To be fed up with the choices of our local secondary schools

[Jambalaya76]

DS started yr 7 in sept 19. We put him in the best of a bad bunch. All of our local schools have a bad rep. There's one just out of the catchment area which seemed amazing at the open evening, but as it is oversubscribed, DS wouldn't have had a chance getting in.
Now he's been at his secondary school 4 months now and I die a little inside at the quality of education it seems he is getting. My son is bright and got amazing Sats results in primary. He was well behaved and studious. Now he comes home and all I hear about is the trouble that happens at school and the trouble he gets into. I have teachers phoning me up about his behaviour in school, class clown he is. Never shuts up and disrupts lessons! He also isn't set any homework (as they learn in school time) and is not interested in any after school clubs ( to be honest, the subjects aren't that appealing).
I fee like we have made a big mistake sending him to this school, but also feel
Like we never really had a choice as the other options are just as bad!
We are looking at indépendant schools, but the cost means we wouldn't be able to enjoy the style of living we have and enjoy now! What's else can we do apart from move. I feel like DS is set to fail at this school and I feel like crying

To get frequent calls home from teachers, your son's behaviour must be awful. You need to tackle this and stop blaming the school.

I think you need to stop blaming the school for your DS’s behaviour and I hope you are chastising him for it at home rather than making excuses for it. If he buckles down and gets on with it he can still succeed.

My DS1 went to an ok school, there were others better.Like OPs so. He thrived at primary and got great results, was well liked and studious.

He came home with tales of disruptive behaviour and not been able to learn etc. However at parents evening we found out he was the class joker and being disruptive. Whether he felt out of his depth and was using distraction techniques I don't know. What we did do though was support the school and tackled the behaviour immediately. There was consequences for his disruptions. The school kept in touch with me at my request on a regular basis for updates. DS hated it but that wasn't the point. I said to him while you are pratting about others just look up and laugh AT you, not WITH you. So whose the fool? They are learning, having a quick laugh at your expense and then carrying on with their work while you are taken out of class to be punished. Where's the sense in that?

The attitude changed and dramatically improved. We did have a bit of a hiccup in the final year but us and the school closed ranks on him and got things back on track. DS1 did well in his exams and now has a great job.

Op you need to take swift action now regardless of what you think of the school. It's easier to be hard now and get a good routine and break your lad's joker ways than in a couple of years time.
Find other ways of stimulating him away from school if you want l cadets, youth forums etc.

How about another way of looking at it OP?
If the school are ringing you about your son's behaviour, this shows that they don't accept bad behaviour and have a policy to deal with it.
This is a good thing!

I had the same issue. I’ve mortgaged my soul and sent ds independent. Given up the foreign holidays but now have a happy motivated ds. It requires a steady nerve .

Why would you think he would suddenly state behaving at an independent school?

IME if a child wants to learn they will learn and achieve anywhere. I sent my eldest DD to the worst performing school in the city because it was the only school in our area that she felt comfortable, much smaller school all the better schools were double the size, the actual teaching staff seemed more engaged at the open evening than the ones at the better schools etc. In fact at the open evening at one of the schools she cried begging me not to send her there. I decided to send her where she wanted, got slated by other parents etc etc. Turned out the best choice for her, every teacher knew every child by name there even if they never taught them. ( My other two DC's went to the better school, had the same teachers and most of them didn't even know they were siblings) Anyway DD1 graduates this week with a First despite going to the worst school ever, so it does depend on the child.

My best friend sent his children to boarding schools spent thousands upon thousands on their education whilst I went to state, his daughter and I do exactly the same job at the same company so it doesn't always follow that private education doesn't always mean that much if a child doesn't want to take advantage of a better education.

As others have said your DS might be having trouble adjusting to the environment, talk to him, see if he will open up to you if he's struggling, ask school if he has a favourite teacher who can talk and support him. DS moved to an excellent sixth form last year ( once again state but in a very affluent area, we are talking seven figure incomes for some families) he struggled with the transition, missing time to developing anxiety giving him physical symptoms. School were fantastic supporting him bent over backwards to help in settle. It was the staff that got to the bottom of his anxieties and kept him there. He has just been given an unconditional offer at the university he wants which only offers 30 places per year despite now only doing two A'levels and has two conditional offers so far, so don't be worried about asking the staff to get to the bottom of his settling in problems that's what they are there for.

I do not agree with some people saying that if a child wants to learn they will achieve anywhere.
If your child is in a class with disruptive pupils then their education is being severely disrupted. A lot of these pupils never reach their full potential as the teachers are busy trying to sort out the behaviour of those disruptive pupils instead of being able to teach fully.

We totally back the school up. We know what he is like. He is good for a week or soo after we have spoken to him, but then the behaviour reverts. He is not a bad kid, just can't keep his mouth shut! We tend to confiscate things from him at home until his behaviour improves. How else can we motivate him to behave in class? Ideas welcome

We have a meeting with the school tomorrow

Ask the teachers to move him to the front of the class.

Is your son misbehaving and being the class clown to avoid being bullies and standing g out as different in a rough school? This is often a survival mechanism so needs to be looked out.

So why are you blaming the school then? If it is your son's behaviour that is the problem? My DD is in y7 in one of the biggest secondary schools in our county, with a very mixed socioeconomic intake, I hear nothing like the drama you are describing 🤷 But then again, the worst school in our town is the one taking the more affluent DC from the neighbouring villages, such poor behaviour they have early starts, hardly any lunch and finish early to minimise free time to cause trouble. DDs school start at 9.05, full lunch, finish 3.25, with a huge number of extra curricular clubs.

Op why do you think your son is misbehaving? Was he like this in primary school at all?

He likes to make people laugh and is very confident. This was controlled in primary. He has gone on to a secondary school where only two others from his primary went so He has had to make new friendships from scratch. Yes the school is in a very rough area. He has gone from primary where he got top marks and was very proud of it to a secondary where if you achieve, you are seen as being teachers pet and teased for it. So he doesn't try hard in class so as to avoid being teased!!! He is seen as being cool for being the class clown. He is in top set and I can see this behaviour will get him moved down. I really don't know what to do about this as of course I'm proud of him for making new friends but now proud of the way he behaves with his friends to "fit in"

"He is good for a week or soo after we have spoken to him, but then the behaviour reverts."

Hmm, sounds like just speaking to him is not enough, then. Bear in mind that by the time a teacher is calling you about behavior, it probably means that he has already misbehaved multiple times that week.

As PP asked, what was his behavior like at primary?

Grounding and removal of game time seems to work for a lot of older kids.

*not proud of the way he behaves, that was meant to say

We do ground him and remove devices/game time. His behaviour improves, then he reverts. I need to be able to motivate him to do well but not sure how

Oh, just saw your latest post.

I think some kids tend to be strongly influenced by their peer groups--you son may be one of them. If that is the case and if this is a school with a lot of behavioral issues, then it may be that you just have to get him into a different school environment.

A couple of posters here have talked about how "a bright and motivated child will learn anywhere"---well, some do, some don't. Some kids are really strongly influenced by their environments. If they see that playing the class clown and not "sucking up to" the teacher is how you make yourselves popular in their peer group, they will respond accordingly.

Are there any private schools that he has a chance of getting into? Could you afford that for five years? He can always move back to state at sixth form, as behavioral problems will be far less of an issue at that age.

If there are younger siblings, I would seriously think about moving, otherwise you may just be stuck with the same problem in XX years time.

Hi OP.

My DS was wonderful at primary school. I never received one phone call about his behaviour.

Then he went to secondary school. Within two weeks he had his first fight. His behaviour got worse and worse and worse and I received endless calls from the school.

Eventually, last year, he was permanently excluded. In his case this was the best thing to have happened to him. He has gone from an aggressive, hostile teenage boy who had virtually stopped talking altogether back to his old personality. He is happy and calm and talks almost constantly. He has also been very recently diagnosed with ASD.

It appears, from what the psychologists said, that he could cope with primary school and masked the ASD because he felt safe and secure there. He simply could not cope with secondary school, the noise, the number of students, the moving from class to class, having to remember where he was going and his equipment. The list goes on and on.

His school told me, in writing, that my DS was just badly behaved. He was badly behaved but he was also desperately unhappy and could not cope. He was self harming (cutting) in places I could not see. He now has scars all over his legs and upper arms and pelvis.

It took me over three years to get my son the support that he needs. Please don't write this off as just being the class clown until you have drilled down into what has caused this change in his behaviour. It could be lots of things.

What’s he interested in as a career? I know he’s young but does he have anything he seems to be gearing towards?
I’d try to go down that avenue and keep banging on about the importance of working now to have a good life in the future.
I remember asking my ds how he thought he was going to afford a car, a place to live, clothes and even Xbox games if he couldn’t get a job because he was too busy ‘having a laugh’ at school.
I did have to manage him at home. We had study time from 4.30 til dinner then his evening was free.
He self manages now and is doing well.

Go private. If he is strongly influenced by his peers he's needs to be in a well behaved group that won't laugh at his antics. He needs smaller classes. BUT now that he's acting a fool you're going to have a job convincing the private school to take him.

Our local schools aren't good.

We had a choice of moving or going independent.

After much deliberation we went down the private route.

Our quality of life has been impacted - we are keeping our heads above water, but we believe that a good education is more than worth it.

I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

If you can I would look at educating in a school (private if necessary) because his clowning around will end up with him underachieving. He needs to be in an environment where working hard and studying is seen as the norm, not penalised by other children for doing so.

You need to separate what matters from what doesn’t. The school not setting homework is not the issue. My secondary doesn’t set much at all - they’re in a catchment where many don’t have home support to do it. So they make sure that if you need to know it, it’s covered in class.