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.

Too many IEPs written in a hurry to meet the deadline which take no account of children's actual needs.

I was guilty of that and felt awful about it. Awful. But there was no time, no training. I didn't know what these children needed, and didn't have time to find out. This is primarily why I left teaching, because I felt like I wasn't doing a good job and I was failing children.

Your views are clearly not disablist and you don't seem to be an arse.

But that comment was awful

IEPs would be an awful lot easier if there was genuine consultation with parents. Most know their children very well.

Yes. Let me write my Ds' IEPs. I'll only rewrite yours in any case so you may as well give me the admin task in the first place. I have the motivation to make his IEP a priority for my time

I'm not picking people, zzzzz . FWIW I'm pretty sure that if there has been a drop in behaviour standards that it's got nothing to do with inclusion of children with special educational needs. Or special needs, just to be clear.

HesterShaw I know where you're coming from. No training. Or a tiny bit of training from a SENCo who's just been on the course at the education authority and is rehashing the PowerPoint she's just watched. Scary.

I fact, it became so stressful getting ds's IEPs and then having to 'raise it' with the SENCO each half term (Ds has half-termly ones written into his statement) that I now submit the targets in advance for the School's 'consideration'. Mostly they make they IEP.

If you simply give parents a pro forma with instructions most of your job will be done.

I don't think any of the DDs classes behave as badly as my geography class did 30 years ago.

French might have got close, and for the same reason. One champion trouble maker and a teacher who couldn't control the classes reaction to their antics.

Our Geog class wasn't helped by us doing our HW in the lesson and me winding the board back every time he went too fast. Mean while chief trouble maker was getting sent to the corridor and everyone was talking.

(28 boys, 3 very talkative girls and mixed ability from grade a O level to unclassified CSE, it was a trial common syllabi paper three years before GCSE. The crazy class sorted out the timetable, but was quite impossible to control).

Anais All of it, really. day in, day out, people expecting me to make excuses and "explain" his behaviour or his disabilities when we're out in public. It's like they expect me to apologise for bringing my child into their presence. And we've have people literally stand right in front of us (and him) and say nasty stuff. It's so obvious they think he's less than human or not worth the effort of being kind. It's demoralising and frustrating.

But anyway, back to the subject. I heard my parents talking about how "kids are today" and "in my day, kids had respect for the teacher.." blah blah. I suspect each generation goes through this type of thing to some extent.

IEPs would be an awful lot easier if there was genuine consultation with parents. Most know their children very well.

Of course. However I taught many children who had IEPs whose parents wouldn't have the first idea what should be on one, and whose parents were part of their problem. We used parents' evenings as an opportunity to review IEPs with parents and many of the parents we needed to see never showed up. Ever. I'm sorry, but it's true.

With regard to behaviour/classroom management, I found that during teacher training, this was not addressed at all. It was implied to us that if you were a decent student, then NQT, then teacher, that this would be something you would "get" instinctively and automatically. I remember having an awfully difficult class during my second year of teaching and being in despair about how to manage them. The head came in to observe me do a lesson and savaged my behaviour expectations afterwards. I was at the end of my tether - how am I supposed to be getting all these level 5s and 6es, if every time I was faced with constant low level disruption, I was supposed to stop and wait for silence before continuing? Impossible! I asked him to take a lesson to demonstrate methods - he refused. In fact the one time he did take my class that year, one boy was excluded within five minutes for two weeks for calling him a fat twat (:o).

What I'm saying (very long windedly), that a teacher - at least in my experience - cannot do everything at once. They can't cope with challenging behaviour at the same time as getting level 5s and 6es. I was a good teacher, but this is what drove me out. I was one of the 50% or whatever it is who quit before five years were up. I now run my own business in an entirely different field.

Triggles, sorry I was responding to your comment about HQ not being quick enough.

I get it too. All the time. And they say that people with autism have no empathy! (myth, but it's one that judgy people know of)

I've started to tell people this. Autism isn't much fun for us and it certainly isn't for my son.

I have little cards from the NAS which explain and thank people for their tolerance which I have been known to slap down when leaving a restaurant or shop. I'm thinking of getting them laminated and flinging them at people

here is the card

£2 for fifty. I'm running low.

Trigglesx that is truly shocking.

HesterShaw the critics never like to demonstrate how to do it, do they? I've found that once a child with 'challenging behaviour' has a member of senior leadership as their class teacher, that child is far more likely to be excluded. Or the extra adult support that others have been advocating, is suddenly hired when the deputy head meets the child properly in the classroom environment It's not about the child's needs - it's about how much inconvenience it causes the management team.

Sorry, I think families splitting when children are really young affects some less resilient children.

10 years ago, I could have done a 'family tree' activity. I wouldn't even consider it now, when 50% of families of children in my class have split up by the time the children are 6.

Why do so many women splilt from partners when their children are so young and vulnerable?

I do question the motives and resilience of parents sometimes.

Why is it the women who split, and what on earth does that have to do with behaviour?

OK partners split - sorry.

Some children react badly to parents splitting up.

It's true.

Polter I hear you. I think it is very difficult for other parents. If you see your child not progressing at the rate expected you worry. It is easier to blame the teacher, the other child in the class with legitimate special needs or someone/something else than to look in the mirror and blame yourself. As a parent I blame myself and DH when my children are not where I want them to be, not them nor anyone else. If my child told me a child was disturbing them in class I would approach the school first and if nothing changed I would approach the other parent to get an idea of what was going on (with an angle of helping their child).

Sorry for taking so long to reply but I have had a horrible week at work.

The thing I really don't understand is why threads with this type of subject line always end up discussing SEN, inclusion etc.
Is there a default assumption that bad behaviour = disability?

Have to say the worst behaved children I have known have had no disabilities at all.

absolutely agree with ThreeLittleFrogs

There is a default assumption that children with hidden disabilities rarely have their needs met in the UK, and there are many recent threads on how teachers pilfer these children's provision to make up shortfalls in time and resources.

There is also the fact that most people including teachers are not able to recognise a number of hidden disabilities, so your argument that those who misbehave do not have them is potentially an ignorant one.

Pretty early on in the thread someone posted that one of the reasons for a decline in behaviour is

Mainstreaming students with severe special needs

^^This is arse.

And this is mumsnet's This Is My Child campaign.

Just to put some hope into the mix. Children with hidden disabilities can learn coping techniques which allow them to thrive and reach their full potential.

Better that a learning environment is conducive to this rather than marginalising these children from the start. Some of the comments citing punishments and sanctions as the best way to learn IMO are way of the mark. Would you punish a child for not being able to read a word in their reading book?

ipadquietly - I am surprised by how few of my DCs friend's parents or parents at Primary have split. Of course there are more than in my day who were never really committed (in my day they were all married).

On the other hand there do seem to be more parents who have: committed suicide (2 at least, I knew none) or have died (usually cancer).

But at my school there were children with hidden disabilities, and children who suffered abuse and had resultant personality issues. Its just those issues were ignored to a large extent, where as teachers try to help now. Also there was much less effort to stop children ending up in the criminal system or just dropping out of school.