To be shocked at what happened at ds school today

[Thisismydilemma]

DS is in year 9 and told me that the teacher decided to choose places for the students to sit. (Normally they choose who they sit next to) Which is fine. However, what shocked me was that all the BAME dc were sat together in one row and all the white skinned DC were together in another row. When my ds asked why they had been segrated to the teacher, they told him to keep quiet aibu to raise this with the school?

It’s probably some kind of technique to teach the kids to empathize more about racism. Like that experiment they did in a School when they separated the kids with blue eyes and gave them special treatment. It’s worth looking this up on YouTube if you’ve never seen it. I wouldn’t be surprised if, next lesson, a teacher yells at one of the BAME kids to give up his/her seat or one of the groups are given preferential treatment and then each group discuss how they felt when this occurred. Your son was told to be quiet so the others hopefully didn’t catch on.

I had a group of 12 adults, I looked at each of them closely and divided them into 2 groups (based on eye colour as it happens) then gave each of them different made up stereotypes relating to eye colour. It was fascinating

Are you this person? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott

Or are you trying to suggest you did something ground breaking (despite it being done first in 1968?)

minty
Not groundbreaking, but quite a common activity to make a point. It's up there with rigging an activity to be easier for one group than another.

Maybe the green & blue skinned kids filled up the other rows in OP's DC classroom.

That Jane Elliott experiment reminds me of something... I started at a new but small school where as a 'get to know each other' exercise we were put into groups by eye colour. I'm white but was sat with all black kids...Still, obviously, eye colour meant we would tend to sort along skin colour lines. Even in 1980 that was obviously not preferable. There was a dark skinned kid with one blue & one brown eye (not sure where they sat).

I am wondering is it a history class?

Were the BAME kids all the gifted and talented kids? That is usually the reason when kids get divided like this .

I had a very diverse group of 25 students for 4 years and however I sat them they were really noisy. I ended up with the PP/ underachieving ones on front row so I could try keep them quiet. I ended up by the 4th year letting them sit with their friends as they did actually get more work done (otherwise it was shouting across the room). My seating plan ended up with groups of same ethnicity sat together. It's just who they clicked with & wanted to work with. Definitely not done for any racist reason.

As long as the seating plan wasn't done on ethnicity, surely it would be racist to alter it in order to avoid this happening?!?
Are the groups being treated differently in a way that would suggest it is based on ethnicity and not other attributes your DS would be less aware of (PP, targets, attainment, behaviour pairings)? I've never worked in an area with high enough BAME for this to happen, but gender has worked out in the same way, with tables full of a single gender inadvertently.

@TabbyMumz

It's 2019. You really should know by now what BAME means.

We did a similar exercise at school when I was young with blue eyes/blonde hair etc when we were learning about Hitler.

We did this once but it was really alphabetical. But it was just very simply a case of Ali, Ahmed and amzad coming first in the alphabet. Sometimes we can over thing or there is a potentially unintended consequence that has no bias behind it at all.

Report it for sure

but gender has worked out in the same way, with tables full of a single gender inadvertently.
How sexist! It should be reported immediately.

Irrelevant but why would a seating plan involve all the PP children be sat together?

ginger

1. Clumsy SLT policy / unintended consequence of policy

2.A misplaced need to demonstrate that "something" is in place for PP (as if being PP means they all have similar needs)

1. Genuinely having 2/3 PP students who work well together
2. If you've not got many PP then it can be luck of the draw when allocating seating (I turn off student indicators/markers when doing my seating plan and seat on knowing the students and their SEND needs)

3/4 are reasonable
1/2 are silly but sadly part and parcel of some education policies at the momen

I have 2 BAME children in one class I teach. They sit next to each other.

Should I sack myself for racism?

@converseandjeans

I’m curious, you mentioned you put the PP/underachieving in the front row. Do you think they go hand in hand? I’m not jumping on you I am genuinely curious/wanting your thoughts.

my son is at a school with 35%of pupils on PP and it is achieving just below average, about a mile away in the same borough, we have another school that is working way above the national average and considered one of the top London schools (Academy) and 29% are on PP but they are worlds apart in terms of achievement, etc.

Annoyingly the school my son is at was not my choice and hoping before year 9 he can get into the school we put as the first choice as it will be better for him academically. Anyhoo He gets PP and is in the top sets, doesn’t get into trouble and is an all round good egg, id be shocked if he was seated in the front because he receives PP as it certainly would not be for underachieving, however I was always of the understanding that the whole point of the PP was so children that we’re eligible for PP ( low income families) didn’t underachieve.

Honestly, please don’t judge teachers by what they do or don’t do with regards to seating/grouping students. They are directed to do it. We had a whole school policy of sitting HA together, followed by a whole school policy of never doing so. We were directed to seat PP together, then never to do so. It’s honestly ludicrous.

If this is true then I'd be raising hell but surely it's not? They are told where to sit at my dd school, and the other day the class was put into groups all the girls and my dd was with all the boys she said something to the teacher and he said "deal with it" very strange. But anyway I think this is a bit strange.

And ...... op has vanished ! What a surprise

I’m curious, you mentioned you put the PP/underachieving in the front row. Do you think they go hand in hand?

As a group, PP children achieve less well both in terms of final grades and progress. That doesn’t mean that individual children who are PP don’t achieve well.

I’m not a massive fan of “PP strategies” - I think it’s too broad a brushstroke. However I do try to ensure that my PP students get what they need to achieve well - be it seating position, access to revision guides, teacher time etc.

Oops. Posted too soon.

Whilst I obviously do that as far as possible for all students, I will address the needs of PP students first when planning and delivering lessons.

I’ve never done anything differently for PP students. I was one myself and would venture to say I needed less help with most things than others around me. The differences are statistical, so if teachers address more of their one-to-one efforts towards the people who need the most help, then if those people happen to be PP, that sorts that. If they don’t happen to be PP, then that sorts that.

And ...... op has vanished ! What a surprise
Often the way on emotive school threads where there's the potential to complain about a teacher

churchandstate

Your experience is your experience.

Many, many PP students come to us with huge disadvantage. I think it’s unethical to not consider that.