Is behaviour this bad in all schools now?!

[Growingmyhairout]

I am a supply teacher who's in a long term role but don't think I can deal with it.
I'm in a non core subject which doesn't help, one that pupils find difficult and don't have to do a GCSE in.
I was covering a 2 week sickness in one boys school, but couldn't have done anymore as behaviour was awful.
I'm now at what's been called a very challenging school. However I've walked past some other lessons and all kids are silent pretty much.
I've been here for a few weeks now so the kids know I'm not there just for a day or anything, yet no improvements.
I've been suggested to ring parents but if I did I'd be making 45 calls an evening which there is just not the time to do, especially for £110 a day gross.
I do give detentions, warnings etc. But it doesn't make much difference.
Some kids will just get up and walk out of your lesson when they feel like it. Or kids who aren't even in your lesson will turn up and sit in the room.
Coats on, phones out, earphones in, eating. When I tell them not to, some kids will listen but some will literally just ignore you. Swinging on chairs, shouting across the room, fighting, swearing.
Each lesson I send a few out to other classrooms which helps to an extent.
The worst are cover lessons though, as I'm used for cover as well as my own classes. Cover is an absolute nightmare.
I record everything but don't know what difference it makes.
Throwing things across the room, putting make up on. Answering me back very rudely.
Just all talking loudly and ignoring me. I refuse to shout over them as I've already got a hoarse voice from raising it.
I email heads of year, sometimes they will come in if they're not busy.
Some lessons are alright, but there's an insane level of disrespect.
As I said I've been here a few weeks now, how long is it going to take?
I've got a TA in all lessons which I'm really grateful about, but they don't seem to respect her much either.
We had an ok class this morning once the worst were removed, but had an absolutely horrendous year 7 group. She said she'd never seen a school like it.
I've been offered long-term, part time cover in another school. I'm tempted to go, but I'm thinking what's the point?
It's just going to be the same everywhere isn't it? I'm not expecting kids to sit in absolute silence for 5 hours a day but the behaviour is unacceptable. I'll be trying to speak and many students will just carry on having their own conversation.
I also feel like I'd be letting down the school who've even given me a TA when most other teachers don't get one.
I feel like a failure as a teacher. I think I've been firm but fair, but I don't think I can do this. Is behaviour really this bad in all schools?

I've not really got an issue with the one where attending was optional. They're not in the classroom throwing chairs at the teacher so it's not interrupting anyone else's education.

The key thing about a failing private school though is that parents can withdraw their children and the school will go bust. A failing state school on the other hand (which may still manage to pass inspections, even if it's shite the rest of the time) will be full of pupils unfortunate enough not to get their first choice.

Honestly, parents who don’t value education are never going to be convinced by an advertising campaign. The parental attitude in the schools my friends teach in is that they just want the kids out the house and bothering someone that isn’t them. They’re not bothered if school is just babysitting as long as it’s not then having to do it. You’re not going to convince them of the wonders of learning.

I agree with the rest though.

My dd y10 doesn't recognise any of this for which I am super thankful.

She said there might be one "naughty girl" per class where naughty means answering teach back.

It's a girls grammar school.

I'm not saying that bad behaviour in schools is a totally new phenomenon, but I think it has got much, much worse over the last few decades.

I taught in a big Birmingham comprehensive school in the late 80s/early 90s and although it was in a fairly deprived area, I don't remember any serious behavioural problems. At parents' evenings, the parents were all respectful to teachers and supportive of the school - at least, the ones I saw were.

I get the impression that a huge change of culture has taken place over the last 25 years which has given parents and students much, much more power and although this might sound good on paper, it has worked to the detriment of schools and ultimately the students themselves. If students were disrespectul, you could at least depend on most parents to support you as a teacher.

I'm sorry - I'm going to come over as really old-fashioned, but it does seem to me that the culture of permissiveness in terms of behaviour has gone too far. I know there have been initiatives to clamp down on behaviour with 'zero tolerance' etc, but in one school I was in I was told that yes, students might tell me to 'fuck off', but that wasn't really bad behaviour - they just didn't realise it was rude or unacceptable - yeah, right.

I'm really interested to know what current teachers think has happened to society in general. I'm not talking about children in poverty here - the kids who had these attitudes were very well-provided for in terms of material goods. I think teachers do put up with too much, though. They should put themselves first for a change - rather than always beating their chests about the needs of the students. This would ultimately benefit their students!

You are rather clinging to the idea that parents will continue to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for a failing private school?! 😂

I am afraid the system is very very responsive to rubbish teaching or poor grades, the school will simply shut down. That is the beauty of the system. State schools remain open unless they are so bad as to be considered dangerous, and even then they can still stay functioning as where do put a 1000 kids at a drop of a hat? Many going through GCSEs and Alevels.

One would not waste such a serious amount of money to send their children to a second rate public school, so by definition only the very best will survive. After the crash of 2008 the worst schools died off, and in my experience what is left certainly around here, is absolutely outstanding.

I worked at an academy last year in Scotland and it was exactly the same. Everything in your post I experienced and worse.

I hated it and left as soon as I could. They were all bigger than me too, which didn't help as they would physically shove me out of the way!

There were a few lovely students and some real characters that I adored - proper "bad" boys who actually just needed a bit of time and attention and came around.

Mostly tho, they were awful and just didn't want to be there or do any work!

I'm going to suggest an answer to my own question above. I think social media and changes in broadcasting standards are a huge part of this - even more of a factor than any social deprivation.

I think it was in the 70s (?) that Kenneth Tynan, the critic, first used the word 'fuck' on television. He did it to make a point, not accidentally. In itself you might say - so what? But now, anything seems to go on TV - and I think TV is different from films in that it comes into homes and is easily accessible.

Kids' TV has also changed to favour more anarchic attitudes too. Fun up to a point, but it all feeds into the 'you can't tell me what to do!' approach to life. And the growth of moronic 'reality TV' with very dubious role models has fostered a culture of coarseness, brashness and crude materialism.

And as for social media - youngsters are exposed to absolutely everything from a very early age - whereas once this just couldn't have happened. You'd have to get into an 18 film to see anything at all and that would have been mild compared to what you can see on TikTok or YouTube any time now.

Plus - the horrible decline in public discourse. Twitter is vile - it's largely just a facility for slanging/swearing matches and abuse.

I think Pandora's Box has been well and truly opened, and there's no going back.

TheClitterati · Today 07:40*
My dd y10 doesn't recognise any of this for which I am super thankful.

She said there might be one "naughty girl" per class where naughty means answering teach back.

It's a girls grammar school

The parents and children will be very invested in a grammar school and feel extremely lucky to be there. In the first place.

Secondly, though girls can be naughty, bitchy and bullying, they are not on the whole as loud or disruptive as boys.
(Just as later on most violent crime is committed by men.)

Culturepigeon : I totally agree with your post. After Squid Game came out on Netflix, we had year 7 pupils playing the “games” in the playground. The favourite one being red light green light where you could be shot dead.

I asked lots of them why and how they’d watched it, given the age rating. Many had watched it with an older sibling on their iPad, on their own device, or quite openly on the family tv.

Culture I agree and so would my dad who taught for 40 years.

Used to be pretty much all the parents were on side of the school and if their child misbehaved and the school contacted them they got a clip round the ear and the parents (of every class) were mortified and apologetic. Oh how things have changed…

There is nothing like this in the primary school my children attend/attended. I'm always pleasantly surprised at how amazing the behaviour is when I volunteer in the class.

CulturePigeon - Today 08:04
I agree with your post.
Even so, somehow some children will be less prone to take it out on teachers or not care about their education than others. Are these children who’ve somehow been a bit more protected, as far as that is possible, from the influences you describe?

@CulturePigeon I think you've nailed it in your last post.
When I was in comprehensive school in the 70's, teachers were respected. Really bad behaviour was rare - the worst thing kids did in class was whisper or throw paper at each other. There was corporal punishment but it was only used on boys and usually a swift tap on the hand with a ruler or a slap on the bottom with a cane. There was no 'whipping' as one poster above suggested.

But as you've said, society has changed for the worst since then. Swearing is ubiquitous now . I never heard swearing growing up - women didn't swear in public and men didn't in front of women and kids. No swearing on tv. No explicit sex. The age of innocence for children has gone and now they're constantly exposed to coarseness and bad behaviour. And parents supported teachers.

Another modern plague is the 'cult of the child'. Kids treated like little emperors and granted their every wish to the exclusion of everyone else.

A bit of perspective is needed on the state vs primary discussion (and I speak as the parent of a child in private school and someone who was privately educated).

Private schools are not a panacea for bad behaviour. They certainly do not prevent bullying and other behaviours which impact children's mental health and wellbeing.

Yes the cost and the fact that parents are usually very invested tends to weed the most egregious bad behaviour. You rarely get kids who are hell-bent on disrupting every lesson. You tend not to get chair-throwing, spitting or smoking on school premises at most private schools. I can totally understand why, as a teacher, private would seem more appealing.

But the poor behaviour is much more insidious at private. It's likely to manifest in different ways: bullying, snobbery, exclusion of children by virtue of the fact that their parents can't "keep up with the Jones's", well-documented problems with eating disorders etc. I went to a private secondary and while it was good academically and gave me certain advantages, it was hideous for my mental health.

I agonised over whether to send my DD private and ultimately for me (based in large part on the fact that I'm in a part of London with particularly poor state secondaries) I decided it was the least worst option and coughed up. So far I'm not regretting it. But I think its foolish to assume that private is a guarantee that children will avoid these problems.

A bad private school can survive for a number of reasons. It will probably be significantly cheaper than the local large mainstream private school. Or there may not be another private school nearby. Or there are a couple of good private schools nearby, but they select on the basis of academic ability, and the bad school mops up the unacademic children whose parents want them to go to a private school for snobbery reasons. Or they have good PR and some parents prefer not to move schools once the child is there. Or they're very good at one thing (eg they specialise in a particular sport) and bad at the rest. Or they are supposedly "like a family" though bad at teaching. Or they play on a particular religion, ideology or legend (eg evangelical Christian and Steiner schools). Or they supposedly specialise in children who have been bullied, or have ADHD (but that specialism may in practice amount to very little). Or they used to be a good school, but the current leadership is terrible. Or they have very small class sizes (and parents don't stop to wonder why the class sizes are so small). Or they use hard sell in international markets.
My DC went to a very eccentric, very small private school. It wasn't a charity and there was no board of governors - it had been bought by a wealthy individual who fancied having a go at running a school. The individual offered us a very high scholarship. And actually it was okay, and suited my DC at the time, but some of the other parents were very critical of it and there was a certain amount of drama there. This wasn't the only school of that type in our small city - there were quite a number of other eccentric small private schools. This was after the 2008 financial crisis by the way. There are a lot of these places around.

People seem to forget that you can’t physically punish children now.
Being belted across the hand was extremely painful and humiliating. Definitely a deterrent.
I wonder if these unruly kids get a one to one with anyone to plan out their future career. I think that might help. I had a stage of ‘they can’t make ME work if I don’t want to’ attitude at secondary school. I wish someone had given me a one to one discussion - helped me realise education was actually for my good and not The Government if the time inflicting it on me.
Particularly if you are in an anti Tory area so teachers are seen as puppets of the establishment.

Isn't it just like that

When I was in comprehensive school in the 70's, teachers were respected. Really bad behaviour was rare - the worst thing kids did in class was whisper or throw paper at each other

l went to a really well known posh comp in the 70’s. It was crazy. Throwing shoes, bags, books out of the windows, trying to stand on tables every lesson, throwing stuff, boys drinking lager (Braker) in lesson. Crying with laughter all the time.

Tjis was in a posh area.

@Neerdoneerdo

Indeed. And as you rightly say there will always be parents who will default to private because they have a vague sense that it must be better because you are paying for it.

It doesn’t automatically follow that either the quality of the teaching or the behaviour will be better.

Yes we are all very thankful to be there.

It is a concern that the grammar system might mean other local schools are worse off but I haven't heard of it being particularly bad.

Its not a particularly fancy or even MC area so its not a super fancy grammar school. regardless they do have good standards of behaviour from the kids - the school clearly set out the high standards of behavious expected of the pupils.

I know a teacher has created this post - but what are we do to for children when they are also trying to navigate this hellish situation and get an education???

I was a teacher for 20 year and left 3 years ago. It was mainly the system for me rather than behaviour but from what I hear from ex colleagues behaviour is appalling and Getty g worse.

I’m a teacher. I’ve done supply and hated it. Only primary though. There’s a culture amongst people, adults included, to be disrespectful to supply staff. I’ve heard parents comment about supply not being a proper teacher. I‘ve also hear parents bad mouthing contracted teachers to their children and being disrespectful and encouraging their child to be disrespectful. I left a school where management would come in, the class would fall silent, then management would leave and class would kick off. The more they do that they’re the children lose respect for the classroom teacher.

OP should try primary though. It’s hard teaching all the subjects and not just your specialist subject, and behaviour can be bad, bur often primary can be managed better. Not sure if ever do secondary. My daughter is secondary and some of the mixed ability classes she is on sound awful. She’s autistic and has had to leave a lesson herself due to the behaviour of other children causing her sensory overload. She has no behaviour problems herself and is a rule stickler. There are lessons she now dreads. And these aren’t necessarily supply teacher lessons, just subjects that people take less seriously and that children are mixed ability for. I’m in special. It’s great. Behaviour can be challenging but you know the children aren’t doing it out of spite and there are ways of managing risk and behaviours.

I feel primary schools are the problem, they are setting them up to fail in secondary. The primary I was working in is far too gentle, for eg it was a “no shouting” school. They had a time out room where they went to think about their actions. The kids loved this room it was just a chill with the rest of the badly behaved children who where in there. They are ruling the school Because of this I feel like the pupils think they are untouchable and go into secondary with the same attitude. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Dds primary was like that. Sappy / be kind / group hug lovey dovey. They were reassured covid wouldn’t affect them oh no. Then lock down. Don’t think this does them any favours.

Utterly agree about children treated as little emperors. Our grandparents generation arguably too harsh (seen and not heard) think our parents generation broadly right we are far too wet and child centred and look where we are 🙄

So sorry you're going through this. I'm also a teacher in a high school. The problem generally lies with management and the lack of support you are getting. I taught for 10 years in a supposedly nice middle-class comprehensive - the first day I was there, I was told to eff off for asking a girl to take her coat off. I had various awful classes at that school, management were useless, I even ended up being hit on the head with a chair (a prank by an apparently nice quiet boy). I now work in a school where it could be seen as more challenging, more kids from lower SIM decile areas with more social issues but the contrast is unbelievable. Management actually care and make huge efforts to support all staff and pupils. There are still challenging classes but it's much easier to deal with and issue consequences and building relationships and respect is easier. Interestingly we don't really do detentions and phone calls are only done by head of depts or year heads (both things that I did frequently at my old school). Ultimately it's never easy being the newbie anyway and can take ages to build that rapport with pupils but if management all sung from the same hymn sheet, it would be a far easier experience for you.