Help me get perspective on this school situation

[Needanickname1]

At my ds primary school there are children who have difficult behaviour, for a variety of reasons, as there are at all schools. As well as general disruptive behaviour, it is now normal to have physical violence in class (hitting, punching, throwing things at people), and also children being out of control in common areas of the school, to the point where other children are not allowed out of class or to walk past.

I understand that schools are struggling desperately with funding cuts and there are so few non mainstream schools around now. But is this normal in schools now? Does this happen in your school?

Goldmandra you appear to be talking about SEN children and extrapolating it to the entire school population.

Sanctions are an effective method of behaviour management (of course combined with rewards and creating a culture of good behaviour) and this shaming of schools who implement sanctions HAS to stop as it is massively detrimental to schools to be scared of disciplining children.

This is where we end up when you pursue that route:

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/teachers-strike-outside-outstanding-school-16492073

It's the norm in the school I teach at. Not every class, but enough. The daily disruptive behaviour, violence (being sworn at, extreme rudeness, chairs, books etc thrown at me, book corner demolished, rest of class regularly having to be evacuated due to a child/children destroying the classroom etc) and lack of consequences is a large part of why I'm leaving the school at the end of the year.

It's not always due to lack of funding. The school I'm at has plenty of money (we are able to raise a lot independently) and plenty of support of staff. The problem this school has is an SLT unwilling to tackle the problem.

I truly feel for your child. I often lie in bed at night thinking about the effect the violence/disruption has on the rest of my class.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3628850-82-of-teachers-surveyed-say-pupil-misbehaviour-is-widespread-at-their-school

It doesn't happen (at least it only happens rarely) in my children's current school, but it happened a lot in their previous one. One of my children was the cause of much of the disruption, but they had so little money and so little training that children with additional needs were not given the right support. School had a high turn over of staff too.

The difference the new school had made is incredible, partly due to better funding but also more experienced teachers, and generally a much nicer environment.

It must be incredibly frustrating for staff having to deal with behaviour problems all the time, however the new school had an incredibly high rate of children with some form of SEN (over 50%).

Sanctions are an effective method of behaviour management (of course combined with rewards and creating a culture of good behaviour)

Sanctions are not an effective primary method of behaviour management. They are being used more and more by schools without anyone trying to understand the reasons behind the behaviour. If you don't have the time or resources to address the root cause, the sanctions don't work.

They are being used more and more by schools without anyone trying to understand the reasons behind the behaviour.

Often the reason for poor behaviour in schools is because of the lack of consequence that makes behaving badly not worthwhile.

Again you are only looking at this from an SEN perspective.

Lots and lots and lots of poor behaviour at school is because pissing about with your mates is more fun than solving quadratic equations.

Again you are only looking at this from an SEN perspective.

All bad behaviour has a root cause. This doesn't just apply to children with SEN.

Lots and lots and lots of poor behaviour at school is because pissing about with your mates is more fun than solving quadratic equations.

Some probably is but you don't know which is which unless you have the time and resources to find out.

Some probably is

Most of it is. That’s why schools that have strict behaviour policies don’t have to waste vast amounts of time fannying around dealing with low level disruption.

Tom Bennett writes very well about the features of an effective behaviour management system in this concise twitter thread:

twitter.com/tombennett71/status/1145953850219814912?s=21

Yes, here too. However, it has made my dts much more accepting of bad/different behaviour, they are able to ignore it and get on with it.
This is quite a good life lesson but I always aim for a positive spin on things.

No this doesnt happen at our school. Behaviour like this is severely dealt with.

Yet, while schools are relying more and more on sanctions and less and less on support, behaviour is clearly deteriorating.

I'm not arguing against using sanctions at all. I'm arguing against putting schools in a situation where they have to rely more and more heavily on them, without the resources to support students effectively.

I think we may need to agree to disagree on this.

Yes my son in his new primary said "it would be alright if people weren't hurting each other all the time". :(

As I understand lots of children left this class this year, and there is a high proportion of additional needs (including my son) but only one TA in the afternoons.

I was a nursery teacher in a previous life and I had a reputation for being 'the strict one.' I loved my job and loved the children in my class, but I worked in a very small school that was lovely but there was NO cohesive behaviour management. We had excellent pastoral qualities but when I took over my class, the children were used running roughshod over the their teacher. I cracked down hard and, after a term, we were able to have some really lovely experiences.

Primary aged children need boundaries and routine - all children benefit, and I mean children that are inclined to be a bit mischievous, well behaved children and (largely) children with SN. Well managed classes have a lot more opportunities to learn AND to have fun!

while schools are relying more and more on sanctions

Evidence?

Sorry, I did sort of miss the point of the thread there.

IME, low level bad behaviour is on the rise in most schools, due to cuts that affect both staffing and the quality of life DC get at home. Teachers have less and less authority and so the DC (not SEN) that would naturally push the boundaries anyway, push a bit further and drag children that would perhaps normally just sit at the back and have a quiet giggle along with them.

The behaviour described is similar to my DSs in school occasionally, not so much physical but meltdowns.

He has autism and ADHD. There are no SEN schools that would take him as he isn't considered to have that need.

Oh, and thanks to pp who blames shitty parenting.

All children have the right to be and feel safe in school, so I would be moving my child if was as bad as you describe.

Oh, and thanks to pp who blames shitty parenting.

This is part of the problem. Nobody is saying you are a shitty parent. But some people are. And if every time anybody points this out, you pipe up saying you are being called a shitty parent when your child has SEN, people won’t dare call out shitty parenting when that is the issue. And the net result is this: your child, who needs support, who needs a calm and stable environment more than other children, won’t get it.

Child mental health services are in crisis in many places. Children are on huge waiting lists where the only children being seen are the ones already in crisis. Delayed diagnosis, delayed help, delayed EHCPs which are then trimmed to the bone due to school funding cuts. And then 1:1 support being well, not 1:1 due to overall classroom needs.

Healthcare and school funding issues directly impact each other. There’s nowhere to go if both areas are overstretched, the issues get bigger and more unmanageable.

There is also a side issue of parents working all hours to keep food on the table and having less energy to enforce behaviour/uniform etc. This affects children of all backgrounds when families are struggling.

I honestly think that poor parenting would be way less of an issue if mental health and school services were adequately funded.

But it’s a lot easier to point a finger at individuals than the broken system.

But it’s a lot easier to point a finger at individuals than the broken system.

And equally, easier the other way round.

The parent who said her daughter had the right to self-expression when she wrote racist abuse on her body and walked into my classroom was a shitty parent.

The parent who told her son to take his phone back from me when I confiscated it, and he then called me a cunt and she backed him up, was a shitty parent.

The parent who sent her daughter to school with a quarter litre of vodka because it was her 13th birthday and then said it was “only a quarter of a litre for her party after school” was a shitty parent.

No disagreement from me on those!
But wouldn’t it be easier to deal with them if better funding, staffing, provision for SEN was in place taking away a lot of thecother stresses?

But wouldn’t it be easier to deal with them if better funding, staffing, provision for SEN was in place taking away a lot of thecother stresses?

In a way. But what was needed in at least two of those three cases (in the third, SS were called in) was for SLT to stiffen their spines and say no way. One of those students wasn’t punished. The other was given back the phone the same day and not even excluded. It’s beyond unacceptable, and it’s frustrating when people blame SEN budgets and staffing and everything else, because the key factor is actually the will to say, “This is unacceptable”, and stick to your guns.

Weak management does strip an organisation of the ability to function. Makes it impossible to do your job well. That sounds infuriating.