To be furious teachers keep sitting 'naughty' kids next to my 'angelic' DC

[Flaky]

So he is then upset by them being mean to him and doesn't want to go to school?

This is at least the 3rd occasion a kid like this has been moved next to him.

Last year the teacher admitted that she had done it so DS's good influence rubs off but why should he suffer for it?

He's the youngest in the class as well (Yr2)and some of these DC are almost a whole year older.

Isn't this just very lazy teaching?

It does matter when people make sweeping statements about how their child shouldn't be sat near a child who is disruptive and some on thos thread have advocated having naughty tables. Others have said they call up and ask for their cjild to be moved if they find out theirDC is near a particular child.

Sitting near a child who can be disruptive isn't in itself an issue as i've mentioned from a teacher perspective and from the perspective as a child who was had disruptive children sat near me.

By all means raise concerns when there are concerns. If there is bullying tje school absolutely need to be informed.

But don't make sweeping comments about a seating strategy when the success or failure of that seating strategy depends on how the teacher manages it.

@MiaowTheCat - can I be nosey and ask why they sat you behind a filing cabinet? What was the motivation for them doing that?!

It is to do with the experience of the teacher. I have had problems like the op’s amd one teacher kept insisting it would be ok even though my child was clearly being threatened. Another teacher saw the issue, said “this isn’t working for either child” and moved them around.

Yeah i think opal, maisy and others are right in that it depends on the teachers control of the class

I think also, in secondary, where you have setting rather than the same class group, you might get a higher proportion of challenging children in one class - not one or two disruptive ones but maybe seven or eight - as well as a good proportion of hard-working ones. This makes your seating arrangements more difficult I think. I always had them in rows facing the front anyway (I didn't like that some would have to twist round to see the board) but as I have said before, the seating plan often created as many problems as it solved. This would even be the case if they were allowed to choose where to sit.

Of course it was only a tool in my toolbox and the rest was down to me, but when you have very badly-behaved adolescents and no TA (which I NEVER did, not being a core subject teacher) it does make it more difficult.

I have walked around the school in my non-contact time to see how those challenging children behaved in English, Science and Maths - and yes, they would be much better in a class of 10 with a TA. You can really get round to them as individuals then. There is room for people to sit at tables alone if it suits etc etc. They often were better in technology subjects too (again smaller groups and many of them preferred the practicality of the subject although they sometimes kicked off when doing theory).

It all comes down to the individual teacher and ultimately to the ethos of the school and how much support that teacher gets when dealing with difficult and often very troubled teenagers.

My DD used to have this a lot in primary, teachers used to say because she had good leadership / role modelling behaviour. Mostly it was fine but occasionally got her down. In which case she’d speak to the teacher and the kids were moved around a bit. In most cases the disruptive children behaved better sat next to her and she seemed able to cope. I do agree it’s usually girls that are affected though.

One thing to add, she has developed the ability to concentrate despite interruptions and is pretty unflappable at dealing with difficult people.

But with some kids the teacher won't know there are problems because they wont' tell and will internalise it all.

Putting children with more challenging behaviour with children who will speak up / are confident and assertive is one thing but putting them with the quiet ones who won't day anything seems to happen quite a lot. While individual teachers on here are saying they don't don't do this which I'm sure is true, there are thousands of teachers in the country. Putting a child who is more challenging with a quiet child will make things easier as the challenging child will have a focus and the quiet child won't tell the teacher or often their parents or anyone what is happening, so there is nothing to "deal with". Certain type of personality believe that they have to get on with it and deal with things themselves, that that is their lot. "Why didn't you tell anyone" is a question that comes up time and time again with children, so it's not news surely that some children don't even when things are bad.

Certainly a few posters have talked about it toughening quiet kids up as well so the sink or swim / army type attitude is there in some cases and again that's not surprising, all people are different, and it's not uncommon to talk to people who see quiet children as a bit wet and pathetic and they need to "learn to stand up for themselves".

None of the teachers on here are personally involved with the stories either current or in the past and they can't really know what is going on in other classrooms around the country.

@kaitlinktm I'd definitely agree with that. If you are in the top set for everything you don't generally have to worry about this kind of thing as a pupil. If you are in the bottom set for everything, and are a hard working trier who behaves well, wants to learn but just isn't very academic then you are going to suffer. There was a girl in my form group at school who that applied to and I felt really sorry for her. She worked so hard, bottom set for everything, but had model pupil behaviour and really tried. She even went to do extra maths at evening class during our GCSEs because she wanted to pass so much (not sure how that worked at 15, but she did). She ended up getting 5 or 6 Cs at GCSE which was a massive achievement for her but constantly having to deal with the behaviour of dickheads who were in the bottom set purely because they were lazy, disruptive, poorly behaved and not trying (thus performed poorly in tests despite being of average or above average ability) must have made it so hard for her.

I agree, UpABitLate, that was true of me as a child. I never told about bad things that happened. Far worse things were happening at home, but that's not for this thread, but it's probably the reason why I internalised and thought I deserved bad treatment.

It can also happen, as evidenced by various posts on this thread, that the quiet child is sometimes sat next to the child who is bullying them, and will be afraid of retribution in the playground for being a 'snitch'.

And of course some children aren't even worried about retribution, they either have learnt or just feel that it's for them to cope with by themselves, and that if they can't cope then it's a personal failing which just compounds things and makes them even more miserable.

I get this with my oldest DC.
She's very calming and gentle, it's like being around some sort of Yogi .
She enjoys it, as she gets to be goodnaturedly bossy.
We've only had one problem which was resolved very quickly and the boy was moved.
I can see how it can become a nightmare for other children though who would get their education and peace disrupted through no fault of their own. Hope you get it sorted OP

I am a bit aghast at the idea that being sat next to a disruptive child who is constantly disrupting a child's learning, is unimportant.

AHungryMum Yeah, at our school it was known top set was your only chance of learning anything, bottom set was basically a zoo and all the teachers did was try control the horrendous behaviour, unsuccessfully, so no teaching or learning got done. If a child of mine was due for a bottom set I'd pull them out of the course and get them a personal tutor rather than make them sit through a stressful dangerous environment for zero gain at the end. It's awful how bottom sets are basically educational gulag, you disappear to them then your potential completely disappears. I don't think the disruptive kids should be mixed in with the well behaved ones as it's not fair to drag everyone down, but the fact bottom sets are just abandoned and accepted as a pen for kids rioting is one of the failures of our education system imo.

We have this at the moment with one of my DC. They have a newly qualified teacher who has read about this method and is doggedly trying to implement it. It is supposed to be calming for the disruptive child, and the well being of the calm child is irrelevant.

The only problem is I know we have one particular trouble maker in our class, who would only make the slightly disruptive children into full blown hooligans. So I can see why they don't want to encourage that by placing those children into one group. My child (DD) has managed to deal with children that are a bit disruptive but the child that is very difficult (mentioned above) is impossible for her to sit next to due to unprovoked violence and ongoing bullying issues. He has attacked several children and told teachers to fuck off. No special needs and of average intelligence, just a bloody horror who I don't want near my child.

Yes of course it's self centred not to give any thought to the disruptive child.

Well, to be brutally honest, I couldn’t give a shit about the disruptive child.

My dd is quiet and hardworking. Not absolute top achiever but does very well in school. Why in hell should her education be compromised by deliberately being sat next to a child who doesn’t know how to behave?

I don’t care if the disruptive child is having a hard time at home, is lashing out because they find schoolwork difficult, has SEN or is just a little shit with parents who never discipline them or show them boundaries.

I. Don’t. Care.

I only care about my child and don’t want her to be used as a babysitter for one of those disruptive children.

Nice!

Why the nice comment? Parents are told on here all the time that other kids in school are not their business and to focus only on their own kid. Then you make a sarky comment when parents do exactly that?

Seating plans are a logistical nightmare and often heavily influenced by a school's policies on table arrangements/ layouts.

There are a large range of factors to consider including educational needs, additional needs and personality combinations. As a secondary teacher, trying to get that right for 15+ classes that you may see once per week is incredibly time consuming and difficult to get right with some classes. Plus you may be called upon in this delightful era of accountability, to justify the positioning of any individual student. You might have half a class requiring a premium seat according to various school policy criteria

Depending on the nature of the disruption, it may sometimes work to keep some students concentrated in an easily observable position, but it often won't wash well with senior staff. Dilution is normally more effective.

One surprise I had many years ago was the difference in a class' behaviour after one girl left. She was a bit silly, but not the ring leader by a country mile. After she went, the whole class calmed down as the core of protagonists lost their most appreciative audience member and significantly reduced their attention seeking behaviour that was to the detriment of the rest of the class.

No teacher wants to cause harm to their students, but sometimes there just isn't a simple solution that keeps everyone happy.

I'm glad OP's teacher has amended the seating plan. It doesn't necessarily mean a resolution to the key problems going on though.

I don't happen to share that view though crunchymint. Do as you would be done by, if it happened to be your own DC who was acting up. I defy any parent to feel certain that their own DC will never disrupt right through their school career. Many won't but a lot do. Life throws up all sorts of unexpected challenges which affect behaviour, so never say never. None of us operate in isolation and it's probably wise not to pass that insular message onto our DC at a young age - the don't give a shit about anyone else mentality.

Yes of course it's self centred not to give any thought to the disruptive child.

When my DC were put next to the 'naughty' kid for extended periods of time ie longer than was fair I can't say I gave much thought to the 'disruptive' kid. 🤷🏻‍♀️ If everyone in the class were taking turns with the difficult kids I wouldn't have minded but my kids were singled out to be sat next to the disruptive kids because they were well behaved and not the type to whine to the teacher. The were effectively being punished for being well behaved. How can anyone argue that that is ok. As I mentioned earlier the teachers told me that they were doing it deliberately. Bonkers and crap teaching.

If teachers use children to try to improve other childrens' behaviours how can they justify the stance that a childs' problems are no business of other children/parents. It is making it their business.

When I was 15 I was in a class of 25 where there were 6 of us that wanted to be there and learn the others were disruptive/did their own thing (pre mobile phones), it ended up with the teacher giving up with the majority and taught us on one side of room at one table. Senior staff came and spoke to all of us individually. Situation didn't change.

TickyTacky DD spent a couple of years next to the child in question. That's extended by any stretch. I didn't consciously think of the welfare of the child at the time but the teacher explained at her parents evening that my DD seemed to be helping the child and so I left things alone. In retrospect I'm glad I did. She has very good powers of concentration and thinks about others as well as herself. I think it matured her. It's not a completely one way thing, however irksome it seems at the time at a micro level.

GoodbyeStranger

My children also think of others and have good powers of concentration. They are also not the type to complain if they are being teased. However they were placed next to kids who were very disruptive and who they weren't capable of managing.

I don't believe you wouldn't have done something

If the child that was sat next to your daughter was bullying her or being nasty to her. It sounds like the kid she next too wasn't actually that bad. I don't think her experience is comparable to what other posters kids have had to put up with.

I had a slightly different experimce of being sat with low achievers.

I went to a selective and high achieving all girls primary school. There wasn’t any of this crap. We sat in pairs of desks, facing the front in classes of c.20.

Went to a state secondary school who didn’t belive in setting/streaming. Fucking stupid.

I was bored as fuck given I’d completed most Y7 work already. I was often pairs with the low achieving and disruptive kids ‘to help them’. I discovered it was way more fun to fuck about with them than it was to finish the work and sit completely bored with nothing to do except read a fiction book under the table.

To start with I did ask for work, but none was Firth coming. Then I did sit quietly and read, but turns out teachers don’t like that either.

So I joined in with the disruption. I typically finished the shit low level non differentiated work whilst the teacher was still explaining it to the class. Then I had a super fun time causing issues with the gang of troublemakers.

I probably made it a million times worse as there’s nothing quite as bad a confident, precocious little shit ring leading the other disruptive kids. I had a lot of fun.

Then the teacher might come over and bollock us... and I would produce my work already done and dusted and he other kids on my table wouldn’t even have a chance to have a go at it.

Not proud, but that was a complete failure of the school the have any kind of effective behaviour management strategy or to set differentiated work.

I do look back and think I was a total twat, but on the other hand - being shouted at for finishing my work too quickly wasn’t a great introduction to secondary school.

It completely turned me off education and it wasn’t until a change in school to one with a much better ethos for six form that I realised my potential and started working again (straights As, 1st class degree)