb others.

The letter goes on to make excuses for low level disruption and some occasional bad behaviour and say that this isn't the children's fault at all. It ends with a request that they smile through and that the officers have noticed it's a good, safe school so they're lucky.

If I read this as an 11 year old child I would assume:

1. I could blame the rather dull lessons & poor lesson planning/teaching for my disruptive behaviour.

2. Wonder why on earth rather dull lessons were on the agenda at all? If the adults think lessons are sometimes boring and a bit pointless then I may as well switch off.

3. To think there were no sanctions or consequences for poor behaviour.

I think we need to wake up. Our children are going to have to compete in an increasingly globalised world. Can you imagine this being written and circulated to children in South Korea, Singapore or China? How the teachers would laugh at us circulating letters like this to pupils.

And I hate to bring up the private/state thing but how many prep schools do you think would have this philosophy? Surely we set our children up for failure with these sort of platitudes and half-baked excuses for poor behaviour.

My wider experience tells me that these sort of attitudes are not isolated to one (good by the way) Primary. I can see that they are trying to 'get the children on side' but I don't think it's working for reasons stated above.

I'd only send my dc to a private, grammar, or VERY good church school. I wouldn't even consider anything else.

Comrade.... It looked on the surface to be one tragedy! Til you looked into why a 2 year old was left to die and 18 people saw her and walked on and did nothing!!! Read up about it!

But a 'fear of consequences' is not something that can be laid at the teacher's door. The majority of pupils do know how to behave so it's not the teacher: they are teaching the same method simultaneously to thirty children, so why can't five behave? I think it's the parents. There were all sorts of disruptive children in my class at school. Most of us didn't join them because we knew exactly what our parents would do if they found out we had.

I have been watching Educating Essex and it's heartbreaking to see how many of the disruptive children featured come from homes where there is no structure and (they feel) no support. My Dad works at a school and he told me of a girl who wore trainers so - rightly - got pulled up before the headteacher and made to wear a spare pair of shoes. Her father came in one hour later effing and blinding and threatened the head saying, 'Don't you dare tell my child what to wear, force them into second-hand clothes etc., etc.' Later that day the girl got hurt in PE and went to the GP. The school called the father. He told them that, since it was school hours, the girl was their problem and put the phone down. How are children from families like that meant to learn respect, love and kind behaviour towards their fellow students that means, even if you are bored, you understand that your friends have to learn too and you amuse yourself quietly?

How old are your children Rose?

YANBU. I agree that the school system in this country does children a great disservice by avoiding telling them to 'get on with it' when required. I'm a product of two education systems, one based on 'write and learn' and the other the UK system. I appreciate that the UK system taught me to think critically and to work things out for myself but I envied the work ethic and sheer dedication to learning I saw in the other system. A bit of both doesn't go amiss and if all lessons have to be 'fun' then that won't happen.

I don't have any. I came on Mumsnet to see why there was so much fuss about it during the election and got hooked on AIBU

Well Rose, maybe you will change your views a little when you have dc

My 2 teen girls, brought up by me. One a model student, the other (was) a nightmare. 8 months of hell with her. But as I say, teens, so at upper school and this thread was started about primary school kids.

I don't think you need to be a parent to know 'it's all the parents' fault' is bonkers a bit simplistic!

It is the parents fault in the majority of cases.

What age are you talking about rycooler?

I don't know... my views have been set by being a child in a disruptive class, by my parents bringing home stories from their places of work (they both worked in schools and one as a benefits processor) and by working in schools as an adult. I've worked in both primary and high schools and, at least in the classes/students I worked with, a large proportion of the children who are disruptive have no clear idea of what acceptable boundaries are.

In reception you can easily say it's because they haven't been in a strict environment before, but as you progress up the school - and I understood the thread to be about classroom culture/Ofsted attitudes generally, rather than primary schools, I'm sorry if I misunderstood - and children begin to understand what is expected of them those that don't stick out like a sore thumb. There will always be students who have problems that aren't the result of parents - I had to resit a year of school for personal issues that were only partially a response to my parents' actions - but I think they are the minority of the disruptive or disengaged students. Again, this is only from my observations, but I chat a lot with teacher friends from different schools and we have some kind of agreement on this issue.

Thanks Ella

I agree with OP. Those lessons taught in a private school would not result in misbehaviour even if they were deemed boring, too hard , too easy. Always the teachers fault though with OFSTED!!!

ComradeJing I imagine many DCs could deal with it if they started young enough and had no preconceptions about how difficult it was but not that easy to implement set up as you say.

I have kids. But some of what Rose says is true. The most disruptive children I have met in secondary schools have extremely difficult home lives, but then so do some of the really hard working kids. Without the a reasonable family background it might be impossible for a student to fulfill their potential, but they might give it a very good shot. However schools I know do their best to help such pupils.

As for the OPs local primary, I wouldn't be sending my kids there. It sounds like OFSTED code for "the teachers don't really know how to differentiate". Its not an excuse for disruptive behaviour it is OFSTED saying that they have spotted that the teachers are trying to fit the children to the lessons rather than the lessons to the children. And yes kids (even the nicest ones) do become disruptive if either the work is: too easy or far too hard.

Mummytime - they graded the teaching as a '2' - which is good.

I agree with OP. Those lessons taught in a private school would not result in misbehaviour even if they were deemed boring, too hard , too easy. Always the teachers fault though with OFSTED!!!

The teachers have been the soft target for a generation at least (not saying some don't deserve it, but IMO thats a minority) but facing up to the other problems is hard and politically uncomfortable because it means saying "No" to a whole host of special interests that grab the moral high ground with a vice-like grip..

Chinese grammar is easier than European languages - no articles, tenses are very simple compared to the joy that is teaching studens the present perfect continuous, fewer prespositions, relatively simple sentence patterns etc. However, as Comrade says the tones can be tricky and without the correct tone what you said makes no sense:
da bao - take away
da bao - to thin your hair
Success with the tones is easier for children, but easier still for those under the age of 7. My daughter's tones are perfect - she is 5. Mine are horrible and I get around this by using longer sentences as then someone is likely to understand what I am saying!

Reading and writing characters is hard and learning to use a dictionary to look up characters takes chinese kids 2-3 years to master.

Cortina - agree 100% with your comment re complacency.

As I understand it children in the UK no longer have to learn a language after the age of 14. The UK seems at odds with the rest of the world with this attitude and is not an environment where languages are valued - not a great environment to encourage children to learn mandarin.

We took in a teenager last year, he went to the local school which is rough but ofsted outstanding. The first year he was very disruptive in all his classes, spent many hours and days in the exit room, we were receiving calls from the schools and summoned for meetings almost daily. At the time we despaired that they had no control and wouldn't or couldn't teach him. Teachers were constantly giving him three warnings and then calling the security guard to have him escorted out. We let the school know we were absolutely on the case and they kept us up to date with his every movement and we imposed sanctions at home. A year on he is in top set for everything, a bit of a swot and obsessing over his GCSE options. We only achieved this working together with the school - I don't think the school would have bothered much if they thought he had no support at home, he would just have been in the classroom - exit suite holding pattern until it was time for him to leave.

Things are going to change IMO unimaginably in our children's lifetimes and certainly our grandchildren's . I fear we are all seriously burying our heads in the sand.

Shanghadiva that all makes sense.

ILT; Yr 2 upwards. disruptive pupils have very little discipline at home - and if there is discipline it isn't consistent. Children need firm boundaries and need to be told from an early age what's exceptable and what isn't. It isn't fair to constantly blame the teachers. Many parents see school as a free baby sitting service and couldn't give a toss what their kids are doing - but teachers are expected to be magicians and turn every pain in the arse into Einstein.

It is not just a lack of discipline from parents that causes problems at school but also those parents that foster a massive sense of entitlement in their children.

For example, last year I was having a discussion with a class who said that there was a big problem with litter in the school. I asked what they think could be done to fix it, expecting things like 'more bins' and a 'don't drop litter campaign'. Instead, one kid said 'sack the caretakers and get in better ones'. The rest of the class nodded in agreement and they genuinely couldn't see what the problem was.

Children who think that they should get an equal say in how my classroom is run cause no end of wasted teaching time.

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Things are going to change IMO unimaginably in our children's lifetimes and certainly our grandchildren's . I fear we are all seriously burying our heads in the sand.

What is interesting is that most of the countries with good education systems have systems that look a lot like the ones Britain walked away from over the last generation or so.

I suspect there will be quite a lot of "back to the future" necessary....