How much is your class disrupted by bad behaviour?

[Catinthetwat]

I was just wondering how much of a problem behaviour is in the classroom. I keep hearing that it's getting out of hand.

Interested to hear from teachers and TA's...

Also, what do you do about it? Is it always the same child/children because in my experience it is ?

It’s a problem in all but my top sets, which tells me two things:

My differentiation isn’t always where it needs to be

and

The ridiculous un tiered curriculum with zero interesting material to work with isn’t suitable for every child. In fact, it’s only suitable for a minority.

Having said that, a totally consistent adherence to whatever the policy is and being completely impossible to annoy go a long way. And extremely expressive eyebrows.

As a parent, please dont punish the class for the behaviour of a few. It really isnt fair. I have no problem with you punishing my child if they are at fault, and my child accepts it. But it really upsets him when the whole class miss something because Kevin and Colin and Garry have, yet again, done something they have been told not to, and it's the second time this month.

Are you a teacher or a parent?
Who do you hear saying 'its getting out of hand'?

DD is occasionally impacted by low level disruption in her secondary school, but serious incidents are rare.

My DD is in Yr 7 of an Ofsted "outstanding" school where classes are not "set" except for maths. She says classes are regularly disrupted by up to half the children in the class. I will see what happens in Yr 8 when they are in sets for more subjects. My experience from the 1980s was attending a streamed co-ed Catholic comprehensive. There were many things that weren't great about my school but lessons were rarely disrupted by bad behaviour. I'd be really interested to know what teachers think about teaching all abilities in the same class at secondary level.

WinterHeatWave

As a parent, please dont punish the class for the behaviour of a few. It really isnt fair.

Sorry I wasn’t clear - this is more where the behaviour is more widespread rather than a couple of individuals - what I do is keep the class and then say to those who HAVE worked well - ok, Jimmy you can go, Sarah you can go...etc.

I'm a parent myself, but really interested to hear how teachers cope with difficult behaviour - thanks for the great responses.

It's something I hear about generally, on here and in the press. I just wondered how difficult it is for teachers and other staff and how they/the school manage it.

I heard recently about isolation rooms (which sounds a bit extreme), but thought I'd ask those in the know - teachers, and other school staff.

I heard recently about isolation rooms (which sounds a bit extreme

What seems extreme about an isolation room? It's just a place to send the students who are causing disruption to others. Often they work in silence, and remain there for the days lessons. However, they have usually been given several warnings before being asked to leave the classroom.

We're in primary and don't have isolation rooms. A child might be offered a walk to calm down or remove themselves in the calm area. They might be sent to do their work in another class. They might end up with a member of SLT. It all depends what the disruption is, what caused it, wether they're dangerous etc.

Oh god not all this nonsense in the media again about isolation rooms.

The alternative to an isolation room is keeping a kid who is behaving appallingly in the classroom.

Trust me, the vast majority of kids who are spending time in an isolation room are not there because they have the wrong colour socks. They’re there because it is impossible to teach the class while they are in the classroom.

Hmm. DD went to a once lovely school. 5/6 in the year group constantly disrupted classes to the detriment of the other 27/28 in the class. Their behaviour escalated in yr 8 to the point of assault, theft and pyromania along with sm threats. They got temporary exclusions.

We moved dd at the end of y8 to the independent sector. They were permanently excluded at the end of y11 having destroyed school life for the other 84 for almost 5 years.

According to the head they were deprived. So were many others but they didn't disrupt. At the open days the head had insistedbonly the highest standards of behaviour were tolerated and if girls didn't want to comply it wasn't the school for them. Wasn't followed through and there was zero respect for the well behaved and theor parents who were constantly tapped up for slugs of 100's for pianos and gardens.

My respect for the teaching profession was seriously wounded.

Low level disruption increments. It erodes classroom confidence and motivation. The A*s become As, the A's B's and the impact becomes immense and immeasurable. It has broken the education system.

I remember a teacher at my secondary school saying that every time we wasted time she'd start her stopwatch and that's how long we'd have to stay after school. Every time she started the stop watch we stopped talking and by the end of the lesson it added up to 15 seconds so we had to stay for 15 seconds after school.

What about the minority’s of kids?

Primary teacher. It is mostly the same children but we can usually get them on side if parents support the school. The big issue is parents saying my child is too little to be expected to do xyz or they said they didn't do it so I don't agree with you or just I don't agree with you telling my child off and I don't care if they did it.

Good choice of discussion.

Both of my daughters regularly complain of class disruption, they just want to learn. Pupils are always getting told off and sometimes isolation isn't always carried out like they say it will be.

Bullying is rife in this particular school too.

I also believe a major reason this happens is because some teachers don't have the ability to keep a class focused, interested. But on the other hand, I think some children are downright rude and need earlier punishments (less warnings).

I do believe in isolation-why should the good kids suffer from the disruption.

I don't know if many learn from this though, I don't have experience of this. Mine want to do well, it's a shame others don't

OpalTree I like that!

I agree with Noble. If my own dc were stopping other kids from learning i would accept them going to isolation. It's hardly a child in a room on their own as some papers make out. If a child is disruptive due to SEN that they aren't getting the support they need for them they should get that support.

I do admire secondary school teachers that put up with children like that.

Behaviour is a real issue in a lot of schools. As a parent and a school Governor I've noticed a real downturn in behaviour over recent years. Parents are a big part of the problem...there's a whole generation of children who can do no wrong in their parents eyes. Parents march up to school to complain at every minor telling off their child receives and everything is always someone else's fault.

It's much harder for schools to permanently exclude these days too, especially when there are financial implications and budgets are already stretched to breaking point.

Disruption is prevalent in many schools. The main issue tbh is consequences being backed up by parents. I regularly set detentions, arrange meetings, get students sent to isolation only to have a parent phone and try to "cancel" the consequence. Students regularly say "whatever my mum will phone up" and as a teacher there's not much more I can do. SLT are trying but if parents refuse to engage with the system it's impossible. Schools are monitored on their exclusion rate therefore SLT are reluctant to do that.

Behaviour has got worse imo and is one of the reasons I left teaching. My employer would never exclude because of the financial impact so we had to struggle on with the same people regularly misbehaving. Once they figured out they wouldn’t be excluded their behaviour often escalated. It was always the same culprits but it was never the brightest ones, and it wasn’t necessarily the least able either. It was those who had no respect for authority and no real interest in learning.

With the inadequate funding of education it would not be surprising for disruption to increase. Children aren't getting the support they need.

We have kids that tell us "mummy says I don't have to do what you say. Mummy/daddy say to do x. Mum said you can't touch me. You can't tell me what to do, you're just a TA"

And then there's the actual parents...you can't keep them from going to the toilet,it's a human right...even if they pissed up the walls and threw all the toilet rolls in and blocked them.
You can't keep them at play,it's their human right.
You can't have them eat lunch with SLT.
What do you mean they were in the HT's office? For what? It's ridiculous!!
Why was she told off about x? She'd never do that!

Etc etc etc

You even see it on here...parents want behaviour (mostly other a children's) dealt with. But without consequences,no missing play,no detention (during or after school) no strong telling offs ,no nothing!!

But it must be dealt with!!

I teach sixth form and we don’t see bad behaviour at all really. However I did spend 3 years in state secondary and a year in independent secondary and the poor behaviour In State secondary was rife. Not in independent. Partly due to overly large classes of 35 in some cases (the largest I had in the independent was 22) and lack of setting in the independent- for all the will in the world and differentiations an A* student and a D grade student often learn at different speeds and extension tasks only work when being clever in not ‘punishable’ by peers. In the independent there was a real push to be bright- kids revelled in it. But that’s only May experiences - been teaching since 2006