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.

My school (secondary) is in a leafy suburb and has great order/discipline. However, yes there are always some who talk/engage in low level disruption. And you know why? Because they "know their rights" and they know that our options re discipline are limited. 30-40 years ago, parents backed up schools with regard to discipline. Now the prevailing attitude, even from our middle class educated and often high status parents, is one of defensiveness "oh my child would never do that", "my child said it was the child next to them who did it", "your punishments are too harsh" etc etc. You see it on here ALL THE TIME; parents refusing to believe that their special snowflake is at school behaving like an entitled rude brat. Those of you who teacher-bash on here: do you seriously think that your DC don't pick up on the lack of respect you have for teachers? They're the ones misbehaving, because they know that mum/dad thinks teachers are lazy/not deserving of respect etc.

The sad fact is that many parents do not instil respect, manners or discipline in the home. If it doesn't start there, and if we don't have parental backing, there's very little we can do because suspensions will be overturned/challenged by parents, or they'll show up at school shouting the odds and complain until Special Snowflake is allowed back into class. So before people go blaming hardworking teachers, maybe take a look at your own attitude to discipline. Is your child always well mannered at home? Do you have clear rules and boundaries which are always followed? If not, then why would you expect your DC to adhere to such things at school? The issue is parenting.

Disclaimer: I love my job and am very lucky to work in a school where 95% of pupils are a delight.

Those who think this doesn't happen in private schools are deluding themselves. I went to both state and an extremely strict and academic girls' private school and I have since taught in both.

The difference in behaviour comes down entirely to the ability of the teacher to manage and engage the class and privately educated teenagers are just as likely to join in the disruption where they teacher hasn't got a grip. (Like those poor Chinese teachers)

In my strictest posh girls' school I well remember a term of reading Chaucer's Canterbury tale (the one set in a farmyard) in English, accompanied each lesson by random cow, cat, dog and pig noises from the gals around the classroom. The poor ineffectual English teacher had no idea how to shut us up as he could never work out who it was (and even the Good Girls joined in with the odd baa). The term ended in total chaos with a mass walkout of students (and the English teacher left to work in a prison - seriously!)

The best behaviour I've seen was in a lower ability physics set in a good state comp very similar to Bohunt with an inspiring, charismatic and engaging teacher who has sadly left teaching due to work overload and the entire class paying rapt attention.

You kid yourselves fee payers. Teachers in private schools are no better than in state and kids is kids is kids.

One of the interesting things about the Chinese education system is that it is currently looking to other countries- especially the apparently shockingly poor English system- to see what it can learn. There's an acknowledgement within China that while many pupils excel at maths (for eg.) they don't have many of the '21st century' skills needed for a global economy and workplace. Things like creativity, problem solving, intercultural skills etc. This is also a reason why UK higher education is wildly popular with Chinese students- they know they will gain those skills.
The much vaunted Chinese PISA results are also not quite what they seem- they draw from a particular sample of schools in Beijing (largely) and don't represent the whole country.
I think the Chinese teachers actually did a really good job of recognising that this was an issue of cultural difference and that the children were used to learning in a different way and that they needed to learn how to engage them. The ring puzzle was a great example of that and the teacher looked like he was having a ball with it too.

What you tend to not get in private schools/"posher" state schools are SERIOUS episodes of indiscipline, ie violence, weapons, chair throwing, kids with anger issues etc. But low level stuff? It's the EXACT SAME

BertrandRussell-I am perfectly capable of using the internet but most people don't spend their time looking up the results of schools at the other end of the country, do they? Or am I in a minority?
Why would I have even heard of this school before seeing the programme?
Did you learn your manners there by any chance?

MACKLIN totally agree. Anyone who thinks that they are buying their way out of low level chat and backchat and elastic flicking is seriously deluded.

"Why would I have even heard of this school before seeing the programme?"

But isn't it usual to do a modicum of research before expressing opinions? Or do you think the programme told you everything you needed to know to make a judgement about the school?

I didn't make a judgement about the school-I posted about the secondary schools of which I do have experience-and my guess is that most people posting on here are posting from a mixture of having watched the programme and their own experience of secondary schools.
Please correct me if I'm wrong and you are all researching away as if you are submitting your posts for an MA.

Haffdonga, maybe the private schools are better at recruiting the more effective teachers then?

TheBeanpole I agree, there is lots that the Chinese education system could learn from us in terms of fostering independent thinking/creativity although this is a bit of a cliche to say this is never fostered.

On the other hand, we just don't get enough students getting good enough knowledge in maths and science and even English. Students arriving at uni now to do maths have significantly lower skills than 20 years ago. I find in a social science subject, many students who aren't able to show off their independent thinking/creativity at all due to poor grammar and writing skills. I honestly wonder who would employ some of them to write a report.

Also, if asked to do anything challenging, they act, as do pupils in secondary, as if it is a) extremely tiresome b) my job to make it comprehensible and fun, not theirs to make any leap in comprehension by extra studying. At uni level, this is not ok, and all ideas about flipping classrooms/making students engaged through this type of activity seems to me to be ways to deal with the problem that many students actually can't concentrate and take notes in an hour lecture. The material simply isn't going through their brain.

The one good thing about uni is that we do not have to keep any students (!) as education at this level is not complusory, so behaviour is mainly good (texting/use of tablets at the back quite common). If I am speaking, no-one else speaks, and if someone starts whispering, I stop the lecture and wait for them to stop before I restart. I can't imagine spending most of my time dealing with minor discipline issues, how tiring.

Students arriving at uni now to do maths have significantly lower skills than 20 years ago.

That's because participation has widened, maths A-level was adjusted downwards to increase uptake and universities have not taken this into account with their entry requirements.

Discipline in chinese schools is enforced by the fact that headteacher can throw out pupils who are disruptive without appeals etc. the pupil then May or may not then get a place at a lower ranking school. Parents know this and know its in their interest to support the school's stance. Also culturally peer pressure is a lot stronger in China than in UK if your child is disruptive you will be vilified and lose face which is a massive deal. Thirdly and prehaps most importantly in China education is seen as the way to a better life and children are taught from infancy that you have one stab at it. Mess it up and you will end up sweeping the streets, emptying bins or pushing a dim sum trolley. In a country where you are competing against a billion other people you kno you are not a special snowflake.

MackLin I would disagree with your assertion that you don't get serious acts of indiscipline at private schools/"posher" state schools - they are just clever at hiding it rather than admitting it goes on.

For example, I work at what would be classed as a posher state school and the serious acts we have recently had makes your eyes water, but as the HT/SLT don't want the reputation of the school tarnished they have been sept under the carpet; if these acts happened at my old rough secondary school these students would have been immediately excluded.

In terms of the low level disruption, in my opinion it has got worse since I started teaching 15 years ago; the main aspect as to the the difference is that a lot of students really believe that they will be given qualifications rather than them having to work for them, a high proportion don't think they are doing anything wrong if they are talking, not working, messing about (and as MckLin has said, far too many parents defend their 'snowflakes') this also links in with the thought that they will be 'given a job/career'

Noble you are right, but one of the consequences of the general reduction in what is needed for A level is that the really top students aren't getting the type of stretching that I was getting that time ago either. I was used to working with primary sources, making all my own notes, writing essays with original opinions by the time I arrived at uni. Now, even the best and brightest come in and it takes about 1 1/2 years (the equivalent of the old A levels basically) to get them to that stage. It is true though that some of the students just aren't really cut out for that type of study though, and they still have to trudge through somehow (by copious amounts of cut and pasting, paraphrasing, no original thought at all).

There has to be a balance between 'creativity' and 'independent thinking' (of which I actually don't see that much if I'm honest, not at a high level, lots of 'I think this, I think that' and not so much higher reasoning) and the fundamental knowledge and skills in the discipline you are studying. I don't think we have got that quite right, and I don't blame teachers whatsoever, because when you are teaching classes with low level constant disruption and large amounts of paperwork, the sheer quantity and difficulty of what you can teach is reduced.

I also suspect in China, if a student does badly, it is considered the student's issue. Here the blame falls on the teacher (for not having good enough discipline) or the school (through OFSTED) or the lecturer for not having been creative and interesting enough (flip the classroom!). We keep getting told students can only concentrate for 20 min at a time. What utter bullshit!!! Yes, concentration goes in waves over a long time period, but as someone else said, plenty of young people can spend hours immersed in quite cognitively demanding and difficult games. If you characterise students as having the attention span of a gnat, and blame teachers/lecturers for not being interesting enough, the students simply don't get that they have to engage themselves to produce learning.

I'm at home unexpectedly as ds is ill. Might put this on and see what he thinks (he's 7). I agree with what most of you seem to be saying about expectations of parents, 'rights of the teenager' etc. this progresses even to university. Some of the students do pay attention but in this world of iPads and laptops, we can't stop them from logging into fb or playing candy crush in the middle of a lecture.

Even trying to get students to class is an infringement of their right apparently.

And you think university students are supposedly the brighter of the crop.

Whoops, should have read HP's post! Totally agree with everything she/he said. We are expected to be entertainers, and if on a scale of 1-5, we fall below 3.5, we have to explain why we aren't entertaining enough. It's funny, one of my colleagues scored 3.8 or so for the overall feedback on the module. I know for a fact that she's v good at what she does, a top professor in her field and v reknown. Also v nice woman too, caring, passionate about her topic.

She got marked down on things that weren't even possible eg 'feedback received on time' (students hadn't even done their assignment yet!). I think she might have upset some of them and the overall score went down.

I think the increase in Eastern European immigrant children in uk schools and professions in the next 10 years is going to really give ur Dcs a big shock. I have interviewed quite a few in the past year in my profession and they have a professionalism and work ethic which outclasses many of our uk graduates many of whom can't even be arsed to turn up for a job interview

HP - yep, of course there's a balance between cognitive and non cognitive skills, but it's also a bit sweeping to say that there's no stretch in schools in England- I don't think that's true either.
It's a bit boring to talk about Finland but of course that's the other very high performing system- and they are moving away from teaching by subject altogether. Will be interesting to see if they maintain their PISA ranking for all that that is worth. AND they have an excellent welfare state so we can counter that argument.

I suspect one of the similarities between Finland and China is that socially they are much more homogenous. That makes all sorts of things easier.

We definitely don't get the problems of state schools. Now that might be because our children's schools are very academically selective but I think it's as much to do with parents being stricter at home and the schools scaking useless teachers quickly and expelling pupils who stop other children getting their money's worth. There will obviously be the occasional disruptive pupil but it isn ot as bad as in some state schools. However those happy with state schools who want to think private schools do not have disciplined classes with people concentrating carry on but the bottom line is the 8% of children in private schools get 50% of the best university plcaes and huge numbers of places in good jobs in the future so something must be going right.

Finland is falling in the rankings, their moment in the educational spotlight is definitely passing.

I work in a private school and I wouldn't say I have any sort of low level disruption in my classes.

The children sit, and listen. Then when it is time for them to work, they work.

If they don't do as is required, I will have a word. If it continues, I will have a stronger word.

If that isn't sufficient (and it usually is), last warning will be given. Next infraction, name on the blackboard. Punishment is minutes off golden time (KS2). More chatting = more minutes off.

Continually receiving this punishment would result in a further sanction such as loss of break time or formal detention.

To be honest, if any child was regularly receiving sanctions they would have been flagged as an issue, head of department may well have had a word, if they aren't working hard I have probably already spoken to parents.

And this is all as a result of low level chit chat, not concentrating and not doing what is required.

Unsurprisingly, we don't get any a lot of chair throwing or something else equally as bad. I can't even imagine what I would do if someone threw a chair! Probably go completely bonkers, they'd be in with the school director and we'd be looking at a couple of detentions. I can't even imagine any of our 300 kids ever behaving like that.

We frequently have no kids on detention in a week. Maximum we had this year is I think five in one week, and that was remarked on all round for being particularly shocking!

Good school discipline is a result of good strong structures in place to ensure good school discipline. It's not rocket science.

Did anyone notice the expensive track suits students were wearing? A brand used by private schools. Who funded them I wonder? Did they come out of the Academy's budget in the same way other academies use their funds to 'bus in' bright students from poorer areas or use tens of thousands of pounds on spin and PR?

Where there is shitty ineffective management in a workplace, you will get groups of adult workers idly chatting and not doing their work.

Why would we expect any different from young teens?

Fact is, it is ALL about quality of the teacher when it comes to class control. Similarly, it is nearly (but not entirely) all about quality of management, when it comes to how effect or a workforce is.

Any teacher that argues differently, would concern me.

I thought the track suits looked like shell suits

Loved the irony of Sophie saying she didn't know what "humble" meant