Behaviour in all boys' school, absolutely horrendous

[Jorisbohnson33]

I'm working in an Islamic boys' school, granted it's the first day and I'm new to them but my lessons and form so far have been terrible.

Had heads of year and SLT members coming in. Obviously it's harder as I don't know the names etc. Yet but I'm really hoping it'll improve.

I'm not sure being a young female helps too? When their head of year and deputy head came in (both males) they cacked themselves. Well one or two still talked but mostly went silent.

I kept some behind at break a bit and spoke to them about behaviour and expectations. I've decided to give them a new start next lesson.

I guess they're trying it on a bit, I can't understand how pupils can be so disrespectful to an adult who's teaching them.
Appreciate any advice and support.

My son is at a co-ed Catholic school here in the USA. The Catholic schools aren't slow in letting parents know asap if our kids are misbehaving. Its the best response IMO as then the kids know all the adults are working together and agree on discipline. Disrespect is definitely something DH and I would be mortified to hear about. Don't be shy to let parents know.

The deputy head came in and told me that students had responded well to me. I was thinking, were you looking at the same lesson?! It was nice to hear though.
for some reason I found the year 11s the most challenging classes, some of the younger ones were actually better behaved

Congratulations! Seems like you did a lot better than you thought.

Learn and remember all their names by tomorrow. That is your most effective tool/resource right now.

He's a mumsnetter.

One good tip is to never ask their name just pick up their book and read their name off the cover as at times their picture might not be on SIMS. Email HOD as soon as you can and make an example of a few kids in the first few days and phone their parents. Some kids just are determined to derail lessons and interfere with the learning of others.
After teaching for over 20 years I have never come across anything like the behavior in the UK and I have taught in a variety of schools across the world. I’m lucky that I’m in a school where the HT is addressing this and is so supportive of the teaching staff. It’s a breath of fresh air and I’m actually looking forward to going back to school next week for the first time in years!

Oh, gimme a break 🙄

I don’t understand what your AIBU is.

Is this your first ever school?

Apparently single sexed schools have much better behaviour than mixed schools as there is less showing off and competing with each other.

The best advice I was ever given is to learn the names asap.
I now spend extra time learning names above other things. Any chance I get I would look at the photos on SIMS and try and put a face to a name. Also put them in a seating plan and have that in front of you. When you’re doing the register make sure you look at where they’re sitting.

I promise you that things will get easier once you know their names and you start getting into the routine.

You are right that some members of staff like the big 6ft+ men will make the room go silent just by their presence.

Make sure you have set rules.
If they are doing something you don’t like eg talking, tell them to stop. If they do it again tell them to stop and say what will happen if they don’t stop. If they do it again then follow through.

I know I would always make empty threats and never followed through but they actually like very clear instructions and consequences. And once I got the hang of that it made things much easier.

Also staying quiet (something I find the most difficult) if the entire class is talking just stand there and wait.
It will feel like you are standing there for hours but I promise you are not.

If they are still talking after 5/10 minutes then start obviously looking at the clock/ your watch and keeping a tally on the board for every minute they’re still taking.
When they start asking what it’s for then you say for everyone minute they waste of your time, you’ll take a minute from their break.
Recognise the ones that are quiet and write their names on a piece of paper so they can see you’ve acknowledged them and know they won’t be staying at break.

It definitely takes a few lessons but put the work in now and things will be much easier later on.

It’s very annoying that they were told you were temporary as this will make your job more difficult.

How very dare you seek moral support on an anonymous forum during your actual break, instead of working towards the next lesson op 🤣🤣.
A friend's son is struggling at an predominantly boys school. Apparently its like a zoo. I agree though that the benefit you have with faith schools (my own dc attend one), you will more likely have parental support for bad behaviour.

When I had a difficult noisy class with lots of low level disruption, I had one rule and one rule only that was absolutely totally enforced - "you don't talk when the teacher is talking".
Forget rules about uniform and equipment and homework - you need silence first.
I said this phrase over and over as often as needed in the first few weeks. As soon as I had a moment of silence, I started delivering the introduction to the lesson. As soon as someone spoke or whispered, I stopped, mid sentence, almost mid-word, and gave the offender 'the look'. When it was silent again I repeated the rule that you don't talk when the teacher is talking, and started my sentence again. As often as necessary for as long as it took. Sometimes I restarted the same sentence four or five times.
And so on.
After a short while peer pressure kicks in and they shush each other up, because they are bored and know as soon as I have finished my introduction then they can get on with the activity or exercise and they were allowed to talk during that. I circulated the class, gently trying to keep them on task if they got too chatty and making sure they stayed seated.
Worrying about the content of the lesson comes after getting them used to being silent on demand.

Of course this wouldn't work if there were seriously disruptive pupils doing things like throwing stuff, shouting and refusing to be quiet, walking around the room, swearing at you etc. That's when you need the school's back-up system - what is the procedure for when a child has to be removed from the room by someone else? and how quickly does that happen? (We were not allowed to just tell a pupil to stand in the corridor).

Because if there is no on-call pupil-removal system and you are stuck with them come-what-may for the whole lesson, then look for another school.

Yeap, I was in a Methodist grammar school in the sixties and we actually sent at least one teacher into a psychiatric hospital

You are demeaning yourself and belittling yourself if you try to carry on talking to the class when someone is whispering/talking to a classmate.
Never ever try to 'talk over' a noisy class.

Yes, that puzzled me, somewhat....

You're going to have to implement what you learned during training and apply those strategies.
It's a tough job, you can't think it's gone wrong in the first hour - you've got to work hard day in and day out.
What's your subject?

A lot of their attitude may be copied from their dads at home, sadly.

Print out a seating plan. Tell the students you are going to keep a tally of positives and negatives. Use directed questioning, praise good responses. Give warnings for poor behaviour and depending on your school policies take action if the bad behaviour continues. In my school that could be a minor intervention such as moving seats or sending a student outside the room. If you give a warning with a consequence then you have to follow it through. Try to encourage the good behaviour and ignore some low level behaviour with a confident assumption that they are just going to do it. For example walk around the room and notice that 'x y z have already made a start on the task, well done boys' or 'who's going to be first to finish' offer rewards such as house points, stickers, stamps etc. Try have a settling type task for them to do, copy and complete task which frees you up to move around the room. Don't raise your voice too much, just wait for quiet and issue your calm warnings. Follow up after the lesson with phonecalls home both positive and negative. Boys respond well to competitive task so race to the finish, kahoot quires etc.

People are prejudiced, not prejudice. You can have a prejudice or display prejudice but you ARE prejudiced.

Would you like to spell out exactly what you mean by that so we can make sure we understand you? Do you mean fathers of boys in general or do you have a specific issue with Muslim fathers of boys?

Yes, this does seem strange coming from a qualified teacher.

I can’t understand how someone who is a fully qualified teacher doesn’t know that children and teenagers push boundaries.
This isn’t new, kids gave new teachers or subs grief 30 years ago and will do it in 30 years time.

I would assume they’re an NQT.

I found that when you are training the teacher is still in the classroom so you’re doing all of these behaviour management techniques and assume they’re working but actually it’s mainly because they think their regular teacher will come down on them if they misbehave.

Then you are thrown in to the classroom with no second teacher and all of a sudden your behaviour management techniques don’t work as quickly as they did when you were training and then you start doubting yourself.

Consistency is key.
As a PP said concentrate more on behaviour and getting them quiet than the lesson content.

One of my trainee teachers would get them to come in silently.
If they started talking he’d take them straight back out and line them up and try again. Sometimes it took most of the lesson.

I said are you not worried about not getting the lesson done and he said no because once you’ve cracked the behaviour side the learning comes easy.
If you haven’t cracked the behaviour side then you’ll end up spending more time managing behaviour than giving the lesson so it is better to spend the first couple of lessons getting behaviour right and then you have a way easier rest of the year as you’re just maintaining the standards.

I preferred to keep names on a notepad/ clipboard for my ease and in some classes to avoid a wall of notoreity.

Keep a record of stoppage time. That's the time that the miscreants on the list are staying behind for (do it on a print of the seating plan if you don't know names yet). For really stubborn classes with multiple offenders, I'd go quiet, appear to stare at the ceiling or random point on the wall and wait until silence then thank them for being silent and continue where I left off. Classes quickly learned that things got very boring with no reward of any kind of attention for low level disruption.

I wish I'd perfected it years earlier.

Praise the good, sometimes doing that quietly individually works better if it's a tough audience.

In what way is it "horrendous"? Can you be specific?

Thanks for all this advice, really helpful!

“Sorry to sound harsh but your break should be spent getting things ready for the next session it’s the little things that count spare pens the right equipment spare copies et cetera et cetera.”

(Sorry, I don’t know how to make that bold)

Why should the teacher spent her break getting ready for the next session? Is she not allowed to have a break to get a cup of tea, go to the toilet, chat with colleagues etc? I ensure that my pupils have their FULL 15 minutes because I need MY break, too!