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.

Mehitabel6, that was my point throughout this, 13 year olds will all misbehave in some way and tired, bored, disengaged ones more so. Considering the circumstances I felt the pupils really tried to cooperate. I believe, from what I have read, that the agreement was that the school's Management/rules were put aside for the four weeks. That is why one of the Chinese teachers was deemed HT. However in the next episode you see how the school felt they had to intervene and how the pupils respond to their HT.

Some posters have referred to the Utopia that is private education and whilst I will concede they probably have less disruption, it is impossible to eliminate it unless you empty the classrooms of pupils! I was very well behaved at school but can clearly remember passing the odd note etc and the nuns were horrors.

I must actually watch it!

Many 13 yr olds would have a great time on TV with no rules!

Hopefully we will see what really happens when they get back to some rules.

Mathanxiety that is exactly what teachers are told in many schools.the behaviour is bad because your teaching isn't engaging enough. I taught lessons using lots of different activities to make learning engaging etc, but any request for help with behaviour was met with "make it more engaging".

I once did a teacher training session early in my career, the person leading put an activity on our desks to start- we had to write our names and answer a random question using our non-usual writing hand. Within minutes the room was filled with giggling, chatty adults. His point was when we are asked to do something difficult, and/pointless we naturally disrupt.

Just watched this on iplayer. I don't know how teachers manage to teach a class if this is considered 'low level disruption'. But I suspect, as others have, that there was a bit of 'playing up for the cameras'. But some of the students clearly have no respect for the teachers or their classmates.

Perhaps PE needs to be a little bit more demanding if half the class 'failed' their running assessment (though I couldn't figure out how tough it actually was). Joe, for example, didn't appear to have (and none was mentioned) any disability - he was just incredibly unfit. Though I'm not sure how 2 hours of PE a week could counter that if it was all the physical exercise he got. I liked the daily morning exercise on the field - I think that would help the health of some of the children.

Most of the children didn't play up/ Most 13 yos would find 12 hours of straight lecturing hard to deal with.
There is a difference between finding something hard to deal with and doing what Sophie did.

BR -- 'Is everyone assuming that Sophie is even worse in lessons where she is taught in the way she is used to? If so, on what basis?'
Ask those who seem to think Sophie was hand picked for her entertainment value. A theory has been advanced here that the disruptive children were hand picked and placed in the Chinese experiment in order to pander to those who like to bash comprehensives.

Was anyone able to keep concentrating and moving forward with the lessons/lectures while Sophie was trying to wrest control of the class from the teacher? To say it was only a small minority that was disruptive is to miss the point of disruption. It doesn't take a whole classfull of clowns to diminish the learning environment. It only requires one or two.

Unless he is a complete idiot who handed over total control of the project to the production company, the HT allowed the criteria on which selection of students was done, or signed off on the group that was chosen. Presumably he felt Sophie would be a fair representation of his school -- this much is obvious from his TES comment that has been mentioned here. He seems to assume this is something to shrug at and something he expects teachers to be able to handle (by which is meant manage, constantly feed the troll, so to speak, without ever getting to the bottom of the problems of a 13 yo who behaves so badly and with so little consideration for anyone else.)

"He seems to assume this is something to shrug at and something he expects teachers to be able to handle (by which is meant manage, constantly feed the troll, so to speak, without ever getting to the bottom of the problems of a 13 yo who behaves so badly and with so little consideration for anyone else.)"

What makes you think that her normal teachers can't handle her, or that nothing is being done to change her behaviour?

For it actually to be a real experiment they had to allow Chinese methods of discipline as well as teaching. They also have to be a group of differing abilities/ personalities to see if this, much lauded, method works.

Bohunt is an innovative school where the HT has been highly effective, this is just another example to how the school is constantly trying to improve.

I taught a very clever top set Y9 last year whose behaviour was impeccable except for one day I was away. They had a supply teacher and decided to pretend my cupboard was the door to the next room. By all accounts four left the room for various reasons and at various times to much hilarity and spent most of the lesson in the cupboard. Yes it was wrong, yes it had consequences and yes they are children.

I would imagine Sophie is easily managed by her normal teachers as are the rest of the pupils. She did not seem difficult at all just the situation was very badly managed.

'What makes you think that her normal teachers can't handle her,
or that nothing is being done to change her behaviour?'

1. She seems to think behaviour like this is something she can get away with.
2. She seems to think behaviour like this is something she can get away with.

What evidence is there for you to think her normal teachers can handle her?

What do you mean by 'handle'?

1. Schools that don't know how to deal with disruptive behaviour don't get the sort of results this school gets
2. Schools that.....etc

You are utterly complacent about what are actually second rate results.

It's as if you are saying 'Second rate results are about the best a comprehensive school can hope to achieve.'

Second rate results?
What would you consider good results for a comprehensive school?

The look on Sophie's face when the teacher pricked her bubble telling her she wasn't as smart as Chinese kids.Little Madam was obviously used to smoke being blown up her arse by her teachers and parents.Do her good to be taken down a peg or two.i would like to shake that Chinese teacher by the hand!

"What would you consider good results for a comprehensive school?"

Nothing short of excellence, unless you are suggesting which seems to be the case judging by your wording that comprehensive schools are second rate institutions where students are consigned to languish when their parents can't afford a private school.

What is your measure of excellence?

I wonder if sophie's parents are on mn or friends of the family. I would feel awful to read comments like this about my dc (although I would go ballistic if I heard my dc had behaved in such a manner)

For those going on about results please remember that a comp achieves 'results' that are not measured in league tables ; teaching sen students to handle money and social situations, providing a refuge of safety for victims of difficult home lives, giving students a passion in sport or theatre for life. It's not just about grades.

Often I have visited great schools that on paper do not appear so.

But this one appears so on paper as well. I have no idea what mathanxiety is talking about. In her world a comprehensive school getting 85% A*-Cis "second rate"

A friend's DD (in Scotland, so National 5s rather than GCSE but a similar level) is in private school. She got 8 As in Nat5 exams. Wow, that's impressive! Not really says she - everybody got As.
Compared to that I'd say 85% A*-C does seem 'second rate'.

Again, parochialism. The British education system is very average by international standards, so even a school performing reasonably well by British standards could probably be doing quite a bit better, quite honestly.

Also, this is a school with a privileged intake. And GCSEs are almost certainly quite a lot easier than they were 20 years ago.

An 85% A-C rate is really not that impressive in the circumstances; when students from privileged backgrounds take a set of not-terribly-difficult exams, it shouldn't be that hard to get them to a C or higher.

Agreed, an academically selective school shouldn't have more than one or two grades below C across every subject.

It's really not hard for an academic child to achieve a C at GCSE. It was easy 20 years ago and it should be easy now. My academic school had a 100% A-C result in my GCSE year.

Sorry I got completely the wrong end of the stick, it's not an academically selective school.

I'm not sure why privileged background = clever Statesman?

I work in a private school full of the stonkingly rich, but we're not academically selective. In fact I teach some SEN. Plenty of our kids would find GCSEs a struggle even with tutors etc.

You are utterly complacent about what are actually second rate results.

Which school are you comparing it to, if you think that this school's results are second rate?

And the high achievers get 98% A*-C- which is bloody nearly grammar school level.