To complain to the class teacher?

[Whatisthisfuckery]

For the last few weeks DS has been complaining that in a certain lesson he has been seated next to a student who, quite frankly, is a pain in the arse. According to DS he’s always talking, messing around and drawing attention to himself, and the poor behaviour is preventing DS from concentrating on his own work. DS is a good student, he gets good marks, always does his work and I’ve never had a bad word from school about his conduct.

I’ve been telling DS that if he wants to be moved then he needs to tell the teacher. DS is a bit short on confidence so needs a lot of encouragement and reassurance in order to speak up for himself. Today he’s come home and told me he told the teacher that this kid was preventing him from being able to concentrate and he’d asked her if he could be moved. The teacher refused, her response was, ‘I’ve sat x there because I know you two (DS and another female student) are sensible.’

I am bloody annoyed about this. Well behaved students aren’t there to help teachers manage the behaviour of more challenging students, and why should my DS suffer because the teacher wants him to act as a buffer for someone elses disruptive behaviour? Should DS start playing up in lessons so he can get moved next to some less disruptive kids? Not only that, the teacher has refused to listen to DS’s POV and refused his request because it’s inconvenient for her to do so.

AIBU to complain to the teacher about this?

I hate how the answer to this is always to segregate pupils.

One way or another, the answer should be to teach them consequences. The disruptive child won't suffer from being sitting somewhere, and the others will be able to work in peace.

If the alternative is to expel or another form of punishment to teach them to behave, surely it will be more disruptive for them, and less pleasant too.

You could talk about segregation if they were sent to an empty classroom for a few days. Another desk in the class is hardly a big deal.

I once put a lovely, sensible, hard working child on a table with their friend and opposite 2 of my much sillier students. They came in, sat down, and had tears in their eyes.
I immediately moved moved them and friend.
I agree with you, sometimes we hope a hard working child will be a good role model/influence on another student but if the child feels uncomfortable/it’s interrupting their learning it really isn’t their job to put up with managing another students poor behaviour, it is the teachers job and responsibility.
I don’t agree with PP that placing a ‘disruptive’ student on a desk by themselves is wrong, it can help with reducing over stimulation/distractions/social learning

@Smellbellina

I’m so glad you noticed and changed it.

My biggest teacher fail still haunts me today. I sat the most lovely and quiet year 11 next to this disruptive, loud boy. Her work was always of a great standard, she seemed ok... and then one day she snapped, she stood up, threw her stuff at the boy and screamed just fuck off, fuck off, fuck off .

I wish I had noticed weeks before how unhappy she was by him.

The thing is , it works, only if it works for everyone. Not just the teacher. Or the disruptive child.

Children are at school to learn, not manage the behaviour of other children. Just because someone is well behaved it doesn't mean that they should become responsible for the behaviour of another child,work extra hard to ignore distractions and finish their work , deal with upsetting behaviours etc.

So yes, I would be talking to the teacher.

YANBU OP.
Put your sons interests first because the teacher clearly isn’t.

Yes it is very unfair for the well behaved kids, but it is common classroom management practice. I am laughing at the the question about why the disruptive child can't sit on there own - pretty difficult to do this in a class of 34 with 3 double desks already having a kid hanging off the end of them.

Those of you giving advice here - what do you think the teacher should do with disruptive children. I had classes where maybe 7 or 8 were constantly disrupting the lessons. The behaviour poilcy was to issue warnings - up to 4 of them - with time in between each warning so they could have a little think and then modify their behaviour. Now you can do the sums - 7 or 8 kids needing 4 warnings before you could get to the final stage and remove them to the behaviour room. How much teaching time do you think this takes up? And in reality the final sanction is rarely used because most kids are canny enough to stop after 2 warnings, and if you do 'remove' then this is monitored by management and used as a tool to identify failing techers.

Detentions don't work. Phone calls home to parents don't work. Warnings mostly don't work. What do you do? Reward good behaviour - with what? And is that fair on the lovely, well behaved kids when the disruptive ones get a disproportionate amount of rewards?

Sorry - I know I have moved away from the OP's original question. But, honestly, splitting up the disruptive students and keeping them apart by seating them with better behaved students is one of the few, effective management strategies teachers have left. I always made sure to keep the well behaved students with a friend though. It is very unfair on the well behaved students but it gives them the best chance of having a lesson with constant behaviour disruptions.

Poor behaviour from a growing number of students is one of the reasons I threw in the towel after 30 years. Trust me I am no pushover, but it became intolerable.

I would advise you contact the class teacher and air your very reasonable concerns. At the very least they should be able to move the seating plan around for time to time so that your dc isn't lumbered for the whole year (though I know this is more difficult to do in covid times). I do sympathize, I really do. Well behaved, well motivated students deserve better.

I would definitely email the teacher and ask they move your son as soon as possible and definitely by the next term- perhaps reiterate you appreciate disruptive students need to be sat somewhere, but it should be a burden shared round not just lumped on one student. Yes there are covid regs but in secondaries year groups are bubbles so moving a seat isn't an issue so long as the change is recorded and stored for reference if close contacts of a positive case have to be identified.

their own!!

@asifiwould this year our school is running a one warning then out policy. Students are removed to be isolated for remainder of the day. It's very effective and has had a big impact on class behaviour (where staff actually use it properly). Isolation happens centrally in hall with different year groups fully distanced

@asifiwould

Pre covid we would have a timetable of where to send each class for every lesson that week.

So if I had an easy year 11 class I would get sent year 7s to come and work in the room.

It worked well until we can’t mix year groups!!!

That sounds amazing! Do you not have a constant stream of parents on the phone complaining about their human rights being tramples on though!? My SMT would never have had the guts to do that.

'am laughing at the the question about why the disruptive child can't sit on there own - pretty difficult to do this in a class of 34 with 3 double desks already having a kid hanging off the end of them.'

But it is sometimes possible. One of ours sits on their own (a high achieving, well behaved student) while the class clown is sat on a table of three which disrupts the whole class. Why tf do teachers do this? Surely it isn't rocket science to sit the mouthy one on their own. Some teachers always seem scared of upsetting the parents of the pita kids ime.

Why should your dc and another well-behaved child have to put up with constant disruption? Their needs are just as important as the other child.

Get complaining and if the teacher won't move him, then go to the head of year, and if necessary, the HT. This is really not on.

@OverTheRainbow88 - yes we would do that in my department too, and it sometimes worked very well. I would imagine covid restrictions are now ruling out that option.

Faced this with both my children. In the end I had to speak with my child's teacher because my child was being hit with rulers and kicked. The teacher moved the disruptive child closer to her desk (still within a group) so she could keep a closer eye on what was going on. Personall, I don't agree with sitting disruptive children with the quiet children because the quiet ones end up getting hurt...sit them next to an assertive child who won't tolerate it perhaps! My older child is at secondary school and has to sit in alphabetical order so if sat next to a pain in the arse, there's no escaping them in any lesson.

@asifiwould

Sadly so, we now have one warning, move in room, then call duty teacher to remove and isolate.

@GetOffYourHighHorse I simply did not have the room to do this in my classroom. Large class sizes and a small room - there was nowhere to put any extra desks in. I would have loved to have put some children on a desk on their own.

Tell them that for your DC to have spoken to them about it took some bravery as he doesn't like to cause a fuss. That is how much he feels he is being put upon.

I agree with this. Unfortunately, the disruptive kids have to sit somewhere, and inevitably putting them next to those least likely to egg them on is going to work best. However that doesn't mean the nice kids have to lumbered with the biggest pain next to them all year, and if it's getting to them then a move-around should be considered.

But please show understanding of the teacher's predicament, and as somebody has said, rearranging the class has extra implications this year because of contact-tracing if a child comes down with covid. Perhaps she can at least promise a change from Christmas.

My DD gets some of the nuisances next to her, but her teachers seem quite good at making sure there's someone she gets on with okay the other side of her. In one case, from what DD has said about the boy concerned, I know that as a teacher I would also have sat him next to her! Fortunately she's never had anyone who has really stopped her concentrating.

Having the conversation can't hurt, it might be that the teacher doesn't know your child well enough to realise how much it's taken for them to speak up.

Seating plans are a nightmare, especially in mixed ability classes. I have year 7 groups this year with more pupils that need to be at the front than I have front row. I had one pupil ask to move away from her neighbour, but she had to be at the front, so she had four other options of neighbour, she didn't like any of them, so stayed where she was.

Mum emailed so I swapped her neighbour with one of the others, so she didn't get the choice I'd offered her in the first place.

I don't have enough desks for the disruptive children to sit alone. We can only remove from lessons after they've been consistently disruptive and gone through all other sanctions, and then do it all over again next lesson.

I agree it's not ideal, but disruptive children do have to be sat next to someone, and it works best if they are next to someone who will ignore them rather than join in.

The difficulty is finding the child that can genuinely ignore them rather than being quietly distracted so you think they are ok. Flagging that your child is not ok there should help the teacher rethink.

Surely it isn't rocket science to sit the mouthy one on their own.

I’m sure if most teachers had a whole spare table in a room to do this for their one mouthy student oh if only there was one mouthy student then the would be doing so already. Most classrooms in secondary are built for 30 but having to take 34. I’d always assume this before judging and instead as a first port of call, contact the teacher instead of Mumsnet.

He is there for his own good, not the good of the teacher. If that were the case then he would be getting paid as well.

Paid? You've lost your argument there. Of course the other child should be taught to work in a way which isn't disruptive, but the qualified teacher is the one who gets to make the decisions around this; not a child.

Yes, managing behaviour is one of the teacher's responsibilities, but so is teaching the whole class, and actually, your son is part of that group and does have a role to play.

Children need to learn to work cooperatively, and manage their own reactions, so if you want him in a classroom environment with peers (in the current climate, actually risking people's health and being allowed one of the only activities deemed essential in the budget of risk), he needs to get on with what he's there for and let the teacher control the dynamics.

'I simply did not have the room to do this in my classroom. Large class sizes and a small room - there was nowhere to put any extra desks in. '

Yes but as I say in smaller classes, our dc is one of 6 on single desks then a few rows of 3 in the middle. If you had an annoying kid you'd sit them on their own at the front wouldnt you. This loud kid just holds court in the middle of the class.

Anyway op yes email the head of year, don't ask just say you expect your ds to be seated away from the disruptive kid as he has requested.

It sounds like this child needs a support worker sat next to him he obviously has problems and is disrupting everyone he sits next to. Why should your DS have to take responsibility for him. The teacher needs retraining and it needs reporting to the head teacher. Failing that get a solicitor this is a serious matter children have lost enough time this year without putting this problem on their shoulders.

I understand Op, my daughter had the same at primary as she was a calming influence.

I am so glad our high school deals really strictly with disruptive behaviour and sends the very disruptive kids out. It’s so hard if your child wants to learn and not fair.