Michaela School and behaviour - AIBU

[herculepoirot2]

AIBU to think that you might read this behaviour policy and think it is authoritarian and unnecessary, but to also think that, with results four times better than the national average, these people might have a point about the benefits to young people of being expected to work hard and behave well?

mcsbrent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Behaviour-Policy-11.02.19.pdf

I don’t know very mainstream schools achieving such good results. That’s the point.

But some do. That is the point. You can achieve good results without excluding the disabled.

Having a label hugely boosted my dd’s Self esteem. For the first time she had a sense that she wasn’t weird, that there was something wrong with her, the kid with few friends or social skills just that her brain works slightly differently.

But some do. That is the point. You can achieve good results without excluding the disabled.

And are you going to look into the minutes of how they are doing it, or just Michaela? Because there are are thousands of schools not achieving such good results, where indiscipline, bullying and - frankly - sheer laziness are the norms. Michaela is stamping out those problems.

I agree that it is possible that one of their tactics is informally excluding children who can’t adjust to their environment. I just can’t agree that that isn’t for the best, for the hundreds of other children they serve.

*minutiae

Please enlighten me as to how forcing an autistic child to make eye contact (SLANT) helps the learning environment for other children? The resulting meltdown/ physical discomfort for the autistic child is much more likely to disrupt their learning.

Please enlighten me as to how forcing an autistic child to make eye contact (SLANT) helps the learning environment for other children? The resulting meltdown/ physical discomfort for the autistic child is much more likely to disrupt their learning.

Some autistic children struggle to make eye contact. Not all of them do. Does SLANT specify that there has to be eye contact?

Seriously? The DfE publishes these statistics every year, I found them on my first Google search

🤷🏻‍♀️ Ok! I can’t see them, but whatevs. If linking to the document is too much trouble, no worries!

SLANT says you have to track the speaker. I don’t think it requires eye contact.

Where is the evidence that Michaela “force ASD children to make eye contact” please?

Yes it does. There was a specific instance in theGreat Yarmouth school of autistic children being punished for not tracking the teacher and making eye contact. It’s a very common difficulty. I’d have more sympathy if they stated they taught children how to fake it as eye contact is seen as a social skill.

Successful black hat does well. Ooooh she's a right winger. Cannot have that no no no. Deprived children don't do well at school they cannot have expectations raised. Well, it looks like they do. And can.

Namenic I am sure there is lot of "tiger parenting" but I would suggest it isn't working if it is driving children and adults to suicide.

I would like to know how many are doing a job they love rather than out of duty and just waiting for the day they did to come round sooner rather than later.

DP at school did a careers test. His parents got the results and funnelled him into a career that has always been at odds with his personality.

The results have been he is always stressed when he returns from work which has affected his health negatively. If he has ever floated the idea of changing careers his parents have referred him back to the careers test and how well he has done.
He has done well because he is very bright

Only recently with the death of his father and his mother clearing out her flat she sent up some school stuff she had kept. In it was the careers test.

It said he came out as being perfect as

a salesman. Which did fit his personality perfectly. He can't do anything about it now but does feel he has wasted his life.

I wonder how many people who were raised with Tiger Parents will look back on their life and feel the same.

It is quite sad really

Come

Do you mean the Charter School? Seems as though they responded to the NAS advice

There was a specific instance in theGreat Yarmouth school of autistic children being punished for not tracking the teacher and making eye contact. It’s a very common difficulty. I’d have more sympathy if they stated they taught children how to fake it as eye contact is seen as a social skill.

Could you provide a link?

I am never going to think that forcing a child who finds eye contact physically uncomfortable is okay. I am going to remain open-minded that there might be a level of social discomfort that it is good for them to overcome. But not always. I am going to remain convinced, on balance, that a classroom of children where some children are making eye contact with the teacher and others are allowed not to, will usually end up as a classroom where people can’t be relied on to make eye contact with the teacher.

I don’t think too much can be inferred from the lack of EHCPs in terms of admission practices. My school takes in around 180 students per year. There are typically between 1-3 EHCPs/statements in each year group. For the last 2 cohorts of year 7 we had 0 EHCPs. In the incoming year 7 we have 8. When you are dealing with such small numbers you do get anomalous results.
As others have said it’s also worth remembering that there are a proportion of kids with EHCPs in special or private school and there will also be clusters of EHCPs in mainstream schools with specialist SEN departments. Both of the schools that I trained in had school-within-a-school specialist provision for SEN. One was a nurture stream with a separate base building for moderate learning difficulties and the other was an ASD unit. Both schools reserved a set number of places for students with statements (this was a while back) in their admissions policies.
The national % of EHCPs may be around 3% but I would imagine that the % in the median secondary school is a fair bit lower than that as those students are not evenly distributed across schools.

It was 2 years ago and reported in the local newspapers. The children in question left the school.

@comefromaway thank you for posting that

There’s a link in my previous post to the NAS intervention with the Charter School.

Michaela has nothing to do with Charter though, so I’m not sure why it’s relevant anyway!!

It was 2 years ago and reported in the local newspapers. The children in question left the school.

I could be disingenuous and pretend I didn’t believe this because it’s so vague, but I do believe it. If those children went to a school with different systems, perhaps that new school was better for them and perhaps not.

I taught a boy a couple of years ago who sometimes struggled with eye contact. But he also struggled with noisy classrooms, people barging in the corridors, social times like lunch and break, using the toilet when there were other people there etc.

Michaela has nothing to do with Charter though

The head at Charter, the one who brought in all the bonkers rules about sick buckets in classrooms was dep head at Michaela. Clearly tasked with finding out whether Michaela-style teaching would work in deprived coastal areas.

the problem is that we don't know whether Michaela's strategies successfully support children with SEN
But we do know, there are examples in the book. My point is, that no institution can be run on the needs of a minority, and Michaela copes extremely well with the minority of its students who do need support. I can't comment on the fact that some children with additional needs are either discouraged from applying or are managed out. There is no evidence, even anecdotal, to support this.

The head at Charter, the one who brought in all the bonkers rules about sick buckets in classrooms was dep head at Michaela. Clearly tasked with finding out whether Michaela-style teaching would work in deprived coastal areas.

Oh I remember this. That was nuts.

But equally, I have taught children who “struggled with eye contact”, according to their parents, but who could make eye contact quite easily with peers, or with anyone who wasn’t trying to get their attention to talk about Macbeth.

I have taught children who “struggled to organise themselves” (bring a pen, bag or basic equipment for the school day) but never, ever forgot their phone. These children couldn’t remember the start time of the school day (and were late because they “forgot” school started at 8.45) but they never forgot what time break started, or which day was pizza day in the canteen.

Many children have real difficulties, some severe and some less so. But some children play up to the low expectations adults have of them.

I want to know how all these teachers have the time and energy to write books, must be honest!

You’d have time to write a book if you were only teaching Y7 and 8 classes in a tiny school. Were they paid full time while the school was mostly empty?

@Oliversmumsarmy - tiger parenting can be different from career expectations. My tiger parents are helping with childcare so I can change career from something I chose (and they were not that keen on) but didn’t suit my personality.