Why do you think behaviour in schools is so much worse than even 10 yrs ago.

[soul2000]

This is not a joke thread. I am generally interested as to how much the standard of behaviour has deteriated in the last 25 years since i left school.

What amazes me, is that teachers are not shocked when watching programes like educating yorkshire, that just shows how bad the behaviour of some pupils is.

Another shocking thing is that pupils who in my time would have been labeled a menace "ME INCLUDED" are now seen as upstanding pupils.

How has the standard fallen so far and what can be done to re address the balance.

This thread is in support of teachers.

It's also clear from the attitude of some children when given some work to do that they don't have to do anything at home if they don't want to.
'Do I have to do this, Miss?' (maybe about a writing task)
'Yes, you do'.
Child then goggles at you as if you've just asked it to clean the school toilets with a toothbrush...

How degenerate to troll by winding up people with children with SN :(

While being a supply teacher I've worked in a diverse range of schools.

The schools with the best behaviour have:
Supportive parents
A simple and quick discipline system
Supportive senior management and a staff support system.

The worst school I was in was about 7 years ago and had none of those features above. The school had a zero coats in the building policy, not even in coridors. My line manage came to me with a complaint that I had followed the school policy and asked a pupil to remover her coat at the start of the lesson when it was cold. It should have been a non-issue. I pointed out that I had worked on my own in the room for an hour prior to that and was following the policy.

The incident reporting system was appalling. Pupil misbehaves, break detention set, pupil does not attend, incident form completed, detention reset, pupil does not attend, refer to head of department, moe paperwork, more second chances. It took weeks to resolve something that was relatively minor so noone knew what it was about by the end, and the lunch detention with snr management was less bother to go to than the after school with head of department.

Support was all in department only and I had an awful KS3 only timetable that frequently had difficult classes at times when there was no support, and the pupils knew it. I'd had to send some out into the coridor one afternoon, and a deputy head came by and sent them back in with out saying anything. She should have read them the riot act first. When the bell went at the end of the day, I sat under my desk and sobbed, because I had been totally undermined.

Pupil behaviour is a tough cocktail of local culture, school policy and support and home life. That school should have been much better.

Oh and when OFSTED identified low level disruption as a concern, the head told us off for not planning lessons properly, as if that was the complete solution!

I think its because children are encouraged to be adults far too quickly, and they dont have the coping mechanisms for that. eg programmes, computer games, sex used to sell almost everything, music and accompanying videoclips are sexual in a demeaning fashion, often aggressive etc. Everything 'adult' is just thrown at them, we live in a different world now. There are some good parents out there who can deflect this to a good extent, but not all parents can or even want to.

Also because disruptive behaviour in schools is 'managed', as some posters have said, to the detriment of non-disruptive pupils, and teachers who are simply unable to instill appropriate discipline for fear of being undermined or even in some cases being accused of bullying and threatening behaviour.

they all look like saints on educating yorkshire, compared to my old school, which I left ten years ago. there was regular drug dealing going on under tables in class, daily fights, fireworks regularly set off down corridors. I had 27% attendance in year 10 and when I did turn up I was mostly high. the first my parents heard of this was at my end if year parents evening, I guess they had bigger problems than me to deal with.

Let me tell you a story about two teachers, let's call them teacher A and teacher B. Both similar age and about ten years teaching experience.

Teacher A at start of school year had pupil causing low level disruption - being rude, answering back, constantly seeking reassurance, not cooperating in group work, getting overly upset when he made a mistake.

1. Teacher tried usual classroom management strategies but did not help and often escalated the behaviour.
2. Teacher despite her ten years experience realised this was something she had not come across before and asked for help. She talked to his previous teachers, the SENCO and the headteacher and quickly came to the conclusion that there were likely SEN issues and possible ASD.
3. She observed child and realised that despite being academically above average he did not always process language correctly especially when upset and that his social skills were decidedly lacking.
4. She requested a meeting with the parents to discuss the issues and to ask permission for referral to outside agencies - initially SALT, educational psychologist and CAMHS. Permission was freely given.
5. Referrals took a long time but meanwhile she researched strategies to help ASD children and adopted these in her classroom. Most of these were of minimal cost and effort - implementation of visual timetables, warning child of timetable changes, modifying her language to avoid misinterpretation of meaning, child given 1:1 sessions to help with anger management and social skills, implementation of a behaviour book to inform and praise child when he was behaving appropriately.
6. Childs behaviour radically improved and he finished the school year with no further major incidents and academically flourishing.

Teacher B then was given child in her class. Again a well experienced teacher who got good SATS results and a reputation for good classroom behaviour.

1. Transition was not great - either did not read or did not follow the stratagies that had been put in place to support child.
2. Behaviour of child deteriorated.
3. Teacher either ignored behaviour book or put in negative comments. Further, deterioration of behaviour.
4. Despite by this time child having diagnosis of AS teacher had limited understanding of issues and was unable to alter her classroom behaviour to meet his needs.
5. Teacher had limited capacity to distinguish between defiant behaviour and behaviour arising from rigidity of thought and treated both as naughty behaviour leading ever more frequently to escalation.
6. Inappropriate sanctions were given which were ineffectual and often made the behaviour worse because they altered the childs routine increasing his stress levels.
7. Fixed term exclusions were given and although they gave the teacher a brief breathing space increased the stress level of the child making his behaviour worse when he returned to school.
8. Finally, after six months in the teacher B's class the child was permanently excluded.

The child is now doing very well in a BESD school where he comes home most days with excellent on his behaviour sheet. This is not an inherently badly behaved child but one whose SEN were not being met. He is now costing the LEA far more money for an education which is poorer academically - it just doesn't make sense.

I think also that children with developmental issues such as Autism and ADHD (my son has both) are not always well placed in mainstream schools. My son is not disruptive but if he DOES feel upset (rarely these days) will usually sit or lie under the desk. The class teacher is very good with him and leaves him to sit it out for a few minutes after which he often rejoins the class. Hey presto, no other children disturbed and DS calmer and more able to talk about what happened. It helps that the children in his class (all now Y6) have been with him since Reception and ignore his "under the desk for a few minutes stuff".

Ideally he needs a smaller school, smaller classes and more support. Sadly most special schools have closed and the ones which remain open take children who really don't cope in mainstream and react to this in a very disruptive way. DS wouldn't cope with that either....so it is mainstream or nothing.

I left school 20+ years ago. Behaviour at my school was generally worse than that I see nowadays AND children with any kind of SN were often siphoned off to special schools AND teachers ignored the underlying issues some children had (child abuse, child prostitution and grooming).

The media always like things to have got worse. What I've seen of my old school, it seems to have improved massively. And it's exam results could only have been dreamed of in my day.

What is the classifaction of "Low level Disruption" and what is "High Level Disruption" and what would be the sanctions for both.

"How has the standard fallen so far and what can be done to re address the balance."

From my reading of the thread so far, and the many defensive and self-serving comments, I sorry to say it is probably past the point of no return and that little if anything can be done.

PolterGoose of course I am not talking about SN and I think you know that! It's parents who have children without SN that I mean! I am a teacher - why would I refuse to acknowledge that? I work by the SEN Code of Practice. For a start, it would be plain wrong - it would also mean the child wouldn't achieve, would be unhappier / harder to deal with etc etc.
What I'm talking about is those parents whose kids shouldn't have to abide by say, the wearing no jewellery rules. 'My DD likes to wear it cos her Dad gave it to her'. This kind of thing happens all the time. The same Mum is exactly the type who comes in up in arms when the piece of jewellery is lost in the playground.
God, I swear some people on here like to find disablism where there is none. Granted, there's plenty of it about, but don't go looking for it!

OneinEight could have told this story myself about a place I used to work in. This is how it ended: Teacher A has left the profession, fed up. Teacher B can spout educational jargon for England and has been promoted.

Yes we just love it.

It feels great to feel upset and hurt

God, I swear some people on here like to find disablism where there is none. Granted, there's plenty of it about, but don't go looking for it!

Most people don't "go looking for it" you know... unfortunately it's often still found.

On a thread that has had numerous posters saying that inclusion is bad and a poster wittering on about how children with disabilities and SNs are not as important as those that are NT, and how they should be sacrificed and left behind so that the NT children can have a life... you seriously are surprised that people are just a bit defensive?

TBH I think school behaviour is quite a bit better than 10-20 years ago. Teachers get more advice about how to handle difficult situations and the resources are better, making differentiated teaching a bit easier.

Hope, in the context of how the thread had been going, I;m afraid I read
So many people think that their child has to be treated differently from other people's children to be referring to children with sn as well (apologies).

Trigglesx that was a troll though.

I'm not surprised that some (not all) people can become defensive. There are subjects that I could become quite defensive about. But I recognise that I'm probably oversensitive and I try to look at the situation objectively.

It's a great pity that this thread became a battleground over SN/SEN, because that is not what the OP was asking about.

hazeyjane that was not my intention, but thank you for pointing out how it might be read in conjunction with the previous posts. I'd just dismissed old Doris as a nasty troll. But I suppose misinterpretations go along with typed posts in forums like this. I wrote a post later that elaborated on the type of thing I was referring to.

OP was asking why standards of behaviour had fallen over the last twenty-five years. Several people mentioned inclusive classrooms where there is no real support or understanding.

I fail to see how this was not addressing the question

And elsewhere on AIBU is a really good example of the type of precious parent I mean: see 'Just need a few other opinions on teachers' comment to boy'

Anais I didn't think OP was addressing that question initially, but I see what you mean.

I do agree that there are other reasons. We had to move house because of anti-social behaviour from parents at DD's secondary. No consequences for the people who were harassing us as the bar is set ridiculously high for eviction. What have the DC involved learned from this?