Government Behaviour Hub pushing zero tolerance in schools

[Usedtodance]

I've just been reading how the Behaviour Hub set up by the government has been pushing this idea of very strict behaviour policies and zero tolerance in schools. The sort rolled out by many of the academy chains. Does anyone know what the evidence base is for this?

The policies in many of these schools are highly restrictive - short lunch breaks, limited access to toilet breaks, consequences for minor mistakes. Many adults would find it stressful to be in an environment like this. I wonder if anyone has looked at the cost of these measures to the children in terms of their mental health, fostering independence and social skills etc.

Any insight, thoughts or links to research on this would be great.

Actually I agree w

Actually I agree with @Nimbostratus100 who is being realistic.
Seeing as you have such wonderful ideas @OriGanOver, why don't you train to be a teacher and see how you get on? I think you'd be eaten alive after one lesson!

You do realise society needs all types of people for balance.

Turning out only compliant non questioning clones is not a recipe for a healthy society. Just ask the Nazi party.

And you still have to have a strategy for getting rid of those who can't or won't comply.....

Seriously what do you intend to do when the kid simply refuses to hand over their phone?

Expel them?

Then what do you do with them?

@Boudicasbeard I have worked in a school, then a youth worker and now a social worker. Schools do need a complete shift. If you feel the need to defend that, then it's striking a nerve.

I know social work is shit atm, and there needs a radical shift in that, too. I wouldn't be hunkering down and defending social work as a whole because it's obvious that it's not working. If I ever become so bitter and blame the YP for their behaviour rather than look at the wider system and what I'm doing I've lost my reflexive practice.

Schools aren't working - although I do believe behaviour is much better than what it was. The teachers at my school were absolutely terrorised in the 90s. Think things like - locked in cupboards, spat on, urinated on, houses and cars smashed up. I don't ever read about that type of behaviour anymore.

@OriGanOver

You told me I was on a power trip because I was outlining why there needs to be some tough rules in school.

You are blaming schools and teachers for trying to get some control over the increasingly disruptive behaviour that is making life miserable for staff and the majority of students.

Having worked in schools is not the same as having taught. You have no idea what it is like to stand in front of a class of 35 and tired desperately to get some learning done while three students do everything in their power to ruin the lesson. And then felt the weight of judgement from the rest of that class when you cannot get that behaviour under control.

Two badly behaved, demotivated students are enough to grind a lesson to a halt. And unlike in a work place, we can’t sack them. They have a right to an education and we have to make it work, somehow.

I find your ideal insulting because you imagine that we are’t trying our best for the kids or that strict rules are a power trip. Why not try imagining trying to get a class of 30 kids with an average reading age of 11 years old through an English GCSE.

TBH it all makes me wonder what kind of parents advocate for the right of their child to misbehave.

DS is in primary. He's been referred for ADHD assessment. He has quite pronounced behavioural quirks but he's well behaved generally. We were told that because he's achieving expectations it wasn't typical for them to refer even if there was an obvious problem. Because in essence there's rationing of diagnosis going on and local authorities don't want to have too many diagnosis. The school has to actively demonstrate that DS is significantly underperforming and that he will benefit. It therefore isn't a coincidence that the school have taken it seriously in yr3 after DS didn't hit where they thought he should in his yr2 SATS. Any child who had similar issues but wasn't on the cusp of a grade difference is screwed by this. There is clearly one of DSs friends who falls into this and is being labelled as a problem despite displaying obvious signs of ADHD.

At the moment their primary has restorative justice (which quite frankly doesn't work) but it's likely both will go to an academy which is super strict. I'm pretty sure that shit will hit the fan at that point for this boy. It's really depressing to see. He is one of four which is likely to make it much more difficult for his parents to act on.

Even now, there are no guarantees with DS as to how his referral is going to go. We've been told that he wont be prioritised and the local authority will try and knock him back so to manage our expectations.

His teacher thinks he has a real issue and it's proving hard for him to manage. If he doesn't get local authority support it makes it harder to get medication if that was appropriate to him, because they don't want the funding headache.

It's all about budgets and rationing.

If there really is an increase in SEN kids and there are legitimate reasons for a natural increase rather than purely a diagnosis increase due to 'fashion' then of course there's going to be a bottleneck and issues with behaviour at high school.

One of the key points we've been finding with DS is how there are a bunch of kids with conflicting issue which is leading to constant issues as one sets off all the others in some way in a domino effect.

If they dealt with that by funding early and appropriately, I'd question the need for such strict ideology in classrooms at high school level.

of course youth work is not a new fad - it is the content and principles that are constantly new fads, there is no quality qualification that you are describing, and you have no idea at all of behaviour in schools.

I am a very successful teacher. You know nothing about teaching or education at all, and it does nothing for your credibility to start being personally insulting, when people point out you have no idea what you are talking about. If your kids have me as their teacher, they are lucky

Are they putting a Behaviour Hub in Westminster?

Children who dont comply go into the exclusion room, and if it keeps happening, they are expelled, and picked up by the local PRU

Agree with everything you say.
It's the same in primary.
Low level disruption all day long on a good day. But the children are all little darlings in their doting parent's eyes. It's always someone else's fault or only a bit of chatter. Multiply 'only a bit of chatter' by 30 and you get an unruly class and minimal learning done. Also leads to further disruption hence the need to stamp on 'only a bit of chatter' from the outset.

And when those are full?

@Boudicasbeard

You don't need control. You need to build relationships. If those disruptive dc were given some control over their schooling, some real and not tokenistic responsibility to go with their rights, I would bet they wouldn't be so disruptive.

If you find that offensive it's because it's a radical shift from your perceived power in the teacher pupil relationship you currently have. You expect them to obey, to be grateful to learn, to not make you look bad with the judgements of others. Cast that shit aside. Pass them the control and see what happens. You obviously imagine a shit show but it wouldn't be.

“High standards in small things (things you might think minor, like uniform) lead to high standards in major things (like results)”

I find it so hard to believe that anyone can think this way. It’s total nonsense. Stressing children about doing up the top bottom of their shirt (which by the way is physically painful for children with thick necks) and punishing them for being forgetful does not create ‘high standards’ in anything. It leads to large numbers of children with anxiety and mental health problems and eventually to stressed and aggressive adults, much like you see all over Britain today.

Meanwhile the many many countries that don’t bother with the nonsense of ‘school uniform’ have much better child mental health.

And @OriGanOver why not save some of your ire for Ofsted, which has downgraded four schools on my area to RI for corridor behaviour. There is a lot of pressure on schools and teachers from all angles.

But of course we are all just ‘on a power trip’.

@Whowhatwherewhenwhy1 - this. In a nutshell.

@OriGanOver

Offensive, yet again you are making huge assumptions. Most teacher I know spend a lot of time and effort building relationships with kids. With some students it is just not possible. They are not open to it.

How much of the learning time for the rest of the class should I be using to understand why little Toby called me an ‘interfering cunt’ to the whole class?

you are hopelessly, hopelessly ill-informed. You cannot "build relationships" with a gang or 5-10 feral teens in a class you see 3 hours a week, when there is another gang the same size in the class after, and another gang the same size in the class after, and another gang the same size in the class after that.

I have some days in my career ended the day with a list of over 50 parents I should technically be ringing and discussing their child's behaviour with - and many of them will want to argue over the details, and complain that I cant remember the exact details of that exact misdemeanor, when I have dealt with dozens of others since then

In this situation, no education happens at all. You need a well ordered , strict classroom, to start to build relationships with anyone

The thing is it’s NEVER just ‘a kid won’t hand over their phone’. That’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s always more - the kids who don’t follow rules, and won’t change despite repeated sanctions, are doing so because they think they’re above all that. Which can go hand in hand with being unkind to others. Meanwhile mummy and daddy don’t think Diddums ever puts a foot wrong because they come home and say “They want to suspend me all I did was not hand my phone over”.

I wish my DD’s school took a zero tolerance approach to bullying then maybe she wouldn’t be the quivering mess she’s turned into after being a secure and confident child for so long.

Once the troublesome kids understand they can't be waterboarded and the very worst is exclusion , they have lost the argument .

Frankly it worries me that the generation who will look after me in their old age ante being brought up to believe they can behave however they like, and that society MUST fix whatever problem they get into and the consequences are something that shouldn’t be considered.

’What if PRUs are full’ - well perhaps think about that before you support your little darlings right to be rebellious

I 100% support zero tolerance. These are the rules, whether you follow them or not is up to you, but if you don't follow them, you won't be allowed to disrupt the education of those that do. Go home to your parents and tell them any further education you receive will be arranged by them at their own expense.

Why in these discussions are the people who have to bear the brunt of your Little Rebel never considered. The kids who WANT to learn. The teachers who want to do a good job. Why is their education and their professionalism constantly compromised because Little Rebel doesn’t want to do something like tuck his shirt in.

It is hard to balance the needs of all children, children who want to work get frustrated by constant disruption, children with special needs struggle to do what is expected. Better provision across the board seems to be the sensible solution but the government don't want to fund it so children struggle.

I don't believe you need a well ordered and strict classroom to build relationships with teenagers.

I would laugh at someone calling me an interfering cunt (have been called a lot worse in my career from yp).

I do agree that Ofsted has created an environment in schools where it's impossible to do anything that they don't believe is the right way. It's the same in social work where the LA gets inspected and funding for social care is based on Ofsted. It means that no one does or tries anything differently and all we do is tick the latest boxes. It de-skills workers.

I still think nim, that expecting dc to have this zero tolerance approach and thinking it's a good thing is completely wrong.

Children can't learn when their nervous system is out of wack. Regulate their emotions within the school environment and you'd have much better results with happier dc.