Harsh Times at Yarmouth High. New Head introduces new rules including sick buckets in classrooms.

[HelenaDove]

Posted this on another thread but i think it deserves a thread of its own.

HelenaDove Mon 11-Sep-17 21:06:41
www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/phones-confiscated-for-weeks-and-sick-buckets-in-the-classroom-tough-new-rules-at-norfolk-school-1-5188326
Add message | Report | Message poster HelenaDove Mon 11-Sep-17 21:08:44
“You never lie and make excuses like, ‘I just wanted to put something in the bin’. We all know children say things like that to get out of work. You never pretend to be ill to get out of work because we expect you to work through it. If you feel sick we will give you a bucket. If you vomit - no problem! You’ve got your bucket. That’s probably all your body wanted - to vomit. If you are really ill we will make sure you get all the attention you need."

JESUS WEPT.

What I find depresssing is that the parents were mobilised to action after the new head arrived but did nothing while the school was failing.

The whole thing sounds hellish.

Find particularly depressing. There's plenty to be depressed about!

Reeks of panic.

I honestly think this is a great idea - I've looked at their policy and there's nothing I don't agree with - even considering implementing some of the rules at home with my DD.

If you have unruly pupils, no one can learn. I genuinely am looking forward to seeing how this rolls out.

a new set of Academy standards, such as “you never get out of your chair without permission at Charter.”

God help children with sensory problems, then.

Your children’s job is to attend every day on time, follow all instructions first time every time, treat everyone they meet politely, and get the top grades they possibly can in everything they do.

Your job is to support their school and their education. By supporting us you support your children. This could be the beginning of a whole new life full of possibilities for your children. To make that happen we need your 100% support.

Ai agree with what the HT says here. The vomit thing is probably, as others have said, to prevent kids trying to skive and get out of work. People who are genuinely ill will be believed.

What did the parents do to prevent the school going down the pan to this extent? Nothing??

If you have to go to these extreme measures to ensure learning takes place then something is wrong with your lessons.

I used to teach in rough schools btw.

A state school near us gets at or close to the best results in the country. And it manages it without sick buckets in the classroom.

This is essentially a new broom headteacher willy-waving.

While this certainly sounds quite strict, it also sounds to me like newspapers have seized upon one or two headline-grabbing aspects and most of it is not that unusual. I would agree that the sick bucket thing must have come from the number of pupils saying they needed to leave the classroom because they were going to be sick. I presume the intention in providing a bucket is to show up the fact that they were never going to be sick in the first place "That's fine, you don't need to leave, here's a bucket". I would hope that if a child were actually to be sick in the bucket, they might be excused from the lesson. I have a 'nobody gets out of their chair without permission' rule in my classroom! I'm not a Draconian teacher, I promise, but I just can't cope with lots of teenagers wandering around aimlessly when there's absolutely no need. As for the chewing gum ban, do any schools actually allow chewing gum?!

A bit of discipline never did anyone any harm. However this Is not discipline. This is abuse of power.
You don't put a sick bucket in a classroom. Not only is it unhygienic and germ ridden. Vomiting could be the first sign of meningitis. FFS and. No matter what age you are when you're sick. You just want your mum.
And another thing. With the best will in the world you can't put teenagers to bed

If you have to go to these extreme measures to ensure learning takes place then something is wrong with your lessons.

Sounds like there's something wrong with the whole school. The HT said:

*As the Headmaster of Charter Academy I cannot, I will not, allow the indiscipline, the disrespect, the failure, the bullying, the truancy and the lack of parental support, that were all a part of daily life at the former High School, to continue.”

Presumably if he stars off like thids and the dc get used to the new rules, he can relax some of them in time.

Surely there's a happy medium between an anything goes policy and something as draconian as this? I totally accept that something needs to be done about poor behaviour, especially when it stops the well-behaved children getting on with their work. That makes me incandescent with fury. However, as a person with a tendency to anxiety and as mother of a very anxious daughter, I know the atmosphere in a place with rules as strict as this would have been far from conducive to learning. I'd have been frozen with fear that I was going to get into trouble or somebody near me was going to be shouted at. I totally accept that something has gone very wrong in schools like this if so many children are behaving very badly and parents are not supporting the school, but is this really the only way to tackle it? How depressing.

How do we know that people who are genuinely ill will be believed? And what good will it to be believed afterwards when you have just been sick in front of all your classmates, maybe your bullies? You're never going to live it down.

The problem is that this HT seems to think of all pupils as adversaries or potential adversaries and is incautious enough to tell them so.

Chances are, every class contains a handful of pupils who are suffering far more from the badly behaved pupils than any teacher could. And a handful (or more) who are actually hard-working and well behaved but that never gets noticed. Now HT has just told them all he will not believe any of them and his default position will be to assume any pupil is lying. So he's lost their loyalty.

New HT in ds's school did precisely the same: announced a tough regime on arrival and assumed everybody was an adversary to be thought. Didn't take long to send the school into Special Measures, all the best teachers leaving and even the best behaved pupils developing a meh attitude.

Too much stick, not enough carrot. It's that politician thing of "If I sound good, then I must be good".

somebody near me was going to be shouted at.

There's no shouting at Michaela, the school this policy is modelled on. Children are given a detention, along with an explanation of why good behaviour is important for their learning. If teachers know that the senior management will back them up and, if necessary, remove persistently disruptive children from the classroom, then there's no need to shout.

I was an exceptionally well behaved child at school and would have been terrified. My parents would have removed me from a school like this.

Can the head not see that all he is doing is putting off the potentially high achievers? My children achieve well but I wouldn't make them go to an environment like this for 7 hours a day, they aren't criminals.

ALl that will be left is the few whose parents don't care if their children are frightened and mistreated, and we all know how THOSE kids turn out.

You don't put a sick bucket in a classroom. Not only is it unhygienic and germ ridden. Vomiting could be the first sign of meningitis. FFS and. No matter what age you are when you're sick. You just want your mum.

I thik this has been taken out of context. He wants to stop kids who aren't going to be sick making excuses. Meningitis is rare, and most kids being sick won't have it.

I think it sounds brilliant, good on him for doing something about it.

Poor results are often NOT a sign of a failing school in the first place. They can easily be the sign of a school with a high proportion of pupils with SEN (remember that it's been made a lot harder to get a statement...) EAL or both, but with a pleasant atmosphere and pupils who are making progress even if they don't pass all their tests. There are always going to be kids who are not going to pass the tests their peers pass, because of issues quite other than laziness or 'lack of discipline'.
So the parents might well have been perfectly happy with the school the way it was, because their kids were treated well, liked school and were making progress.
Remember, also, that the Government is fucking about with all the tests, making them much harder - and cutting funding to schools. Yet the answer to everything seems to be to terrorize the children and insult their parents. None of this shit works. What usually happens when a school 'improves' under a sadistic HT is that all the ones with SEN or family issues get permanently excluded, which has a short-term effect of boosting the results (though the impact on the mental health of the higher achievers is often not so good.)

My son is a High achiever with SEN (autism, PDA, possibly ADHD but no one interested in pursuing that, sensory issues.)

He is polite, articulate, holds doors open, stands when teachers enter, etc

I've read most of that schools policy. It's awful for kids like him. I actually withdrew him from a private school because he couldn't meet their (lesser) expectations. He can't make eye contact, he needs to sometimes leave the room to take a moment to calm, he needs to stim in order to help concentration. He has been punished for having a sensory meltdown.

His new school luckily is far more understanding. They have high behavioural expectations but understand why certain kids may find things hard to achieve. It's like telling an epileptic child that they are choosing to fit - you just wouldn't would you?

Dh is a teacher & I have also taught in extra curricular.

Always amazes me how people running schools and should be 'experts' on education know so littke about how children actually learn - there is so much great science on this that us routinely ignored in favour of black leather shoes and the right length skirts theory

The school has facilities and policies for SEND.

www.inspirationtrust.org/page/?title=Special+educational+needs&pid=1004

I don't think it necessarily has to be the case that no adjustments will be made for children with ASD. It's also worth considering that a school with chaotic behaviour will also be very difficult for children with ASD, including the likelihood of associated bullying.

Hmph. Again, this sounds like spin from a bully who hates children. 'Disrespect' is a term you normally only hear from inadequate people who want to be taken more seriously than they deserve. And attendance figures are another of the tools the Government uses to harass schools that they want to flog off to academy chains: some kids have physical or mental health problems which mean they miss school for medical reasons; last year (if the catchment area is diverse) there were issues around Eid falling during term time, and there is also the matter of poor and migrant families being shunted all round the country with delays in school transfer meaning a child can be listed as enrolled and absent when said child is now living 90 miles away...