TO THINK THAT INSTEAD OF SETTING BY ABILITY...

[icymaiden]

.. schools should set by behaviour.At least in the first instance so that all the kids who can't or won't behave , can be in a class together, so that everyone else can achieve their best.Once you have separated that lot out, then the remainder could still be set by ability

Grateful which all sounds fine, but what I have a problem with is my child being in the same class as the child with parents who aren't like you. At the meet the teacher evening before they started at the school they were shouting over the teacher, criticising the school and complaining about it. I don't want my DCs with children like that. He's been excluded from one primary school already.
By contrast, you and your son sound lovely.

Be interesting to poll all the successful in life people today and see what class they would have made in school..lm willing to bet a lot of our entrepreneurs doctors artists would have been the figgedity messy ones and would have been left on the scrapheap

The OP is a post by someone who is living in a protected little bubble where the 'bad people' get shoo-ed out of her world before they can cause disruption.

If she spent an hour or two down at the local youth court, talking to the young people there, she would realise that there are very, very few children with no redeeming qualities. Bad behaviour is something a child does not something they are

Children finish up in the criminal justice system for a whole variety of reasons, and some of those children are bright, articulate, loving towards elderly family members, church-going, likeable people. Some of those same children have also committed violent robberies, or assaults, or theft. That behaviour can vary from day to day, depending on what is happening in their environment. The day a teacher tells them that they'e done particularly well in a lesson, they might behave impeccably for the rest of the day. The next day, their dad might lay into their mum and break her nose, and they might go out and punch the first person who crosses their path.

The majority of serious factors that impact negatively upon a child's behaviour come from the adult world, directly or indirectly. Children don't just wake up one day and think 'You know what, I'm going to be a little shit from now on.'

For that adult world to even contemplate 'throwing away' the results of their fuck-ups is a hypocrisy so staggering that it makes me wonder if the so-called adults are really any wiser and more measured than the children they are talking about.

No child misbehaves all the time, some more than others but not one child ever misbehaves all the time.

Sometimes there are reasons for behaviour issues. One of them is that some children arrive at school aged 4.5 not knowing that they can sit still, don't need to shout to get attention and generally have not been taught social skills.

A couple of days ago a student who is normally well behaved had a bit of a strop, disrupted others, burst in to tears and instead of sending her to the class her teacher took her out of the room to find out what was happening. She has some serious problems at home, nothing that can be changed/helped. I'm glad to be teaching somewhere that cares about the students not judges them.

Exactly ssash - a child is rarely disruptive for no reason.

They may be disruptive as a consequence of SEN in which case they need support.

They may be disruptive because of family problems - divorce, serious illness, bereavement - in which case they need support

They may be disruptive because they have not be taught socially acceptable rules - in which case they need support.

Segregation merely contains the problem but support is the solution. I know which one I would choose.

GratefulHead

What worries me as my DS goes up the school is that he may remain in lower ability sets with other children who do have poor behaviour and are lower ability as a result of that behaviour.

The issue here is the lack of support for many children who may have a whole plethora of issues going on but no support in school to deal with this. My son has a Statement of SEN and as such has defined levels of support to help him access the curriculum. Many of these other children will not have this same support :-(

I totally get this. I have a DC who had a Statement (it since has ceased due to progression in level of need). What struck me was that he was placed in the lower ability groups, even though academically he was quite advanced, from reception. I suspect this was so his designated one to one (only TA supporting group), could be shared amongst other children, who did not have Statemented support. I knew the children he was grouped with did not have Statements and received extra support, as their parents had told me.

I also suspected my child's attainment was being played down. Certain things did not add up regarding his progress. For example, he was given reading books in Year 4 at a lower level than he had read in reception. Added to this he was not put in for the same assessments, as the majority of his class, to determine reading level. He told me his group were told their reading levels had been 'decided by the teacher' and his group did not have to do a test.

Thankfully these issues have been resolved. As soon as my DC's Statement had ceased there were more assessments done, which found he was at the higher ability end in a few areas.

I do wonder at the quality of teaching he received when he was in the TA supported groups. The class teacher often could not answer questions regarding his progress. I suspect they left a lot of the teaching and assessments to the TAs to carry out.

I also believe my child was placed in these groups primarily because of resourcing issues. The needs of the individuals within the groups varied massively and I suspect were often conflicting. However because they were effectively segregated from the rest of the class, this was probably not highest on the teacher's list of priorities.

Needs of a few sacrificed for the greater good? That is certainly what it felt like. I fought back hard to resolve this though, because it is my child that is my primary responsibility. I still do what I can to help other parents who have issues regarding finding additional support for their children.

I haven't RTwholeFT, but want to answer a question of the OP's which I'm not sure has been answered(?).

Nobody has come up with a valid reason as the why the rights of say 1 or 2 pupils are allowed to negatively impact on the education of 28 others.

I think the degree of potential benefit/harm to the 28 and the degree of potential benefit/harm to the 2 is perhaps the key.

If removing "problem" kids would benefit the 28 a bit but harm the development of the 2 massively, then I think the latter could outweigh the former and it wouldn't be justified.

Personally, I don't agree that it would benefit the 28 in more important, non-academic ways, but that's a separate matter, and plenty of people would disagree with me.

Incidentally, people pick their kids' schools to avoid "disruptive"/"problem" children all the time. No one seems to have as much of a problem with this, though.

Icy - I did read the first sentence - and that's exactly what annoyed me.

When my DDs Tourettes is bad she swears and motor tics in class. At times it has been uncontrollable for her- early on she said 'f*' forty times in science. It may be illness, but it also has an effect on the class.

Fortunately her school - teachers and pupils - are understanding and supportive. And she's in the top or second top set in every subject.

Lava, I don't go to parents evenings and DS2's only just beginning to read at 8. It's not because I don't care, it's because I'm having a constant dialogue with school, plus a massive annual meeting where it's me, plus several members of staff, plus, often, people from various agencies outside of school. I can probably spend more time discussing what he's up to and wher to go next in a typical week than most parents do in a year.

ouryve no wonder you don't go to the evenings, I wouldn't in your circumstances.

What I have a problem with is specific parents who turn up at the meetings (I wish they were reading this) and sit there saying 'f*ing school', 'what a waste of our time' and sighing or ranting when the teacher explains the school policies and so on. They disrupt every meeting and their child disrupts just about every lesson, their child is physically violent and tried attacking my youngest, which was a mistake as they didn't know that my youngest has a green belt in judo. This is at primary school, if they are like that now (and they have been violent since reception) then heaven knows what they will be like as a teenager.
That is the kind of parent and kind of child that I don't want my children with. There is a world of difference between behaviour issues caused by SEN and behaviour issues caused by behaviour learned from parents. The child I refer to has learnt appalling behaviour from his parents, he's seen them threaten to punch the teacher for starters.

Lava but you can't just ban children, with parents who do not parent very well, from school though. That would be writing them off. And to be fair you only heard a snippet of their conversation, you don't know exactly what is going on. Not everyone has the same chances in life unfortunately.

capsium I take your point, but I have known this family for over 5 years now and so have had plenty of time to know that I don't like what I have seen.