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

I think society as a whole, as well as our educational system has a long way to go before my ideal of inclusion is reached. People say the educational system is a microcosm of society.

Being kind and non judgemental is free. It does not have to cost. People just need to value people, help each other out, without resentment.

Op why when talking about being bored at school you say 'well that's life there will always be things that bore them, they'd need to get used to it' but then desire that all 'distracting' children are removed to a separate area?

Surely in life there will always be distracting people and things around and we have to get used to working despite the distraction? I know some of my colleagues are massively distracting but I can't insist that they are removed to a different area!

People like the OP who think they know all about classroom management because they went to school really get on my tits.

'Where would my bright DD with Tourette's syndrome fit in?
Bottom or top set?'

I think the gist of this thread has passed you by.If you had read even the opening sentence of the OP, then you would know the answer to this.

'Surely in life there will always be distracting people and things around and we have to get used to working despite the distraction? I know some of my colleagues are massively distracting but I can't insist that they are removed to a different area!'
but it's not so much the distraction as the amount of teacher time taken up managing the disruptions.

Champagne your child would be in the 'naughty class' with my lovely daughter with mental health issues - nice

Yeah I think they tried to pull this stupid idea in the 60's 70's. All the kids labeled special needs/ bad/stupid/behavioral problems all got lumped in a "special" class when I was in Junior school.
Trouble was my mathematically gifted left handed Dh who was suffering abuse at home got dumped in with them, leading to a life of underachievement. Better than a couple of others we knew from the class who were also suffering at home and eventually went to prison over and over.
No wonder he gave up.

I can see where you are coming from but I don't agree with it. My high school aged children can't wait for 6th form so it's only young people who want to be there as they are sick of the disruptive behaviour from a few. Fortunately the school is now setting by ability for all subjects and so they aren't with the ones who mess about it.

I expect I've missed the point too, Champagne and Gordy, as I can't see where my bright, panic-prone, depressive, autistic DS would go either.

Different sets depending on the day of the week, maybe?

I read the first sentence of the OP again.

Yep, still says 'set by behaviour', not by intention, good will, aims in life or anything else.

okay so you set by behaviour. In your world view this means a bright child with Tourettes or any other developmental issue which might cause them classroom difficulties is sidelined to a different group .

So effectively this means exclusion of any child who does not fulfill normal behaviour for whatever reason

Nice!

It's a dreadful idea and would never work.

That's right, Grateful. In fact, the OP was kind enough to clarify that she really did mean those who 'can't behave', not just those who choose not to.

DS can't, when the circumstances are wrong.

Still, I expect Icy doesn't believe in autism, Tourette's, ADHD, bipolar disorder or OCD. All just an excuse by wishy-washy middle class parents, I bet.

yes Kitties maybe she can educate us all on how these things are really just us being shit parents

I think we might already have heard all that, Gordy (sigh).

Hugs (if appropriate and welcomed) to you and your daughter. I'm off to give DS a cuddle even if he is 6 ft tall and contact-averse and might mention to him how very proud he can be to have survived this long in mainstrem school.

I think the OP is completely out of line but I think it's unfair to suggest that if classes are disrupted, it's probably the fault of the Teacher for not being in control.

I've worked with a lot of young people who's behaviour in School was frankly terrifying as well as disruptive and no, I don't blame them but I sympathise with the adults who were trying to manage that behaviour.

I think we forget that Teachers have very little training in dealing with difficult behaviour and it's unfair to suggest it's their fault if they can't 'control' a class.

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.

Icemaiden, people like to ignore the posts they don't know the answer to.

I agree with some of what you are saying.
It always seems to be the well behaved children that want to learn that are dragged down and disrupted by one or two in the class.
But like you said, everybody bends and works around the disruptive ones.
Their needs come first.
It's not fair.

And before somebody says, but what if the child is SN!

Well, guess what - EVERY child in the class is special.

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.

Because this could be any of our children at one time or another, given the right circumstances.

Would you really like them to be effectively 'written off' if something did go wrong?

Yes...what Capsicum Says. See it as a form of "insurance". If you or I had a bad time at home...and our children were stressed, THEY could just as easily behave badly at school....as any other child. Usually well behaved kids DO have issues from time to time.

My child has had some SEN's but also required much less teaching in other areas as had a natural ability. Spiky profile. Started off with being difficult to manage sitting still wise. However, as matured, is one that rarely is reprimanded.

Overall, teacher attention wise, it can even out.

Children should be set not by ability or by behaviour but by learning style. IMO. So many behaviour and achievement problems would be solved in one move. The only problem would be identifying a child's preferred learning styles.

It wouldn't work.

I'm not even going to get into the assumptions you might be making or what it would be like for the kids, it just wouldn't work in practice.

A teacher I know once had 5 very difficult boys in her Year 5 class. All of them could be very loud, silly and disruptive, two had varying degrees of special needs, and two of them REALLY didn't get on with another two (the fifth one sort of flitted sneakily between the two groups playing them off against each other). For most of that year she kept them all on separate tables as far apart as possible, but then every table had at least one person who put everybody else off their work. At one point she decided as an experiment to put all 5 of them on one table, right under her nose. It lasted a matter of weeks and did everyone's head in. Even with TA support they just bounced off each other in a spiral of silliness and arguments and hardly did any work at all. At least when they were separated each of them was sensible some of the time.

As a teacher, can I just say... Sign me up to teach that class!!
I think one or two disruptive kids in every class is a given. And their reasons for disruption are so complex there is no way that one child who has severe anger issues (for example) and one who struggles to focus in lessons should be isolated together.
It has been proven that mixed ability classes and settled classes do just as well in final exams.
I also think that just teaching the material is a complete waste of the school experience. School is also about meeting different people, learning how to act in social situations, managing time, being a good person. I would worry what we are teaching children if we start segregating them based on disruption. The disruptive kids (not SEN) do tend to come from disadvantaged backgrounds, so would we just be imposing class boundaries? The same class boundaries that kept the bankers pockets full of bonuses while all the public services lose money. The same ones that have lead to 'poor doors' in apartment blocks.
Until you know the cause behind the disruption, you cannot judge how much of the teacher's time that one kid needs.