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.

Exactly Xeno

My son's previous school suggested several times he was using his autism as an excuse to get out of lessons he didn't like.

Academies were introduced by Labour but brought in full steam ahead by the Tories. Who had a policy under Gove and Nicky Morgan to basically bribe/force all schools to become academies.

Prior to this, all schools were under the authority of the local education authorities, which received funding and provided shared services eg music, support etc. Gove and the Tories hated the LEAs because they thought they were too left-wing and because the Tories wanted full control over all schools. So they tried to remove the authority of the LEA by making all schools into academies, in charge of their own admissions policies, teacher pay levels, curriculum, and, most importantly for all the Tory MPs' mates, their finances. Lots of Tory donors got gifted control over millions of pounds of state assets to run as their personal fiefdoms - allowed to set themselves ridiculous salaries (hundreds of thousands of pounds), appoint their mates to the boards, impose eg religious doctrines on school, run businesses on school premises for their own profit etc.

Gove and Morgan ensured this could all be done with basically no regulation from government - finances not checked out by Ofsted or anyone else etc.

Hence unsurprisingly, there have been a number of scandals come to light among Gove's chosen academy heads eg www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/28/perry-beeches-academy-chain-stripped-schools-critical-finance-report
or www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131024/Scandal-hit-academy-chief-earned-200-000-year-quits-financial-management-schools.html

So that's why many people hate academies!

If school says bedtime is 9.30, it might at least encourage parents to get their children sleeping before 11pm ... Teenagers have to be up early (though 6.30 isn't necessary, is it?) to get to school on time fed, and perhaps they've had issues with oversleepers/empty stomachs/missed buses.

You don't instill respect by terrorizing and humiliating children. What you do is wreck their mental health. Do you really think that teenagers self-harming, attempting suicide, needing anti-depressants and tranquilizers to stop the crying and the nightmates is acceptable as long as they pass their fucking exams? There have been several studies which show that 'strict' schools and endless testing are very damaging to children.
I sometimes wonder if these ghastly people are preparing children for the world of 'work' by forcing them to accept arbitrary cruelties and wholly unreasonable punishment, so they will meekly accept employers ignoring their rights, holding down their wages, removing health and safety precautions etc.

It will discourage the type of family they probably want, those who do sport or drama or dance. For example ds tonight will become going to rehearsals until 9.30pm so won't get home til 10pm. Drama gives him a purpose, a sense of a achievement (& will encourage him to develop those communication/eye contact skills in an encouraging way far more than "we will punish you" would.

The new policies sound horrendous - hope it will rebound on their attendance stats, as all the sick kids are made to stay in school and infect all the others.

A single child with a vomiting bug made to stay in class while they are vomiting could very quickly spread it to an entire class and indeed school.

Absolutely insane (not to mention inhumane) policy.

More generally, lots of research that children perform up or down to expectations. If you go into a school expecting kids to behave like criminals, that's what you will get. What kind of head actually suggests that pupils typically want to get out of lesson?!! What message does that send about what he thinks of the quality of what he's teaching.

My own experience of this kind of head in my own dc's failing school was that t did irreperable damage - it was only hen that head left and was replaced by a kind, nurturing head, that the very traumatised kids could even begin to focus on studying. People like this head who clearly hate children shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a school.

Also, how the fuck is this bullying nonsense in the school supposed to help those DC who are being neglected and abused at home? All it does is make them feel that there really isn't anyone who gives a shit about them, anywhere. Then these profiteering academies can just exclude them and forget about them.

BTW I actually work in education so I have some idea of what I'm talking about.

The whole idea seems doomed to failure based on what RainyMorning describes. Are these children going to suddenly meekly accept a raft of draconian rules and the punishments for not adhering to them? What punishments can schools even give other than detention or the various levels of exclusion, and how can they be enforced on an unwilling teenager? A child who feels justified in swearing at a teacher, overturning the desk and leaving the classroom for eg, isn't going to turn up for detention and will walk out of the school if internal exclusion is suggested. Unless they are going to manhandle students to the detention/isolation room and lock them in for the mandated period of time, the punishments are just not going to happen and therefore neither are any of the rules.

Are these children going to suddenly meekly accept a raft of draconian rules and the punishments for not adhering to them?

Some of them certainly won't. But something people forget is that when bad behaviour is rampant like this, a lot of kids are just going along with it due to peer pressure and the absence of adult control. If adult control can be reimposed, those children will settle down and behave reasonably. Few kids really like a chaotic, dangerous environment - or at least, not all the time.

The school will probably have to permanently exclude some children, of course, to accomplish this. That's a shame, but probably inevitable when things have got this far out of hand.

What Oakham said.

The sensitive children who would find this level of discipline distressing, are already terrified by the behaviour of the other pupils.
The sensible ones being unfairly subjected to this level of discipline will be relieved that their peers are being reigned in, allowing them to learn.
The genuinely poorly children at risk of throwing up are unlikely to be in school, those who are will be recognised by the teachers because they will have other symptoms.

Honestly, secondary schools are pretty intimidating even when they are reasonably well run. If there is poor discipline, they are terrifying. Just because your DCs don't need to be managed in this way, doesn't mean that those at that school don't need it.

The rules are just a way of moving through to exclude any remotely difficult kids they don't want to have to deal with and passing those problems on elsewhere.

Absolutely, MiaowTheCat. The academies here have done exactly that, which means that the final remaining LEA schools are almost entirely attended by kids no other school wants, be that because they simply don't care about school or they're disabled.

My son's previous school suggested several times he was using his autism as an excuse to get out of lessons he didn't like.

Did you also have the "you're only stimming to annoy everyone" type twattery, Alexander?

The rules are just a way of moving through to exclude any remotely difficult kids they don't want to have to deal with

Sure. Nothing to do with trying to get this situation under control:

It was awful, I felt v unsafe, and as visitors, we were put in a thing called 'the cage' to keep us safe. There were children running riot everywhere, pupils running out of class, starting physical fights whilst doing the activity we had set out for them etc.

It will discourage the type of family they probably want, those who do sport or drama or dance

This school is not for children who do sport or drama or dance. These children are lucky if they are fed.

This is completely mental. More discipline, strict rules will never teach children the primary reason why so many young people fail and misbehave: lack of respect towards others which results from lack of respect towards themselves.
This is a return to 19th century education system where children were supposed to be seen and not heard and a cane was considered an appropriate teacher's accessory.
This school won't produce better behaved young children, only repressed adults.
Reading those things I am glad my child doesn't grow up in Britain.

NotTooTough - no future Kenneth Macmillan's then.

I am local to this school and although i dont have a child there i have seen all this pan out, the school has been failing miserably for years, there is a middle ground for these policies and it seems the school are trying to find it www.greatyarmouthmercury.co.uk/news/education/inspiration-trust-s-great-yarmouth-charter-academy-softens-its-stance-on-tough-behaviour-rules-after-dividing-opinion-1-5190901

Great Yarmouth is exactly how some have described on here, the kids are lucky to be fed in some cases, Yarmouth is an extremely deprived area in every respect, it is not just in this school these kids are running riot, it wasnt that long ago a group from Yarmouth high attacked volunteers that were running a soup kitchen and nearly put a stop to it because of the risks they pose,

Although i do agree the original policies were too much, these kids need very firm rules not just at school but at home too, as a resident of Great Yarmouth i can tell you without a doubt these kids run this town, there are some good cookies there too dont get me wrong, but a huge amount of them are causing issues for all walks of life here,

Its a shame really as im born and raised here, ive seen the changes and seen the parents slacking, add to that how little there is here for them to do and the complete disregard or acceptance of what their kids are up to it now makes for an awful place to be

I think one of the major issues here is that we've inherited a post-11 education system that isn't really fit for purpose, regardless of whether a child goes to a comp, a grammar or a public school.

I'm a former secondary school teacher and a former primary governor, and I strongly believe that children that succeed in our current system do so against the odds.

I've never understood why we school 11 year olds in the same institutions as 16 year olds, for example. Likewise, I've never understood why some state schools have been allowed to become so large.

It's features in the secondary system like these that, I believe, lead to entirely predictable problems that then, inevitably, result in militaristic solutions...because you have created the need to control an "army" in the first place, iyswim.

The true solution is not to create such an environment structure in the first place, but that, of course, would require money and a bit of thinking, and I suspect there are just too many vested interests in the status quo.

Good for the Head. If my child was in a school as fucked up as this one seems to be I'd appreciate someone trying to turn things round. It will be interesting to know how many kids do actually need their sick buckets.

Just letting generation after generation of kids fail is not a kindness.

Sounds as though this school needs a serious shake-up; it will be interesting to see what results he gets with the new regime.
I do think many people commenting on here have no concept of what a bottom of the pile school is actually like.

Another local, well aware of some horror stories about what visitors to the school have witnessed, but then I've really had my eyes opened the living conditions and negative life experiences of some kids since living here.

I think some of the measures are too harsh, but might be what is needed and will watch with interest. I initially thought dictating bed and alarm times was a step too far, but there are many parents who just don't give a toss about their kids - who just need help to learn life skills and how to function correctly in wider society.

What Oakham said again!