that every parent of a secondary school child should sit in on a lesson

[thekidsrule]

hi,my son has been disrupting a class he attends at secondary school (boys)

im feed up to the back teeth of his attitude regarding his behaviour

im also getting phone calls about this by the teacher,anyway as a last resort i asked the teacher if i could sit in on this lesson,maybe embarrass him,realise i mean buisness,sure you get the drift

anyway teacher was more than happy so i sat in OMG what a shambles

1/4 of the class would not sit down for the first 10mins of lesson
continuous calling out,throwing pens,offensive language,basically a shambles

one boy was sent out for good but there was still a huge amount of dissruption,my son was better behaved but im under no illussion he acts the same when im not there

there was a reward system going,lots of incentives but nothing made any difference

there was some students that wanted to learn,but how can they learn with so much going on

ages 13yrs

i liked the teacher and really felt for her,what a hard job

AIBU t think that alot of parents dont really realise what is going on in the classroom and maybe every parent attended one lesson it would open there eyes,it has mine

Aribura, you are right. There is a pack mentality at work, the kids make each other worse. Teachers are in fact not supposed to refer to "control". One person cannot legally control another, pupils are required to control themselves. Teachers are to manage. This sounds like a pedantic quibble, but it isn't really. I've had classes for whom good behaviour is out of the bounds of the possible, and disipline a total waste of time and energy. In the end you have to teach the children you have got, not waste your time fighting to try and turn them into children they are not. I've had classes I've just settled into teaching WHILE they behave badly. depends on the number and the level of noise, disruption of course, but for example I 've had small classes, with a certain number who wouln't keep still or sit down, so just taught them standing up, etc. Some of these students left school with no qualifications at all, except mine.

Heswall - so the mobile wasn't removed, your DD given a letter of apology, the offender punished by the school by losing playtime etc?

I called the police as it happens because the school could not remove the phone. Yes the child wrote a letter and yes she missed play time writing the letter which was then shoved into DD's hand with "here's the letter I've been made to write" as the parting shot.
The bully sobbed loudly all day and the other children blamed my DD for getting her into trouble.
So my opinion is that it's across the board and it is down to poor parenting, of which I may too be guilty of. Hard to know what to do.

Heswall the bully sounds like a nasty little cow.

Hope your daughter is ok now.

That's awful. A more severe punishment would have been given by my DCs Primary, but no, unfortunately you can't control what the parents do.

She is a nasty little cow and they come from all walks of life.

True.

Ok, here's my big idea. I've been thinking this for a few years now, since I entered the profession and I'm more convinced than ever after this.

When I went to school, back in the eighties, one of the local grammars, we had the same mix as you get now. Different social groups, remembering we got there through our intelligence not our parents earnings, and different educational abilities, some sporty, some arty/crafty and some academic. We had cheeky/rude pupils, we had pupils who didn't make much of an effort and we had pupils who were downright awful. We had 30+ per class.

What we also had though was only three classes per year. In the whole school that would have meant about 500 in years 1-5. The 6th form was on a separate site and so had a completely 'grown-up' attitude as they/we were away from the immature younger years ().

All the teachers knew us - all of them. If we misbehaved in class and were sent out there was nowhere to hide. A member of staff would find us, pass us onto a senior member and that was it for the day. If we misbehaved out of class every single teacher knew who we were and would report us to the senior staff. I can remember being shouted at by the deputy head from the other end of a corridor because I was wearing eyeliner. She carted me into her room and gave me tissues to wipe it off. The idea of ignoring her and running off didn't even enter my head, because she knew who I was.

I can't count the number of times I have caught a pupil misbehaving and then had him/her run off because they knew I didn't know them and couldn't do anything about it. In a school of 1000+ how was that going to happen. And yet it is seen as a fine old idea to have schools of 2000+!

In every school you will get a small number who will always behave and a small number who will always play up. That leaves a majority in the middle who will go with whichever group they are more inclined to/looks like the best idea. If the badly behaved get away with it then the middle will veer towards them. If the well-behaved get the kudos and better treatment then the middle will.., well I'm sure by now it's clear where I'm going.

Smaller schools, better support by senior staff, more parental involvement when pupils need it (ie. this is what your child has done, do not argue with us).

I think I'm finished. This has taken ages to type on my phone (and stopping for dinner) (and stopping to giggle at Blazing Saddles)... I've probably x-posted with loads now but hey, I've got it off my chest.

I think it's often down to senior management. Yes, good teaching can do wonders. Well planned lessons, consistent behaviour management and so on. But it's a numbers game. A few difficult kids is one thing but 10 plus is another. And teachers have too many lessons to follow up properly. That's where SLT have to step in.

Agreed, nfk

My DD's state school is a 1800+ pupil school - and that is only Y7-11, no 6th form. I have had 'words' with the school, because I believe that they did let my DD get away with FAR more low-level rudeness than I would. It doesn't help that she DOES get carried away following the example set by those in her classes that have EBD issues - she has LD's, hence she was in the same sets. Y7 and Y8 in particular were terrible.

However - since Y9, despite her SN's, she has moved up a couple of sets - and the difference is AMAZING. She has stopped getting up and walking around the classroom unchallenged, she has completed so much more work, she has gone up more NC levels in one year than anyone thought possible.

I think that having 30 dc in one class that all have either SN's, or EBD issues, just DOESN'T work, and creates an unmanageable class for the teachers. It is physically impossible to control a set like this and actually TEACH them, even for the BEST of teachers, the resources just aren't there.

And this is in an outstanding school, the best in the town, with VERY strong behavioural procedures in place. Two children in DD's year have had managed moves to the PRU (though one has since been permanantly excluded from there too...), There are fixed-term exclusions, there are internal exclusions, there are detentions. None of them are going to work if you have a class with 30 different individuals, with 30 different individual problems.

DD is now in set 6 out of 10 in Geography, to take just one lesson. The difference in the amount of WRITING she is getting on the page is astounding. Because she is in a class where the majority do not need the same level of input as the rest of the class in set 10. Yet at her open evening last week - her geography teacher has told me that despite her SN, she is top of his class, and is working so far above the rest of his class that she will be moved up to set 5 after half term. Because she has, for the first time, been able to LEARN something.

But I do feel that some parents are sadly deluded about their little 'darlings'. And I also feel that even with the most supportive HT ever, a class filled with 25 EBD pupils and 5 SN pupils is going to FAIL the SN pupils, through no real fault of the school, other than not running a class purely for those 5 SN pupils. Which is, in essence, what DD's school had to resort to for her year group in Y7 and Y8. They had a class of 25 EBD pupils as set 10a, and a class of 5 SN pupils as set 10b...It was the first year they did this, and it has made such a difference to those 5 dc with SN that they are intending to do it EVERY year! NONE of those 5 dc with SN are now in set 10 at all.

Not read the whole thread, but if it is just the one class that your son is disrupting and his behaviour is ok in others, then unfortunately it does look as if the teacher has lost control. I went to a girls' grammar school in the 80s and most teachers had excellent control. Behaviour was good and we worked. There were about four teachers during my time there who were useless at classroom control though. People messed around, paid no attention, did their own thing at the back. One of them was the maths teacher that i had for the first three years! It can depend on the teacher.

MrsBeakman Not necessarily so. One school I worked in had one particular yr8 class who were famous throughout the school for poor behaviour. Teachers (including myself) who had no problems elsewhere complained bitterly in meetings about this class. It wasn't even all of them, just around 40%, but the behaviour spread because the good ones stopped caring when they saw the 'bad' (hate using that term but stuck with it) ones getting away with it.

When I was at school in the late 80's every lesson was like this. I hated school with a passion.

I was under the illusion that things had improved since then.

Huntycat I couldn't agree more.
I spent some time in a primary school where the time and energy taken up by a couple of dreadfully behaved boys meant no TA or teacher time for DCs who really needed it.
There were several children in that class who's literacy skills would have benefited so much for just a bit more input. Especially those who just didn't qualify for time in the SN unit.

whilst I applaud you op; to get the real picture we should be allowed to have full video and sound coverage in lessons; this way parents will get to see the real picture!

I wonder what would happen with the real picture though, parents who's children were affected by the others behaviour might be extremely angry and upset but the little cherubs misbehaving, well where did they pick up that attitude, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in my experience.

Well done for going in

Ds used to be roughed up by 2 boys in primary school. The school did all they could and the children's parents were called in on numerous occasions and always swore blind that their child couldn't have done it and went as far as threatening the school if their precious angels were ever falsely accused again.

Some children are just set up in life believing no adult can ever tell them off. And children like this do tend to sweep up other easily influenced children and before you know it you have a disruptive core.

Dd (in secondary school) knows full well who those children are and I believe the school does too. She also knows which teachers handle them better.

What a brilliant idea of yours to go in. It's a shame more parents don't involve themselves in these issues. It's the ones whose parents insist their child is an angel or won't listen to the fact that they are problematic (or don't care) that will carry on being an issue I guess.

Ah, the old chestnut of pupil behaviour and who is responsible. I remember my first year teaching (well the bits I haven't blocked out for the sake of what remains of my sanity). I had two of the worst classes in the school; a year 11 class and a year 8 class, both large, both with a large number of SEN pupils and no support with either. To make matters worse both classes had been routinely told by other staff that they were thick, useless and wouldn't amount to anything. Typical behaviour was anything from pulling pants down and running around the classroom trying to 'tag' other pupils with their 'bits' to the other popular game of trying to tag me with missiles in the form of fruit and full bottles of - doesn't actually bear thinking about!

I'll be the first to admit to not having a clue how to deal with this. We had been 'trained' in how to deal with behavioural issues at uni but I had obviously missed the lecture where the lecturer pulled down his pants and started doing MC Hammer impressions at the front of the lecture hall! Support from the powers that be was limited. There seems to be a culture (perpetuated by the current government and many others) that to ask for help in controlling a class is to be seen as a failure. This puts a rediculous amount of pressure on teachers and often the pupils see you having to go to senior management for help as a victory on their part too.

So, who is to blame? Another admission . . . When I was at school we had a lot more respect for adults and authority but we still tried it on. I went to a 'good', selective school. We all came from good families (not rich families but families that were supportive of the school and raised us to have values) but we still made this one teacher's life a misery, why? because we could and because it was fun. It wasn't down to our parents, wasn't down to the school, wasn't down to the teacher (he was new to the profession at the time), it was just down to us being kids. Thing is this guy kept coming back. No matter what we said or did to him he kept coming back and kept caring about our education. He ended up being the best teacher we ever had.

So, back to me now as a teacher. How did I deal with these classes? I kept going back, kept reinforcing the fact that these kids would succeed and let them know that they could try it on all they wanted - I'd still be there the next lesson. The year 11s passed their course and the year 8s left school with some of the best qualifications the school had ever had.

Teaching is something you can only become good at through experience. In an ideal world the more experienced teachers should be given the worst classes - but this rarely happens. In an ideal world senior management should be supportive without being judgemental - but this rarely happens. In an ideal world parents should be able to control their kids when their kids are not at home and kids should all want to be in school and want to learn - but . .

From experience (as both a kid and a teacher and a step parent) you can't lay the blame at any one door. I think we would all do better if we stopped trying to blame each other and started to work together.

Mrs wembley and lifechanger are completely right regarding small schools. I work in a school that went through the change from one large to several small -like the ny model, and the difference is amazing. We all know everybody, problems can be dealt with quickly, kids feel connected to school. Relati

Sorry- stupid phone!! Relationships are amazing, between staff and kids but also between kids. Kids now actively break up fights whereas before they would form the impenetrable circle keeping teachers out and yelling fight.
The kids havent changed but we have given them a human structure and as a result they now act much more humanly. Obviously there are still issues but the difference is just amazing.

why would you need to. This went on when i was at school too. It is what happens when you stick a group of children in a building 6 hours a day when none of them want to be there.

AfternoonDelight, it doesn't happen in all schools and not much at all in Independent Schools. I'm not sure the DC at these schools want to be there any more than the DC at State schools so it can't be as simple as you are suggesting.

"through no real fault of the school, other than not running a class purely for those 5 SN pupils."

My school used to do this up till this year. Then the Tory government massively cut our school budget and we had to make teachers redundant and there weren't enough teachers (or money) to run this extra class.

It's not always the school's fault when SN pupils are ineffectively dealt with.