to be horrified at the behaviour in bohunt school

[SEsofty]

Just watched the programme about Chinese teachers in uk. Whilst I appreciate that it is reality tv and thus exaggeration for effect I was still horrified with the apparent number of children who were talking in class.

I'm not that accident and went to a very normal school but talking whilst teacher did simply didn't happen. I don't agree with the Chinese methods but talking whilst someone is trying to teach you is simply rude.

I felt this too. The children who were high attainers were not the children disrupting the lesson/on their phones.
Sophie's attitude was shockingly poor. I'm not sure that could be put down to heavy editing, and sincerely hope her parents were embarrassed and are addressing it. Perhaps if British students and their parents recognised how privileged they are to receive a free, well rounded education, we could raise attainment, respect and outcomes for all children.

We don't need the 'survive or die' attitude here, but respect for authority is woefully inadequate nationwide.
Working in education, I have only seen truly effective behaviour management in private schools. 'Jemima's' parents are unlikely to pay for disrupted lessons and poor attainment.

I felt desperately sad for the academic boy that struggled with the P.E. However, he finished when it would have been easier to quit. The UK P.E teacher was excellent. The whole school morning excercise would be great for our students imo.

"I felt this too. The children who were high attainers were not the children disrupting the lesson/on their phones. "
What's your evidence for that statement?

Captaintango that arguement was used on my DD when she was 8 or 9, she didn't buy it then either. Her teacher had just visited Uganda and was struggling to understand how children here can take their education so much for granted.

My Dd was struggling with understanding things at school, and didn't see how telling her there were other children who would love to have access to the school she went to, would help her learn. She might have been "in school" but she was struggling to access the curriculum.

I know if she had had a less well educated/pushy/mc Mum she might well have "dropped out", and in another culture she would have been one of the "failures".

We are very lucky in the UK that failing is not a term generally used in education. The children have a well rounded (in theory) curriculum that was designed to be accessed by children from a range of abilities.

I don't believe that understanding the privilege afforded to the children should be provided by teachers/schools. It should, as the Chinese teachers were trying to say, be taught at home.

Accessing the curriculum for all children is something I believe has improved dramatically here too. I have ASD, albeit 'high functioning' and school life for me was confusing, and appeared irrelevant. I too would have struggled to understand the privilege afforded to me. However, now there is much more known about the range of thinkers and abilities that schools are able to personalise learning to the child much easier.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be educating our children about it.

BertandRussel- i'll rephrase, the group of four well spoken girls who went to find their regular maths teacher so they could understand trig. I don't recall seeing any disruptive/rude behaviour from them in the lessons. They appeared to enjoy the work.

Looking at the DfES website it is obvious that this school is a privileged one in terms of intake. Of the 255 pupils who took GCse in 2014 only 2% had statements, only 4% had a language other than English as their first, onlhy 8% of the children had been "low attainers" at KS2, 48% being "middle attainers" and 44% were high attainers". Only 3.3% were then eligible for free school meals. That speaks to me of a background for these children in which elementary decency and good manners should have been taught at home and reinforced throughout their school careers. I fear the impression some of the children, but only some, gave to me is of a total absence of self discipline or awareness of the effects of their actions on others, including their friends and fellow pupils who may have wanted to try to learn. Sophie, who did not appear to be without intelligence, seemed wholly incapable of absorbing the fact that Chinese children worked hard and paid more attention in class but instead launched into a rant about how she had been insulted. I noted that although some of the children went to get help from their own maths master, very sensibly, it was a tiny minority. Although a great deal of allowance obviously has to be made for children playing to the camera, as well as recognition that they too were a minority, I was left with the impression that those who fooled around knew they could get away with it - and I suspect that was something they had learned from long experience. In any event good manners are not something that suddnely disappear. Children who have them use them automatically; those who do not know no better. Too many of these children were in the latter category and that was not something likely to have been put on for the camera.It was noticeable that the boys were addressing their headmaster without calling him "Sir" and perhaps therefore hardly surprising when children pushed through a door ahead of one of the Chinese teachers, who was obviously not only an adult and a teacher, but also a visitor.

I've been away from this thread and I'm sorry I just have to say
Can we give some of these kids a break? They are 13years old and you have seen an hour long television programme. How would you feel if it was your DD or DS being written off because they can't behave in a 12 hour school day. There are some real generalisations on this thread too. And to those who talk about the behaviour being better in private school - I am regularly on the train with boarding school kids going home for the weekend and the behaviour I have witnessed is shocking - littering, swearing , being racist and rude to the guard and some quite upsetting bullying of other kids on one journey!

And you think it would have been different at Bedales school, that is just down the road, CatWithKittens?

"Also, have people read the school's OFSTED and looked at the results?"

Yes, but the point is that a school which is great by British standards is still pretty weak the standards of countries with better education systems and better standards of discipline.

I live overseas and know a lot international school teachers who have taught in various countries including Britain. You get naughty kids in every country, but Britain does seem to have a bit of an international reputation for loud, insolent and lazy students--more so than comparable countries, I mean.

To be fair, in real life you'd just squelch the class Sophie by pointing out that what you'd actually said was a comment on UK kids' tendency not to listen carefully, leading them to misunderstand what they'd only half heard, & thank her enthusiastically (BIG smile) for providing such a splendid example. She would be .

Then you'd fire a couple of bastard hard subject-related questions at her & let her fluster a bit until the rest of the class were laughing at her, not with her. By this point she'd be .

THEN you find an opportunity by the end of the lesson to praise her for something. Sophies like being praised; she'd eat out of your hand & be .

She wasn't being horrible - just gobby. Get your Sophie on side & the rest of the class will generally follow.

Sorry no. The academic results of this school do not impress Chinese parents. I know!!!!

In my experience in state and private, the Sophie in the private school would not speak so much as roll her eyes, toss her hair and sigh, repeatedly. Hormones do not miraculously bypass teenagers at independent schools!

I rather think the results could indeed be better than 'almost as good as second tier private school results'.

They could also be as good as or better than second tier private school results, or almost as good as, or as good as or better than first tier private school results.

If Sophie was being properly dealt with, then she would not have been a candidate for inclusion in the programme (if this allegation is true), because she would have mended her ways. What is really meant by 'dealing with' is containment or constant management, which takes up class time and does not, as seen, result in improvement in Sophie's behaviour unless it was absolutely appalling to begin with of course... 'Dealing with it' just makes it possible, with several minutes of class time used up and other students deprived of teaching time, to manage to prevent Sophie from turning class into a zoo.

I'm interested why not Cookiedoughkid ? If you.lived in the area and did not have access selective private education which school would you choose?DH made a very good point to me when we were looking at local schools. Bohunt is a fair old train trip for us so we discounted. I was upset about this as you know "Times school of the Year" blah blah but just because a school has great results does not mean you just send them there and your child gets those magic results too. It starts at home we bring our children up to be accountable for their actions, support them with their educational aspirations etc

I feel that we can take a lot from the Chinese culture in education but there are lots of elements I would not want simply down to ideological differences. At the end of the day comparing the two education systems is like comparing apples and oranges. The two states are run completely differently let alone the education systems.

I taught in Japan. Which also does the big classroom, lecture style teaching, supposedly with perfect behaviour.

My main school was a low ability agricultural high school. Classroom behaviour was good, but it wasn't all that unusual for the baseball boys to fall asleep in class (they'd been up since 5am practicing baseball - the school usually got through to the all Japan finals). But anyway it pretty much fitted the stereotype of limited disruption -albeit almost impossible to get a student to answer a direct question.

But my other regular school - woah - no nothing like the stereotype. The kids would play cards (& were outraged when I confiscated them), the boys would be busy doing their hair with their hello kitty combs (yes the boys) & wrestling mirrors off each other. The girls were sharing out magazines to read. And some were eating their lunch. The noise level was deafening. And apparently the head teacher allowed no discipline & expected you to Interest the students. Which was pretty hard when the noise levels were so high. Until I did a lesson on animal noises. When the magazines & cards were put down & the whole class faced the front engaged. I also discovered word searches has the same effect.

So no, it's not a peculiarly british problem. The behaviour I saw at that school was far worse than that shown by Bohunt pupils on Chinese school. And within an Asian, rote learning, pressured education system.

I am very sceptical about Chinese schools. I think they are selective in those they show and those they include in results. What happens to children who don't keep up? With the best teaching in the world there are children who simply don't 'get it' .

There was no answer to my question- would you expect Bedales school to be different if they had done the programme?

Oh & I've taught private school kids with pretty disruptive behaviour as well. One that stands out in my memory came from Dulwich College -he certainly knew how to disrupt. Private/state background was no predictor in how the kids were going to behave in my classroom (tutorial college). Their motivation was - if they wanted to be there, they were brilliant students. If their parents wanted them to be there - hm not so much.

Someone upthread asked if this disruption happens in private schools. No, not on my experience. Both dh and I went to private schools and I have friends who now teach in the private sector.

It really just doesn't happen IME. Personally, I think it stemmed from different parenting, rather than different approaches from the school. I don't remember there being a fear of particularly harsh sanctions at my school. More that we were most of us brought up to find it rather shameful and embarrassing to get into trouble, or to be thought rude.

It wasn't the amazing engaging teaching or small class sizes either. I had some pretty dull teachers, and classes of 30 were the standard.

But there is much lazier parenting all around now- not confined to parents who use state schools. I went to a sec mod in 1960s and absolutely no disruption there. A different world.
Do people think it would have been different at Bedales?

^I rather think the results could indeed be better than 'almost as good as second tier private school results'.

They could also be as good as or better than second tier private school results, or almost as good as, or as good as or better than first tier private school result.^

How would that be possible, even with perfect behaviour? First tier private schools all have very challenging entrance exams. While Bohunt may have an above average ability intake, it is still a comprehensive that takes all abilities. And of the 44% higher ability pupils, only a small proportion would have had a chance of passing the exams for top independents at 11.

I only saw the programme on Thursday after this thread had started and I can't say I saw any behaviour to be horrified by. They seemed like a reasonably nice bunch of kids; some of them were way too chatty but there was nothing nasty or malicious about them.

"Personally, I think it stemmed from different parenting, rather than different approaches from the school."

Ah yes. I forgot that 7% of the country's parents are significantly better than the other 93%- and coincidentally that 7% have the inclination and the money to use private school! Such a simple explanation when you think about it.

CecilyP- some people can't get their heads round the idea of a state school doing well by their pupils- I think it makes their heads explode. I was once told on here that there were "As and As" when I talked about a state school child getting all A*s at GCSE!

I think that you have failed to realise BertrandRussell that if you can afford fees, have an intelligent child who can pass selective exams, they will get A* in exams and go to Oxbrige and this proves that you are a wonderful parent and get the gold star in the parenting stakes!

Weirdly, I went to a girls' grammar school in the 1960s and there was a fair amount of low-level disruption. I am sure we weren't brought up to be impolite but some teachers really couldn't keep order. And some classes were worse than others. I remember our O level history teacher, who seemed quite strict and never had any trouble with our class, saying, 'I've been teaching for 20 years and I've never had a class like those third years!'

I don't have any experience of Bedales, but my guess is it wouldn't be any different. Are there any mumsnetters who have taught at Bedales or similar?

I went to a sec mod and a girl's grammar in 60s and behaviour was good in both, but the sec mod had the edge.
However the girls grammar would have had fun with the Chinese teachers- they would have questioned it. Probably more politely than Sophie but I haven't seen the programme.

Bedales school website here
I mentioned them because they are very close and couldn't be further in ethos from Chinese schools. I don't know it, but doubt the result would have been much different.