Not impressed with the daily chanting. Do other secondary schools do this?

[ReanimatedSGB]

DS is in Year 8 and he has told me that, at the start of every lesson, they all have to stand up and chant together, something along the lines of 'we promise to be good and work hard' (OK that's NOT the wording, don';t want to give exact wording in case it outs us).

Every lesson FFS. This strikes me as a waste of time (DS told me that the class took to dragging it out as much as possible in lessons no one likes) and... well. a bit creepy and cultish. AIBU?

ppeatfruit
You can be a humane and caring teacher with routines and expectations. In fact, they go well together. One of my GCSE students said I nag them and am always on at them, then followed it up with 'but it's because you care and someone has to make us bother when we can't be arsed'.
They really do value the high expectations and the consistency of knowing how my room works. There's no 'one day you might get a homework detention but not another', no 'one day we enter the room like a rabble and on another day get shouted at for mildly talking'. It's consistent. They enter my room calmly and do the entry routine. They do the exit routine and when they are silent, i dismiss them. It makes for lovely smooth starts and ends of lessons and it gives me time and space to check in with studnets because the classroom self runs. It's truly enjoyable and also limits how often I have to have negative conversations and sanction students because they know the score.

We have moved away from "if you plan a lesson hooking them in with fidget spinners then they'll be engaged and magically behave" and rightly so. Sensible behaviour and repsect are a basic expectation, not some silly negotiation. The students don't have to earn my respect or earn the right to have decent teaching. I don't have to earn basic respect or basic polite behaviour. Of course there is a level of personal respect which is earned but on a basic 'we are all human and we behave in a way that is polite to one another. We are here to learn and achieve so don't ruin it for yourself and others' front it's non-negotiable to me.

Boney, so glad you agree that making children chant stupid things like this is insulting to them. Quite why pointing that fact out should be, goodness only knows.

Its very interesting that a lot of posters say its insulting to children to ask them to say they will concentrate on lessons. But we never see parents complaining/campaigning that its insulting to teachers that parents send children to school unwilling to concentrate on lessons.

Julie
Because (to generalise here) most of the parents who are inclined to complain/kick off/tell their children they don't have to follow the rules they don't like are probably also people who think that whether their child works hard and behaves is dependent on whether the teacher uses relevant hooks and entertains the class (aka 'if the teacher did their job better then my DC wouldn't misbehave/back chat. If my DC doesn't see the point in an exercise then of course they won't try. Who wants to be bored applying exam skills? Thr teacher ought to have linked it to Call of Duty or I'm A Celebrity to keep the students interested'. Of course, when thr teacher sanctions their DC then that is also a sign they aren't doing their job properly because it's entirely acceptable to some people to say 'my DC are lovely but they aren't just going to follow instructions because that's blindly following power so obviously I've told them they should ask why and challenge teachers on anything from uniform through to basic instructions and I will back them if thr teacher doesn't explain why they expect them to do x y z'. So then their child is the one who is told:
Harry, I have already asked you to sit down.
But I was just...
Charlotte, take your earrings out.
My mam says earrings don't affecy.my learning. Like why do we even have to follow a uniform.
Take them out please. You are now disrupting the lesson. If you wish to raise an issue with uniform, come talk to me at lunch and we'll put something together for studeny leadership.
^But how am I though? YOU'RE the one who started it. Why are you soooo dodgy?!
You know thr rules. Remove the earrings please. This is your last chance.^
FINE! But it's so stupid. Even my Mam says you can't really make.me.

Parents who are generally supportive understand that thry may not have personally chosen every rule at an organisation, but it's a small part of a big picture and they generally are happy to let staff get on with their jobs. If they want to have a chat about something about how their child is doing then they call, we talk politely and aim.to resolve it. Generally supportive, reasonable parents tend not to be into the entire list every issue you have however irrelevant it is.

BashStreetKid

Not what I posted.

I said that your post was an insult to hardworking, self respecting teenagers.

So that's it then. The schools are being turned into examination sausage factories and .interestingly, not one of the posts in reply has responded to my conclusion.

Great for the the more able and motivated students. Watch out if you're a teenager with high sensitivity or no family support and or mental health issues.

ppeat it’s odd that you equate working hard and behaving well with ‘exam sausage factories’. Surely it’s a basic requirement of any school that the kids need to work and behave (except weird ones like Summerhill).
The purpose of schools is to educate, the purpose of kids being at school (apart from keeping them off the streets) is to learn.

It’s a big step from that to ‘exam factory’.

Its very interesting that a lot of posters say its insulting to children to ask them to say they will concentrate on lessons

They aren't be asked to say anything, they are being forced to chant like idiots.

I note no-one answered my question about how happy they would be to suddenly have to chant like mindless fools every hour in work?

But, bfg they are not in employment. Would you like to have to ask to go to the toilet, do compulsory PE and have to speak in French on demand? No? But that’s irrelevant.

Which it makes it even less ok, because they can't just leave. You can't treat them terribly just because they are children you know.

Maisy, you don't seem to understand that there is a difference between rules about: not hitting other students, paying attention in lessons, basic courtesy and stupid petty bullshit like not wearing earrings - or having to chant witless slogans.

A school with a lot of silly little rules that are only in place as either window dressing or so that inadequate adults can attempt to wield power by making kids obey no matter what is not a good school. It doesn't have a good atmosphere and having to argue with kids about the length of their hair or the colour of their shoelaces wastes everyone's time.

And there we have it. Inadequate adults, silly little rules. When all else fails, resort to insults.

This ..having to argue with kids about the length of their hair or the colour of their shoelaces wastes everyone's time

AGREE totally

Which is a different kettle of fish to establishing a consistent routine to the start of lessons.

What more of a routine do you need than 'good morning class', 'good morning teacher'? Followed by school's equivalent of either 'Wands out' or 'Wands away' depending on the lesson.

So you're happy with the class chanting 'Good morning teacher'?

Boney, you need to read back your own post. It clearly indicated agreement with mine. I appreciate that may not be what you intended, but we can only go on what you post.

And, Boney, I give hard-working self-respecting teenagers the credit for being able to detect bullshit when they see and hear it. Frankly, there is nothing about mindless chanting which correlates automatically with those attributes, and I would have rather less respect for an adult or teenager who can't see it for what it is.

So you're happy with the class chanting 'Good morning teacher'?

That isn't a chant. It's a response.

So if the teacher said 'what are we going to do today' and the class responded "work hard and be good!" Then that's fine?

I find it incredibly difficult to believe that, when asked what they were going to do today, it would spontaneously occur to each and every member of the class to answer simultaneously "Work hard and be good". You're far more likely to get 30 different responses. So yes, if they all answered "Work hard and be good" perfectly in unison, that would obviously be a rehearsed, meaningless chant and would not be fine.

I think if you said to a class ‘good morning class’ and expected a perfect, in unison response without any rehearsal and prompting you’d be disappointed. It would also be artificial.

"'Wands out' or 'Wands away"

Even I know teaching is a bit harder than waving a magic wand. Some parents seem quite ok about teaching their children to keep their elbows off the table and eating with their mouths closed but when a school asks them to affirm their study ethic at the start of class its like the precious snowflakes are having their human rights abused.

Possible secondary school for dd has this. It has been a school in deep trouble and this is part of its rebrand. I'm a bit about it. I wouldn't have responded positively as a kid to this. However, if it helps with a positive attitude to drive the school out of a serious nosedive, then it's not that negative.

So if the teacher said 'what are we going to do today' and the class responded "work hard and be good!" Then that's fine?

Surely, that would be extremely unlikely! A helpful kid might say, 'well, we were doing simultaneous equations last lesson; are we going on with that?' The less helpful might suggest that you're the teacher, so perhaps you should decide!