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

Education Speak.
Children are only badly behaved because they are:-
bored. It is not their fault.
They are bored because:
the work is too hard, too difficult,undifferentiated, boring;
the teacher picks on them/ignores them/ is boring
they are being bullied
they have special needs
the teacher does not understand their special needs
the teacher does not cater for their special needs
and is boring
the rest of the table is being naughty/noisy/boring
they are being bullied
they can't work because of all the noise
they can't work because the teacher won't let them speak
they are being bullied
and everyone else is boring.

CaptainFracasse well it won't be a class of 28 will it? It will only be the disruptive ones.The other classes can be slightly larger and any 'support' would all go into the disruptive class.
We all get why it is better for disruptive pupils to be diluted amongst the good kids, But it is not best for the 'good' kids who are the overwhelming majority.

insanity scratching wrote just a few posts up 'My ds was disruptive because he was bored rigid' what is that if not 'too bright to behave'

That is not "too bright to behave". That is being inappropriately taught.

Will the teachers have to draw straws as to who will get the teach the 'distruptive' class each year or will they take it in turns?

Personally I'm strongly in favour of setting/streaming on achievement/ability lines for most subjects at secondary level as I think it allows teachers to pitch the work at the right level and go at tailored pace (I know others may not agree). I'm wondering if the kids were to be put in sets according to behaviour how a teacher might go about delivering a GCSE maths class to a group of kids with a very wide spectrum of abilities, even if we're hypothetically talking about the well-behaved class I think that'd be problematic.

But Gabby, how would you have felt if every disruptive child (regardless of their ability) had been sent to your ds's group? Wouldn't that have been even more disruptive?

That is why I said I agree - to a certain extent. If we are talking about kids being setted according to behaviour only two kids in my DS class would have been in that class.

If we are talking about being in bottom set due to ability - that's where my son is presently because he is not grasping some concepts of science. The disruptive behaviour of a minority of pupils is not helping him to grasp it, as the teacher spends most of the class time trying to sort out the disruptive behaviour. That leaves the other 28 kids with only half the required teaching time. How can they catch up if they are only being afforded half a lesson?

Most children can be badly behaved at one time or another, for such a huge variety of reasons. So where would you draw the line? Oh little Johnny doesn't have to go in the 'naughty' class because he's having a bad day but little Micky does because all his days start badly because his parents don't give a shit?

Do you know what creates most disruption in class? It's not the huge events of bad behaviour because there are policies to deal with them and they don't occur often. It's the low level disruption of kids chattering, dropping stuff, not being adequately prepared for lessons, not listening. That's what causes the problems. And I'd say 90% of children engage in those things at one time or another.

Maybe there should be a special class just for the really good kids instead - for the 10%?

Not workable. Not fair on those with additional needs. Not right for those who are suffering poverty. Not sustainable for the ones who have had a significantly traumatic event in their lives.

ouryve
I think we have to agree to disagree on that one

Ilovepud There wouldn't be 1 well behaved and 1 disruptive.There would be several ability-set well behaved and 1 smaller disruptive.
many village primaries incorporate 4 chronological year groups in 1 class eg y3-y6 which will be working at levels with a spread probably from Y2 to Y7 at least.They manage.

parents arguing the right of their child to disrupt the class and learning of others.

Who? Where?

DS1 finds it impossible to sit still. Even when he's absorbed in something, he's moving his legs all over the place, occasionally laying down, shifting to one side, then the other. He is very hyperactive with some quite pronounced sensory processing issues, which make sitting at a desk, with 25 other children around him, physically very difficult. Good teachers have learnt that he can walk around the back of the classroom and take in everything. Good teachers have made the most of his fidgetty urges and do something like hand him a marker pen so he can jot things down on a whiteboard, or at least tolerate him having something in his hands to fiddle with. The teacher he had the most difficulty with and who did a lot of damage to his relationship with school refused to respect this, insisting that he needed to stick to rules the same as all the other children.

Glad to say that I've now got him out of mainstream, before teachers like your sister can get anywhere near him and sneer at him, Icy

I have to admire the amount of planning you've put into your system Icy . I actually think that what your suggesting is similar to what's already in operation to some extent in many secondary schools which have internal exclusion units.

I imagine that by a certain age there would be quite a high correlation (obviously there will be many individual exceptions) between "behaviour" and academic stuff, so it might not be as drastically different as we think from what we currently have. Which (IMHO) is a bit shit.

Bit of an inflammatory one
If this fails, how about we set kids by fatness?

'Not fair on those with additional needs. Not right for those who are suffering poverty. Not sustainable for the ones who have had a significantly traumatic event in their lives.'

so kids in poverty are badly behaved, you say?

Well on my secondary (thatscwhatxwexarectalking about here isn't it?) there are about 150 pupils in each year group. Assuming the ratio of disruptive children, whatever the reason is the same, I would say about 5) that would be a full class of 25~30.... So no where near 'one small class with lots if support'.
Then you have all the children that require some support, eg the ones with SEN, that will end up in bigger classes with less support the children with high abilities like yours that are again in bigger classes which might means less ability to set to appropriate levels due to the amount if work. And in general less support from the teacher..,

The problem is that you seem to assume that disruptive child = a badly behaved child who could chose to act in a different way.
Which is nowhere near the case, as several pp have explained already. A child abused at home might be disruptive. Do you think he/she can modify his/her behaviour just like this??
Of course some children might just be spoilt brats. But then again, do youthful that bring surrounded by other children misbehaving will help?
Come on, if that was a workable option, I can promise you it would have been implemented already.

Not necessarily so ClockWatchingLady - ds1 got level 5/6's in his year 6 SATS but was permanently excluded from his mainstream school in the middle of year 5. There was a big range of ability in his EBD school.

As I said, there will be many individual exceptions. But I'd be very surprised if an overall correlation wasn't there.

iLove and as far as you know, do these exclusion units actually work??
Because I don't think they do.

Well done to your DS btw OneIn

Icy, stop twisting. It just makes you look like your comprehension skills are lacking.

Many children in poverty, or with additional needs or who have suffered a traumatic event will not display any disruptive behaviour. And there are plenty of children who are disruptive through no good reason. My point was, how do you differentiate all those reasons or would you just not and lump them all in together?

I've no idea whether internal exclusion units work, my knowledge of the current secondary education system has been drawn mainly from educating Yorkshire . I suppose there's lots of different measures by which you could measure that. Do they work if they keep kids, to some extent, in mainstream education rather than permanently excluded with all the problems that brings? Do they work if they achieve better social, psychological or educational outcomes for those pupils than they would have achieved if they had remained in regular classes? Do they work if all the other children in the school achieve better social, psychological or educational outcomes than they would have done if the children behaving in disruptive ways had remained in those classes? I genuinely don't know.

MY daughter spent a lot of year six supporting less able students with English and sats prep ... Shame to boot her out if the class because she has mental health issues

Op you don't have a clue and I hope you never do

I don't know either, my DDs secondary doesn't have the resources to run such a unit or enough children needing that degree of support to warrant one.

What would help enormously, at their school, is combining set 3&4 and running two parallel sets, one with additional support. Wether in the form of a skilled TA, more experienced teacher or adjustments to the curriculum I don't know.

What I do know is an appreciable number of DCs who are capable of the magic 5A-Cs with English and Maths aren't getting them and it really causes them heart ache at 16.

captainfracasse I wouldn't have thought there would be 5 properly disruptive pupils in a class.Even on those godforsaken 'Educating....' programmes there is only 2 or 3.

Here is an idea. If you want to live in a "utopia" with your child surrounded only by beautifully behaved children who will then grow up not having a clue about the real world then go for it. I feel sorry for your children. I bet your don't let them climb trees or play in the mud either.

You don't have a clue and your idea of behavioural segregation is sickening.

Why don't you quit your job and home school your child? Then they will never have to mix with poorly behaved ruffians.

Some of the logic on here is laughable.
'I don't want my disruptive child sitting next to another disruptive child, but I expect your well behaved one to have to do so' is the crux of many posters argument

I think you're getting an unnecessary battering, OP.

I think it's an arguable position to say decisions should be made which benefit the majority (even if they don't benefit the minority). Those types of decisions are made all the time (think NHS). I can see why you might make this argument about the influence of a few "disruptive" children on a majority of "non-disruptive".

I happen to disagree with you on this particular idea (I think education should be much less about academic achievement, for a start, so think some "distraction" from that is no bad thing if it teaches all kids to get along better together), but I see where you're coming from and I think it's a valid thing to argue. FWIW.

It's going to be emotive for people, hence the response you're getting, but I think you're right to debate it if this is what you think.