AIBU to not be impressed by the Educating Yorkshire head?

[WetGrass]

I find there is something of the Victorian philanthropist in his attitude to his students.

When he says "The most important part of my job is that these students come out as decent human beings" - is it just me that hears the echo of "God bless their blighted little souls - 'cos there's little else they've got to aspire to".

I'd be hopping mad if my child's head teacher was trying to effectively proxy parent them. I think most on this forum would be the same judging by the threads about "My DC isn't getting challenging enough work in class/isn't getting support with their SN/ isn't being offered the course options they need to go to college".

Schools are dreadful places to learn to be a good human being. Unless you're being groomed for a life behind bars - most people's adult life does not feature being trapped in an institution, being goaded by bullies. However - they are the best chance most of us have to step up into a good professional life path.

I thought it was disgraceful to have the quiet, bullied kid Jac-Henry labelled as 'prone to violent outbursts' - particularly on a day he was sitting a module exam. He clearly just wanted to get his head down and study hard. The headteacher was pushing an agenda of character correction ahead of an agenda of academic achievement.

The head was appalling.I know a super head who has turned a school round,won awards etc.No way would he have let himself be twisted round Georgia's finger or become matey pals due to ring scared of a pupil.

The fact was the school was doing nothing re the bullying.Their idea of handling it was come and tell us- errr then when you've snitched it gets worse,great idea.Sooooo JH had to sort it out himself,he had no other option unless ignoring yourself being belittled and trodden on,confidence trashed etc.

In real life you're not trapped 24/7 with bullies.Bullying with half that severity would involve dismissal in the work place.

If JH had been in a mc school with confident articulate parents they would have demanded the bullying got stopped,made official complaints when it didn't and payed for their own ed psych report to contest his "anger" label.

As he wasn't he proceeded to get shat on and bullied by knob of a head who just wants to boost exam results and clearly thinks hard workers are waaaaay down his priority list.

Ad they wonder why grammar shools are so popular.

Genuine question as I don't work in a school and only have a young child who isn't school ages, but what could the headteacher do to stop the bullying? What happens in other schools where they manage to cut down bullying that he could do at Thornhill?

What shocks me with both this and Eduacting Essex is that the staff lie, are shown to be lying - and no-one makes anything of it. It's very tiny things, I suppose. Like in Educating Essex, when the girl had accused the deputy head of hitting her and they didn't yet know if she were lying or not, the teacher on the phone to her mum just told her her daughter was lying. That shocked me, despite the headteacher subsequently making a big deal of how he does a fair investigation. And in this one, they claimed the lass had stormed out of class - and that's what the head teacher accuses her of - when she'd actually been told she had to leave as she was being rude.

I get that a small minority of these children are really bad (though most of them aren't), but I thought those were really poor responses. I do think the teachers generally come across as great, but the casual bending of the truth really bothered me.

Roonil,

The primary school my DC went to had a non-existent bullying policy. People were constantly bullied, despite it being in a naice area with very naice MC pupils. One boy I know ended up getting very violent indeed because he was goaded so much and when he tried to explain to teachers what he was going through, he was ignored.

He then moved to a school where, when he spoke to teachers, the goaders were immediately hauled in front of teachers, made to think about their actions and held entirely accountable for any verbal abuse. He told me he doesn't get bullied now, and he has returned to being the gentle boy he always was, before he was thrown into the lions' pit.

My own DS1 was bullied too. He put up with it for three years from one boy then whacked him (outside school hours) and was never bullied again. His behaviour wasn't ideal but I didn't tell him off because he was defending himself after years of abuse, not attacking. The attacker is the perpetrator. He or she is the one who needs to be dealt with first.

Another boy who bullied DS a lot was daft enough to do it right in front of me once. I had severe words with him and he stopped for good. The right words at the right time can stop verbal bullying, as that head teacher should know.

Physical abuse is not acceptable, but standing up for yourself in an environment where no one else will? It becomes survival tactics. It should never come to that.

I'm not sure why saying that Georgia should be punished for bullying is seen to imply that Jac-Henry shouldn't be punished. Both pupils behaved unacceptably and both should be seen to be punished.

Goldmandra you might have not said it, but others were certainly suggesting it, (e.g. Minidipper).

In the real world physical violence leads to arrest and possibly prison. Jac WAS a victim but he also punched 2 people. He DID have a bit of an anger issue however justified.
And as I said previously this is TV, a very small snapshot of these kids years at school. I don't think we were given enough information to make any conclusions about whether the bullying was dealt with or not. Similarly we don't know how many previous incidents Jac may have been involved in.
And really, anger management strategies counts as ABUSE, really??!
I'm think I'm going to watch it again and see if I change my mind!

And really, anger management strategies counts as ABUSE, really??!

No, of course they don't. I'm sure most people would benefit from decent anger management training if it's delivered correctly.

What was shown in the programme was only a very short snippet but it seemed to be being delivered very badly. Not abusive but potentially counter productive and damaging to the self esteem of a pupil who was clearly already struggling.

I think he's keener to be popular and matey than hard-line and earning respect.

His long-winded justification of giving last chance after last chance was unimpressive.

If I was a trouble-maker, I'd have just thought 'pussy.'

Any pupil who physically attacks another pupil has to be disciplined. Hopefully everyone would agree with that. I think the question is whether the punishment should have been lighter in view of the fact that he was being bullied and provoked. And also whether anger management training is an appropriate response or not - it could be argued that the reason he was seen as having an anger problem was that he was provoked beyond endurance, and that most people would lash out in exactly the same way.

I'm on the fence on this one - what we saw was heavily edited and it was difficult to tell what was really going on.

Smartiepants in the real world someone would be disciplined for yelling "your mums a slag" across the office at a work colleaugue.

In the real world, the colleague would report it first rather than launching himself at the offending colleague in order to have the colleague disciplined.

My dc have attended 3 schools (infants, junior and secondary) with excellent anti-bullying records. It starts on the first day and carries through consistently: every child is constantly reminded that they have to inform a member of staff if they or anybody else is being hurt or frightened. They are never allowed to remain unaware of what bullying looks like or unaware that they have a duty to do something about it. When bullying does happen- because sooner or later it always does- the teachers act instantly: they have meetings with the offender, they mete out apropriate punishment and work out a plan for ensuring better behaviour. They also make sure that the victim is reassured and made to feel that he did right in telling.

I watched the first programme with 13yo ds. He was amazed at how long you could go on misbehaving in this school without anything happening.

Thank you minidipper, just saw your reply to me. What a difference between those two schools! When you put it like that, its making me wonder why all schools can't get into gear and do it like that. And like the schools cory described. It could save so many children so much sadness and fear.

My DD physically attacked another child at school once. She had not lifted a finger to any other child ever before nor has she done so since.

She did it because she was being pinned down out of sight of school staff while her bag was taken and this was part of two years of incessant bullying which hadn't been addressed.

When the new Head Teacher found out about the bullying and my DD's previous faultless behaviour record she told me that my DD would receive no punishment for what would normally have been considered cause for suspension and instead she came down hard on the bully.

The problem was solved that day.

There can be times when it is not appropriate or necessary to punish a child even if they have lashed out physically. I have my doubts about whether the Jac/Georgia incident was one of those times because it isn't clear whether or why Jac had lashed out previously but I'm damned sure that Georgia was at serious fault and that the bullying had been persistent and at a significant level and was not dealt with appropriately.

noble giraffe i find it very interesting that you picked Lord of the Flies as a reference.... a novel with an entirely male cast and no female characters at all.
Which makes me wonder if your posts on this thread would have been entirely different if the genders in the Jac Henry/Georgia incident had been reversed.

Noblegiraffe, I didn't say or suggest J-H should go unpunished. What I said was that if the bullying were dealt with immediately and strenuously, no one would have been hit in the first place, because he'd not have had to put up with it for so long that his retaliation reached the level of physical abuse.

I do admit I didn't punish my son for hitting the boy who had bullied him for three years. I didn't think one wallop was worse or even equal to the three years torment he'd been through (new coats and bags ripped, thrown in brambles, flushed down loo or hidden wedged behind school sheds, party invites being hidden or destroyed, constant verbal abuse, DS's friends being told if they spoke to him they'd be bullied so they kept away from him.) I don't think one thump which leaves no mark and breaks no bones is in any way worse than that, however unfashionable it is to think this.

minidipper thats awful I hope your son is ok now

Darkesteyes, he's very happy now at a new school, thanks, and the bully's power drifted away as they all got more self-confident. By year six he was no longer running the class. I see now alone quite often and feel a bit sorry for him.

Really, in a way, it couldn't have happened to a better kid than DS1. He has rock solid inner confidence which lots of children don't at that age and after the initial distress of being bullied he just let them get on with it and showed he didn't care. He really did rise above it most of the time. If the same had happened to DS2 he'd have been in pieces.